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Michael Haley's avatar

Excellent, my sentiments exactly. I too saw "colored" and "white" drinking fountains as a kid. I hated the racism I saw as a kid, and I also was astonished at the miraculous improvements in race relations as I grew up. I remember thinking in the 70's, wow, all of a sudden I see black people with new cars, owning businesses, etc, something I had never seen before. At the time I thought it was a miracle.

Now we have all these people acting like no progress has ever been made on racism. That me by definition being white am a racist, when I know I never have been and have taken active steps my whole life to oppose it. This is so wrong and counter productive.

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CP's avatar

We know progress has been made and we know that not all white people are racist. Don’t believe the hype that ALL black people believe or think (fill in the blank) any more than ALL white people are (fill in the blank). Let’s all stop with the lazy thinking and easy judgments while acknowledging that to LISTEN is messy and really, really uncomfortable hard work.

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Michael Haley's avatar

any time I see people saying "white people" or "black people" do....whatever, these are sweeping judgements that are almost never true.

People are individuals, and respecting that is key to working together.

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CP's avatar

Exactly. That’s my point. Don’t believe the hype. In fact, if it’s an opinion at all it’s a minority opinion (pardon the pun) that “ALL” white people are racist. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner gave their lives alongside James Chaney and there are MANY other such courageous figures in history, known and unsung, who fought for what is right.

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Michael Haley's avatar

right and average white people did too. I watched as Dr. King preached, and made whites realize they were wrong to discriminate without making them feel guilty. That had huge impact and most whites on a mundane day to day level turned against racism. LBJ (Pres. Johnson) would never have been able to do what he did without majority white support. People changed and it was not just famous people, or political leadership who changed. Those people followed the masses.

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Melissa Knox's avatar

The idea "all" white people are racist and "all" black people oppressed is a itself racist. Also breathtakingly inaccurate.

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CP's avatar

thanks for agreeing...

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