(07-18-2019, 09:32 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(07-18-2019, 09:28 AM)Caldrac Wrote: I got called Mexican slurs in high school by white kids and black kids all the time. And I am not even remotely near Mexican blood wise or heritage wise. I also got targeted growing up in the Arlington and University area just for being white. Got my [BLEEP] kicked so hard by a group of kids when I was 14 I pissed blood that night. Another friend of mine had his nose so badly broken he still can't breath through it properly till this day.

It's a two way street. It may not come across EVERYBODY on the color spectrum known as race but there's certainly room for racism in every culture that I know of. No race is innocent of this. Whether modern or historical. 

I agree with the "1 UP" mentality though. Chris Rock joked about it best years ago. "Who suffered more? Jewish people or Black people? And every race will reach deeeeeep in their historical archives to top the other's suffering". Then he said something that had a profound effect on me as a kid. 

"Nobody got it as bad as the Native Americans that were already here. When's the last time you saw a Native American family on a weeknight or weekend eating at Red Lobster?". That stung. But it's an ugly truth. The trail of tears. It's one thing to be taken from your land and placed elsewhere. It's a whole different thing to have it taken away from you and reduced by numbers decade after decade after decade. 

I feel for those people. All of them. Regardless of color. I have some Minorcan blood in my veins. Some of my ancestors were here long before the U.S was founded. And they were used to develop St. Augustine and Smyrna or New Smyrna I believe at that time. Some of them tried to flee and were bound by ball and chain. I don't beat on my chest or stand on a soap box holding past crimes against the descendants of those people who had a hand in it. 

Time's change. I try though. I really, really, really [BLEEP] try to put myself in other people's shoes. I try to give back when I can. I try to be as reasonable and sympathetic as I can. But people these days sure as hell make that HARD to do.

There's a lot of truth in that last statement. I'm very socially liberal, but man some of these people take their positions to such extremes that it turns me against them. It's not that they want the freedom to do as they please, they want everyone else to validate them as they do it.

^^ This right here is the divide in today's climate. We're being told, and younger generations are being taught that you can only support one extreme or the other. The broad and honest space in between is where discussion focus should be. These newer politicians and in some case, older, have adopted the "extreme" mentality and labeled it progressive. We can't have an honest discussion until we can focus less on the extreme minority and more so on the broad and majority realities in the middle that are getting ignored. The focus on validating extreme positions or identity politics in itself is just crazy!

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