Critical Race Theory - John Oliver
6
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.As a little kid growing up in the 1960s, in an all-White suburb of Los Angeles County, I frequently heard racist jokes about Black people. When my family moved to a rural area of San Diego County, my new school had a few Black, Mexican, and Native American students. I will never forget the horror I felt when I witnessed a White boy in my 8th grade class, a kid I played baseball with, beat up another classmate, a Black girl. I can still see in my mind's eye his fist mashing her face, the blood flowing, the purple lumps rising under livid brown skin. Why did he do it? Because she was Black. No other reason. A lot of other kids were there, laughing and egging him on. Some were other guys I played ball with. I quit the team not long after that.
Some 45 years later, I was serving as Clerk of the Course at a high school track meet. The school had, as was customary, hired a neutral party, a professional starting judge, to run the meet. After the last race, I had occasion to chat with the judge, who happened to be a Black man. He told me he was from Ohio, and was looking forward to going back there. In fact, he couldn't wait to get out of California. He said he had never run into so much racial hostility and discrimination in Ohio as he found in California. I said I was sorry to hear it. I even expressed surprise. You see, I had buried my memories of 8th grade, and had bought into the myth that we had developed into a better, color-blind society. But we haven't.
And now a stinking orange turd, an adjudicated rapist, a fraudster, liar, and multiple felon who spouts racist dog whistles and channels Adolf Hitler, is the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president of the United States.
We still have a long way to go.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
Feb 8, 2024
3
I grew up in an all white area in Massachusetts in the '70s and it was totally unheard of for a guy to beat up a girl. I cannot believe that happened. I do not think that I was ever in denile that racism existed, but I really did not realize that is ran so deep. I did not realize there were so many people willing to admit to their racism, or demonstrate pride over it.
@273kelvin By the late 1990's we were living, still in Massachusetts, in a diverse community that abuted an Army base. We moved to a lily white town in NH. My daughter, who was in 6th grade at the time, told me that she had never heard a racial epithet until we moved that the 100% all white town (which is not the reason we moved there by the way, we could not afford a house in MA, but we could in NH) . I think that the more diverse a community is, the less racist it is. But the community really has to be blended. I think in the cities, like Boston, things are still pretty much segregated. And because I did not mention it, I am white.
@MyTVC15 I hear you. I grew up in a white working-class council estate in north Liverpool where racism was quite prevalent even though there was only one black guy in my school of about 2,000. In fact with the exception of the odd Chinese takeaway, I doubt if I encountered any ethnic minorities at all. That did not stop most of my elders and contemporaries from being racist.
Fast forward to my mid-30s post-divorce and I move to south Liverpool (where the Beatles came from) which is very multicultural and has no racism, in fact, I hardly hear an off/of colour joke.
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