From: roth@cactus.org (Mark Roth)
Subject: Re: Who cares
Summary: I'll second ailsa
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 03:28:55 GMT

First, and irrelevantly, there are things worse than flames: one of them is
posting a dozen or two followups, after news being down for a week or so,
and discovering that they *ALL* seem to have gone to /dev/null. SNARL!

In oneof the original posts, somebody (Jeff?) said they'd play devil's devil's
advocate (not an acidental duplication), and proceded to give a bunch of cmts.
Most were absurd. Examples such as 'what have blacks done against racism', or
'Amerindians done to help me', or 'gays done to help me', are ludicrous. A
devil's advocate's statements are intended to cause the recipient to think,
and justify, if necessary, their statements. Statements like those I just
paraphrased are nothing but sophomoric one-upsmanship. You might as well ask
what the homeless have done to help your housing situation.

In article <ZLFFoB3w164w@ailanth.UUCP>, ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy) writes:
> billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:
> 
> > ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy) writes:
> > : > : > 
 > : > : your analogy is fucked.  black people are not defensive about racism, a
> > : > : they do not practice it.  they defend themselves against racism, a 
> > : > : completely different thing.
> > : > 
 > : > Heh, heh. Right Ailsa. Tell me what would happen if I walked, by myself, 
> >  > a bar in an inner city slum anywhere in the US. Do you think I could just
> >  > walk in, join the people at the bar, order a drink and (when done) walk o
> > : > No chance - I would be lucky to get out alive.
> > : > 
> >  > This is not "defending against racism" - it is the overt practice of raci
> >  > The only difference is, I can understand why it occurs - after all the
> >  > repression that many minority groups have been subjected to in the past,
> > : > and are still subjected to (to varying extents) today.
> > : > 
> >  > But, just because there may be some justification, that does not make any
> > : > such practice right.
> > : > 
> > : > Bill
> > : 
> > : maybe you shou8ld check your attitude then, or actually try it.  i hAVE 
> > : done that, had no troubloe, definitely left alive.  difference: i LIVE in 
> > : the slums.  i may be white, but i am still one of the family, as it were.
> > : 
> > : i think all this fear of black men is just another face of racism.
> > 
> > Re-read what you wrote above. Now tell me that racism does not exist among
> > the people living in the slums. You are "one of the family", so you are not
> > discriminated against. Racism is not only based on skin color.
> > 
> bill, i do not live in THOSE slums.  i live in maine slums.  to go into 
> bars such as you talk about, i have to go to boston.  those people have 
> never seen me before in their lives!  my point was, having lived in the 
> slums, BEING a member of the grindingly poor ($327/mo ADC plus child 
> support), i knjow how to act.  too many guys go into an unfamiliar 
> situation aggressively, radiating attitude.  that doesn't go over too 
> well in places where people don't want to have to DEAL with people being 
> aggressively white, aggressively straight, aggressively male, etc.  when 
> you go into a place where you KNOW that you are a member of the oppressor 
> class, no matter which oppressor class it might  be, you be friendly, you 
> be unassuming, you smile a lot.  you admit that there might be SOME place 
> in the US that is NOT YOURS.  once people firgure out that you aren't 
> just another strayt boy or whatever, you are fine.
> 
> but i reapeat my contention that all black men do not go around beating 
> up and killing white men.  black men are in MUCH MORE DANGER from white 
> men than the reverse.  look at crime statistics some time.  ever 
> considered that black men walk together a lot for the same reason that 
> women walk together a lot?  so that people won't mess with them?
> 
>                                     -ailsa
> 
I'll second what ailsa said. I can give the same example. I *have* walked
into black bars, gotten a drink (with no trouble), and left. In D.C., in
Philly (and not always the neighborhood I lived in, or in another area of it,
where no one knew me). My wife and I have walked into Hispanic places here
in Austin, and San Antonio, and Mexican places in Nuevo Laredo. No problem.
She grew up in a small town south of SA. I grew up in North Philly (where
the neighborhood went from 95+% white to 95+% black while I went from 1st
to 4th grade, and my parents were too broke/lazy/unwilling to move. I left
there are at 18, when I moved out - to another mixed neighborhood. No problem.
And my skin is beige. But maybe I don't act *WHITE*. Maybe I didn't learn
how to walk into a place and cover nervousness by acting as though I owned
the place, and I was better than everyone else, so they better *MIND* me.
Maybe I learned from my folks to act as though other people had a right to
exist, adn maybe have their own opinions, and have a right to their own
lives; that they weren't part of my fantasy, and that reality was *shared*,
not something exclusively mine.

	mark 
Newsgroups: alt.pagan