If you want to know, and understand the black perspective, the black experience, read these books:
"Slavery" by Stanley M. Elkins
"The Peculiar Institution, Slavery in Anti-Bellum South" by Kenneth M. Stampp
"The Algiers Motel Incident" by John Hersey
Any book by James Baldwin
"Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community" by Martin Luther King Jr.
"Death at an Early Age" by Jonothan Kozol
"Black Protest - History, Documents, and Analyses 1619 to the Present" by Joanne Grant
"Black Power - The Politics of Liberation in America" by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton
"Rebellion in Newark - Official Violence and Ghetto Response" by Tom Hayden
"The Wretched of the Earth" by Frantz Fanon
"Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X: with assistance of Alex Haley
"The Impossible Revolution?" by Lewis M. Killian
"Strictly Ghetto Property - The Story of Los Siete de la Raza" by Majorie Heins
"Reconstruction After the Civil War" by John Hope Franklin
Interesting fact: Woodrow Wilson was EXTREMELY RACIST. The man who led us into WWI believed Blacks had not evolved and needed to be "cared for" by "forward looking" white people.
Bill O'Reilly and his conservative kin argue vociferously that racism in America is over. That is laughable, and outright effort to hide their own discriminatory, predatory gut feelings. "White privilege" allows them to say whatever they want about how America treats black people, the hate and the fear white people feel toward human beings with dark colored skin, the darker the more they fear them.
"Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person..."
Gina Crosley-Corcoran
thefeministbreeder.com
http://occupywallstreet.net/story/explaining-white-privilege-broke-white-person
"I came from the kind of Poor that people don't want to believe still exists in this country. Have you ever spent a frigid northern Illinois winter without heat or running water? I have. At twelve years old, were you making ramen noodles in a coffee maker with water you fetched from a public bathroom? I was. Have you ever lived in a camper year round and used a random relative's apartment as your mailing address? We did. Did you attend so many different elementary schools that you can only remember a quarter of their names? Welcome to my childhood.
So when that feminist told me I had "white privilege," I told her that my white skin didn't do shit to prevent me from experiencing poverty. Then, like any good, educated feminist would, she directed me to Peggy McIntosh's 1988 now-famous piece, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."
After one reads McIntosh's powerful essay, it's impossible to deny that being born with white skin in America affords people certain unearned privileges in life that people of another skin color simple are not afforded. For example:
- "I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented."
- "When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is."
- "If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race."
- "I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.""
More wisdom . . . talk about "Privilege" in general, but little conferred on black people.
"These are all things you are born into, not things you earned, that afford you opportunities others may not have. For example:Citizenship - Simply being born in this country affords you certain privileges non-citizens will never access.
- Class - Being born into a financially stable family can help guarantee your health, happiness, safety, education, intelligence, and future opportunities.
- Sexual Orientation - By being born straight, every state in this country affords you privileges that non-straight folks have to fight the Supreme Court for.
- Sex - By being born male, you can assume that you can walk through a parking garage without worrying you'll be raped and that a defense attorney will then blame it on what you were wearing.
- Ability - By being born able bodied, you probably don't have to plan your life around handicap access, braille, or other special needs.
- Gender - By being born cisgendered, you aren't worried that the restroom or locker room you use will invoke public outrage. [If you’re not familiar with the term, “cisgender” means having a biological sex that matches your gender identity and expression, resulting in other people accurately perceiving your gender. - See more at: http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/list-of-cisgender-privileges/#sthash.huBMcCaX.dpuf}
As you can see, belonging to one or more category of Privilege, especially being a Straight White Middle Class Able-Bodied Male, can be like winning a lottery you didn't even know you were playing. But this is not to imply that any form of privilege is exactly the same as another or that people lacking in one area of privilege understand what it's like to be lacking in other areas. Race discrimination is not equal to Sex Discrimination and so forth."
Read the article for more on the above. Before you white male men with a well to do family and a college degree get upset, know that you are not being singled out as a bad person. You are not bad, you ARE BENFITTED BY BEING WHITE AND HAVE OTHER PRIVILIGEs AS WELL.
"And listen, recognizing Privilege doesn't mean suffering guilt or shame for your lot in life. Nobody's saying that Straight White Middle Class Able-Bodied Males are all a bunch of assholes who don't work hard for what they have. Recognizing Privilege simply means being aware that some people have to work much harder just to experience the things you take for granted (if they ever can experience them at all.)"
"On Racism and White Privilege"
http://www.tolerance.org/article/racism-and-white-privilege
"White privilege is real."
Published on February 15, 2017
Featured in: Editor's Picks, Entrepreneurship, Social Impact, VC & Private Equity
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/white-privilege-real-jason-ford
"LeBron James’s house spray-painted with a racial slur, police say"
By Matt Bonesteel By Matt Bonesteel Early Lead
May 31, 2017
Then there is the "intellectual" argument, the negative view, which is wrong, but I share it with you. You can read it and see where this writer veers into avoiding reality and truth. The writer throws out more situations for other "privilege" to smother "White Privilege." The writer fails to prove "White Privilege" cannot be real given so many other "Privilege" situations. NO too smart.
