Sorry, my answers are short and sweet my laptop caught a virus and is in the hospital, antibiotics will cure her but for now I am on my phone for the next few days &...it makes it hard to respond.

Great OP!

people STILL say this shit.

Nice post JHan

Big eye roll from me. Those are the ONLY Mexicans he knows. He likes those Mexicans, might even consider them friends. But he is still racist about Mexicans. Also Blacks and Jews, but that is for another day. Sigh....

He is in assisted living now. I take good care of him, overall, but I did program his parental controls and blocked Fox News as a tiny protest of his regressive views.

And I can't tell you how many times I've heard it in my life - variations of

I can't be racist because:

"I have a black friend"

" I listen to black music..."

" I read a book by a black author once."

" I dig black chicks"

etc etc etc

Good job.

Best, do your father-in-law.

When I was young, I ran away from home and hit the streets. Many stories later, I had developed a way of talking street, and hanging out with other dispossessed and damaged young people. I found a different identity then poor working class white--in my case it was hanging out almost exclusively with Native Americans in the city. Many stories later, when I was secure, In school and stable and white, I made attempts to use my experience to have NA's relate to me---in retrospect, I was NOT to trying to relate to them-- While I never ran into rudeness, I found a..wall.. there. I came to understand this, What were my very few years of experience to a people who have been battered for centuries? What did I know about having my culture ripped away, stolen and denigrated and being lost in the city? Compared to the NA experience what I saw and felt was incidental.

So I learned, and what's interesting, that it wasn't until I was off the streets and a functional human, I met powerful NA's deeply involved in their very active and diverse cultures.

I knew nothing, because of how I process experience--through Whiteness. A lesson I carry with me always.

My thoughts on this are kinda meandering and..exploratory. I'm still figuring it out.

You touched a bit on Privilege ( whiteness) which is real but not always clear cut. For me, in some respects I grew up privileged, in others not.

There is no way to fully relate to the uniquely horrific experiences of another ethnic group especially when attitudes, and systemic biases, still exist which are symptomatic of the way society views "minorities" through a bigoted lens .........and misogyny , for example, validates those attitudes hence terms like "misogynoir".

But suffering itself isn't unique to any ethnic group. It's possible for a white person to acknowledge the ugly legacy of history and become sensitized to the way it manifests itself without feeling guilt or burdened by it, or feel their own personal suffering is diminished in comparison. And this is where I have a bit of a problem with intersectional politics. The methods used by forces which oppress and divide haven't changed , if we focus too much on the "walls" than the commonalities of suffering we end up splintering into Balkanized groupings, feeling unable to relate to each other.

the ugly legacy of history and become sensitized to the way it manifests itself without feeling guilt or burdened by it, or feel their own personal suffering is diminished in comparison." I can't do that, JHan. I do feel guilt, I did have privilege, the discrimination and harassment that I endured as a white woman is diminished if compared to what many women of color have endured.

You and I both participated in sheshe's excellent thread on economic justice and social justice. You brought up the similarities to a woman's reproductive choices being limited. I *thought* that but would not have posted it out of concern that it would appear demeaning in that context. But your point is excellent and I need to ponder that. There is always someone who has suffered greater, longer, more brutally, and building those walls does make it very difficult for us to relate to each other.

I think that's what we should talk about more - how to be better allies for each other.

But when walls are erected you get tribalism and the only thing to cure tribalism is cosmopolitanism and plurality.

In these social justice arguments, there's so much that's relevant, so many examples of groups that get shafted because they're not rich, white and male. So women's "issues" and ethnic divides ( which affect the health of minority communities ) must be central to the discourse.

I didn't want to rehash sanders statements either, because socio vs Econ argument has been in existence for decades, but I never thought it would be a front burner issue in 2016 .....sigh.

It is very difficult to discuss these issues without it degenerating into a rehash of 2016 and that makes us miss the entire point while continuing to sow divisiveness. It isn't about Sanders, and it is much bigger than any politician.

I belong to a FB group LOWPAWS, League of White People Against White Supremacy. There is good stuff there but what strikes me most is the tiptoeing around. I think many white members are afraid to question, to perhaps critique a video by a Black person talking about WP if they don't quite feel comfortable with what was said. It's like we all think "well if a Black person said that, we must agree or we are not being good allies." It can be hard to get out of that mindset. I remember when Bill Cosby, whom I adored as a comedian, gave his Pound Cake speech and the white Christian world rejoiced. I was like WTF, but afraid to speak out because this was The Man and who was I to say WTF? It was actually a great opportunity to open a dialog with my Black friends and acquaintances, but I stayed silent, didn't want to offend by even asking "what did you think about that?"

That is a critical value of this group on DU. We should be able to take out the politicians and have honest and open conversations about race, women's issues and social justice with the hosts serving as the moderators. There once was lively discussion here but politics and alerting by outsiders made it difficult if not impossible to continue. I learned more then than from any other forum or group here, even getting my ears pinned back a few times.

How many of these black friends are imaginary friends with the same relevance as the giant talking rabbit friend?