Yesterday in a conversation with my wife about the past the discrimination, prejudice including denial of service she faced when coming to America came up. Actually, I mentioned it. I have no doubt that anyone reading this will underestimate what it was like for a brown Southeast Asian in 1970 while the war in Vietnam was still in progre…
Yesterday in a conversation with my wife about the past the discrimination, prejudice including denial of service she faced when coming to America came up. Actually, I mentioned it. I have no doubt that anyone reading this will underestimate what it was like for a brown Southeast Asian in 1970 while the war in Vietnam was still in progress and we lived below the Mason-Dixon line.
Her comment that ended that conversation, "Past is past. I can go anywhere I want now."
Are there still occasional issues? During covid she had a bottle thrown at her and in a store she never returned to, she was followed around by a store employee (not trying to be helpful) like she thought the little brown lady was going to steal something. Yes, bigotry persists, but to compare it to 50 or 150 years ago is absurd. A tempest in a tea pot by comparison.
"Yes, bigotry persists, but to compare it to 50 or 150 years ago is absurd"
This. Well...mostly this. It shouldn't be forgotten that some people of colour in some parts of America have experiences far worse that that of your wife. And live in circumstances that are directly related to things like redlining that you wouldn't necessarily see. Racism isn't a fixed quantity that affects everybody the same.
But I'm very confident in saying that almost everybody privileged enough to be writing pseudo-intellectual books about racism or waxing lyrical about it in the comments sections of my articles has never faced anything more serious than you're describing here. In fact, some of the people who most fiercely hold the idea of rejecting victimhood have had it the hardest.
Yesterday in a conversation with my wife about the past the discrimination, prejudice including denial of service she faced when coming to America came up. Actually, I mentioned it. I have no doubt that anyone reading this will underestimate what it was like for a brown Southeast Asian in 1970 while the war in Vietnam was still in progress and we lived below the Mason-Dixon line.
Her comment that ended that conversation, "Past is past. I can go anywhere I want now."
Are there still occasional issues? During covid she had a bottle thrown at her and in a store she never returned to, she was followed around by a store employee (not trying to be helpful) like she thought the little brown lady was going to steal something. Yes, bigotry persists, but to compare it to 50 or 150 years ago is absurd. A tempest in a tea pot by comparison.
"Yes, bigotry persists, but to compare it to 50 or 150 years ago is absurd"
This. Well...mostly this. It shouldn't be forgotten that some people of colour in some parts of America have experiences far worse that that of your wife. And live in circumstances that are directly related to things like redlining that you wouldn't necessarily see. Racism isn't a fixed quantity that affects everybody the same.
But I'm very confident in saying that almost everybody privileged enough to be writing pseudo-intellectual books about racism or waxing lyrical about it in the comments sections of my articles has never faced anything more serious than you're describing here. In fact, some of the people who most fiercely hold the idea of rejecting victimhood have had it the hardest.