My son (see above portrait) is dating a girl who happens to be white. Which is this case means her mother and father is also white. My son is not welcomed at his girl friends house because of her step father’s belief system. Although, my son’s mother is as WHITE as any white person I’ve ever seen, this guy has only fixated on my skin color. Therefore, to him both my daughter and son are black.
I am the first to give myself props for major accomplishment but I am not the first guy born a male to a give birth to children. So there is no way children who were delivered by a white female can be 100% black.
Of course, this speaks to not only this guy but to our country’s bigoted nature. We are so bigoted of a country that we’re quick to deny parents all over the country recognition as parents simply because of the skin color of one parent.
If you’ve leaped to the conclusion that Victimization is about so called race relations in this country you are only part correct. I mentioned the situation with my son’s girl friend to make this point. This guy has a problem with black people (he’s not alone), how would this reveal itself in a work environment, a court of law, a classroom or any number of financial transactions.
As a black man growing up in this country over the past 40 something years, history tells us unequivocally that far too many blacks have had to face this guy or others who think like him and have not faired well.
To be fair, the problems with blacks in America can’t only be blamed on bigotry. Part of the problem could be blamed on science, HIS-story or any number of things. Yeah right.
Some people believe by electing a person who calls himself “Black” (actually his mother is White) as the next President would erase all the problems of “Race” in America. That would work about as well as if we all traveled to the moon making us astronauts.
What I do believe, if we could wave a magic wand and erase bigotry as a factor (this would need to be a truly powerful wand) within a generation we would begin to see the same type of transformations which occurred during Reconstruction (you remember that period after the Civil War).
The problem with ethnicity is that it is immediately recognizable. And once we’ve recognized ethnic origin we are free to let the associated stereotypes flow. This isn’t true of say those of Hebrew decent where conversation is needed or those who might be homosexual, where behavior would be observed. I’m not comparing Hebrews with homosexuals or vice versa, what I’m saying is we need additional steps before we can start disliking people from those groups.
The other day my wife and I were speaking of ISM (sexism, racism) and what’s interesting is the oppressor’s hatred of the oppressed. I can understand a woman’s resentment of men in a male dominated society and the obstacles that hold women back or a black person’s resentment of white people in a white dominated society likewise. But what am I to think of the continued resistance to opening of opportunities by those of the dominating groups?
An example might be a rapist hating the woman he raped, so much that he sought her out to keep her from ever recovering from the assault he inflicted onto her. or a CEO who implemented a major layoff but didn’t stop there, he made sure that none of the people he laid off would ever work again.
Of course, we don’t tend to think of a CEO as an oppressor. But that same CEO could have just as easily reduced their own compensation by say a few percentage points which in some cases would allow 100’s of workers to maintain their jobs. CEO’s are paid in the neighborhood a 100 times of those underneath them.
Before you get side tracked, we don’t see those types of scenarios. But for sure a woman who has been raped is a victim of that incident as is a person whom is laid off.
In the coming days, I will continue to flesh out stories of how Victimization is a universal phenomenon and not held by one group or one particular situation. I chose the word Victimization because of its common dislike by all, especially the victims themselves some of whom don’t even recognize the syndrome in which they’ve found themselves. Because nobody wants to be a victim.
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