That is so interesting that you say that and I would have to concur. I teach K through 2nd grade, depending on the school year. Little white kids who have not had a lot of intimate exposure to blacks are simply fascinated by black children’s hair. They will play with it and “fix” it and they are in love with the little girls that wear beads. The little black girls like to play with white girl’s hair also. The texture is new too them. Theirs is such a frank and open expression of curiosity and acceptance. It’s us foolish adults that poison children with our preconceptions. Our self-constructed walls are unhealthy to us all.

As far as the discussion goes, let’s ALL keep talking.

Raymond, I agree with you again..What is the world coming too??? LOL!!!

When I said that you were self absorbed, that was obnoxious on my part and I hope you accept my apologies.I was referring more to you saying that you constantly have your guard up, which makes it hard to really be thinking a lot about other people and how they feel. I was trying to open up the possibility that white women probably find your darker skin quite beautiful, and that it isn’t a slight.Two of my kids who are very fair are quite embarassed over it because their veins show, they have freckles, and blotches. My black friends tell me I have a skinny butt. I do. I hate it, but I can’t help it.

Maybe you and Heliotrope can pick up the thread and it won’t be totally ruined.

Tiffany said, “Basically we all are thin-skinned. But at least I’m trying to work on that.” Me too Tiffany, Me too.

My black experience does not invalidate your white (or whatever ethnicity you claim) experience. I never said that in my post so where you inferred that I have no idea.

You just ruined a great conversation because you chose to attack me with your ‘heart bleeding and violins playing’ drama. I don’t deserve that. And like LaShawn said earlier in the thread, white folks need to get over being called racist (though that was not used here) and she firmly believes black people need to quit using the ‘race card’ at every drop of the hat. Guess what, I think so too.

Basically we all are thin-skinned. But at least I’m trying to work on that. At least that I am trying to do. That’s calling growing.

The true meaning of racism whatever it really is or was if anything is so diluted, nebulous, gelatinous, situation-specific, politically-charged and misused that it now means nothing other than the fist person to use it has lost the argument in the arena of ideas. Sooo, I suppose it is a useful term.

“Racism” is like a dye pack. It indelibly labels the idiots wielding it.

You sound a bit bitter to me dear. Step away from the computer.

The purpose of my post was not to bash actually but simply to call it like it see it. Just like you are apparently hypersensitive to race, I was noting that I can be as well. That was the point of giving my point of view.

Self-absorbed?? I hardly think so or else I wouldn’t be extending myself to be dialoguing with the others on this blog. I do learn from others. I especially appreciated Heliotrope’s commentary and experiences. As I mentioned, I don’t have know any white people in depth enough to gather that information from

And just because I point out slights that white people (most times out of lack of knowledge) do doesn’t EVEN suggest that black people aren’t guilty of the same type of behavior. But I guess to make you feel better then I should have been more balanced in my post and said black people are mean too. Baby, please. I ALREADY know that!

Even since you started posting on the board (since you want to go there) I’ve read your long soliloquies about your multi-racial family and whatnot and how we all need to get along and be more color-blind and now because I post my viewpoint on how I see race and then proceed to try to have reasoned dialogue and understand others points and learn from it, then you come on her and question my motives and accuse me of being HOSTILE. What the hell do you think about what you wrote, that it was FRIENDLY??? As I am fond of saying, GET OVER YOURSELF.

But that’s alright, if you feel better because you got to dump on the ‘angry black girl’ and sleep alright tonight then I guess your job is done for the day.

Whatever.

Helio: Holler at me in the morning and we can continue talking. Change happens one person at a time.

As far as being horrified because someone comes back from a tanning booth and offends your delicate sensibilities? Sorry, but my heart doesn’t bleed and my violin doesn’t play…Did it ever occur to you if you got out of your self absorbed world that many white people absolutely hate having such pale skin in which every mark, blotch, and blemish shows and that they think dark skin is so beautiful? But in your world, Tiffany, a white person has to watch every little bitty thing they say, for fear that it might just be the wrong itty bitty thing, though you don’t seem to even give a thought to what goes on in their world. I have read comment after comment after comment on your blog pieces that are amazingly hostile, and you blithely toss them off, because you are allowed to bash, because you have a color pass. You haven’t gone through a life time of trying to be nice.Recently, a college professor at an Ive League college wrote an essay in which he said that his white students started off so eager to make friends with black students and that by the end of their first year, they become so overwhelmed by the unrelenting onslaught of hostility that they receive at the hands of black students, that they eventually give up. He said they first try really really hard, get more and more quiet, and eventually just stop trying.

And, while I’m on a roll, you said that most white people wouldn’t know about having relatives from a bad part of town unless they had relatives in trailers or something..There are 2.7 times more poor white people in the US that there are black people. Trust me, a great many of us know a lot about that world.

I’m a parent and I am really really sick of my kids comiong home from school feeling overwhelmed with guilt for things that their ancestors had no part of. They are continually shamed in the classroom,Often shouted down by their black classmates here in America, which has shocked them, while the ancestors of minority children are washed clean of all wrong-doing. Minority children are never asked to bear the guilt of slavery, though their free ancestors indulged in it, and their African brothers ruthlessly indulge in it today. We have become so politically correct that we only talk about white transgressions,and we gloss over the shocking crime statistic imbalance, so don’t tell me what it is like to walk in my shoes, any more than you want me to tell you what it is like to walk in your shoes.

So, I may not know what it is like to walk in your shoes, but I also know for sure that you don’t have the slightest clue what it is like to walk in my shoes. Or white shoes…….

You are quite wrong about Independent being baited. At least not by me. I asked for HIS experience not any other white person. Though I am quite sure there are some commonalities that other whites may share or understand.

And the same does apply to black folks to some degree.