What gets me is that people are surprised that this stuff still happens. I mean, I know folks are given to hyperbole sometimes, but you know, all us cullud folks didn't just decide that we were going to dream up a collective hallucination just to make white folks feel nervous, or scared, or sad, or insert-your-favorite-emotion-here.

It's like that movie Crash and why it makes me so upset - the only time (many) non-black folks have to confront racism is when it "crashes" into them, but for (many) non-white folks, we live this isht day in, day out. It happens. It's real. We're not all lying about it.

</rant>

Actually, I wanna piggyback of your (and madmax's comment) with a question: by using the term "our men", doesn't that sort of... render the issue of the incarceration rate of black males as only a "black" problem?

IMO, any country that willingly turns a blind eye to that statistic has a lot of explaining to do and needs to come up with solutions. It isn't just the problem of the ethnic community.

Honestly, with my post taken out of context, I don't know all I said really or where that comes from. I may have addressed that (in general) or may not.

I'm sure madmax will be more than happy to post the thread instead of just a piece of a post out of context. :)

But I agree - disproportionate incarceration rates is a societial problem that everyone needs to look at.

I think that the behavior is so appalling that we find it hard to believe that people can act in such a way. I tend to see the good in people first and so it is always shocking to me when human beings treat other human beings so horribly. In addition to being embarassed about it, we also feel helpless because we don't know how to make it stop.

Dee

But why? How? I guess that's what I'm trying to get to. There is ample historical record that shows that people have acted like this in the past. Regardless of the progress that has been made -- progress that I'm not trying to downplay, by the way -- it's relatively easy to make the historical case that there have been, are, and probably always will be people who decide to express their racism in a more explicit and perhaps violent way. It's not as if it's happening in a vacuum, or that it's an isolated incident. Do people just not see it? Do they choose not to see it? Or do they see it, and because it's not happening to them, they don't remember it?

(I'm not throwing idle accusations at you or anyone else, AGDee - I'd really like to know the answers).

Honeykiss and Sistermadly,

Don't get upset with the "madmax", it is just his way of flirting with you all...

Now as far as my Slut Puppie, Cashmoney and his comments, you just haveta understand he's been contemplating the taste of special-silky-creamy-smoove-cocoa-truffle-dark-chocolate for a looonnnngttttime but he says he has allergy issues... :rolleyes: Oneday, he'll just take a benadryl and eat it all out--I mean up... Don't let the smoove taste fool y'all... And as a trusted research scientist, white chocolate has limited health benefits...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All kidding aside:

I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and caught hayle my entire life for it. Although we lived in Southern California which was more open to those kinds of ideas. It was not back in the 1970's and early 80's. Nowadays, it has changed, somewhat and it is welcomed...

But the stuff I am reading about this, that is why the midwest and southern states get clowned by the West Coast because of this lunacy. In the 21st century, don't we all human beings have enough to worry about rather than "hatin'" on folks and they color. Dayum!!! Get an EFFin' life and grow up...

But haay...

Don't hate...

'Cuz if you hate, it means you ain't gettin' any or it ain't good...

'Cuz if you were getting suum and it was good...

You'd have no reason to hate...

TOO funny! :D

white people do that stuff as well, dimwit.

:cool:

I guess for me personally, it's not just this issue that shocks me and I end up shocked and appalled often by people's behavior. I tend to see the world with rose colored glasses most of the time and believe that people are inherently good. When incidences like this happen, it's always a blow to me. I'm a Pollyanna whose world view gets blown away fairly often. You'd think it would change my basic premise, but I do still believe that the majority of people are good. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since there are people who molest and abuse children, who blow up the WTC, who commit genocide, etc. Perhaps I don't know how to cope with all that, so I just have to focus on the good, rather than dwell on the bad seeds in our society. Having worked with those who are mentally ill for many years, I tend to have compassion before I condemn, but there is no way to have compassion for someone who commits a heinous crime.

This is the first time I've seen an overt racial hate crime in my own backyard and I do find it very troublesome. I work in a very integrated building and never hear/see racism happening there. Detroit is VERY segregated as far as where people live, but the workplace is very integrated. I do hear comments from some really obtuse neighbors of mine and I am bothered by it and let them know.

I don't take your questions as a personal attack at all. I can't answer for others, but I gave the best explanation that I could for me personally.

Dee

Now I'm confused...
 

Did the black families who bought homes in the suburbs commit these crimes? :confused:

Cash money, were you being serious? OMG! I'm embarassed for you.

BUT - I lived in the Detroit area for two years in the early 90's and I had not seen such segregation since I was a child in the SOUTH.

Eight Mile is not just an Eminem rap. It is a line that sets cultural zones like something from another world. It was creepy.

But we had all sorts of families of all sorts of colors in our neighborhood out in Troy. Maybe we were just weird?
All successful, all just folks, all just neighbors who spoke, waved, had each other over, kids played together, collected mail for each other when one was on vacation, etc etc. This was a very nice neighborhood where median home price was $300K - and that was FIFTEEN years ago.

Very sad that this could happen.

I know when it comes to the south vs. the north things are different. Violent crimes are committed on both ends. But, here it tends to be more african americans that commit the sorts of crimes I mentioned. The child molesters tend to be white but most of the violent crimes are not white people. Yea, most of the hate crimes are commited by white people as are most of the bomb scares (personally, i don't think the black people who would commit drastic crimes are smart enough to create bombs in the first place....but thats my opinion.) Rapes go both ways as far as who commits the most, it's actually kind of even. I'm sure in the north its even on both ends....but in the south you tend to see more african americans on TV committing the sorts of crimes I mentioned. The fact that people on GC are always mentioning stuff about white people doing this and that but never posting how african americans do horrible crimes if not worse, it kind of makes it look one sided. If you mention stuff about non white people then people think you're being racist. I was merely trying to "even" things out, if you will, in this post.

No ill feelings intended.

Cash.