What is it like to be white in America?
I only think about it when it gets pointed out to me how racist my own race is being. For example, the recent white cop/"black kids shot" situations. It's amazing to me how much I don't understand the black perspective on these situations. Not because I'm racist. Not because I'm ignorant. Not because I'm stupid. I'm just not black.I can have the same opinion as my black friend and I still won't get it. Even if my black friend acknowledges the black kid getting shot was justified. He's still angry. I will never understand that kind of pain.My race is white, and "my people" have never experienced discrimination as black people in America have within the last 50 years.The only way I can relate is as a Jew, which is a minority in America, but it's not the same somehow. Listening to my grandmother talk about her family dying in concentration camps and reading Eva Kor's answers about survival are things I personally didn't live through. I empathize with their pain and sadness, but I can't fully experience it. I never had to worry about my safety as a Jew growing up, or my family's safety.I'll (hopefully) never understand the terror of being ripped from my bed in the middle of the night and lynched or separated from my family forever. Living as a slave. Not being allowed to use a certain water fountain. Living in fear and shame over my skin color or birthright.I haven't lived it. But neither has my black friend. I think the difference is black people still get glimpses into that past. People still use the "N" word. Enough said.Being Middle Eastern in America must be similar. People whisper in airports. The word "terrorist" gets thrown around too freely. Being Indian must be similar as well. Jokes about convenience stores, call center jobs and bindis are some of the things I hear and am offended by often.Being an Asian American - does that mean you have to be good at math, work in a dry cleaner or nail salon? All these racist stereotypes are things I don't have to overcome daily. Americans of any skin color but white do.I can hide my minority. I'm white. Judiasm isn't a color. I don't have to think about it everyday, if I'm fortunate. But, people face it constantly.I still don't have a clear answer of what it's like to be white in America, but I do know, it's different then being any other skin color in America, and that's something that needs improvement.
"Dr. King Weeps From His Grave" summary help?
He prophesied that America would be "going to hell" if 4 things weren't dealt with. He would be weeping now as these 4 things have not been dealt with. He outlined 4 catastrophes four catastrophes he identified: Militarism is an imperial catastrophe that has produced a military-industrial complex and national security state and warped the country’s priorities and stature (as with the immoral drones, dropping bombs on innocent civilians). Materialism is a spiritual catastrophe, promoted by a corporate media multiplex and a culture industry that have hardened the hearts of hard-core consumers and coarsened the consciences of would-be citizens. Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists. Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse. Arbitrary uses of the law — in the name of the “war” on drugs — have produced, in the legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s apt phrase, a new Jim Crow of mass incarceration. And poverty is an economic catastrophe, inseparable from the power of greedy oligarchs and avaricious plutocrats indifferent to the misery of poor children, elderly citizens and working people. Solutions: King’s response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a re-evaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.
Does anyone know good african american names form the 1920's?
Berta
What would have happened if Gandhi was never born?
We would have still achieved Independence though bit before or after 1947, but many events which followed would not have happened:1. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela may not have been able to accomplish what they did.2. If you would have added Nehruji also, i would have been so sure that partition would`nt have ever happened.3. Many of our freedom fighters who took the path of non-violence would have been given more respect and space in our history than they are getting. They deserved more from the sufferings they had. They have`nt contributed any less and atleast one of their birthdays would have been a holiday! (I am not asking for a holiday here, just want to state that holiday in any martyr`s birthday is not appropriate, or else all deserved it).4. The great Gandhi family, who slaved us after Independence would have never existed. We might have had a better post-Independence India.5. Scams were always there and are still in every country, but here it started mainly after the Bofors scam.6. India heads on Non-violence, we give Gandhiji`s example to our children to teach them the path of non-violence, which might though have been little difficult if he was`nt there. That`s how the world know us. Thats how they know, we are not the one who starts infilteration in the LOC or LAC, we are the sufferers and are forced to hold arms at times eg. Kargil. (Though it`s proved by various arguments, our moral ground also proves it to the world.)7. We would have been having a better politics and the religion politics we have today, the riots and heinous crimes on the name of religion, the Gujarat riots (for which Mr. Modi is mistakenly blamed), etc, would have never happened. Imagine Hindu and Muslim loving each other, living a normal live ALL OVER INDIA.6. No Kashmir, no Pakistan,7. Even the LAC issue (where if Nehruji would have acted judiciously) would have been in a better situation.There are many things which would have been affected positively and negatively, these were those which i get instantly in my mind.Thankx for the A2A....
Why did Klingons become dark skinned between Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation?
This is part of the overall pattern of White America’s demonization of dark skinned people. When it was realized that television had an extraordinary power to convince the dim-witted and unsuspecting that fiction is fact, the power was immediately abused.If you pay attention to all of television and movies (fiction and nonfiction, but usually not documentaries), you will see that antagonists (“bad” guys) are more often portrayed as ranging from brown skinned to completely black—even when the antagonist isn’t a person. The pattern extends into animation and science fiction. Even “bad” animals and spaceships flown by “bad” guys tend to be dark.Your knee-jerk reaction to this may be to discard it and label me racist—that is the work of the same people. Rather than go that route, I would encourage you to pay attention and see the pattern for yourself. “Good” guys almost always have a full head of neat, youthful (which is to say, not gray) hair. “Bad” guys are often bald. The guy with good hair always gets the girl. The guy with good hair is, therefore, almost always white. Black men are almost always bald. ALMOST ALWAYS. There are always exceptions, for whatever reasons, but this is the overall pattern that Hollywood follows for the vast majority of big-budget productions.If you REALLY pay attention (and probability suggests that you will not), you will find that you have been the unwitting recipient of so many impressions that equated darkness with badness, that the overall effect has been created in your mind that the darker a person is, the more morally bad they must be. (Stargate SG-1 has a lot of clear examples of this).This is why Time Magazine set that photo of Obama in a black background (they were literally shouting “Ni@@er” at him, but in implicit terms that you couldn’t understand), darkened OJ’s mugshot, and some other sleazebag darkened that photo of Trayvon Martin.The inverse of this error is implied: the lighter a person’s skin, the more moral (“good”) they must be. This is the way white supremacy is taught. It works like marketing, regardless of education, intelligence, race, gender or socio-economic status. One need only be exposed to it for it to work.