Tookie (http://quincycitydesk.blogspot.com) had some good thoughts about Martin Luther King and how far this country has come with civil rights.
Won't disagree, but we still have a long way to go. A long, long way.
Quincy can be proud of things like the cultural fair last fall and the signs on Eighth Street honoring Dr. King. Just around the corner from where I work is the Dr. Eels house, an Underground Railroad site, and at Washington Park is a monument to one of the greatest men who ever lived and his thoughts expressed in Quincy about slavery.
But there are daily reminders if you keep heading north about our lack of progress. Five percent of our population is African American, yet most blacks live in certain areas of town. Poverty and racism go hand-in-hand.
Until the day a black man doesn't feel the gaze from suspicious eyes when he crosses Broadway heading south; until the day our jail isn't crowded with a disproportionate number of minorities, until the day when it just doesn't matter if you are black, red, green or white .... then we can look back and be satisfied.
6 comments:
No, poverty and unwillingness to apply oneself go hand in hand. Racism has little to do with it.
I disagree. It's about environment. If you grow up with it around you - poverty, racism, a culture of indifference - it shapes you. Can people overcome? All the time.
Pondering..., will respond later.
Am I the only person who finds the over-use of the term African-American more than a little irritating? All this is doing is keeping a portion of our population separate. It seems like the media especially loves to use this term as often as possible the last few years. There was a 60 minute political TV show I watched recently where this term was used nearly 40 times, followed closely by 'evangelicals' at 27. That, I believe means those 'crazy Jesus-freak' christians. Do you notice how they use this term as if they are talking about aliens? But, as an English-American philanthropical, what do I know? I prefer the term 'Americans' myself.
Yes, there is still some racism today, but I wouldn't say we have a looong way to go.
There are many thousands, maybe millions, of Black Americans today who grew up more privileged and better educated than this pale "German-American"
I am tired of the minorities keep crying poor me....it is not my fault that a black person gets arrested with possession of crack cocain, marijuana or whatever, whites get stopped predominately and arrested predominately more for DUI's and Meth in this region 3 fold more than the black get arrested. Don't see no white person crying that the po po stops them more than anyone else. When todays society is ready to accept the fact that a person gets in trouble for what they do rather than the color of their skin then its time to celebrate....
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