Racisme

Nogle gange er det godt at skifte perspektiv (det har jeg vist sagt før :-):

Vi kan starte med denne artikel på The Guardian (Via Hodja):

The acknowledgement of personal racism is simply a prerequisite before anyone can begin to eradicate its pernicious effects.

Sikke en indsigt! Men kan den så motivere til selverkendelse?

As a black man, I admit I am bound to suffer from prejudices of my own. I cannot be racist, however, because in the global order I do not belong to the dominant group. If I were to mistreat a white person, no matter how low in social status, the weight of this country's white power structure would come down against me. As Stephen Lawrence's parents found, this force does not come to the aid of black people.

And how could I be racist anyway? I assure you, some of my best friends are white.

Åbenbart ikke... Joseph Harker lider af en uerkendt racisme, der foranlediger ham til at kalde alle hvide mennesker for racister, hvilket i sig selv må siges at være en temmelig racistisk fordom. Ikke desto mindre kan han naturligvis frikende sig selv i et par sætninger.

Man kan imidlertid finde temmelig interessante ting på nettet nu om stunder, og den amerikanske racisme-debat er præget af en gryende forståelse, for den racisme der via personer som Joseph Harker rammer ikke bare hvide mennesker:

In poor neighborhoods across this country Asians endure daily racial hatred just as I did. Because of their language deficiencies, their small size, their fear of violent confrontations, they endure in silence. Unlike me, many of them will never depart for a new life in a beautiful place far, far away. So each day they grow more bitter against a group that much of America refuses to acknowledge to be capable of racism: African Americans.

Faktisk kan visse positioner i debatten give ekko til den europæiske islam-debat:

For nearly half a century, predominately white America has been trying to atone for past wrongs done to black people. However, nothing seems to be enough. The more society adapts to their demands, the more the demands increase. And, the demands have gone well beyond that which is justified.

A case in point is the current attack by Alabama’s Legislative Black Caucus on Auburn University.

[...]

And, speaking of racial diversity, it is appropriate to note that it seems to only apply to the predominately white schools in Alabama. Predominately black schools, such as Alabama A & M, Alabama State and Tuskegee Universities are not required to impose the diversity requirement, either in the athletic or academic departments. And, there is no Office of Diversity & Multi-Cultural Affairs to see after the needs of the few (certainly less than 71.1 percent) white students at the schools.

[...]

But, this and other similar instances, clearly indicate that racism in Alabama is alive and well, except it is now white people who are being abused -- black racism is taking over, and the once honorable civil rights movement is dead.

Tjah... for mig i det mindste, så ringer der klokker - alarmklokker!

Because they are black, the Wichita killers have been protected from national scrutiny and have not even been charged with a hate crime. The entire apparatus of local government in Wichita - abetted by the national press -- has worked overtime to keep the public ignorant of what happened. If the truth came out, it would threaten a national melodrama in which only blacks are victims, only blacks are persecuted and only whites are racists. Within the framework of this melodrama, the only acceptable meaning of civil rights is retribution for blacks -- retribution for any and every crime, real or imagined, ever suffered by black people however remote in the past. "Reparations" is just the nom de jour of the new civil rights package.

What would happen if, instead, we returned to the idea of individual accountability, and gave up the totalitarian fantasies of reparations and "social justice," in which oppressed classes exact retribution from their age-old oppressors? What if we returned to the real world in which individuals commit indefensible misdemeanors (Los Angeles) and monstrous crimes (Wichita)? What if we revived the idea of making the punishment fit the actual deed? Think of all the people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves if that were to happen.

Forbandet tragisk: hvis man for helvede, da bare kunne stoppe den evindeligt naive "forståelse" - vel og mærke udelukkende tilstået grupper som man tiltænker en eller anden særlig offerrolle.

Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics.

Per