Huh?

Personally, I've never used the term cracker - I tend to stick with 'Fucktard'. It's a nice blanket term that can be applied to any race =D, but I use it more for the idiots and those come in a wide variety of colors.

Yes, a person can rise above their status/origins - but that's not what I meant. Affirmative action is useless now because the tools needed are not provided to kids in different areas. Schools are not created equal. So to thrust a black kid who graduated with a sub par eduation into Stanford is a waste. Are there those who refuse to fail? Of course, but affirmative action does more of a general sweep in how it gives out its charity.

Currently there is a girl externing in the office who is white and grew up here in Alaska. When I spoke to her on the phone, she had a southern accent but when she showed up I was perplexed. She's white, but talks the sterotyped 'black speak'. I don't get it. She's not black. At all. /boggle I don't understand the appeal of one race trying to be another. The good lord and my parents made me brown. I'm a happy brown. My brother is darker than I am, being on the east coast and getting more sun than I do. Growing up we were identical, there was no mistaking that we were siblings, but now we look just different enough to where I think people mistake us as a couple.

Ew.

Anyway - people assume we're not related, but we still look the same to me. I dont know, it's weird.

Point is, the amount of racism between black and whites are there, its more hidden now like Mylec said. Although I the Mexicans seem to be catching a bad rap since being black is more accepted. Basically it seems to racists that being mexican is worse than being black. How far we've progressed as americans...so impressive. =/

On that I disagree. IMO, anyone who speaks against a person of any race, as a race, be it white against black, chinese against french, catholic against jew, trekki against klingon...it's all racist. I've often heard some blacks say they can't be racist, and have never understood that.

Yes, it is racism. To clarify, what I meant was that you are not a victim of racism because someone calls you a name. Sticks and stones, and all that.

You know I have this argument with my (white) husband all the time. It is very difficult for someone who is not of colour to get why people are so bitter still. As my husband says, slavery happened a long time ago and most white people alive today had nothing to do with it so why are people still so angry? Because it really wasn't that long ago. I just had a party to celebrate Loving Day. Loving Day is the celebration of the US Supreme Court's decision to permit biracial marriage. The date of that decision was June 12, 1967. My parents were married in 1972. The issue of race is one that directly affects my life every single day, whether I take note of it or not. For most of us, facing racism is something that sneaks up when you least expect it and so yeah, sometimes, some people who have been particularly hurt, find themselves in the position of looking over their shoulder imagining that it's always there even when it's not. But the sad part is, they aren't always wrong. I was on the phone with my girlfriend the other day and her husband was in the background and I could hear him make a comment about lazy halfbreeds. She tried to change the topic in case I happened to hear him but it was too late. I made a joke that I resembled that remark and made light of the incident, but the truth is it did sting a little. She would be the first one to say "I don't see color" but when she is in her private home, it is ok for her to say things like "THOSE mexicans" or "all of those A-Rabs are alike"...and now some part of me will always wonder if she groups me in those stereotypical remarks. She doesn't even consider what she's saying or think of it as racist. And if I made a comment about it she would say (has said) something like "well I don't think of YOU that way". She sat at a conference room table when we were discussing MLK day and what we should do for it in the office, and in a room full of people she said "we could have fried chicken and watermelon!" I had to pull her aside later and explain why that was not appropriate. And before you say "oh well she's stupid"...she's really not. I don't make a practice of hanging out with stupid people. She's a university graduate and a really clever girl...she's just been raised with very closed-minded ideals. I remain friends with her because she is actually a pretty good person I know she doesn't realize what she's doing and I hope that she might learn from me. I'd be willing to bet that most brown people have friends who are borderline racist but who are otherwise good people who are just a little misguided. And I've gotta say, just in reading some of these posts, some of you do resemble that kind of person. But I can't really blame someone who decides to choose to not associate with someone like that and/or appears to be militant about the minority movement, especially if they have been victims of darker crimes than (as Mylec puts it) name calling. And to say it doesn't happen anymore is ignorant. I have a very close friend who came out to his car one morning to find it covered in spray painted racial slurs and swastikas. Oh it happens, and daily.

