General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen minority members commit high profile crimes (like domestic terrorism), we all feel under threat
in a way that i do not think majority members ever can fully understand.
When Dylan Roof committed domestic terrorism, most of my white friends and family were upset, but none felt scared for their own lives afterwards.
They did not suffer the "OMG, what will the retaliation to this be" dread.
I hope there is no retaliation for Dallas, but I think we all fear that there will be. And that is a unique and strange fear.
JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)That sums up the anxiety I'm feeling today.
lapfog_1
(29,166 posts)will be an act of courage.
One I now hope to join...
If BLM shows up at the RNC convention (with the already armed KKK and white supremacists providing "protection" and encouraged to beat protesters at Trump rallys)... I expect extreme violence.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)and days like today, i cannot even really hear the news.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)a high profile or horrific crime and got that, "Oh Lawd ... Don't let her/him be {insert "majority" identity, here}!" angst?
I'd bet very few.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)longing to go back 60 years.
If that isn't the best exemplar of lives lived differently, I don't know what could be.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)every time i hear that, i kinda gag a little.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)well, some women, and Members of the LGBT Community (hell, they don't even want to go back to the 2000s).
geardaddy
(24,924 posts)But, I definitely do not.
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)you would be hard pressed to find 1 black person wanting to go back
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)Yeah
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)When churches get burned down or congregations shot up I confess to hoping and praying it's not some loony trying to become an actual militant atheist instead of the internet fantasy (then I remember the inherent contradiction and stick to just hoping... .) There are two major differences of course. My skin does not proclaim me a nonbeliever to all ahead of my very presence, and, outside the sophomoric wannabe wits of the Religion group apologists, few people look to random acts of individual atheists as representative of the whole. While there's naught that can be done about the visual identification part, the one minority=all minorities thing should be easy, but is depressingly hard to address.
I confess I don't know where it comes from. I really don't see group-based confirmation bias as prevalent anywhere else other than race. You get a bit of it with age I suppose. There's plenty of people who pretend kids in "their" day were respectful and kind and gentle (even when my day was the same day as theirs and I surely don't remember us all being saints) and any misbehavior of a child now demonstrates they're all nasty and poorly brought up, but even then you don't see the "if I consider one child I know all children" thing like you do with racial minorities.
It was an ostensibly benign example that really brought this home to me. In the late 90s I was living in an extremely white area (<3% black) working for an educational materials company. The owner was reviewing cartoon artwork for a display which showed several kids on a schoolbus with a black boy in the back seat. One of the managers wondered if that may be perceived as racially insensitive. The owner's response was "Well I don't think so but so and so in the warehouse is black so I'll go ask him." And sweeping aside objections, as was often the case incidentally, off they went to the warehouse to ask a random working man, addressed by his boss's boss's boss's boss for undoubtedly the first time, expected to speak for Black America on the topic of racial sensitivity as it related to cartoons their company created. About the best I could do was wonder aloud why nobody thought to ask me if pictures of fat kids were offensive...
beastie boy
(9,059 posts)She was quite literally fighting for her and her daughter's life as Mr. Castile was dying next to her.
It was sickening. Probably more sickening than the murder itself, although I am very hesitant to make this call.
GaYellowDawg
(4,443 posts)I didn't fear retaliation because Timothy McVeigh was white.
Treating the actions of one person as representative of an entire race is one of the cornerstones of racism.