I dunno, I almost got beat up at a Rodney King protest, just for being in the area, and white. That count?
I wasn't arguing that it wasn't racism, but you knew that. However, I'm drawing a distinction between racism as an epithet and racism as an institution.
When a brown guy and I get in a tussle, and hurl various epithets at each other and the cops show up, who has a greater likelyhood of being taking downtown? Even if the arresting officer is brown? Who gets the stronger sentence.
Unless the brown guy I'm tussling with is Hugo Chavez himself, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be me.
Now I'm not saying this excuses Hugo Chavez for what he said, but I am saying that, in my opinion, as a white dude, at the very least I can put up with it, and at the very most it ain't my place to make that call. I don't feel comfortable with that. Maybe I never will. Maybe when I do it means something has actually been fully overcome. Hope so.
And hey, he was Democratically elected, and he's using his current mandate to expand the powers of the executive arm of government. I don't know what Bush is complaining about.
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Date: 2007-01-23 02:36 am (UTC)I wasn't arguing that it wasn't racism, but you knew that. However, I'm drawing a distinction between racism as an epithet and racism as an institution.
When a brown guy and I get in a tussle, and hurl various epithets at each other and the cops show up, who has a greater likelyhood of being taking downtown? Even if the arresting officer is brown? Who gets the stronger sentence.
Unless the brown guy I'm tussling with is Hugo Chavez himself, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be me.
Now I'm not saying this excuses Hugo Chavez for what he said, but I am saying that, in my opinion, as a white dude, at the very least I can put up with it, and at the very most it ain't my place to make that call. I don't feel comfortable with that. Maybe I never will. Maybe when I do it means something has actually been fully overcome. Hope so.
And hey, he was Democratically elected, and he's using his current mandate to expand the powers of the executive arm of government. I don't know what Bush is complaining about.