Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
(Post 514658)
It's the isolation that's the problem. It's a manufactured, sheltered experience in which stereotypes and bad experiences one person had with a black person that one time become gospel and shared and re-shared until there is no tolerance for people who look different at all. These are the people who carve the black people they know out of what black people are allowed to be in their minds because they're different somehow. How someone feels comfortable enough with me to talk about how awful the neighborhood is they had to drive through to get to a tournament is beyond me. I look at them like they're fucking crazy, but they don't get it.
TM
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Even a little isolation/space can be damning.
So i live in a tiny little suburb that is heavily white, 90% easy. And it votes 70% liberal dem. But we are part of a very diverse school district. So if you have kids, and certainly kids in sports, you know black kids. And it is less than a square mile, so there are very diverse streets within a quarter mile of almost everywhere in my town.
The worst thing I've seen was a Next Door thread. The HS football team sends players out to sell stupid coupons. Some old lady writes, "3 young black kids were on my porch, ringing my doorbell. I peeked out the window, but didn't answer. Anyone else see them?"
Someone else, who I know, wrote, "umm, they are just nice kids trying to play football for the HS. Safe, perfectly safe."
So far the thread was bad, but it wasn't too bad. Now understand, ND is open to kids from the HS, white and black kids.
After the first exchange there were a dozen follow up posts by people I know have kids in the school that were generally, "I bought tickets, and introduced myself. They were seniors, one plays CB, one RB and one LB."
After a couple the tone was "I'm brave, look what i did!' which might actually convey how they felt, but boy was it an ugly thing to see, especially given the schools their kids were in.
So I was posting "Please delete this thread!" Over and over, hoping no kids saw how ugly/stupid people are.