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More ramblings from my Psion:
What normal people do when they're slightly ill and slightly tired is not eat pecans and thank God for them. I'm so glad I'm not normal, sometimes. Aren't pecans beautiful things? Smooth, but otherwise unpromesing on the outside, being a neutral kind of brown and rather hard. But they almost all have decent faults down the middle, one way, so they break easily with nutcrackers. And inside, the creamy yellow-white flesh is sweet and filling. They come from so far away, and I am priviliged enough to eat them, without having to go pick them from the tree, compete with the others in the forest for them, with a handy metal device (which I couldn't make myself) to easily open them.
But anyway, enough about pecans, however delicious and wonderful they are.
My shampoo has sugar in it - fructose and glucose. but that's not what I came here to talk about either. - here = melis at 10:38pm.
What I did come to talk about was metaphors, a subject dredged by the pecans from my memory. Specifically, bridges. And racism. Stop laughing at the back there - yes, that includes purple monkeys. Anyway.
The phrase that started the bridge metaphor was 'it's easier to build a bridge if people are working from both sides'. I was trying to justify my feeling that I expected black people to work towards combating prejudice just as much as whites should. This progressed to wondering just how much more difficult it was building a bridge from just one side. But then I thought, how much more difficult than that is it to be trying to build a bridge when the other side keeps burning any part they can reach down, and throwing stuff at you, and generally doesn't want the bridge? Wouldn't you give up building after a while, afraid that even if the other side start one, all they want to do is come over and hit you harder?
So much for my bridge metaphor as justification, then. As with all good bridges, it can be used by both sides. Not that I'm claiming my random thoughts are organised enough to constitute a side to be taken, of course :).
I guess I'll LJ-post this in the morning. Meanwhile, sleepytime. (10:45)
What normal people do when they're slightly ill and slightly tired is not eat pecans and thank God for them. I'm so glad I'm not normal, sometimes. Aren't pecans beautiful things? Smooth, but otherwise unpromesing on the outside, being a neutral kind of brown and rather hard. But they almost all have decent faults down the middle, one way, so they break easily with nutcrackers. And inside, the creamy yellow-white flesh is sweet and filling. They come from so far away, and I am priviliged enough to eat them, without having to go pick them from the tree, compete with the others in the forest for them, with a handy metal device (which I couldn't make myself) to easily open them.
But anyway, enough about pecans, however delicious and wonderful they are.
My shampoo has sugar in it - fructose and glucose. but that's not what I came here to talk about either. - here = melis at 10:38pm.
What I did come to talk about was metaphors, a subject dredged by the pecans from my memory. Specifically, bridges. And racism. Stop laughing at the back there - yes, that includes purple monkeys. Anyway.
The phrase that started the bridge metaphor was 'it's easier to build a bridge if people are working from both sides'. I was trying to justify my feeling that I expected black people to work towards combating prejudice just as much as whites should. This progressed to wondering just how much more difficult it was building a bridge from just one side. But then I thought, how much more difficult than that is it to be trying to build a bridge when the other side keeps burning any part they can reach down, and throwing stuff at you, and generally doesn't want the bridge? Wouldn't you give up building after a while, afraid that even if the other side start one, all they want to do is come over and hit you harder?
So much for my bridge metaphor as justification, then. As with all good bridges, it can be used by both sides. Not that I'm claiming my random thoughts are organised enough to constitute a side to be taken, of course :).
I guess I'll LJ-post this in the morning. Meanwhile, sleepytime. (10:45)
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no subject
Date: 2002-01-20 09:00 am (UTC)From:In what fashion?
Is there something you expect them to be doing that they aren't?
For my part I hate racism, whichever way. In some matters I feel attempts to overcome racism go to far (positive discrimination anyone?), and there are I think cases of people who are oversentive and see racism where their isn't any.
But there is racism, today, in this country. I find that tragic. I don't presume to lay blame at the feet exclusively of those of one race or another.
Where there's no bridge I think both sides are to blame. The failings of another are no excuse for your failings.
Neil
no subject
Date: 2002-01-20 09:12 am (UTC)From:This was meant to be a follow-up to a comment over in ahsu's journal where I said that the only experience I had of the problem was that the black ppl in our 6th-form gather in a clique of their own and act defensively, as if they've got something to prove to the world. But this is just my perception of a small unrepresentative sample - I'm sure 'black people' as a whole are doing just as much, if not more, as 'white people' as a whole to deal with this problem - and the problem is really not that either side is doing less or more, but that both sides are doing very little.
no subject
Date: 2002-01-20 09:14 am (UTC)From:Neil
no subject
Date: 2002-01-20 09:18 am (UTC)From:Think about what you have said...
Date: 2002-01-30 07:12 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)As for ur att regarding ppl being 'oversensitive' & 'seeing racism when there isn't any':"un tas de merde"! Y do u think people r so cautious? Do u really think ppl go "looking" to experience a sense of sub-humanism coz that's simply what they 'feel like doing'?
Racism works both ways (undeniable) tho it's said that it's more prominent coming from whites towards blacks. Let's b reasonable. It used to b the case where 1 race was more oppressed but now it's less so.
It annoys me when 'sheltered' ppl live their lives trying 2 b 'proper' when clearly they r utterly & completely clueless. Tell me:have u ever been in direct contact with the issue at hand? Or r u simply making comments based on ur 'ideal little views of how the world shud b and that nobody is 2 blame 4 the state it's currently in'? If u find yourself in the latter category then wake up, see the light & get real. Until u live the life of a person of ethnic origin pls keep ur bridge building ideas 2 urself & don't even contemplate announcing that 'The failings of another r no excuse 4 ur failings'. Society's structure disallows any full reconciliation of racism & prejudice, either within or btwn races.
I intended no offence by this comment. I simply want u 2 realise what meaning u have tagged on2 ur comment & that it's likely 2 arouse the concern of others.
Re: Think about what you have said...
Date: 2002-01-30 11:20 am (UTC)From:Re: Think about what you have said...
Date: 2002-02-05 01:15 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)