Just started reading Michael Eric Dyson’s newest book, and it already speaks directly to something I have been thinking for a long time: That white people need to listen to black people. Here’s an excerpt talking about a meeting with some prominent black folks (Horne, Belafonte, Baldwin) and Bobby Kennedy.
“In fact, the brutal battering he suffered at the hands of the Baldwin crew offers an important lesson to white people about how to start real change. And that involves sometimes sitting silently, and finally, as black folks have been forced to do, listening, and listening, and listening, and listening some more.”
Well, Some of us whites HAVE listened. Racism has become a empty accusation. A empty slander. I have seen blacks turn an perfectly innocent situation into a massive racial incident for no obvious reason like drama queens. When someone yells wolf all the time, that tends to strain credulity after a while. And when racism actually occurs, some of us whites might be a tad skeptical. We mumble under our breath, HERE WE GO, AGAIN.
Racism is not just a Black person experience , its more of a way of thinking that blankets a bit of all races. But racism is also an action , something that all cultures experience and it has become historical , so us Black folks can also say " Here we go again, Whites misjudging us and mistreating us , often without even knowing why, its just become traditional." Does that mean no other race mistreats Blacks; of course not, Whites just seemed to have cornered the market here in the USA. All Blacks have developed a defense against racism , differing in how each individual reacts to it, the Black drama Queens have learned to cry a lot about it , and the positive reactions we see in some Blacks relates to how they have been affected by this, this most unusual dynamic that racism is. I am a Black man and even I am tired of racism , but of course my view of this all has been both personal, historical, and intellectual. I am tired of how some Blacks and Whites react to racism.
Such as, in my view, racism is not an empty accusation or slander, unless the mindset of those involved are empty and slanderous. I can see a lot of incredible human behavior in all this racism. It can drain all cultures involved to low points in their understanding, patience and love for each other.