So now I have this son...he's 1/4 black and looks almost completely white. So what should I tell him? How do I teach him to protect himself emotionally from people who are too ignorant to know any better? My husband thinks I don't need to, that racism isn't really a problem any more. Racism is very rarely a problem to you if you have white skin because you don't have to worry about looking over your shoulder for when you're going to be turned away from some event, or assumed that you're going to be less intelligent, or not chosen for some promotion...and maybe you're being paranoid, but maybe you're not.

Tell him he's brown or vanilla with a little chocolate. It works for Catherine. =)

Racism isn't just about skin color...it may be easier to see, but a lot of jews, etc. are still dealing with similar issues of hate.

This is true...and yet there are many who think Jews should "get over" the holocaust.


It's not the explaining that he's biracial part that I'm concerned with...it's the "other people may hate you because you're part black" part that I'm concerned about. I had a conversation with a biracial girl that I work with who tells me that she tells her kids that they're black. I had told her that I never considered myself one or the other and had planned to teach my children the same thing. Her comment/feeling was that they knew who their father was...they aren't stupid...they can understand the idea of being 'biracial'. But if they came from a position of deluding themselves into thinking they would be treated any differently than another person of colour because they were only 1/4 black then they would end up being repeatedly hurt. However, if they realized that the rest of the world saw them as black and that they should anticipate being treated differently, then they would be in a better position to defend themselves. Now I don't know that I completely agree with her, but I am able to understand her viewpoint.

I've heard biracial people call themselves black almost exclusively, and never understood why...guess that explains it.

Yeah I dunno...while I appreciate the "be prepared" idea of calling yourself black before they do, I am of the opinion that you can't change the world's perceptions by going along with their notions. They call it the "one drop" theory (ie, you have a drop of black blood in you, you are therefore black) and I've never much liked it myself. I broke up with a guy once because of it.

I am more of the "Popeye" school of thought: I am whats I am!

I grew up with a black/dominican father and a filipina mom. We had the filipino's looking down at my mother and we never quite fit in with the black folk in our neighborhood, not that there were many back in the late 70's. Paul and I grew up with a mostly filipino influence until we moved to Hawaii and went to high school there.

Paul immediately identified iwth the black crowd, specifically the black girls who thought his brown skin was 'delicious'.

Ew.

I mixed with the white/military kids from our housing area.

Paul went thru his 'why are you dating a white guy' phase, to which I replied, 'because I have yet to meet a black guy that respected me', not that the white guys ever did either - I'm not even sure one from high school would remember my face since they talked to my boobs most of the time.

I digress.

Paul married a black girl and is very much involved in a black church. I think there was 1 white family at his wedding. I married the epitome of a white boy and became involved in his equally psychotic extended family. I'm also lighter skinned than he is, now that we're older. I think that has to do with him getting more sun over in WV and me being in the northwest where there is very little.

Point is - I didn't think about what color I was until people in washington state made it abundantly clear that I wasn't one of them. Them being the sea of white kids that to this day i'd pay money to knock the fuck out. Growing up in the late 80's and graduating in 91 made me SO bitter. I got over it.

If people asked us what we were, after they guessed incorrectly (no, I am not samoan, have you seen one???), Paul and I would say we're 'mixed'. I haven't had anyone be outright racist to me but when we saw Paul get married in 98 in west virginia, security followed us around in the mall we were at. Mom was lavishing thy brother with gifts and he had a lot of bags.

Of course a dark brown man with a lot of bags is a threat to society.

Paul blew it off, said it happened all the time. I was to call a lawyer and bitch slap the security guy following us AND my mother into the bathroom. They practically had to drag me out. That was the first and only time I've seen something like that. Y'all know how confrontational I am - imagine me in my younger days. O_O

In any case, if someone asks now - I tell them I'm brown. If someone comments on how light skinned Catherine is compared to me, I confess to marrying a white boy. I haven't sat Catherine down and talked to her yet about shitty people. I probably should. When I saw the civil rights riots footage on TV growing up, white people sending their attack dogs at the black people being hosed down by fire hydrants - I honestly turned to my parents and said, 'Is this real? That can't be real...right?'

The realization that Catherine is going to have should be...interesting. I'm not looking foward to her putting two and two together and realizing that some people out there will hate her simply because her mother's family is mixed minority. Telling her she's brown just seems easier to explain to her. We are brown. Brown and happy - that's all people need to know about us.

