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I was going to stay out of this entirely, but I want to throw one thing in here, and then, I won't be posting in this thread again.... (...this will get to be like the politics threads and I'm sure I've made a few "anti-Silverado" (me, not the truck) fans out there in those threads).
Sure race is still an issue here in the US. The entire world really. The real problems are ignorance and stubbornness. The ignorance is a problem because people assume that the one or two "bad apples" represent the entire race. The stubbornness is a problem for a couple reasons...people are too stubborn to try and change their minds about a person because they are from a certain race. Also, people are too stubborn to listen when someone tries to explain their point of view on something. They just say "he's white, he doesn't know what it's like to be black" or "she's black, she doesn't understand the Latino culture". Maybe he doesn't know what it's like to be black, but you don't know what it's like to be white or to be black, etc.
I think another big problem here in the US, specifically, is that racism seems to be defined as "discrimination or prejudice against African-Americans". That's wrong. Racism is "discrimination or prejudice against someone because of their race"...no matter the race. Racism against whites is real, but nobody really acknowledges it. Sure David Dukes was a racist against blacks. But, Jeremiah Wright is a racist against whites. Same thing.
I don't know if any of you saw it, but 60 Minutes did their interview with Morgan Freeman awhile back. They covered a lot of different things in his life and such...but one thing that stuck with me was when they asked him about racism and how do you fix it. I won't quote him exactly, but roughly, he said racism can only be fixed if we stop talking about it. If we stop calling ourselves black men and just call ourselves men. He goes on to say that he has told people he is not a black man, he is a man that just happens to be of African-American decent.
(The same is true for religion really....every notice how people say "look over there...there is a black man and a muslim"...really? Shouldn't that be "look over there, there are two men"? Period.)
Race is an issue. It's a big issue. It's a big issue because some people out there need it to be a big issue. Without it, they feel like they are losing their identity or their purpose in life, or something to that effect.
I'll tell you what needs to happen...we need to start treating it like the orchards treats their harvests....whether they are reds, greens, goldens, etc, treat everyone of them as equals until they show you that they are not, then toss out the bad apples and keep the good ones.
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