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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am white and have been stopped for being on my phone or for having a tail light out. I always listen to what the police says, never argue with them, am respectful, and don't reach for anything until I am told to do so. In many of these videos, the people getting in trouble are very clearly wrestling with the police and refusing to get out of the car or do what they are asked. I would never ever do such a thing. Also, why is there no outrage about the crime rate in these cities - mostly against African Americans? [/quote]This is why I'm sick of people like you.  Officer Friendly comes to your car, sees a 'familiar' face.  Officer Friendly comes to my son's car and automatically goes into defensive mode.

I guess people like Don Lemon, Van Jones, Chris Rock, George Lopez, John Henson, Jamie Foxx, and a multitude of other well-known figures are just making this up because they have nothing else to do.[/quote]y

+1.  God this makes me so sad.  White fellow human beings, can you really not empathize with us?  Please try.  I don't know what to do anymore.  I'm so sad.  I am just begging you, white fellow human beings, try to understand.  Buy Eyes on the Prize. Really learn about our history.  Try to experience it.  MLK was assassinated not 50 years ago.  You say it was a long time ago, but it wasn't.  My father was alive.  So were yours.  The people that opposed civil rights did not disappear, they were not executed, they were not imprisoned.  They are still here, and in many cases, they raised kids who share their lingering and often overt racism.

Maybe the African-American History Musem can be like the Holocaust museum and you get a random name and see how your life turns out as a black person at different times in our history.  The thought of being black in the past absolutely horrifies me.  [/quote]

My husband and I have been watching Eyes on the Prize, from Netflix. We're about halfway through. It is extraordinary and I am angry that it was not shown in my history classes in high school. Everyone should see it. The parallels with today are inescapable.  When I read today about the BLM leader arrested outside of Baton Rouge I immediately thought of the scenes from the documentary where civil rights leaders were arrested and called "agitators." It's the same language used today. To the extent anyone is "agitating," it's because there is a real problem that needs to be stirred up and fixed. The protesters are not creating the problem. They are highlighting the problem.

Police brutality is a huge problem and while it touches people of every race, I don't see how there can be any doubt that it falls disproportionately on blacks. It always has.

- a white woman[/quote]

God bless you!  I am PP you are responding to.  I'm so depressed to my core this last week.  Reading mean anonymous posts on the Internet is probably not helping me.  Thank you thank you for being a ray of light.  Talk to other white people.  Like everyone else on earth, it's easier to listen when the person talking to you reminds you of yourself.[/quote]

I'm glad you felt better reading my post, but I don't deserve your thanks. I am a coward. I'm not alone in this, but there it is. I support the BLM movement. I support civil rights. I am vehemently against guns. But I have never attended a rally or protest and it's unlikely I ever will. To be honest, I'm afraid to. I'm afraid of being violently arrested or shot or a bomb going off because some asshole of whatever race or religion has a grievance or mental health issues, plus a weapon, and sees a bunch of easy targets. I might have gone to a rally in my young student days, but now I'm 35 with a husband and a young child and parents to support and I can't see myself doing it.

I'm doubly ashamed because I am Jewish and I think, well, what would I have done if I were a gentile during WWII? Would I have put my life on the line to save Jews or would I have looked the other way so as not to jeopardize my life or my family's life? What would I have done if I had been an adult during the 60s in this country? And I can't say with any assurance that I would have done anything.

I will vote, I will petition, I will give money to causes I support ... but I'm not out there on the front lines. And I know I have the luxury of choosing not to be. [/quote]

NP, but yeah, this is the thing.  This is what keeps us in this decades-long loop that has us still hashing out problems that our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents witnessed and dealt with and moved on.  People say that the great thing about America is that you have the right to challenge the status quo, but that's not really true, is it?

I grew up in a middle class household, in middle America, with middling aspirations.  I didn't realize until I was middle aged what extraordinary efforts my parents had to make to give me an ordinary life.  And, you know, not everyone can be extraordinary.  Nor should they be expected to be so.  But if you're African American, that's the cost.  Many pay it, no problem, it is what it is.

Harm to your family's well-being, your paycheck, your social standing are acceptable reasons to avoid involvement in protests.  My dad told me it's the reason he didn't go to the march on Washington in '68 - he couldn't risk leaving his family without a breadwinner (and he didn't have enough leave), but I think it's ironic...or something...that speaking up about an injustice carries so much risk.  And that the risk my father carried half a century ago is still pretty solid today.

What shocks and saddens me even more is that the fears he had about risks his children faced outside his household are the same I hold for my children.  Forty years later.  I used to roll my eyes at him (in 1986, when I got my drivers license) and say that stuff doesn't happen anymore! It's unbelievable to me that that stuff DOES happen.  More and more.

It's unbelievable to me that this is the America anyone wants.[/quote]

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