Brooklyn ... I was going to go to bed but I thought I'd check my emails and CIS first. I check this thread to see where the insanity was headed and saw it is bad. I read your post and I just had to add to the excellent points you made. I also have been labeled a racist here by one in particular. It's based on a remark in a what I thought was a private message where I was asking if someone was black. I simply wanted to know because of sensitivities that may be involved. So let me just say the following about me.
I am Caucasian but not "white", my parents weren't racist so I wasn't raised to be one. At work I made plenty of black friends and would socialize with them all the time. I chose a black leadman "assistant" to help me at work. Other than family the only friends I invited to my wedding 10 years ago (third marriage) were my black neighbors that I/we absolutely love. I can go on and on. I had a black employee that worked for me many years ago that quit because we had a misunderstanding, and to this day it bothers me because we were really tight and I wish that I could have talked him out of it.
When I interact with my black friends that last thing on my mind is our color... I just look at the person and hopefully they do the same. Also I'm a conservative politically so it ****es me off when people want to label me without flucking knowing who I am. We can not have healthy civil relationships with people who want to bring up what our ancestors did a hundred or more years ago.
I really appreciated your post because I feel it has a good message.
I also wish that the football season would start so we can argue about something else.
In the same vein I will add something about myself. I treat people as individuals, not as members of a particular artificially created group. If I think you are an a** I will treat you that way.
My favorite flight instructor was black. I used the term in the commonly accepted way because there are folks in India who we ignore when we use skin tone to define race when it is inaccurate. For many being black is a way to beef about their perceived lot in life. Funny how people I've met in the Caribbean don't have the same mentality. But back to my friend "Captain Midnight" the name he used on his business card. I selected him for his competence and not his skin tone, knowing that I would sometimes be flying "under the hood" (by instruments instead of visual) and that he would, after turning the airplane in ways so that I could not feel which way was up, tell me to look up from having my head down to see a panel indicating it was upside down about to enter a spin or in a spin. Either I could fix that or he would save me from my error. I trusted in his ability.
He was from Utah so his voice did not reveal his race. I also later had a Jamaican check pilot who you could easily tell where he was from, but those of us who know people from that island know that you can't always tell their race of the voice on the phone. I also flew with a guy from Haiti. I picked them all for their skill not because I was making some political statement.
I have few heroes but when I had the opportunity to talk with a Tuskegee Airman I was speechless, too awed to say more than hello. I knew this frail looking old man had once upon a time accomplished what many believed could not be done and did it under extreme circumstances and the popular expectation of failure. The movie Red Tails has some good stuff in it but it does a disservice to these well-educated men who in real life did not talk as if they had just come from the hood.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a weekend 81st birthday celebration for an old family friend who is originally from a small town in Georgia. Her (white) son has adopted three young children from Ethiopia. The two beautiful girls are teenagers now, one is in college. She is also hearing impaired, but does not hesitate to speak her mind when others make assumptions about her background because she has no victim mentality. Once in a classroom discussion someone brought up her "slave history" and she responded by saying, "My people were never enslaved, we OWNED slaves!"
While my son was in Afghanistan he assigned me a Power of Attorney to buy his retirement house. Coincidentally the guy next door is a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. Love talking to the man, he has some great stories to tell. His wife works for the Sheriff's office and is originally from Jamaica. He's the darker skin tone. Who cares about the superficial! I like them and their differences make them that much more interesting to talk with.
I could go on about my personal history, but I know that for some people none of it matters. They believe they know history but only parrot what they have heard about history and are too lazy to use the resources on the web and those who do can't discern the difference between propaganda and the real stuff like the unfiltered diaries letters and histories written by people who lived it.
Human beings are complicated, relationships are nuanced and a slave could actually have such a strong friendship bond with the white kid he grew up with that he was willing to risk his life fighting alongside of him in the Confederate Army. You know the one where the vast majority of the soldiers could no more afford a slave than most of us here can afford to factory order a brand new Ferrari?
I judge people, yes I said judge, according to their behavior not their racial or ethnic background. I don't care who lives next door if they act like good neighbors, being considerate, and even helpful sometimes and am happy to act likewise. If they have different backgrounds and they're interesting to talk to I will attentively listen, or like in the case of my son's neighbor we sometimes are called apart because we can go on for hours especially if there's beer involved.
This is a football board. Don't much care about the political opinions of people who don't have a clue about what they're talking and are uninterested in learning more whether it's politics or football. When it's football at least it's mostly on topic for the forum.
To address the initial post, without going back I think it was about the showboating at the UF grad ceremony. I think it was handled boorishly and unbecoming of an institution of higher learning. The kids were being stupid, and the idiot manhandling them was certainly showing his butt even worse.
Those who choose to see this event as an issue with a broader view of victim and historical oppressors and it's beyond redemption have an option to put their money where their mouth is (or just charge it on a credit card and never pay it) can click here and book a flight to their destination of choice:
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Now can we please keep it to football?
