Every morning Pete walks into Starbucks usually early if he is not playing tennis at the country club. He is an engaged Progressive who challenges his Right Wing Trump supporting voters all the time. They got to him this time because a bunch of white men decided to discuss racial issues.
As I sat finishing my 11:00 o’clock blog, I saw Pete walk in. I waved. He kept coming towards me with a troubled look on his face. He was visibly upset at the discussions he had with the white men in his country club clique.
More white men should be like this guy
“Egberto, can we talk about fifteen minutes when you are not too busy before you leave?” Pete asked. “I need to discuss some race stuff discussions I had with the guys I hang out with.”
I had just posted my 11:00 o’clock and getting ready to prepare for my program “Politics Done Right.” I told Pete we could talk then.
“OK, let’s go outside so we can have more privacy,” Pete said.
Pete was serious about wanting a conversation on race from my black perspective. I would have skipped my blog post to entertain this conversation. I was impressed with Pete’s urgency in having the discussion. But most importantly I was more impressed that he came prepared with some research and wanted me to confirm or disaffirm what he had found.
Pete Googled dozens of articles about race, poverty, crime and much more. The results he got were good if not antiseptic as they did not entirely reflect the every day interactive reality of being a person of color, let alone a black man.
Pete’s quick Google research on ‘race’ to discuss with the white men at the country club
There were several topics Pete wanted to discuss, crime; opportunity, and how race affects them. It was not a hard discussion. After all, I live the experience.
Pete’s friends believe that black people needed to stop complaining. After all, the civil rights era gave them all the rights of white people. Moreover, they think black people could become insular within their communities and lift themselves up by the bootstraps like the Asian community has, they say. And what about crime? Why are black people so prone to it?
His friends were the instantiation of Fox News misinformation and lack of information altogether. I pointed out some points that Pete needed to impress on his friends.
- One cannot trust FBI statistics on crime first of all. In our very conservative white Kingwood town, the police look the other way when white kids commit crimes that would get people of color arrested in other neighborhoods. The FBI stats do not reflect that. Black on black murder is not much different than white on white. While killings are more prevalent in minority communities, it is not hard to discern the socioeconomic component. Former police officer Randy Shrewsberry wrote the compelling guest blog titled “I Was A Racist Cop: How I came to recognize my own racism, bias, and privilege” every skeptical American should read.
- Drug use is comparable between ‘races’ yet minorities are doing much harsher time for the same crime.
- One cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps in a systemic racist society. The Asian experience is much different than the American-black reality. Redlining and other systemic racist policies meant that all things being equal black economic growth was stunted relative to whites.
- Systemic racist acts that limit one’s employment or growth within a company is there but not easily quantified.
Pete asked me to give him a few links to blog posts I’ve written on race. I would encourage him, other white men, and those that do not grasp what racism is and its effect to read these posts on my site, some first-person.
- Black man compelled to move to Canada. A Canadian deconstructs America’s racism
- I was Trayvon Martin the day I came to America
- Should we coddle angry white men or tell them the truth?
