martybegan
Diamond Member
- Apr 5, 2010
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The other question is "When does it end?". Why do people who were not born during times of systemic de jure discrimination still pay for the sins of their fathers?
Because the people who have descended from the people who suffered overt discrimination still pay for the sins of the fathers of whom you wrote.
The fact is that racial discrimination still exists. We know that one isn't born with a sense of racial discrimination, so we thus know too that parents continue to pass on to their kids the bias they too were taught. From watching the video above, it's clear to me that some folks who hold unfairly biased attitudes seem to have little to no chagrin about doing so, although they seem to know to be discreet about manifesting them.
(Sometimes I think the days of overtly expressed bias, and the folks who expressed it so, were better and the racists possessed of greater integrity. At least back then one knew well and at first blush with whom one was dealing.)
As I shared in my profile for this site, and as my ID implies, my family have been in the U.S. (colonies) since the late 1600s. I have more than my fair share of racist ancestors, and right up to my parents, their disdain-/hate-filled ideas were taught from generation to generation. It was only when my parents had the presence of mind to realize that their own racist views were deleterious to my being a better person than they that someone in my family actively committed to not passing their own bias on to their child.
They were effective enough at doing so that I didn't discover until my late 20s that they had unfairly biased views that accrue from race. They don't let them appear often, but they did again not long ago when they learned one of my kids intended to marry outside our ethnicity. They got past it, but that they had not fully overcome them was nonetheless clear.
I'm not ashamed of my ancestry. It is what it is and I had no control over it. I nonetheless realize that there are plenty of folks like me who have ancestors who passed on their bias. I know too that minorities (racial, ethnic, or religious) today still feel the effects of the irrational bias that has been passed on in families through the years.
Did our, my, ancestors create circumstances that make things harder for some folks today? They did. But then we are doing the same thing, and not just with regard to social issues like racism. I'm sure you can identify several areas whereby we have opted to "mortgage" our kids' or grandkids' futures, to defer resolving a problem, rather than "bite the bullet" now, ourselves. Well, when it comes to matters such as affirmative action, it's no different. Our forebears could have committed to end "white privilege" long before the late 20th century, but they fact is they didn't. So yes, some folks today are having to pay for that choice.
I'm sorry, but my ancestors didn't get here until the 1870's at the earliest, and the 1920's at the latest. I consider AA as having been needed during the 60's to 80's, waning in the 90's and now nothing but a payback program who's time is about to pass.