From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Progress (Was : Re: The Literary Canon)
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:50:07 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

Having now gotten Clayton's attention, I am utterly satisfied. After
all, that is what us liberals really want. Attention.

In article <12123@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.163905.23333@athena.cs.uga.edu>, heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:
>> 
>> 	Progress?  If progress is defined as changing the laws, then
>> perhaps there has been progress. However if progress is defined as
>> changing the hearts of men and women, then there has been very little
>> progress in the last few years.
>> Terrance Heath 
>
>The last time I heard this claim made, it was by a black man who
>claimed that there had been little or no progress in race relations
>in the last 30 years, and:
>
>1. Had a Ph.D.;
>
>2. was professor of something called American Multicultural Studies;
>
>3. was an elected public official in a city where there were almost
>no blacks;
>
>4. liked to used the expression "motherfucker" a lot in class, I
>guess to show how little attitudes about race relations had changed
>in 30 years.
>
>Now, just to show that it wasn't ignorance responsible for this
>guy's problem, he had told us in class of a little practical joke
>he and a white gal had played on a landlord they knew, back in the
>1950s.  The two had approached the landlord when a "for rent"
>sign was up, and asked to see the apartment.  The landlord had
>a heart attack as a result of the stress of seeing an interracial
>couple ask to see the apartment.
>
>Nothing has changed in the hearts and minds of white America?
>Dream on.


	I'll post here not merely for the sake of arguing with
Clayton, that would be a waste of time and energy on my part (seeing
as how I'm probably not going to change his mind, and he's certainly
not going to change mine), but to make a point.
	I suppose he (Clayton) is weighing the material acheivments of
the particular black man in this case against the reaction of the
landlord to an interracial couple (a rather sad reaction, in truth,
which could be passed off as comical).
	Allow me to offer a differenct scenario (one that has happened
before), in which this black man might be be pulled over by your
average city cop. (Perhaps after running a stop light or something.)
Now, the cops don't know anything about the man, except that he's
black. One thing leads to another, perhaps he resents being stopped
and resists being arrested. Now the cops think he's probably on drugs
or something. Judging from the looks of his clothes and his car (very
expensive, very nice), he might even be a drug dealer, or a drug lord.
Next thing you know, the man is on the ground, being beaten rather
severely by cops who are afraid he might be on PCP or something.
Well, its easy to see how things might go from there, and all from
something as simple as being pulled over by a cop.
	Its a lot easier to change laws (laws which make material
acheivement possible, and allow avenues of redressing discrimination)
than it is to change the hearts of people.  Civil Rights legslation
did not do away with hatred and prejudice in this country.  It simply
make the physical manifestations of hatred illegal (except, of course,
the burning cross, which is protected by the first ammendment).
	If you wish to count Civil Rights discrimination as progress,
I'lll give you that, because is has allowed for material progress.  I,
however, am not so satisfied with the progress that has been made. You
see, racism has died in law, but not in the hearts of people.  I think
that is where is must really die before we can claim progress.  
	WE ARE NOT YET IN THE PROMISED LAND. WE ARE STILL IN THE
WILDERNESS.



-- 
"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
			-Joseph Beam_
Terrance Heath 
heath@athena.cs.uga.edu