Race in America: it could make you hopeless. It started last week with the sentencing in the trial of the BART policeman who murdered Oscar Grant. Johannes Mehserle, white man, kills a black man: 2 years in jail. Michael Vick, black man, accessory to dogs being killed: 4 years. Mark McGwire abuses steroids: no years, Marion Jones, 4 years. Etc.
It all started again tonight when I Googled the first two lines of a rap song I heard, "No more health care/no more dreams" and the name "The Panther," all that I heard while listening in my car last week. There were a lot of right wing, anti-Obama, anti-black sites. These sites took up a lot of space for anyone searching on themes of race.
On the positive side was a site about a new curriculum on the history of racism in Oregon, in their public schools, and another called whiteantiracistparent, and on her blog a number of anti-racist blogs she follows.
It got me to thinking that we who oppose racism need to be as visible as we can, to have more blogs than the racists, that we need to speak out about it to white people and not leave it for people of color. That we need to the visible ones and not the Tea Party bigots.
No comments:
Post a Comment