explore, Christopher

Oh, I been flying... mama, there ain't no denyin' I've been flying, ain't no denyin', no denyin'

Monday

African-American Equality

Blacks + Whites + LSU = complexconflict

I hope to avoid boiling the situation down to terms that are too simplistic to actually capture the atmospheres at work here but I try...

I believe that racism towards Blacks, the most detrimental kind, is the kind that is very subtle-- the knee jerk reaction, because its hard if not near impossible to intellectually counter. You're a White walking down the street and you walk past a Black man-FREEZE- that subtle feeling right there, that's what's really hard to take care of...Why do we feel that way? Is it the media? Perhaps. Our parents? who knows but its not all that important anyways, because its in my opinion that the natural entropy towards tolerance will fix these oppressive rifts between us.

What can we do to fix this animosity?

As a White, its my duty to help eliminate blatent bigotry in my race. I think the key here is to embrace ones ethnicity, but to hold no enthocentric ideals. Its important to have an identity and to hold ones origins close to thy heart. So those that say we need to be colorblind, I hope are referring to eliminating--THAT subtle feeling, and not eliminate the ties to our origins, which I oft think they are trying to say...

But,

there are concessions to be made on both sides, and one thing that I think Blacks need to change is for example pushing to have an establishment like the AAC on LSUs campus, which in my opinion is unfair favortism by a public entity. It would be nice to have an African-American Historical center, but in my opinion creating a center for Blacks only is counter-productive towards acheiving greater racial understanding and unity in our nation and world.

so to boil it down I think that the Confederate flag issue et ceterea needs to be addressed by those more empathetic Whites who need to correct the ignorants flying the flag over the heads of Blacks. And, Blacks need to establish a center for greater racial understanding on campus instead of continuing the ACC status quo.

Regards,

-Christopher P. Peters -

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good discussion between you and your friend Samori. Since I have never been to LSU I would not presume to have a comprehension of what takes place specifically at LSU, however, I cannot imagine it’s much different from what occurs on the majority of campus’ (or elsewhere for that matter) across the country. Nevertheless, I do appreciate both your viewpoints and to some degree agree with both.

If I understand Samori correctly when he says “Everything here can have white in front of it. (white student union, white student government. . . .etc.)”, what he’s implying is that unspecified = white, which is an erroneous perception. The title “Student Union” does not propose to eliminate all who are not white and cannot be interpreted to do so. Conversely, however, the title “African American Culture Center” does specify “African American”, the implication of which is - all who are not African American are excluded. There’s an irrefutable difference and I do agree with you, that by giving titles that are not all-inclusive it does continue, in some diminutive way, to build walls.

Equally though, I agree with Samori, I do not believe eliminating the AACC, Islamic Center or any other “not white, male and protestant” organization will solve or even assist in eliminating this complex conflict; I don’t believe the problem lies within any given group per se. Black culture is a part of our country’s history, just a British, French and American Indian, and should not be forgotten, but also should not be portrayed in such a way that harbors and continues to breed animosities and prejudices. Prejudice breeds prejudice and until we eliminate the source of the animosity and prejudice this problem will never be fixed; furthermore, there are far more “white” groups, organizations, establishments, etc. than “black”, they simply aren’t recognized as “white” (e.g. Polish Cultural Center, National Italian American Foundation, Russian Jewish Congress, etc., etc., etc., how many “black” Polish, Italians and Russian Jews are there?). Maybe if society didn’t see things in terms of “black and white”, rather in terms of individuals we might stand a better chance.

I also agree with you that concessions do need to be made on both sides but who first? Would Mississippi’s redesigning their flag be a first step? What about Alabama and Florida? Their flags have Confederate elements as well, they were patterned after the Confederate battle flag. Flying those flags may rub salt in old wounds but whose wounds? Those who suffered and endured that time in our history are long gone and for many of us “whites”, our ancestors were not even on American soil during that time yet are, by color, made a part of that stereotypical group. Nevertheless, I don’t disagree with you, the flag is a part of our history, though a part that might be better served in a historical museum as it no longer serves a purpose other than to give rise to the aforementioned animosities, which are counterproductive.

To put it all in a nutshell, I don’t believe that changing a flag or eliminating ethnic groups will do anything towards the solution of this “Complex Conflict”; I see “colorblindness” in terms of equality as much more plausible approach. But alas, I don’t anticipate the dissolution of this “Complex Conflict” anytime in the near or even distant future.

~MM~

2:57 PM  

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