The Enchanted Dagger

It’s very easy to talk past each other when it comes to these social issues we wrestle with.  It seems like a lot of people revel in their perceived oppression, and that’s true.  But it also seems like honest misunderstanding can somehow be codified and take on its own cultural weight.  I’ve heard many black people, including President Obama, describe the feeling they get when a white person locks the car door when they see a black person coming.  It’s certainly unwarranted in almost every case, but it misses the underlying motivation of locking the door in the first place.  Fear!  Dispelling these underlying notions of fear will take time.  In time, those old vestiges of racial bias will be replaced with positive experience.  Likewise, from the other perspective, I’ve often heard white people say things like “I don’t see race,” and “it doesn’t matter to me that so and so is black.”  The intent, I believe, is to convey an open mindedness, but the phasing implies something else entirely.  Whats wrong with being black, honky!?!