Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Yeah. Of course it didn't. Color me shocked.
Look, it is almost impossible to talk to white people about racism. I sit on 3 different diversity organizations. Every single time white people are in the room, a conversation about racism, the effects of racism, steps to fix it, devolves into a conversation about white people's good intentions, feelings about being in the vicinity of racism, their meager upbringing, whatever. It makes it completely impossible to discuss the actual effects of their racism. People who are trying to address racism spend most of their time helping white people with their feelings and ensuring them that they aren't bad people. White people (on the whole) cannot have a conversation about racism.
Like I said, I have been struggling with this phenomenon for quite some time, as have many (actual) prominent people in the diversity field. Focusing on unconscious bias, confirmation bias, etc. is strategic because the message is, "Hey, shhhhh, it's not really your fault. But let's see how we can get past this." And it's because when you say to a white person, "Black people at this firm aren't being given the same opportunities. We need to do this that and the other." All they hear is "You're a racist," and that's that. Conversation effectively over.
And liberals and progressives benefit from racism and actively fight changing societal dynamics that grant them those benefits. As long as they can tell themselves that they aren't part of the problem or would never use a racial slur, they let themselves off the hook. Once again, when they are faced with how they benefit, they completely disconnect from the conversation. I've gone into the examples a million times on this board.
But enough of this. Your post is annoying in that you point out a bunch of stuff you disagree with but never actually say anything. So, if you want to have a conversation, I suggest you do more than sit there and shit on the article without offering even a little bit of insight into why what you are quoting is incorrect or what you think is or isn't "helpful."
TM
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My biggest feelings about race these days aren't actually about public policy. I hate the stuff the Trumpsters are doing with a passion, I can't stand a lot of the way the discussion is had in public, I am willing to give a loud Amen to just about every complaint anyone here has. But those complaints aren't what really gets me.
My biggest feelings on race are all about the hiring and promotion process, because I've invested heavily in a number of very talented minority lawyers and they have been important to my practice and I am watching them get the shaft in their practice and work life every day. Some of them have moved to larger firms where they deal with a whole range of challenges, some of them still work for us and I can help with some but not all of their challenges, most of them they have to deal with themselves, and some have gone inhouse, where, frankly, there seems to be the lowest bullshit quotient over race. But the challenges and barriers thrown up are annoyingly persistent through the day and night for them (and as a result me) and come from progressives, liberals, conservatives, what have you. There are some conservatives who deal with diversity on a one-on-one level better than most progressives. But it is rage over the workplace shit that most upsets me.
And I don't have to deal with the shit these folks get outside of work, that's stuff I just hear about. And the stuff at work I deal with second hand, not first, of course.
But here's the question I have, sparked by that article: why aren't more white people in a rage over this? Is it because the only people they've actually invested in are white like them? Because we all invest in other folks in some way.
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