The following Featured Post comes from TV Series Group 3, Thread 2.

164. Judge the individual not the race.
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 8:50 AM/EST
beloved

"Judge the individual not the race."
This is what I have been saying as long as I have been aware of racial predjudices. I have been an avid reader of what has been said. If it took love, interracial marriages, interracial children and heart break to see what it is to be black, then this just might be a hands on lesson for all concerned. Stop griping. I've been black for 58 yrs. Knowing the Lord as my personal Savior has been my salvation on this short journey.

I never saw myself as this world sees blacks. Blacks have lived with the cruelties of racism, your children surely can. I never saw myself as this world sees blacks. I have been the only black on three jobs (N.Y., S.C., VA.)and it was equally painful to see such racial prejudices up front and in your face daily, but I survived it. Racial prejudice has nothing to do with skin color. It is a matter of the heart and only God can change a heart.

165. Beloved
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 1:21 PM/EST
sue

You said so eloquently what I have been feeling all along. Racial prejudice has nothing to do with skin color.

My mother can remember "Pollack go home, dumb Pollack," written on the sidewalk in front of her home in Chicago. When she married a Slovak man she was treated badly by his mother as not being good enough and not being the same ethnicity. Just a good thing that she was not a Polish Jew!! That would have been unforgivable. I grew up knowing this type of racism. It is very pronounced and also shows up in the schools.

Racism takes all forms and where ever it flourishes people end up dying.

166. sue & racism
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 5:51 PM/EST
atma

Sue, I hate to break it to you but racism comes from the word race. The word race is used to divide humanity into different colors. Skin color becomes an "indicator" of that sociological construct. People react to my skin color before they even have an interaction with me. In the example you gave, there was bias or prejudice based on ethnicity not skin color. Ironically, many Poles and Slovaks(formerly Chechoslovaks) share the same Catholocism.

In Northern Ireland,the troubles seem to be reduced to religious affiliation, and both groups are Christian. The absurdity of these biases are born out when you look at th realities and the historical background of these conflicts. Beloved pointed out that she is still confronted with prejudice because she has been the only black in her job situation. Why do you suppose it was important for her to point that out? Racism is based on skin color>

167. race and ethnicity
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 7:21 PM/EST
artist39

I have to agree with atma, skin color is the first line of demarcation. My kids are Jewish and black but I doubt people will discriminate against their religion before their race. Anti-Semitism will take a back seat to racism in their case. The results of ethnic prejudice can be lethal, no denying that, just look around the world and you will see the results of ethnic and tribal conflicts. But here, in the good old USA the historical legacy of racism is the piullar of this country. And it continues to bear fruit today.

Looking forward to more comments on this....

168. agree
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 9:19 PM/EST
viennes

I also agree with atma, color comes first, regarding racism. If you remember, one of our lady's in our group said that she was asked to dance,and once the ass took a closer look and could see that she had some black in her (light skinned) he couldn't get away fast enough.If she would have been dark, he never would have asked her to dance.

atma I am 51 and have a soon to be 7 years old son,love doesn't have anything to do with age, comes and goes any age. I agree with soon to be artist43 in a lot of ways, after listening to her a little closer, and not assuming as much as I have been pointed out as being guilty of.(hehe)

Beloved does bring up a valid point, black people have been living with it for a very long time and have survived, and told us to stop griping....the only thing I will say to that is, do you begrudge us for wanting it to better for our children? one more thing, just because you survive it, does not make it right.

169. viennes
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 10:40 PM/EST
beloved

Oh, how well I know that surviving racial prejudice does not make it right. I most certainly did not intend to portray that. The point that I intended to make has gotten out of focus. I realize that each of us are voicing what we have experienced. You'd have to have been born black in segregated America to understand. I was hoping to express the fact of skin color ceases to be a problem when our hearts are right.

Every interracial couple should understand that. Hey viennes, what do you think my children experienced. Surely my heart goes out to your children. As any parents; black or white, we love our children and do not want to see them suffer. When I say I survived, I mean just that. I know of many casualties. I hope I have made myself clearer, if not; I tried. this is what the forum is about, right? Being able to express ourselves on racial prejudice has to be therapeutic for all involved. It is for me and I thank everyone who has participated. We all need to be healed and love one another. If we could only see with our hearts, there would be no racial prejudices. God made us all.

