Your theory needs a little work. You clearly haven’t been on the receiving end, and the defense mechanism just doesn’t cut it

I can’t believe that a: there are still so many racists in the world. b. That black people are so sensitive too it. c. That “reverse racism” is so acceptable in so many black communities. d. That you all don’t see the new oppressed group in America, the homeless. I promise you all as a currently homeless man who travels the united states, no one group is as oppressed or harrassed as much as the homeless. I’m more of a traveller, not a bum, and often carry thousands and thousands of dollars in camping gear, clothes, and money. But I almost every ugly, old, poor, overweight black woman who passes me in her $40 dollar outfit glares at me, crosses the road, grabs her salvation army purse tight, and overall acts like i’ve escaped from death row. How’s that for some ism? Racism? Please! Today it beats the heck out of carrying a large (and expensive) camping backpack!

As I see There is only one race the Human Race

Scanned some of the comments. It never fails. A discussion about race, even of a light-hearted nature, leads to an explosive argument. Especially online. The evil mark that slavery left on this country is heartbreaking.

I’m a middle aged white woman, who happens to be just under 5′ tall.  So in the supermarket, if you happen to pass by and you’re at least 5’5″, I don’t care what color you are.  I am going to ask you to help me reach something on the top shelf, whether you work there or not.  The entire, “Excuse me, but do you work here?” has happened to me.  It happens to a lot of people.  If you’re a woman who isn’t carrying a purse, you’re dressed a certain way and say it’s winter and you’re not wearing a coat, yes, people are going to think you work there.  You aren’t wearing the uniform of the shopper.  That said, I used to work for a major department store in a mall.  While on lunch or after work, if I was in another store and I was still wearing my name tag, people would expect me to help them in those stores too.  Nothing racist about it, more like the stupidity of people who look down upon those who work in any form of the service industry.  Which is more class warfare than anything else.

The “you people” thing.  I was raised in New Jersey.  I’m more likely to use the phrase, “you guys.”  I also lived in Oklahoma for a few years.  So the phrase, “what is wrong with you people?” came out of my mouth a LOT during those years.  Mostly directed at friends of my roommate. 

Being followed by security?  Trust me, I look usually respectable, but it happens to me quite often.  Especially when finances force me to shop in the Beast of Bentonville, um, I mean Wal*Mart.  I don’t shoplift, I don’t think I’ve ever shop lifted.  But somehow, I give off a vibe that makes security guards suspicious.  To the point of not wanting even a brand new Carmex bought elsewhere in my purse, lest I end up being escorted to security and searched. 

Describing people by their skin color?  It can be a way to cut down the list of candidates.  I currently live in Southern New Mexico, in a town where chances when trying to jog someone’s memory, you will describe a person as either Mexican or Anglo.  The Mexican and white population is about 55/45 here.  Black people are in the vast minority.  In a town of just under 90,000, there are about 2,000 black people.  After I was here a month, my roommate accused me of being racist, because I asked, “aren’t there any black people in this town?”  It wasn’t a question asked out of racism.  It was a question I asked because I considered it odd that I hadn’t seen anyone black at that point and this isn’t just a college town, it’s the town where the state university is located.  It’s also occurred to me that the only time I see Asians is if I go to an Asian restaurant.  To be honest, I find the lack of black and Asian people around here to be a bit creepy.  But getting back on point, to say to someone, “remember thus and so?  The black guy?” in a town like this, chances are that person is the only black person they’ve met in the last month or two.  Which of course, is why the vast majority in this town don’t have black friends either.  At least, not anyone who is local.

All that said, I have to say, when I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I’ve never witnessed such blatant racism.  It was like stepping back into the 1950s.  When President Obama was elected, the gun owners of Oklahoma forced the price of ammunition through the roof.  They were all afraid that the blacks were going to get all “uppity” and not know their place now that there was a black president.  I spent a lot of time asking white people, “what is wrong with you people?” and also, “were you dropped on your head as a baby?”  It was like the wild west met Ozzie and Harriet.  It was surreal and if any white people had black friends, they were considered, “white trash.”  It didn’t matter if the black person was one of the leading business people in town and highly respected and up for election to a high post in the NRA.  The white people in Oklahoma are scary and they all pretend to be Christians.  Which made it great fun to point out to them that Jesus probably had swarthy skin.  I think I caused a few minor strokes in people pointing that out.

These days, I get to listen to transplants who have decided to retire here for the cheap housing and the weather go on about “f’ing Mexicans.”  It’s fun to point out to them the last Anglo sheriff in this town was Pat Garrett and what part of New MEXICO don’t you get?  These oldsters need to turn off Faux News, er, I mean Fox News and learn a bit of history.  But sadly, as long as Faux News and Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and others like that are given a platform to appeal to the lowest common denominator, it won’t matter that some of the people they complain about have roots in this state that go back to before the pilgrims landed in New England.  They will be intruders who need to be sent back.  Chances are if you’re a black person around here, the white racists are going to see you as a “real American” and try to enlist your help to build a wall to keep the Mexicans out.  Lovely, isn’t it?

Here is the way I see it – it is not about color, it is about culture. Certain white people see aspects of black urban culture (i.e. baggy pants, sports jerseys, specific ways of speaking etc.) and they don’t like it. Urban black culture does not support any kind of schooling or education, and for a pretty good reason. When the schools were integrated, all the black teachers and principals were fired and the whites were left to run things, so a whole generation of role models basically just disappeared. That caused certain areas of black culture to have a reaction, in the sense that it saw education as ‘selling out to white society.’ And the baggy pants? That comes from prison culture. We put so many young black men in prison, for such minor things as pot posession etc, that prison culture has literally contaminated urban black culture. You know how most black men refer to women as ‘females?’ Well, that comes from prison and law enforcement too – and lots of other things. So in all honesty, some of this is the fault of white society. We, the whites, looked the other way while we allowed the crack epidemic to destroy the inner cities, and we closed our eyes when we put so many young black men in prison. So does that make us racist? Not all of us, but as a group, I think that we just don’t want to see the ugly truth of what we have allowed to happen to the black community.