Racism and Prejudice are ingrained in the Human DNA. Some scientists have even found evidence that there were conflicts between Cro Magnon and Neanderthals as humans were developing in the cave man days. To think that we can erase such thoughts/actions is rather optimistic. A given "race" always thinks it is superior to the others. The best we can hope for is a peaceful co-existence, where society creates a set of ground rule, and everyone tries to abide by them.
Not only race, but cultures, you should have seen how divided Irish against Italians were and still are to some degree or and lets not forget religions. But we absolutely are obsessed with black people, no one is written about more so by everyone else, no matter where you go, than black people and it's not because it is the only people who speak up and about injustices. Women, speak out, men speak out, gays speak out, vets speak out, other ethnic groups speak out, I see marches and protest and signs and news reports on the matters from all kinds of groups, but, when those black people do it, they get more news, forum, finger pointing than any other group. Just look at the number of threads started by non-blacks everyday. Dang those people occupy a lot of people's minds. Just can't stop thinking about them when there's so many other topics to discuss.
Imagine telling people to get over 911, D-day, vietnam, get over how your family was wiped out or the like, just give it a rest already will ya stop whining about how no one cares about past sacrifice, what have you done for us lately and so on. Get over yourselves. Of course I don't feel that way, my dad too was a vet and many more from my family.
It's not that some don't need to get past certain things, it's really about acting like everything is perfect and we shouldn't try to find a way to listen to each other when we speak and acknowledge there are some issues and yes there are issues from various sides with some people not all the people. You also don't get to group me with people who do bad things just because that is what you see, so than you get to say tell those other people I have no connection to to behave better so I don't clump you in with them. That is asinine. And I would say people who think that way are truly limited in many ways and will continue to only see color when they look out at the world and judge accordingly.
I come from a long line of people that never complained, did what needed to be done, never had bad things to say about whites in general, I have the words of my great grandfather
I'll share a little something from a book written about my great grandfather,
George Henry Black- 100 Years, by Emily Wilson copyright 1979
"George Black has always lived close to white people, He and all of his descendants carry the name of a white man. Dr. Black. Dr Black's brother-in-law, Alf Brothers, used to taunt them, "You ain't nobody. You don't have a name. You stole the Black name. You're just Brena nigg_ _ers." But the doctor obviously felt different, and his good feelings for the *****es on his place were shared by his sons.
Mr. Black remembers Dr. Black with favor.
Dr Black was a fine man. He didn't make no difference in color, If you didn't have the money, he'd go just the same. He had a son name Cassius and a son named Webbie, (Daniel Webster Black); my brother Webbie was named for him. Cass Black thought as much of my daddy as he did his brother. He'd come home, dressed up and he'd always come to our house. He claimed we was the same as his folks. We took our sharp dressing after him.....White folks always thought a lot of me....I'm honest They would treat you all right if you done all right. Some would mistreat you. You are working somewhere and they'd put the heavy stuff on you.
.........
Mr. Black's remembrance of his relations with white people is almost always favorable, especially when he remembers individual people. Now and then he will describe feelings or experiences which betray a difference. He says, "I'd always had to stay in my place." Describing the pleasure of eating at Dr. Black's, kitchen if nobody come." He is proud of the fact that he was invited to help his plate from the dining table of Mr Henry Fries and the says, "I set my table.
Henry Elias Fries was born in Salem in 1857, lived to be ninety-two years old and made a career in building and textiles, organizing the Fries Manufacturing and Electric Co., operating the electric streetcar system and serving as president of the Winston -Salem Southbound Railroad. It was this city father, this friend to George black, whom Winfield Blackwell, a Forsyth County legislator at the time of Fries death, described as the person who "has done more than any other man in our city --and probably in our state--to promote harmony between the races." For fifty-three years he was a trustee of what is now Winston-Salem State University, the alma mater of George Black's grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ending comments by my great great granddad:
Some people said I was the happiest fellow they'd ever seen. I always tried to make things pleasant even if I wasn't so happy myself. I couldn't want nobody to feel miserable.... Don't nothing upset me. I've been a wonderful man. I look at all this excitement going on today .....I've heard a whole lot of folks talk and I'd listen. If it was no count, I'd let it go....I take things as they come.
Author's, (Emily Wilson,) endnotes
"The stories go on. The birthdays go on, Born in another place. son of a man who had been a slave, child of a different world, George Henry Black is a gentle man and a good man, He speaks his own history and in time, others will speak it for him."
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PS Just another story I left out from the short book and want to include about my gd.
My granddad talking to his brother Will,
"Me and my brother Will was standing in the woods talking. My brother said, "We'll group and make men out of ourselves. If we do the right things, men will call us Mr. Black." I agreed."
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That being said, my other great grandfather has a whole different history of escaping the south before being placed in a noose by vigilantes due to him defending his wife who had been beaten and abused by some man. This great grandfather, both on my mother's side, also went on to become an upstanding human being helped by quakers, he became a lawyer in a time that wasn't very kind to people like him, but he held no grudges, but also no delusions, neither man had delusions about that time nor do the descendants about today's times and most are quite successful, many graduates of prestigious universities and served their communities and people of all ethnicities.