170. Just Thoughts
Wed, Sep 29, 1999 - 11:26 PM/EST
sue

I find it interesting that racism is just black and white. The dictionary and also my anthropological training talk about the the many different characteristics within the major races that lead to sub races, etc. In many of the eastern European countries there is true racism as the different groups evolved from different tribes and with different physical characteristics. Is it really right to say that someone's experiences are not valid if they don't fit your standards? Who's to say what the correct standards are. Are we not here to learn from each other? Are we really discussing?

And, please, it is Czechoslovak.

I have been working with a child in a mentor capacity for four years. She is of Mexican and Black heritage. The interesting thing is that when we are out together, people think that we are mother and daughter, as our faces and bodies are shaped almost exactly the same. More times than not we have to tell people that we are not related . But, she has talked to me about being teased and being called half breed by other kids at school. It hurts her and this is a high risk child who has so many other bad things going on in her life that I wish that I could spare her that hurt. No easy or absolute answers for anyone.

171. was Czechoslovakia, sue
Thu, Sep 30, 1999 - 9:01 AM/EST
atma

Of course, race in not all black and white. What I think you need to understand is that race is a slippery term. When used during the it's earliest usage, it was to denote any non-European looking peoples. But over time it was used to denote ethnicity even within groups that shared the same skin color, i.e. Ireland aand Irishmen, or Jews and Jewish race. Beloved makes an obvious point to me.

Bi-racial or quadriracial, multiracial or however you want to identify your special progeny, and all progeny are special. The only way for people of color to protect there children from racism is to not have any and that is just rediculous. Even so called white kids will have to face racism. They will either find themselves as a minority in some circumstance or they will be accused of being racists simply by virtue of having white skin. I know this is f...ked up, but that is the long and short of it.

Most of us survive it but not quite untarnished. We either give in to the racism by tacitly accepting the cataegories or we continue to resist the temtation to join the bandwagon but trying to figure out a way to wake people up to what really matters. Love and mutual respect as persons with more in common than not. When I say that some of us tacitly accept the racial categories, I mean that we begin to self identify as kind of a way to beat the racist to it and to insulate ourselves we try to react with a strong sense of pride about our acceptance of our "racial category" and then to own it and remake it into something positive, i.e "black is beautiful", "we got soul", "viva la raza" or whatever strategy helps us to survive in our racialist environment.

That stategy gives for credence to the categories because then we use it as a basis for descrimination, i.e. "ya know, I hate white people" or "hey!, so and so is always acting white" or "why does she/he sound so white". I find these reactions to be grounded in the very same racism that oppresses us all.

172. Beloved
Fri, Oct 1, 1999 - 11:01 AM/EST
viennes

No doubt about it, if we thought with our hearts,in many ways,this would be a better place, but we got to be realistic,you are,and I like to think I am, as are most of the people in the discussion group, a minority in this way of thinking.I believe we have crossed the barrier,but we are a minority.
I can never understand what you,or you're loved ones, may have gone thrue, I can imagine, but that is not knowing.
When I came to the U.S.A. in 1962,I confess that I did not know much about blacks or there history,I went to a High School that was all white,my last year in High School we had 3 black kids in school,this was in 1966. One thing I can tell you I was schocked to hear that there was still segregation in the 60's, mainly in the South. I could not in my naiveness believe such a thing existed.... God bless you.

173. Dialogue is good :-)
Fri, Oct 1, 1999 - 12:57 PM/EST
beloved

Viennes,
I have learned a lot by the openess of all who participated. Some lessons are hard. They're the ones that show us ourselves. I never realized how much the memory of segregation & racial prejudices
had remained in my heart & mind. I do now and I want to leave it behind and go on. Thanks for being open. May God bless you also & your children.

176. artist39
Sat, Oct 2, 1999 - 10:49 AM/EST
viennes

It has been a pleasure,try to enjoy life,not all people are bad.(although it does seem that way at times)

The Hebrew language is a lot like the viennes dialect.I once knew a black lady that was studying Hebrew.