No one every said it didn't happen to Whites. People like me are just telling OUR experiences. Are they meaningless in your eyes? If so, too bad, because my experiences mean something to me,as they have shaped part of who I am today.
I'm African-American and I can relate to some of this. I've experienced a few similar things. My high school was around 80% White and 20% Black, and it was in a rural part of metro Atlanta. I was the "nerdy" Black kid, so I didn't really fit that well in many situations. I got some flack from both Blacks and Whites. Some of the Black kids in my high school used to make fun of me for this reason. It wasn't just Black kids. I have ran into quite a few White kids who were shocked by the fact that I liked to read books for fun and that I spoke proper English. When I was a high school freshman, one girl(who ironically was White) used to yell "White boy" at me as I got off the bus. She would constantly call me that word. This has even happened on college. At one point I was harrassed by a group of White students, and a Black student, constantly being called "Carlton"(referring to Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). The last incident you mentioned has happened to me before. I can name a few times when I was walking to some place and a few people would scream the "n" word at me. This frequently happened where I used to live in rural Georgia. I have since left and I don't plan on living there. I had to deal with other incidents of overt racism, such as being threatened with "lynching". Ironically, some of these kids would never try this with some other Black kids. It mainly the Black kids who were seen as "soft".
Just for the record, I'm interested in hearing the accounts of all races and I am glad you shared your story with us.
I went to mostly White Schools all my life ... and rarely got crap from anyone. But when I did, it was handled immediately and put to bed. Maybe it's the way I carry myself, but I beleive people know what they can get away with and when it's best to keep their fears to themselves.
Maybe. I was always one the smallest students among those my age. I also had a nerdy disposition and later on a short temper. This is how it worked in middle school. The persons who were the nicest to me were often females who were older than me. In the 6th grade, the persons I got along with best were White females who were in the 7th and 8th grade. I think back on it and sometimes I think some of those girls looked at me as "cute" and as their "little brother". The people who treated me the worst, the vast majority of persons who bullied me in middle school, were all White males in my own grade level. I think some of the boys in my grade level viewed me as someone they could take their rage out on. In high school I became a very bitter teenager(at least in the early part). The Black population where I lived went from 3% to about 9%. My high was was around 20% Black by the time I graduated high school. There were a few issues as far as race went when I was in middle school. High school it got much worse. What I noticed in my high school was this. The Blacks sat on one part of the cafeteria, the Whites sat everywhere else. I sometimes felt I wasn't accepted by some of the Black students because I wasn't "Black enough" and some of the White kids(not all of them) were mean to me anyway. Basically, I was kind of a drifter who had a hard time finding his niche. I found it towards the middle of 10th grade. I always did best when I sat at one of the "integrated" tables or sat with persons that I knew well. As far as racial tensions, I still remember students threatening to hang me. This happened on a few occasions. I remember one kid said "pick me cotton you 'n' ". When the Confederate flag got banned from my high school, there were quite a few fights over the course of a few months. The principal thought it would put an end to the fights at school. It just got worse.
Proportion does make it meaningless. I've lived in US about 15 years and I was harassed already something like about 20-30 times. This is what make me who I am today and this is why I am strongly support segregation.
ZING....and there it is! It must have been hard for you to wait four pages to finally get to drop that in there!
I am a white female. I was chatting to an elderly neighbour of mine who is a Muslim and wears the hijab when out and about. We met up on the corner of a busy intersection near our home. A group of four white males called out racist taunts to the both of us as they passed in a car. My neighbour told me it happens to her all the time. Poor old lady.
Duhhh, what do you mean by "ethnic crime" duhhh? Where am I??? What's going on?? Zing! Huh?? "Ethnic crime?" What's that?? Who said that???
Well guess what ... it's 2012 ... and anyone seeking segregation should look for their own island in the middle of the ocean somewhere.
I've been living in the USA my whole life and I still get harrassed. Having dealt with racial issues from both Blacks and Whites makes me very cynical of the idea that segregation would make things any more peaceful. And as for proportion, that doesn't make it any less meaningless to me. I consider it meaningful because it happened to ME!! At the end of the day, I've got myself to worry about.
Cynical? I think you lost a lot of people with that term. Explain to us how segregating people would bring about cynicism on your part.
