I shoudl be all ambitious about the long list of things that I should accomplish this weekend, but mostly I feel like playing stupid Facebook games. SIGH
Natter 69: Practically names itself.
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
I am almost ready to leave for choir rehearsal! More or less up and at em.
My parents never, never ever ever, said any similar to me. Oh hell no.
Oh hells no. And I did go to inner city public schools.
Timelies all!
Went to my MIL's for the first seder last night. Tonight we meet my FIL and SMIL for dinner.(Some sort of steakhouse, probably)
I kept thinking the "talk" article was a parody, because my ads were for re-electing Obama.
No one ever had that talk with me, and I went to a school with 4 black people (2 were special needs kids adopted by a family who adopted many more special needs kids), 1 jewish person, and 10 asians. It was a a country school, not a suburban one. I do sometimes wish I could talk to these kids now about their point of view, because for me growing up, I was completely ignorant of rascism because the population was so small you could not see it, and the only people who seemed to have trouble were the special needs kids (and those kids, white and black had it very, very bad. Even the nice kids were horrible to them)
My mother was an aging pre-hippy, so she was really into "everyone is a person, we don't see color", which has its own problems, but I think it ended up being a good foundation to appreciate issues as an adult, because being open minded and listening to people was also valued. At least it makes one open enough to actually talk to people!
They discussed that article this morning on MSNBC (Up with Chris Hayes) and the short summary was that the man who wrote the article is well known for his racist insanity, so not even close to main stream crazy.
I too grew up in a practically mono-cultural suburb, not counting the significant subset of Catholic kids, many of whom went to the local parish grammar school. There was a slight smattering of Jewish kids, and like one Japanese-American and one Chinese-American.
The first time I met black kids my age was at a YMCA day camp in the summers. Otherwise it would have been not until college!
My gradeschools were so lily white growing up that anyone of another race was more an individual oddity than representative of a whole group. I do remember being very confused and angry when one friend's father made him stop playing with the neighborhood kids in the afternoons because one of us was black.
So back to the more basic - WTF is wrong with people?
No, but they're not bigoted against black people! They're statistically bigoted against statistical black people.
Except the well-adjusted ones, because they're all, like, leprechauns, every one. All the white people want their lucky charms or something. How can we but envy them and their unprecedented good fortune?
In the words of Victor Meldrew, "I'm sorry, what language are you talking in now? It appears to be Bollocks!"
The problem with leaving the travel arrangements to my parents is that the don't consult me. You want to take what will be 90 minutes to go see the family when it is 2 hours until we leave for the wedding & I haven't showered yet because no one told me of this plan? Knock yourself out. I'll see them at the wedding.
Ahhhh parents.