| Topic Name: |
African Americans in the work place |
| Message Name: |
What Happened? |
| Date Posted: |
06/20/2000 |
| In Reply To: |
After reading this thread and posting on it myself (I'm the white woman who posted a few messages down), I have had several conversations with people about some of the issues raised here. I asked a taxi driver in Boston the other day whether he felt the effects of racism (he was Moroccan). He told me that he was dismayed by people's negative reactions to him whenever an incident of terrorism ocurred for which a middle eastern group was blamed or took responsibility.
"Wow," I said, "yeah, look at Oklahoma City. That was a couple of white guys, but I didn't see a lot of people pointing their fingers at me and saying, 'You're white, white people blew up the federal building, therefore you're going to blow me up.'"
"Yeah," he said. "But look at the World Trade Center bombing. Everyone was suspicious of me, because I am visibly a member of the race of people to which the terrorists belonged. And," he went on, "I'm a Muslim. I would never harm anyone. It is absolutely against my religion."
So then he went on to tell me that he doesn't pick up African American men in his cab. Well, not *never.* But if there are two guys on the street, one black, one white, he dives for the white guy.
Go figure. Here's someone who is himself the object of racism, who turns it on others. I couldn't believe it.
I think that I have my own difficulties in life and in my career. Gender bias lessens every day, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't held back by my sex. It hasn't been easy for me either.
But I stand by my earlier statement. There's a baseline amount of garbage that every single person in the world has to put up with. And it is true that each person's pile of garbage is different from everyone else's. My family is wacky. Yours is too but in a different way. I had this personal issue that held me back. You had that one. Whatever. But the fact remains that if you are black, you get your own individual, personal garbage and you also get a whole lot more piled on you that has nothing to do with you personally and everything to do with the color you are wrapped in.
I see how people react to me when I'm alone and how they react to me when I'm with my (black) boyfriend. And it's *not* the same, and it's not explainable by "bad customer service." And I also know that my white presence has a softening effect on the reactions and treatment that my boyfriend get (in most instances. There are certainly instances in which he is treated worse because he's with a white woman). I repeat to those of you who haven't had this direct experience: Think about what it would be like if everyone you met treated you as suspect until you prove to them that you aren't dangerous. Or stupid. Or lazy. That is a crushing burden to have to carry with you every day.
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| Message: |
With all the gum flapping that occurs on this thread did anyone view the tape of last night's riots in LA? I saw it from several stations but I did not see any white suburban kids in the riot.
It's true enough that is was only a small group of men. HOWEVER, it does NOT look good when the rioters are NOT represented by the various colors of the rainbow. This is what whites see on the news. So what are we to think? That due to a racist city, young males can burn police cars and harass other vehicles just because they believe they are victims of racism?
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