Arrogance

Hola! Everybody...
We watched the inauguration at work yesterday as a community in what we call the “community conference room.” I work for a non-profit, community-based organization (CBO) whose mission so to fight for “economic and social justice.” I work around progressive-minded people, but even within that environment, I find resistance to any substantive discussion of racism...

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-=[ Privilege and Resistance ]=-

Yesterday, at least two white people called me a racist outright or implied it. One took issue with my use of the term “white racism,” the other informed me that pointing out racism is itself racist.

I love all people regardless of skin color, but it never stops to amaze me the extent of ignorance some whites possess when it comes to race. For example, for some whites, yesterday had nothing to do with Obama being an African American. Either it wasn’t important, or emphasizing Obama’s race was proof positive that I suffer from some form of pathology. In psychology, this is called projection.

I am also aware that many whites still entertain racist notions of what it means to be a person of color. I know this because my subjective experience has been borne out through the systematic study of the issue. I call it the “black holes of ignorance.”

Someone suggested that we should perhaps forget about skin color. My response to that was to question if a person of color really has that luxury. It was pointed out to me that saying something like that is itself racist.

SMDH

Allow me to clarify: I conceptualize racism in structural and institutional as well as individual terms. My definition of racism describes a system of oppression of African Americans and other people of color by white Europeans and white Americans. There is no black racism because there is no centuries-old system of racial domination designed by African Americans that excludes white Americans from full participation in the rights, privileges, and benefits of this society. Racism requires not only a widely accepted racist ideology but also the systematic power to exclude people of color from opportunities and major economic rewards.

I could sing kumbaya till the cows come home, but when we go our separate ways, a person of color suffers, while a white person benefits from racism. I find it the height of arrogance and condescension that a white person would exhort me to be less conscious of race.

It is a well-worn cliché that the last thing a fish notices is the water. Similarly, we take the air we breathe for granted, just as European Americans take their race as a given -- as normal. While it is true that white Americans may face difficulties in their lives -- with finances and family, for example -- race is not one of them. Whites can afford to be nonchalant about race because they cannot see how this society produces advantages for them because these benefits appear so natural they are taken for granted. They literally do not see how race permeates America’s institutions and how it affects the distribution of opportunity and wealth.

For blacks, Latino/as, and other people of color in the U.S., the same culture, laws, economy, institutions, and rules of the game are not as automatically comfortable and legitimate. In a white-dominated society, with color come problems...

I’ve had up to...

::here::

... with people getting testy around the “race issue.” If you don’t like it, don’t befriend me -- leave -- and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. If discussing race in a frank and intelligent way offends you, then get off my friends’ list. Fuck you and the white horse you rode in on.

That’s the way I feel about it.

I am light-skinned with blue eyes and the easiest thing for me would be to deny racism and just enjoy the benefits that my European features afford me, but I can’t. I have this thing with truth and being true to myself, I just can’t keep quiet, and I pay a personal and professional price for my outspokenness. So fuck you and your hurt feelings, there are lives at stake here.

I am also sick and tired of the fact that if I call attention to the way we are treated or to racial inequality, if I try to change the way advantage is distributed, if I try to adjust the rules of the game, white Americans see me as a troublemaker asking for special privileges.

Black holes of ignorance...

Eddie

The Roads of Hell...

¡Hola! Everybody... So! I went to dinner at this young lady’s home and some of her family was there. Her lovely seven-year-old daughter was there along with her mother. Her mother is younger than I am (but I look younger. Kidding!). Anyway, her mother is quite an attractive woman and that got me to thinking... I’ve never...

Never Mind! LOL

I didn’t stay long, but my friend insisted on seeing me to the door where she planted on soft kiss on my lips. I kissed her back and grabbed that ass, which shocked her, but she laughed and playfully punched me on my shoulder...

To be continued (but not here )...

Later, I met up with some friends and after doing some service, we hung out. Life is good.

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-=[ Intelligent Compassion ]=-

“A deaf husband and a blind wife are always a happy couple.”

-- proverb

If we use the metaphor of a beautiful dove to symbolize compassion then its wings must surely be wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is dangerous.

It’s like that comedic where he thinks he’s performed a good deed for the day by guiding an elderly lady across the street. The trouble being that she didn’t want to cross the street in the first place; she then pummels the man with her umbrella. LOL

However, that skit speaks to the truth about the way many of us view compassion. The trouble being that we too often assume that know what’s good for another person.

I have a close friend that I don’t see too often these days, which is sad. But I just need to stay away from him for my own sanity. You see, for the past two years, he’s been hanging out with a bunch of “Born Againers” and I have found that the more he reads “scripture” the more intolerant he becomes. He’s quick to judgment and if you walk down the street with him, he begins pointing out what he perceives as people’s shortcomings. When I point out that his behavior isn’t very spiritual, he catches himself and tries to put a cover on it, but it’s there -- the judging. The sad part is that all this scripture reading hasn’t done much for his issues of lust and manipulating for sex (something he has struggled with for years). He tells me that it has been suggested to him that when he notices lust rise within him, that he should take out his bible and read passages from it. He became angry with me when I informed him of case histories of sexually motivated serial killers who used the same strategy. LOL!

I can deal with all that, but I can’t abide his steadfast, immovable belief that one can spiritually evolve only if that person accepts Jesus as his savior. I always respond with, “Fuck Jesus” and that usually stops his bullshit.

But I see this tendency to assume in a lot of people. We do this in our relationships -- especially our romantic relationships. We meet someone and no sooner that we begin a relationship, we want to change the other person because we seem to think we know best. It seems we always know what’s good for the other person when half the time we don’t even know what’s good for us. Come with a problem and everybody and their mother has an opinion or advice. Advice is dis-empowering -- it takes away from a person’s ability to find solutions for themselves. And half the time, you don’t know what the fock you’re talking about and if you did, you would know that advice is probably the worst thing you can offer a person.

I recently saw a special on this relatively new and inexpensive procedure that restores full hearing in people who are born deaf. I think we all would assume that everyone born deaf would want this. Well, a young man whose hearing was restored was so angry and upset at this parents and doctor. You see, no one asked him if he wanted to hear. Now he had to endure this torment of noise that he could make little sense of. He never wanted to hear in the first place.

Compassion that carries such assumptions is foolish and dangerous and the cause of much suffering in the world. Compassion without intelligence or wisdom isn’t compassion.

Love,

Eddie