Comment of the Day

Today’s Comment of the Day goes to some random guy with a Tumblr blog who reblogged yesterday’s post about the White History Month tweets:

I used to parrot this kind of crap as a teenager. These people need to make a list of ways Black History Month antagonizes them specifically before they start antagonizing Black History Month. Maybe consider having a word with some of the many people still alive from the Civil Rights era. They’d soon learn that it’s a victory for people in general, not just one specific group. 

These comments reminded me very much of thoughtful comments made yesterday in the Facebook thread on this topic by my friend Chad Ellsworth:

I think it is one of those things that will be interesting to watch with this generation. In some ways, they’re growing up in a public sphere, a la the child stars of the 1980s, and those “growing pains” are occurring in places and ways that all of us can see …. We have been told we are living in a “post-racial” America, when in reality, power, privilege, and racism are alive and well. I love the analogy from the book Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Tatum. She compares racism to a moving walkway at the airport, with the direction of the walkway being the perpetuation of power, privilege, and racism. You can either walk in the direction of the walkway (actively perpetuate racism), stand still (passively perpetuate racism), or you can walk in the other direction (actively resist racism).