She made several references to how multicultural the OP's school was, and how she isn't at all racist (and a whole off-topic paragraph about how much she hates affirmative action for screwing white people over, but she's totally, totally not prejudiced you guys). Now, how does she know the "African Queens" got into college because of affirmative action? She just knows.
These days I try not to start shit on LJ. I want to be less negative and snarky. But dammit, I had to say something, and now I am now being slammed in the comments by people who "know where she's coming from" because they, too, have had the heartrending and painful experience of being white and surrounded by dark faces, foreign languages and funny food smells*.
As far as they're concerned, the racial insensitivity of the OP doesn't matter because hey, the Africans were bad roommates. It's fucking depressing. One person even congratulated me for judging the OP based on text. The ensuing sarcasm tags offended me, so I offered to mail her some StormFront pamphlets, and urged her to not be judgmental of them.
*I exaggerate here...OR DO I?
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Agreed. Also, I have those exact same animal crackers as in the photo. They're much fun to mock at because of how deformed they are. You can find udders on everything, I swear.
ReplyDeleteI think white people have issues with realizing that racism isn't just burning crosses with masks on it's the small shit too.
ReplyDeleteThat and us white folk need to realize that we too are a race making us no better or worse than any other race, so that makes us a equals right? Not in the US, here we got white privilege and if you don't fit the mold you have to jump through a shit storm of obstacles that whites never have to even see much less be aware of.
AA helps even the odds somewhat.
Also, I'm not saying those women used AA to get into that college, in fact I doubt that's the case.
ReplyDeleteI'm against the racism, but I'd like to make a nondescript comment on the fact that in certain areas, if you're NOT a minority you get far less assistance when you need it. There are very few college scholarships that are available for people of any race anymore. ie. Most of them are for hispanics in my section of the country. More power to them, but that doesn't help when I and many others of even other races need the help too. Direct quote from a local woman in the public assistance field. "Unless you're homeless, pregnant, or a minority, I can't help you. Come back if you get a tan or get a bun in the oven." It's a good step in some ways, a step back in others. It's hard to not sound racist these days..
ReplyDeleteThis is true. We as a nation have a ways to go before we get this race thing figured out.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm pretty sure that's not what this chick was raving about. She latched onto the hot issue of affirmative action solely because they were black and she didn't like them, so obviously they didn't belong there the way she did. :(
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ReplyDelete:comment edit:
ReplyDeleteI think it is easier for people to demonize those treating them ill, because then they feel they have not done wrong, simply applied a "warning label(arrg there's the L word again)"
The hard part though, is to realize how easily applying racist (gasp!) labels to 3 people can easily become applying racist labels to "those people" and then it just snowballs all to hell.
I am guilty of the same quirk of subjective perspective. When you are exposed to a single sample of individuals, in a specific environment, do you normally stop to consider whether the context they grew up in is the same, or is their behavior the result of coping methods in order to feel safe in an unfamiliar environment?
that said, I feel that "THE RACE CARD" (oooh, all caps) gets played an awful lot, by both "sides" of the racial issues arguments.
example: last spring, I was living in a dormitory with about 50 other people, 75% of them were male. of those males, about 5-6 (can't count worth a damn) were African American. These students were the loudest, accruing 95% of the noise complaints on the hall. At lunch, they would sit with a bunch of their black friends from other halls. It was very noisy. Imagine a white noise generator turned up to max. Now imagine it is stabbing you in the ears. Yes, that noisy. Sitting across the room, we could not hear each other (my friends) talk. Everybody was bothered by it, nobody did anything. why is this? Was it because they were, in fact, mostly from The City (NYC)? Was it because they were loud and we were a bunch of squishy timid gamers? Was it REALLY because we were all white and they were all black? was it because we didn't want to be perceived as racist when we just wanted the noise level to be lowered a few hundred decibels?
you can't know. you can only assume.
@ Adam, you're right, it's a tricky subject and in times like those it's hard to tell what's playing out
ReplyDeleteI will say that race is still a HUGE issue in the US whether we care to admit it or not, and we do make snap judgments on people regardless of how non-racist we think ourselves to be.
Hard to believe, yes. The truth hurts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vAbpJW_xEc