Comments on: My Journey Through Race and Racism https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/20/my-journey-through-race-and-racism/ Wed, 25 May 2022 02:58:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/20/my-journey-through-race-and-racism/#comment-976157 Wed, 25 May 2022 02:58:03 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=6196#comment-976157 In reply to ROBERT B ESTRADA.

Looking forward to that beer!

]]> By: ROBERT B ESTRADA https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/20/my-journey-through-race-and-racism/#comment-973731 Fri, 29 Apr 2022 06:11:41 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=6196#comment-973731 I am 72. I was raised in an upper middleclass family with a Hispanic last name. I was often asked “Oh but your family is from Spain, you are not Mexican, right?” I would joke that, yes, they were from Spain but had vacationed for a couple of centuries in Mexico and then a couple more in California. My parents were multicultural, white, north European and a little indigenous and one close family was African American. One of the sons was my age and he and I were like any two boys.
When I was about 12 I was at his house when the county sheriff came to arrest him for involvement in a minor theft with some of his friends. No respect for his mother. Intimidating language and posturing. Pushing their way in without permission. Took him away without his mother
I can contrast that with the county sheriffs who came standing hat in hand to ask my parents if, at their convenience, my parents would bring my brother down to the department to speak with an officer about his involvement with the near death of a boy who almost died due to alcohol my brother stole from our home.
Also 4 years when later when a local police department shot and nearly killed him while he was running away from a stolen car. They said in their press release he had been cut on barbed wire. We kept his blood soaked clothes in our garage so the evidence of 12ga shot would not disappear. I spent a week planning to blow up the station, couldn’t get enough explosive. He was never charged.
So, I’m not racist, right? In the last decade I have become more aware that when I hear or see an African American speaking or doing something, the volume of my attention goes down. It first became apparent when hearing black athletes speak about things. Many if not most have strong cultural accents, colloquial language usage. To be honest I have a similar response to Brooklyn, Bronx, New Jersey and multiple southern accents and speech patterns. The difference is how quickly I can refocus. I was not educated overtly to feel like this. But the culture we live in marinates in us many subconscious reactions and responses. If I don’t try to maintain awareness of them, they execute.
Humans are by culture/ society “programmed” in their youth. I have found that the best, with no connection to intelligence, grow into aware of this.
The 50’s were awful in context.
If you get to the CA by area I would like to have a beer or glass of wine with you, or if I get to where you are.
10Abalone@gmail.com

]]> By: Anthropology Update 22 July 2012 & New Anthropology Blogs | Anthropology Report https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/20/my-journey-through-race-and-racism/#comment-20904 Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:01:25 +0000 https://gregladen.com/blog/?p=6196#comment-20904 […] My Journey Through Race and Racism, Greg Laden What strikes me is this: I don’t see any black people signing on, reading through this conversation, and going, “Hey, WTF?” Perhaps this does not happen because this is a conversation among whites who pretty much have been having this conversation among whites their whole lives. True humanity can only form on a foundation of real experience, and reality is diverse. I feel very badly for those who have not experienced that diversity. The X Blog, 21 July 2012 […]

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