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 -