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Help, I'm a Racist and I Don't Want to Be
The Root ^ | July 3, 2013 | Jenée Desmond-Harris

Posted on 07/03/2013 4:04:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Admitting it is the first step! But it's not enough. What you do at this important juncture matters. By: | Posted: at 12:47 AM

"I'm a racist, and I don't want to be. I'm a white man in my very early 40s, and for years I've been extremely awkward and anxious around African Americans, especially men. At some point in my early teens, I became very self-conscious about the racial divide. And about that time, I moved to a much more homogeneously white area, and I guess gradually black people became abstractions to me or something. When I moved back to a more mixed neighborhood in college, I found I was afraid of them. Horrible thoughts and associations -- of crime, violence, whatever -- would spring to mind.

"Now it's reached the point where I can't encounter any African-American person without these thoughts cropping up, along with this seizure of panic that I'm racist, I'm giving off a funny vibe, I'm making that person feel uncomfortable and he or she can see through me and knows what's going on. It's a complex of shame and humiliation and fear that for two-plus decades I haven't been able to think my way out of, and if anything, it's only getting worse with age.

(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: toostupidtolive
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To: nickcarraway
Liberty GB - "My name is Paul Weston and I am a racist"
21 posted on 07/03/2013 4:17:34 PM PDT by Irenic (The pencil sharpener and Elmer's glue is put away-- we've lost the red wheel barrow)
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To: nickcarraway

He must put on his finest clothing and ride public transportation to an inner-city area with his pockets full of cash and begin handing it out to the friendly guys hanging out on the street corners while apologizing for his past sins.


22 posted on 07/03/2013 4:17:37 PM PDT by fireman15 (Check your facts before making ignorant statements.)
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To: nickcarraway

Jenée Desmond-Harris is very confused white man in her early forty’s.

Sheesh


23 posted on 07/03/2013 4:17:45 PM PDT by mylife (Ted Cruz understands the law, and he does not fear the unlawful.)
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To: nickcarraway

I’m white so I can’t help it. Frankly, since non-whites think that I think we should show them what racists really are.


24 posted on 07/03/2013 4:18:00 PM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off. -786 +969)
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To: nickcarraway

Help I’m a Moron and I don’t know it!


25 posted on 07/03/2013 4:18:58 PM PDT by CTyank
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To: nickcarraway
At some point in my early teens, I became very self-conscious about the racial divide.

I became very self-conscious about the racial divide when I was eight and my sister was seven. We were jumped by a group of blacks and beaten while we were walking home from school. A little later that year my uncle was murdered by a black. My uncle was delivering fuel oil in the middle of a winter night to a customer who ran out and had no heat. the customer paid by hitting my uncle over the head with a 2x4 and then stuffed my uncle in a barrel and burned him to death.

I don't prejudge people by the color of their skin. I judge them by the culture and character. I have a deep hatred of everything that has to do with modern black culture. I suppose that makes me a racist, even when white kids act like hood rats.

26 posted on 07/03/2013 4:25:23 PM PDT by ConservativeInPA (Molon Labe - Shall not be questioned)
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To: AlexW; cripplecreek
“Racism is a sign of weakness.”

It may be, but I'm am surprised at how my thoughts are changing.

I was at the VA Hospital yesterday waiting in a lobby next to a black woman. The News was covering the Zimmermann trial. She looked up at the screen and said "He killed that poor boy over a bag of Skittles, I hope they fry him."

I'm just too old for this kind of stupid.

27 posted on 07/03/2013 4:26:59 PM PDT by chesty_puller (Viet Nam 1970-71 He who shed blood with me shall forever be my brother. Shak.)
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To: cripplecreek

” racism is a sign of weakness.”
______________________________________

Well, you are entitled to your opinion.


28 posted on 07/03/2013 4:27:58 PM PDT by AlexW
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To: nickcarraway

Blacks and latinos are some of the most racist people on earth while whites have largely moved away from racism.


29 posted on 07/03/2013 4:32:50 PM PDT by Bullish (Psalm 46)
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To: Irenic

Thanks, I was hoping someone would post that link.

It’s a 7 minute video, and very interesting. If you have a few minutes it’s well worth the time to watch it.


30 posted on 07/03/2013 4:36:57 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (When America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: nickcarraway

He is one of the millions of guilt tripping white Eloi, a sheeple of The Institutionalized White Guilt Complex:

http://blackracismandracehatred.blogspot.com/2013/03/white20woman20begs20forgivenessjpg.html


31 posted on 07/03/2013 4:38:15 PM PDT by Uncle Lonny
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To: chesty_puller

On the other hand, I hear people say, that man had skittles, which makes him Al Capone.


32 posted on 07/03/2013 4:42:24 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: mylife

Early forties.


33 posted on 07/03/2013 5:10:42 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINE http://steshaw.org/econohttp://www.fee.org/library/det)
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To: nickcarraway

All this talk about racisim. Maybe the group of people seen and their actions brings out a negative side. That is not racisim! When I see a gang of yutes no matter the color with saggin pants and causing a ruckus in the local big chain store and running wild like a bunch of wild animals yea I tend to have a negative feeling about this gang of fools! It’s not that I have the same feelings of others of the same crowd, but it does put a disparaging view of their clan. What ones race does in public does have an effect on what others think and feel about where those roots were spawned.
I as a young man was taught to never do anything that would harm the presense of my family in the local neighborhood.
If I did there would be hell to pay at home regardless of what went on downtown in the pd shop! Plus there would be no bail for this boy!


34 posted on 07/03/2013 5:14:50 PM PDT by Conserev1 ("Still Clinging to my Bible and my Weapon")
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To: Irenic

Dayum. That is good.
It sounds like he did that whole thing off the cuff.

Free thinking people fight wars against tyrants. When they win, they seek brotherhood with the vanquished.
It’s a miracle of love.
I am Paul Weston!


35 posted on 07/03/2013 5:19:30 PM PDT by spankalib ("I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.")
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To: cripplecreek
"Racism is a sign of weakness."

Then we are a nation of weaklings.

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block

36 posted on 07/03/2013 5:39:10 PM PDT by Godebert (No Person Except a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN!)
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To: nickcarraway

Jenée’s writing weaves her personal experience into analysis of issues surrounding race, politics, relationships, and beauty. She has contributed to The Root.com and Time Magazine, and her work has been featured on Salon.com, AOL BlackVoices, and The Huffington Post. Originally from Mill Valley, California, she attended Howard University and Harvard Law School, and now lives in Washington, D.C.

37 posted on 07/03/2013 5:48:30 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: nickcarraway

FUCAC (Creepy Ass Cracker)


38 posted on 07/03/2013 5:50:05 PM PDT by lonevoice (Today I broke my personal record for most consecutive days lived)
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To: nickcarraway

Racism/racist - a totally ambiguous word that helped to destroy a nation and a people.


39 posted on 07/03/2013 5:53:52 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
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To: cripplecreek

“The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism, by those who don’t have it”. George Bernard Shaw


40 posted on 07/03/2013 6:02:10 PM PDT by misanthrope (Liberalism; it is not unthinking ignorance, it is malignant evil.)
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