"The Fallacy of ‘White Privilege’" by Dennis Prager 16 Feb 2016 {Prager is a nut case.}
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431393/white-privilege-myth-reality
I have a reading list for the foolish people who think racism is solved, explaining the "black experience," which NO white person can say a word about. If you have never walked in black skin, say nothing to dispute the fact of racism. This is not being "PC" idiots, it is being intelligent and aware.
"LeBron James Responds to Racist Vandalism of His L.A. Home"
"No matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough."
Aria Bendix
May 31, 2017
"LeBron James: Racism is 'part of America'"
Basketball superstar says 'racism is part of America' in pointed response after racial slur was sprayed on to his house.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/lebron-james-racism-part-america-170601043912734.html
"Opal Tometi, cofounder of the activist movement Black Lives Matter, had told Al Jazeera at the time that "the United States has an undeniable problem with structural racism.
"Some people are ignorant or choose to hide behind their privilege and profess that racism isn't an issue," Tometi said.
"But this is naive, disingenuous and lacks a genuine look at the facts and countless stories that say racism is alive and well in the US.""
Opal says it well.
Racism and discrimination in America does not just focus on black people. This morning I saw a young Indian girl won the National Spelling Bee and I instantly knew her very dark skin would be talked about by Americans. She will experience racism because her skin is dark Sad, and incredibly stupid.
The fact is there was racism and hate even before Tweety was elected, but now many of those who like and support Tweety feel emboldened to act our their feelings. My friends who like Tweety will argue this is not true, but I know it is true and I believe what I see and hear from Tweety that makes it true. I will not turn a blind eye to Tweety bullying everyone he can, all over the world.
"What is triggering hate crimes in the US?"
Fatal stabbing in Portland by a white supremacist highlights the growing dangers of bigotry and racism in the country.
31 May 2017 10:27 GMT
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2017/05/triggering-hate-crimes-170531072340787.html
My racist friends, or maybe just stupid, foolish, unaware friends, will even go so far as to question my sources. If you have spent 44 years studying the topic, you know what you see and hear.
Reading list:
"The Poor Pay More" - explains how being poor and living in "affordable" housing [actually public housing is a detainment camp for police to go when a crime is committed] which creates a neighborhood where poor people pay more for groceries
"Walking While Black”: A powerful essay by journalist Garnette Cadogan on otherness, on race, on home, on being a Caribbean immigrant in America and learning to navigate new, unwelcome spaces.
"Under our skin”: This incredibly well done Seattle Times project takes a different approach to conversations about race in an effort to probe the issues more candidly and deeply. (Added Sept. 2; h/t John Ketchum)
"The Grief That White Americans Can’t Share”: New York Times Magazine staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones writes achingly about collective grief.
Ten (I did not list all 10 - you can go to the web site yourself.) Books: [there are many, many more if you are willing to invest your time to LEARN THE TRUTH. Do you WANT to know the truth about racism in America, and about what black people REALLY feel and experience?]
"Native Son"
by Richard Wright
"This story of a young black man trapped in a downward spiral after murdering a white woman in 1930s Chicago has stirred debate since its publication in 1940. James Baldwin denounced it as a protest novel, while others hailed it as a literary canon of its time. Though the book remains controversial in the depiction of its protagonist, it is an important work that explores racism’s societal manifestations through the experience of a low-income black man in inner-city America."
"Men We Reaped"
by Jesmyn Ward
"Jesmyn Ward grew up in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi. In the span of four years, five young men dear to her, including her brother, lost their lives—all of them a product of a social condition embedded in a history of racism and economic struggle that leaves little room for a better future. This 2013 memoir is a somber reminder of much of our national conversation concerning the perilousness of the lives of young black men in today’s America."
"The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness"
by Michelle Alexander
"Hailed by Benjamin Todd Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP as a “call to action,” this book by legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that racial caste in America is very alive and well, and have been merely redesigned through the U.S. criminal justice system. More specifically, Alexander shows how mass incarceration of black men, as a result of racial targeting through the War on Drugs, functions as a contemporary system of racial control that relegates African Americans to a permanent second-class status."
The Fire Next Time"
by James Baldwin
"James Baldwin’s national best seller drove the discussion on race relations to the forefront of the American public conscience and gave voice to the burgeoning civil rights movement when it was first published in 1963. The book is comprised of two essays, the first of which is written as a letter to Baldwin’s 14-year-old nephew and focuses on the central role that race plays in American history. The second essay takes on the relationship between race and religion with rich anecdotes of his time as a child minister to meeting the leader of the Nation of Islam. Unfortunately, Baldwin’s deduction on the state of America’s systemic racial oppression still rings true 50 years on."
"The Souls of Black Folk"
by W. E. B. Du Bois
"A groundbreaking sociological work in African-American history, W. E. B. Du Bois’s novel explores the black experience in America following emancipation, while breaking down the ideas of racism and racial bigotry through precise scientific explanation and brilliant prose. Consider The Souls of Black Folk required reading when it comes to the struggle for equality and the moral and intellectual issues surrounding it."
