How can we talk about it?  In good conscience, we can’t make generalizations about groups, based on race; so that leaves us to discuss the attitudes and traditions of our friends and associates.  I’m a coward!

Bravo Mr. Holder!

This is so true. We no longer live in a world where we are "told" where we must live, eat, drink, work or who we can and can not associate with. We can now choose. Yet it is bewildering that the choices we make in those regard are for the most part, to segregate ourselves from others.  No one likes to discuss race because it is a touchy subject. It brings up feelings of guilt, resentment and always brings about tension.

Yet as a woman who leads a VERY inclusive life in terms of associating with people of every race, ethnicity and religious background, when we have discussions about race, they are devoid of tension and to the contrary the conversations are beneficial. No one feels judged or lectured. It’s always about simply learning how the other thinks, where their opinions stem from.  Having a president and attorney general of color is a wonderful opportunity for race to be placed on the table for conversation. I hope people start taking advantage of this and engage in real conversations about it.

As a white woman who has North African heritage (my mom was born in Morocco), I find it very difficult to discuss race. Most people laugh and don’t believe me when I tell them I have African roots. This is because I simply have my father’s German coloring (family reunions are a blast at my house). It still seems like a gaping wound in this country. Either you’re resentful or guilty…I think that people should be able to discuss how they feel, on both sides, without fear of retribution. Or worse, because their feelings weren’t articulated properly, charged with a hate crime. I find racial violence very distrubing and it should be a crime with max punishment, but we live in a society where words will get you charged. I think that it’s just not worth it sometimes. I treat everyone as equals and I embrace cultural differences, but I guess because I don’t want to illicit hate from either side (or be called racist), I’ll just keep my mouth shut.

We are a nation of cowards, narcissists and immature delusionists made up of every color in the rainbow.  Until we unburden ourselves of the lies we distract ourselves with about each and every ethnicity we will all continue to suffer and pay the consequences.  No ethnicity is innocent of racisim in the USA today.

I have worked with people of all races and one of the few topics of discussion in my office is race.  I know there are plenty of black people I work with that dont really like white people and I work with plenty of white people that dont like black people.  To me its all pretty sad b/c we are all human and just b/c your skin color is different then mine, who cares. 

I was out with my daughter one day at the mall and she had been such a good girl while I shopped I wanted to give her the chance to play at the indorr play area, so we were sitting there and she went up to this little black girl to play & they were playing fine. The little black girls father showed up (her mother was there the whole time) and he called his daughter over to him, said something to her, and the rest of the time she was not allowed to play with my daughter.  Every time his little girl would walk over to play with my daughter he would say "no honey, come over here and play"…My daughter will be 3 in March, so to see the hurt in their eyes when they werent allowed to play together was awful.  Finally I was getting upset seeing my daughter go over to this little girl to play & her father call her away every time and to see the hurt in her eyes was too much for me.  I went over to her and gave her a hug and said (loud enough for the father to hear) sorry your hurting b/c this father wont let his daughter play with you but some people just dont realize how ignorant their actions are and how they are hurting their children and others.  I guess its not only white people who are cowards…

 

It is sad to say that even in this day and age race still has a big part to play in our culture, it comes from both sides and that is very sad.  Children don’t see color it’s only grown ups who do that it seems, what happened to getting to know someone before judging them on anything?  We are all children of God, but he saw it necessary to make us all different I guess in the faint hope that we would all just get along and see each other as people, maybe a different color , religion,  sexual preference but none the less just people.  I don’t get that anyones skin color makes any difference to anything why should it…unfortunately it is just those ignorant people out there who will just not see anything other than color and that is very sad.

The idea that the election of Barack Obama would lead to a "post-racial" era, seems pretty naive to me. Did anyone really THINK that, or was that used by some as a way to get off the hook of really addressing this dirty little secret in America?