PatsFanInVa

Yeah, I believe it can, and I hoped that the above response recognizes that.

Here's the thing, we can do what we can do, in our own lives, and I believe you and plenty of other people here are fine with doing those things - just treat people like people on a personal level.

The differences come between those who recognize the persistence of institutional racism, and the existence of even the vitriolic bigotry such as we have seen in the past, as important to guard against and relentlessly root out. One's ability to enjoy a "color-blind" life is dependent in large part on the efforts in the past of liberals so maligned for their continuation of that unfinished struggle. Calls on the reactionary right for the re-segregation of society as the prerogative of business owners is a perfect example.

What you say about the kids is very true - Kids 30 and under have a different and better race perception than guys like me in their late 40s. Kids date who they want to now, hang out who they want to now, regardless of color, and it doesn't raise anybody's eyebrows. People are much more just people, to most kids.

That's because of liberals, black and white, in the 1950s and 1960s. There is no two ways about it. That's one big reason that liberals are starting to call themselves progressives instead. We made some progress, and progressives want more. Conservatives want less, and many conservatives want to reverse the progress we have made. That's the political side of it.

But you're right, Icy. It looks like, for the future, the liberal policies of the past have worked wonderfully. Society is much more integrated, especially settings like the schools and youth leagues. Many more of these kids never really heard bullsh1t about what they can't do, where they can't go, what they can't become, because of their color. They haven't had to live through the turmoil of desegregation - for them, desegregation just is. That's because the progressives of an earlier time won that battle for them, as a gift to the next generation.

But racism isn't over, either against African Americans or against other minorities. That seems to be the sticking point, politically: Conservatives think it's something from "the olden days." Progressives, many of whom were part of winning those struggles, know that racism reemerges, either in a morphed guise or pointed in a totally different direction.

The conservatives of another time came up with legal and constitutional arguments against desegregation, just as conservatives of today come up with wonderful arguments about how the Arizona "papers please" law is completely without racial overtones or impacts. My Mom's a Brit. You really think if she went to Arizona, they'd want her papers? No. It's not for pleasant old white ladies from England. It's for immigrants (including legal) from Mexico.

Twenty, thirty years from now that will be the "can you believe they actually used to...." example for another generation, after progressives win. Because progressives will always win these issues, Icy. They stem from the basic principal of equality that is the heart of the best part of America. It's where our strength comes from. The American dream isn't that anyone can get a microwave oven. It's that anybody can walk down the street, and as long as he doesn't infringe someone else's rights, he has the right to do what he wants, walk where he wants, etc. Those things are second-nature to us in most contexts... but people fought for those things.

Yes, Liberals like that type of atmosphere. It sounds like you do too. Maybe we need more of it. That's what Liberals work to achieve.

I take it you believe there is insufficient crime in Cambridge? Would you like there to be more? Or is your point that they are living in a sort of Disneyland for well-to-do liberals?

One might also actually conclude that when we are more free of unfulfilled needs, there is less need for property crime - a point you share with the Chomskys of the world.

PFnV

IcyPatriot

I didn't get the well to do perception ... just a very different kind of place for sure. didn't get the crime feeling either ... don't want to see more crime anywhere. I got the walk back in time meets the modern age feeling. Walk back in time easy pace mixed in with modern commerce. It's laid back and well kept and chock full of progressives ... but they do like their commerce just like everyone else.

It's like driving through a play ... but it was real life to them and it seemed like a play to me. I'd like to walk around and ride a bike to get where I need to get. But i would go broke real quick if I did either on a day to day basis. I almost wanted to stop and take it all in ... but I felt like an invader ... I was an invader. It's real life for them - I would just have been a poser.

PatriotsReign

Great stuff Icy!

I wish people could only see through the smoke & mirrors and realize that racism has NOTHING to do with politics, liberalism, conservatism or institutions. It has everything to do with people, PERIOD.

Only people can be commit acts of racism and the real truth is that there are just as many racists in either party. The most racist people I've met (at least in New England) are people in trades or, if you will, "blue-collar" types. But of course I've met racist from all walks of life and see no corolation between racism and political party.

I went to a barber shop in the town I just moved into 2 weeks ago. The owner "fled" from Dorchester about 10 years ago and the guy was absolutely a racist and a democrat (isn't everyone from Dorchester a democrat?).

efin98

What you thought the stereotype of Cambridge is is entirely within the squares(Harvard, Kendal, Innman, Central, Porter).

Walk a block off of Cambridge Street/Main Street/Massachusetts Avenue and you get to the real Cambridge...no different than any other urban city in the country- same crime, same grime, same congestion, same melting pot. Everything and anything ethnic, American, liberal, and conservative within a short stretch.

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KontradictioN

It's just as racist to advocate special privileges for minorities based only on the color of their skin as it is oppress them for the same reasons. Treat them as normal human beings. It's the what majority of them want.

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Harry Boy

You can never convince a liberal of that.

One of the most embarrassing, cruel, offensive things a person can do to a minority in a social setting among other people is to Slobber and Patronize them simply because they are a minority, SAPPY ATTENTION CRAVING LIBERALS DO IT ALL THE TIME, THEY ACCOMPLISH NOTHING EXCEPT TO MAKE FOOLS OF THEMSELVES.

One of the cruelest things the Liberals have ever done in their foolish self gratifying bull***** slop slime do-gooding existance was "forced busing" the dirty bastards were in reality telling the parents and the little Black children that they didn't have the mentality to learn how to add 2 plus 2 unless they were sitting beside a white kid, the do-gooder liberals didn't do that for the kids, they did it for themselves, if I was the parent of one of those children I would have cried watching them ride off to "Honkeyville" because the Liberal Rat bastards were telling them they had to sit beside whitey to get a proper education. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS BUS THE TEACHERS
(SWAP TEACHERS)

Of course now everybody knows what a falure forced busing was.

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Patters

I agree with you, but how do you deal with a company or government agency that has been historically white and therefore it's only white people who are well enough connected to get jobs? That's the problem that affirmative action has largely addressed in the public sector, but it remains a problem in the private sector. For instance, I know for a fact that my Irish last name (and I'm not Irish) has in the Boston area helped me get jobs, not because people are anti-Semitic (I'm nominally Jewish), but because people are more comfortable with those they have a lot in common with. That reality is difficult to address, and in that way blacks and other minorities, as well as women, are still discriminated against. In effect the legacy of racism and bigotry has given some people advantages over others, and it tends to be those with the advantages who want to ignore reality.

chicowalker

It's really not.

There's a legitimate argument against said privileges, but trying to rectify prior wrongs and oppressing people aren't really comparable.

KontradictioN

You can't. In the end, affirmative action will not tie a company's or an employer's hands to hire you if they don't want to. There is always a way around it. Especially in this job market.

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KontradictioN

Yes, it really is. The best way to rectify prior wrongs is to treat these very people just like everyone else. This is really what the civil rights movement was all about. Martin Luther King, Jr, at least in public, did not advocate for blacks or anyone else to be treated differently (in this case, more positively) simply because of the color of their skin. The civil rights movement was about EQUALITY.

While you may have a point that oppression is worse than granting special privileges based completely on race, it still doesn't dissolve the main point that both actions are, in effect, racist. When you treat someone differently because of the color of their skin, that is the epitome of racism.

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