It's funny how mixed kids sometimes pick a side. I would say my brother definitely leans more to the dark and i lean more to the white. But he married an italian girl so he didn't lean that far I think guys tend to be victims of more obvious racism because of fear.

I think for those of us who are white, the easiest way to truly learn how alive and well rascism is, is to date someone from another race. In my early 20's I was with a black girl for about 7 years. The experience was definitely eye opening. An example...

Theresa had just graduated from college. We went out to dinner and two of her girlfriends came along. We get seated in the restaurant (nice place, we were all very well dressed, too) and there is a white couple I'd say in their late 30's/early 40's sitting a table away. This woman actually got this disgusted look on her face and said to her husband (rather LOUDLY) "What is HE doing with THEM?". Without hesitation, I leaned over towards her table and said "A white guy with 3 black women? Obviously I'm their pimp, bitch!". They were too busy being embarrased that we overheard them to take it any further. I asked to be seated somewhere more civilized.

Another time I came out of my townhouse to find my (and our neighbors two doors down, who were a black guy/white girl) townhouse, cars, the dumpster down the street, etc, were covered in stickers that had a drawing of a person in a white hood hold a noose and the caption said "RACE TRAITOR BEWARE!!". This shit happened in the 90's. In our state's capital. Trust me, its still alive and well.

And you talk about your temper when you were younger, Roz, you should have seen me that morning. Standing in the middle of the street shouting an invitation for all the coward white boys who stickered our places up to come on out and face me. Looking back now, it was almost like that scene in that Brandon Frazier movie where he was the jewish kid hiding his identity in the Catholic school, standing outside in the rain yelling "COWARDS!!!!!". I actually laugh about it now, but at the time it set me off.

I dated a black guy for a few months, but most of our time out was spent at this bar where he dj'd, so I guess that may be why I never came into contact with anything like that. Or, it could be that I'm pretty oblivious to what goes on around me when I'm with someone. I don't really give a F what anyone thinks or cares, so I don't normally see or hear anything beyond my direct concern. My mom says I go through life with blinders on - shrugs - maybe I do, but I'm usually pretty happy so who's to say that's a bad thing?

Of course if I had experienced something like you had Mylec, I'm pretty sure my attitude would be a lot different. I'm glad I haven't though.

Heh, I wondered how it was that you empathized with the minority viewpoint so well. I had just put it down to you being damn clever. Now I understand that you got a little brown sugar! How YOU doin?

I'm glad you never had to experience any of that either, Shay.

And Gilly, I'm still clever

How YOU doin right backatcha!

But yeah, being with someone that long really teaches you to look beyond race to a point where you honestly forget about race. Of course, that almost got me killed 2 years ago when I went down to her house warming party. We ran out to pick up her brother's girlfriend. We riding along and talking and suddenly her friend in the backseat was like "Uh uh...girl where are you taking this boy??". I look out the window and we are deep into the hood in D.C. And all the sudden it dawned on her and she was like "Shit...you gonna be ok?". Like I had a choice lol. Worst thing was I went down there straight from work so I was dressed in the typical IT nerd outfit (Dockers, golf shirt, dress shoes). As if I didnt stick out enough at that point. Nothing happened, though. Although I'm amazed since walking out the building these dudes were selling shit out of the trunk and her brother's girlfriend had the nerve to call them out right then and there. I'm thinking great...piss off the brothers and the first one taking a bullet is the white boy (the one guy had a gun clearly visible tucked in the front of his pants). I almost killed that bitch when we got in the car!

Racism isn't as common as ignorance and hatefulness.

I would agree, since rasism is a subset.

Racism is born from hatred, which is born from fear that comes from ignorance.

I figure, racial slurs are the ignorant man's 'intelligent' reply. I feel sorry for people who can't express themselves any other way. Granted at least my last best effort is calling someone a 'fucktard'.

That's just funny though. /giggle

Man, I wish I had read this post a couple days ago. There are some posts on the first 2 pages that are so ridiculous, I almost didn't know how to respond. Some of you get it (Mylec), some of you sure as shit, don't. There really isn't too much to add to this thread anymore so I'll just leave it at that.

Hello there Gylius!