- What If White Violence Was Covered Like Minority Violence? (VIDEO)
- Systemic Racism for Dummies (Is racism over yet?) (VIDEO)
- White Progressives: Are you our friends? Are you our allies? Really? Then …
- Shameful: MSNBC’s subliminal & dangerous opioid epidemic report (VIDEO)
- Roland Martin schools General Kelly on history & normalization of America’s sin (VIDEO)
- Obama adviser schools Chuck Todd and panel on criminal justice failure (VIDEO)
- What is white privilege stated in the raw by Kyla Jenee Lacey (VIDEO)
- Pastor’s ‘forced’ resignation illustrates evil within Evangelical Church (VIDEO)
- My friend is just another white guy from Texas who understands what Trump never will
- This is why I am thankful for Donald Trump’s presidential run (VIDEO)
- Two white women launch ‘White Nonsense Roundup’ to unburden people of color (VIDEO)
- It is time for white culture to self-examine
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Any white person who complains about black people complaining should just ask themselves the following question: “When have I, personally, been the object of racism?” In my case, the answer is twice: once when I was walking on the South Side of Chicago and a young woman passing me randomly called me a “honky bitch,” and the other when I was on the metro in Paris and an Arab guy called me a “salle Juife” (dirty Jew). (I’m not Jewish, but in his eyes an American was the same thing.) Those two incidents made me feel pretty bad, I must say. Now, let me ask myself how many times the average black American has been subject to mean comments like that, and how many times they’ve been subject to aggressive and prejudiced behavior that goes beyond mere speech. The answer has got to be: LOTS AND LOTS OF TIMES. So even if, technically, black people have all the same opportunities blah blah blah (which in itself is questionable), the fact is they are subject to constant barbs and jabs, whether directed at them personally, or at people like them in the media or around them. This has to take a terrible psychic toll. So wake up, white country club dudes, and take a moment to think how that would make you feel.
p.s. I thought you said you always said “socially-constructed black/white”
Anonymous, I try to but sometimes it gets tedious.
Anonymous, I can site millions of white males who are often subjected to racism, from our own government and businesses. The Affirmative action policy in college is a racist quota system that is racist discrimination against Asians and white males. The policy is based on race only.
When it comes to business, there is often racism in hiring when a corporation has to hire people based on race, instead of ability. This is a racist quota system of the equal opportunity policy government forces on corporations. This racist quota system is even more so applied when it comes to government jobs.
Government also provides through the small business administration, racist policies in grants and loans for minority (black, female), while discriminating against Asian and white males.
That’s just a short list of when government discriminates against Asians and white males. I know that SJW’s claim that such policies are in response to past racism, doesn’t wash. Such a claim by SJW’s is pushing revenge, which is in violation of the equal protection under the law clause. We are supposed to also apply the laws equally to everyone, but when you have a list that excludes nearly half of the population, that isn’t equal application. It is all unconstitutional.
Egberto: “The Asian experience is much different than the American-black reality.”
How so? You never expand on that. Asians suffered racism, and slavery historically, yet they do better on average than even whites on basically everything.
Do you dismiss it because Asians doesn’t fit your narrative of minorities needing the progressive lefts help through government distribution?
What about even smaller minorities who legally come from very harsh African countries, and do even better than the Asians? According to your theories, they (as blacks) should face racism that holds them back.
You do know that when you present a theory, and that theory to be valid, it must stand up to all examples that would apply? I gave you two, even though there are many more (Jews, Irish, middle eastern, Indian) to name a few that blows your theory out of the water.
The people who don’t do well, are the one’s who have become dependent on government social programs.
If you aren’t willing to do your homework on the history of racial discrimination, mandated by law, and the economic impact of generational wealth disparity as a direct consequence of these laws then you shouldn’t comment on this subject. Issues of race and class distinction are often muddied by those that have a vested interest in maintaining hegemony. Isn’t it ironic that those who have systematically benefitted from this lack the intellectual discipline required to do the necessary research to truly examine how we got to this point. I’m not even gonna touch the impact of 300 plus years of free labor on the economic foundation of this nation. At this point, there is a concentrated effort to reignite racial tensions that never really went away. But the truth of the matter is that those who really benefit from keeping this flame going promote racial tensions to distract people from the fact that this country and all its promises of “freedom, justice and equality,” is morally and economically bankrupt. And as long as they can continue to use race as a mask for the erosion of civil liberties, the decimation of the middle class, and the masssive debt crisis looming over the horizon, among a myriad of other REAL issues, people will remain blind, deaf and dumb. And as the late Curtis Mayfield sang, “If there’s hell below, we all gonna go!” Wake up to the fact that those who manipulate you in the name of “Making America great,” don’t give a damn about you but rely on you to be the foot soldiers and sacrificial lambs while the literal rich get richer and… you know the rest.