I remember hearing the n-word used casually when I was a kid. I remember chanting the version of the "eeny meeny miny mo" rhyme with the part about catching an n-word by the toe. That stuff leaves a mark when interpreted through the principles I learned later in life.
Everything's complicated by the political experience of being a "child of the 60s". I remember how, during the day at school, I'd get an earful about the limitless wonderfulness of America, the land of freedom and equality and endless opportunity for all. Then at night, on the evening news, I'd see black marchers getting hosed and teargassed; I remember German Shepherd police dogs lunging and snarling, and billy clubs smashing. I knew then something was rotten in Denmark; seeing naked racism was a foundation of my later disillusionment over the lies of Vietnam. Racism and war became intertwined, for me, in a pattern of exploitation and manipulation and propaganda by cynical elites.
I think that being white and having seen so much racism growing up makes a person react later in life like somebody who's given up smoking. There's a tendency to be militantly opposed to the vice, to urge others to give up the habit for their own good.
And I've had as much luck talking somebody out of racism as I ever had talking them out of smoking.
Off Topic » in reply to LOL, would QED be appropriate here...
It's complicated for our generation
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- * Just passin' through* before I go get groceries. A thought occurred to me