What do you think? No opinion? You agree? Disagree? I will not be chiming in....

That view may be a little too black and white, pun intended., 

This, in the social sciences circles, is known as The Fundamental Attribution Error.

When we think of our selves (or people we consider kin), we attribute positive behaviors to our inherent and enduring Goodness. We attribute any of our failings or poor behaviors to circumstances or temporary exceptional deviation from our normal Goodness.

When we think of others (especially those we fear), we attribute their failings or poor behaviors to their inherent and enduring Lack of Goodness. We attribute their positive behaviors to circumstances or temporary exceptional deviation from their normal Lack of Goodness.

Hence, when Dylan Roof shot up a church full of African-Americans in Charleston, SC, he was a poor deluded soul who somehow fell under the spell of White Supremacist rhetoric. But when Micah Johnson shot a bunch of Dallas PD officers, it's because he was part of the hateful bigoted Black Lives Matter movement, who have no regard for public order or the lives of our brave police officers.

I am black, I am also law-abiding. It is an undeniable truth that generally speaking, I am more disappointed when another black person commits a crime than I am when it's a person who is not black. I accept the reality and the potential reality that others may lump me into the same category based on my skin color. It is not a fact that just because it's 2016 that attitudes about race/ethnicity are all wonderful and beautiful and fair. It is a fact that for some people, dark skin = threat.

When I read this Facebook post, it resonates as a Kum-bay-ya, let's all hold hands and get along treatise, but unfortunately, it doesn't represent a reality to me or for me. It would be nice to be able to disassociate myself from black people who act in negative ways, if I could be sure that no one else associated or associates me with them. Sadly, that isn't where we are as a people.

You're a cute, young white woman. You'll get a much different reaction from people when you walk into a convenience store at 2 am than I will. Or when your car breaks down on a lonely highway and there's no cell phone service so you have to walk a quarter mile to the call box. Or if you get into an argument with someone outside of a store (the clerks locked the doors and called the police). Or when you apply for a job. Or when you move into a new place.


Racism isn't as bad in 2016 as it was in 1916, 1936, 1966, not even as bad as it was in 1986. To say it's disappeared completely is a falsehood.
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I think I see what you mean; it makes it seem so much easier than things really are.
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Very well stated, thank you.
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Randy, if you allow me.

I do mostly agree with your post. Mostly. I don't know if I am reading you correctly, and I apologize if I'm not, but the post seems to say that certain stereotypes or safeguards are based on racism. If I am at an ATM at two in the morning in the.neighborhood I grew up in, and a group of young thugs looking guys start walking my way, I would definitely be apprehensive. I don't think that makes me racist.  

I think that what everybody centers on, race, misses the point. I think is about economic disparity.  I would be just as vigilant if they were white.

As long as we continue to focus on race, it's our fault, we just can't get along, if we see it as a socio economic problem, then it becomes the state's responsibility.  For the.state, it's easier to deal with bigots than to try n fix what creates them in the first place.

I do concede, however, that yes, in 2016, that kind of backward thinking is alive and well.

Reality is that if those young thug-looking guys near the ATM are black, there's an even higher probability that they would be seen as a threat than if they are not black.  That's not to disagree that a thug is a thug is a thug, of course not, but even a non-thug black man in the same situation might be perceived as a threat.  No, it's not entirely racist to be apprehensive in that situation, it's common sense also.  Even other black people perceive a threat when the group of thugs is nearby, regardless of the thugs' ethnicity.

Many of the reactions that people have are based on a variety of factors, ethnicity merely being one of them.  A lot of fears that we have as humans are taught to us over our lifetimes.  Some are based on fact, some are based on stereotypes.

It's probably just as difficult for me to imagine life from the point of view of a person who is not a black male living in 21st century America as it is for someone who fits that description to imagine life from my point of view.  

While "the state" has a large hand in our everyday lives, I don't know if it's entirely "the state's" problem to fix.  Human nature cannot be legislated to submission, because it supersedes a lot of learned behavior, a lot of life experience.

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You are so wrong.   I think white people invented taking umbrage at being publicly NOT grouped as white. 

Randy...I'm black...I thought we went through this... damn that divorce amnesia... :0|

You've gone and done it; you've forced me to use "THE KEY".

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Oh.

Well, I stand corrected.

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