first of all
i would challenge any jackass that believes a race war is justified, needed or even about to happen to come join the other 99.9 percent of the country that is in the real world.
i attended a black university, NC A&T. my ethnic heritage comes from all over Europe. I never had a single racial incident where a black guy robbed me, mistreated me, etc etc. nothing at all. i have nothing but great memories from that time period. got some good schooling, met people from all over America, and all kinds of blacks. poor whites, poor blacks. middle class blacks, middle class whites. rich blacks, rich whites. they do have a lot of negative history in this country, and sadly, reprucussions and consequences do exist. but mostly, when it comes down to it, the 5% white student population was interested in the same basic interests the black majority was: booze, partying, sex, sleep and passing.
i worked at an AIDS hospice for three weeks in Durban, South Africa, a place with a huge crime rate. i was robbed there, lost my laptop. two days later, the black guy from St. Joseph's Univ. who arrived for the same reason I did, a week after me, he got robbed. and this in a place where apartheid existed up until 15 years ago. i held the hands of dying AIDS victims, who thought nothing of my skin color, just of the fact that I was there for them. black folk who lived under apartheid, no grudges against me, a white guy.
i lived in Hialeah, the super-Latin centric city in Miami, FL. Home of Little Havana, the only white boy for blocks, and I didn't speak a lick of good Spanish. I was in love with a Cuban girl across the city, whose family accepted me and didn't judge my skin color or ethnic heritage. I worked side by side for several NGO's in some of the poorest neighborhoods in America in places like Carol City and Overtown, horrific ghettos and barrios in Miami. Was I often judged by my skin color there? Yes, mostly because the only white guys that show up there are crackheads or cops who come looking to arrest somebody and are too undermanned and overtasked to get to know the neighborhood residents.
There is not a large community in America that doesn't have this problem of undermanned, overworked cops. No wonder minorities sometimes have problems with them, the cops rarely have time to do something positive or constructive in the community. They only are able to arrest bad guys, or guys they think are guilty.
I'm in the Navy now, and I've shared sweat, blood and tears with shipmates and Marines of all shades and ethnic backgrounds, mostly from poor families in poor neighborhoods. Never a racial problem. We're getting our asses kicked by a massive fire in engineering, nobody gives a shit what color you are, only if you're ready to go fight the damn thing.
i was in NY after 9/11. I didn't see any racial tension, and I was in Flatbush, Flushing, Queensbridge, damn near all over the Bronx and Staten Island, and down by Ground Zero. I saw people united in grief and determination, and I saw the workers down there all the same color: gray.
In 1968, Bobby Kennedy was getting support from poor whites in Alabama, Black Panthers in Oakland, middle class folks in Indiana, Latinos in California and Arizona, Jews in NYC and Native Americans in the Dakotas. You know how he did it? He stood up for things like right and wrong, justice and peace, and above all else: giving people a hand up, not a hand out. Too many politicians have either stuck their hand out or have done nothing. Affirmative action is wrong. So is handing folk money just cause they're broke or unemployed. How about giving folks training, schooling and skills they can use to make money and provide for their families? The reason there's so much crime and whatnot among minorities in these communities is cause they're poor and often hopeless. Hopeless people do stupid stuff.
The miiltary gives folks hope, and takes away their excuses. It gives them training, skills and money. They're not hopeless anymore. They go home and make something of themselves, and become a credit to their ethnic heritage and the people that raised them.
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