Sociologist Lawrence Bobo has said that one of things The Civil Rights Movement did was to teach white people what they are allowed to say about race Before this theory ever left Bobo's computer, most of us knew that many (if not most) white people focus only on how things sound when racial issues arise, especially if that racial issue is racism. And for a long time now, it's been apparent to me that what is allowed to be said aloud is the only thing many white people understand about race.
Personally, whenever I hear a white person going on and on about how "politically correct" we all have to be, I started wondering what piece of the video attitude (racism) is being hidden.
The exclusive attention to how things sound is the reason why the 2015 white racial apologies go on and on and on about which words were chosen to express the racism... rather than apologize for the racism itself.
SAE's Levi Pettit went on and on and on about using the n-word and never once apologized for his attitude and probably won't ever make an effort to change his attitude. The only thing he did wrong, according to his statement, is use the n-word in conjunction with the word "lynch"
Deadline wrote an article about so many TV pilots starring black actors in 2015 could possibly be "too much of a good thing" And Deadline's white racial apology consisted of how that sounded too -- word arrangement was the problem again
Cosmo Online's? Yet another apology for how things sounded and appeared and "insensitivity" as opposed to how they were during the decision making stages
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You won't get very far into this video before you are wondering how different 2015 United States really is from the 1968 United States. The title is "Portrait Of Black America" but white racism and white fears of black radicals and black separatists are at the center of every discussion.
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| One conclusion at end of this TV Special was that few white people have racist attitudes --even after racism was defined as "superiority" minutes before the results of this 1968 national poll was shown |
The entire video is interesting. But it is the seven or so minutes of white racist attitudes beginning at 5 minutes and 30 seconds is eerily familiar.
If 49% of white people have had rather virulent strains of racism handed down not via DNA but via dinner conversation, stereotypes on television, and biased news reporting by the main stream media for decades on end and they think racism is mostly words, then how will the majority of white people come to realize that the extremist white cops that pop off and murder the black and unarmed are being nurtured at the center of their culture?
And since white America is so deep into words and how things sound in regards to all things racial, how is it white America doesn't realize that an increase in violent, separatist white rhetoric from groups like The Tea Party pours gas on the fire inside the bully-type policeman?
If white people don't recognize racism as an internal attitude that sometimes shows up externally, then the white cop murderers having black friends and still acting in racist ways will never make sense. That is, any number of the white cop murderers may have black friends that they consider "a credit to their race" They may have one, two or ten of these "black friends."
But these cop murderers also have the knowledge that the black people whom they do not know personally have less social value and therefore can be killed any time the mood to kick someone smaller arises. And this describes a race based superiority a.k.a racism that leads to murder.
So the implied question from 1968 remains: How will white people clean up their side of the street if they aren't willing to change the racist aspect of white culture?
And in 2015, it seems like the question becomes how do you get the average white person to connect attitudes, words, and actions when racism is the subject, just like they do in every other aspect of life? Isn't that the only way they are going to reduce the number of white racist cops being sent out from their midst?
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