I said I am cynical that segregation would work. To me, that means I don't think it would work. Based on my personal experiences, I don't think it would work. Segregate people, and people will still find something to fight about. I tried to hang around only Black kids at one point because I figured "that's the way this society is, get used to it". I got made fun of by a few Black students and even jumped on and beat up. I was basically rejected by some Black kids for "not being Black enough". I never spoke "Ebonics", I loved reading books for fun, I also had a slight streak of anti-social(had my friends at school, but once I was home, I wasn't having friends over), I did participate in track and cross country. Apart from running, I was basically considered nerdy in many ways. I was the most peaceful when I was around people who could accept me the way I was, or around people who were similar to me(of any race or ethnicity).
I'm tyrants say the same thing about their oppression, or a perpetrator to their victim. "If you'd just stop resisting, it wouldn't be as bad."
This is what is called a roadway to a progress. This is life, you always fight something, what is on a way, to make a greater progress. People always will fight about something, people will always compete. Whole world, as you noticed, in a state of competition. Competition is a source of a progress. Competition is in our nature, nature of biological species. It can be racial competition, national, individual, etc. It will work, because it will stop racial hate. And this is the progress. It will not stop racial competition. But in this case you will hate no one, but yourselves. Do you say sometimes to yourself - I don't want to do anything, because after I've done with this, something else will come up and I have to deal with a new issue, so I better don't do anything?
Segregation will make your life easier, as you see you also complain. It's strange why you don't want to segregate, although, in other way I do understand. It's a fear. Fear to end up in place like Detroit. You want white man do be around and waste his energy fixing the issues, what blacks are causing, while living around. Sounds like you are very selfish. What happened to you 1-2 times in entire life is nothing what is happening to whites.
You don't know what has happened to me or how many times it has happened to me. You don't know me. I've been harrassed more than one or two times. You don't know what I've been through, and judging from your posts, I don't think you care either, which will bring me to the next sentence. Yes I am selfish sometimes. I know that other people aren't going to look out for me. Call it a product of cynicism. And do you think Black people want to end up in a place like Detroit? Why do you think alot of Black people who have money and an education leave Detroit and never return? And why were Black people in Detroit in the first place? Jobs were the reason. Ford was paying good money to work in the factories. If I am a Black man in the rural South living under poverty and Jim Crow racism, and I hear there are jobs in Detroit that pay well, why would I stay in the rural South?
Want to add, that right now we live in a state of individual competition. I mean countries with forced integration. But you complain on racism. Like I hear almost everyday screaming, like "why blacks and hispanics are stopped by police more often", "why they have higher mortgage rates", "why they have lower salaries", etc. And answer is always the same - racism! Whites are blamed for that. It's a wrong answer. White (as a group) simply are better, statistically more intelligent. A clear prove of that you can see in the development of Africa for Africans or America for Hispanics and Native Americans. Before whites came, you had all the chances to get developed even better then whites and conquer as on the way we conquered you. You couldn't do that, because your development was way below, like stone age. But you can't even say that. You will be called a "supremacist". So, segregation will resolve this issue in a favor of a greater progress. It will let best to be with best and it will push a progress further. Right now, due to a forced integration white are dragging all others behind, a lot of energy is getting wasted on process of toleration and resolving the race-related issues. And despite of this fact we are whipped with all these accusations, targeted, and slowly disappear as a race, due to inevitable mixing.
First of all, Jim Crow doesn't exist anymore in the South. Second, staying in the South would be a lot safer than risking your life in the bowels of Detroit. And if you think that the people living in Detriot enjoy a higher level of living/pay then they do in the South--then I have some wasteland in the Florida everglades that I would love to sell to you dirt cheap.
Oh, now you are changing your initial statement, saying that you are harassed more then ones. And what happen to Detroit, after blacks moved in there? Auto industry couldn't compete with Japan and jobs left it. You could blame it on other factors, unless we would see the same with Harlem, Oakland(CA), Richmond(CA) South Side of Chicago, etc. No matter where you move, it goes down.
Only the blacks would find something else to fight about. White people would be fine, especially under a White-Nationalist government which is what would certainly happen. White-Nationalism is all about peace and progress. Also, Amish people segregate themselves and do not fight. This is proof it does work. (Don't bring up that one massacre in the Amish community. Exceptions to the rule don't break the rule. ) Yeah, no...
