by Frau_Blucher » Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:40 am
Phil, I completely accept that what you're saying is 100% sincere and valid - no arguments there. At the same time, I can't help but feel that a statement like this on a web forum can't possibly encompass the whole of a complex issue, not that you're even trying to. So I'm just thinking out loud here...
"When there is equality"...we're just not there yet, and even if we were, every race or ethnicity would still have some different historical, societal or cultural context associated with it. Blacks were not a mainstream presence in Hollywood. Yeah, it makes for an unbelievably lame NWO thread, but hey, I'm not gonna say it's not a valid question in the context of where Blacks have been. On the flip side, I'm also not going to flame some cops for racially profiling some young Black men racing from a shooting scene. Is this racist? I don't know. A racial description of someone is one element of a description of them, among many other more important ones of course.
Should race ever be used negatively, like in consideration for jobs or housing? Of course not. It probably still would be though, so there's still laws against it and people still "tag" people in the process of talking about it. If race weren't mentioned or accounted for at all, I think we're still racist enough that it would just all go underground. So can it then be acceptable consideration for race-specific social networks, media outlets, marketing, or even casual conversation? As a (mostly) White male who has likely benefitted from a White-dominated society, I don't think I'm necessarily the one to declare for or against that. I'm inclined to object to it, but in the back of my mind, there's this nagging feeling it would be premature and self-congratulatory to say we've come that far as a society.
Look at the Obama thing. No way in hell are we going to ignore that he's Black. Racists won't vote for him because of it. I'll bet you that some White folks who would vote him might do so from a consciously or subconsciously self-gratifying motivation, like "Hey, I'm showing the world how enlightened I am by voting for that Black man." Of course there's plenty of genuine yes and no voters for a lot other reasons too, but I think it's probably futile to rail against any sort of tagging at this point in our society, good or bad.