(Yes, that’s an attempt at humor, racially stereotyping a guy who just railed about racial issues)
is that a function of overall society or me moving to a more diverse part of the country and my work/personal group being composed entirely of folks with graduate degrees?
In my opinion, it’s definitely the latter.
Whenever I go back east, I’m struck by the difference in racial attitudes. One might think “struck” is a strong word; the differences are subtle. But just because they’re subtle doesn’t mean they aren’t deep or powerful or meaningful.
I’d wager that the today’s California children are grown, they will be even more colorblind than the current generation of Californians. When my daughter was in preschool, there were 20 kids there, and maybe 6 of them were white. My daughter and several others are mixed, and there were several each of Arabs, South Asians, East Asians and a hispanic or two. Those children really didn’t seem to notice that much who was Chinese or who was middle eastern.
I actually agree with whoever said that humans by nature are afraid of those who are different from us. I think we evolved to be that way. And in modern times, that fear is best overcome/removed in two ways. One is exposure to those of other races at an early age. The other is education. Californians have for quite some time (and even more so now) associated from a young age with those of other races.
So, if that’s all correct, you’ll always have more racism in homogenous or segregated areas with low levels of education.
I guess the anti-PC folks would claim that it’s just free speech and not a hate issue, but I guess you just had to be there.
I say it’s a free speech and a hate issue. Sure, if that ignorant fool wants to call somebody a name like that, he’s free to do so. And he’s also a hateful person. And he’s doomed to the misery of being a hateful person, probably for the rest of his life. Leave him alone to suffer the fate he’s earned for himself.
