Reverse Racism

Viriginia lawmakers have recently adopted a resolution that will mark the Jamestown Anniversary forever.

The Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously to express “profound regret” for Virginia’s role in African American slavery.

As of now, no other state is known to have actually apologized for slavery, officially or unofficially, and apparently it takes the passing of a bill for the state to apologize. This is kind of strange to me. I haven’t really decided if I think it’s good, bad, or even if it matters.

However I suppose the acknowledgement is nice, if not a tad bit belated. This resolution as I understand it, does not mean as much as a law, but is meant to send a symbolic message, that apparently the state ‘profoundly regrets’ their part in slavery.

As a whole, the entire state, well I guess that’s ok. I personally refuse to take responsibility for any sort of slavery. I cannot possibly say what I would have done decades ago, but I can say today I wouldn’t tolerate it for a moment. I do not believe that all white people alive today are responsible for all bad things that happen to all black people today, or any other race for that matter.

I would not be considered guilty of a crime the man I married committed; therefore I will not tolerate being found socially guilty of committing a crime I had nothing to do with. However, I suppose if each individual piece of the map could speak for itself, as a state, then each state should be ashamed, and guilt ridden, and punished.

This new resolution states that government sanctioned slavery “ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation’s history, and the abolition of slavery was followed by systematic discrimination, enforced segregation and other insidious institutions and practices toward Americans of African descent that were rooted in racism, racial bias and racial misunderstanding.”

Here I must wholeheartedly agree. I can’t and wont take responsibility for this. It does anger me, but it’s not my fault or my doing. However, I’m sure my position on the subject of slavery should be pretty clear. It was a horribly disgusting time in America.

Furthermore, when blacks were given the right to vote in Virginia, their voting power was greatly reduced by a poll tax, and literacy tests, these rules were later overruled, thankfully, although again on the late side by federal courts.

Virginia doesn’t have a pretty reputation when it comes to their treatment of African Americans, I just can’t say that I get it. I see where they’re going. Trying to now clean up this reputation, and maybe clear their past a conscience a bit, but what precisely will this ‘apology’ change?

I definitely agree with those that voted in favor, which by the way was everyone, once it’s on the table, they’re just as guilty in my opinion if they vote it down. I’m just thinking that as far as political money goes (Keeping in mind that I am not a political person, and do not fully understand these proceedings) it seems that the money to pass such a bill, could have been used for something else.

Don’t much care what that something else is, and generally, I don’t agree, ever, that you must be of one race or another to understand something, but here, maybe I do. I am a white woman, and although I feel very strongly about racial discrimination, racial separation and everything of the like.

I cannot speak for a black woman, and know if this apology makes a difference in her life. I would personally tell them where to put their apology, but then again, the African Americans alive today, weren’t alive then either, and cannot speak for those tortured slaves, that hopefully now rest in peace. Who knows, maybe some dreamed of an apology and will now rest in peace.

On a side not however, Delegate Frank Hargrove, an 80 year old republican that took a lot of heat for stating his opinion that “black citizens should get over” slavery. Was one of those unanimous voters that allowed this bill to pass.

Perhaps he’s changed his mind? Again not being political, I’ll be the first to say, I’ve no idea who this man is, or his race. Apparently the comment infuriated some. However, I do agree. Not only do I agree, I believe that all Americans have to get over slavery, get past it.

We cannot change it. It happened, it will not go away. We can learn from it, and heal wounds created by it. In fact we should, however, slavery is not an excuse, and to be quite blunt, I’ve never met nor have I kept a slave.

I cannot feel guilt over something I had nothing to do with, and no one should be expected to, and it’s hard for me to excuse the behavior of some that assume something is owed to them due to their ancestors suffering.

Something was certainly owed to those ancestors, but we’re hardly in a position to repay the dead.

Racism is Racism, Reverse Racism is no Racism at all.

A young lady I have known for most of my life has recently graduated high school. Knowing the family and instability she came from, this was a big big accomplishment for this young woman, I am very thrilled!

I don’t know just yet what her options for college are, but I do know that she herself believes she has none. She wants to go to Oregon State University, I am fairly sure this can be accomplished with a 2 year Oregon transfer from any Oregon Community College.

Her parents are currently living in a trailer of some sort, with a bucket for plumbing. Her sister, younger, dropped out of school some time ago.

The young lady we are talking about hasn’t recieved her diploma yet, as she didn’t turn in some books, through the many moves, the books are gone. But I’m sure there’s a simple enough solution for that.

As for further education, she’s a very shy girl, and when I asked about college, she just said she didn’t have money for college, looked at me as though I were an alien. I do know how it is after all, we all grew up along the same paths, which is why it is important to me that this girl knows she has options.

The books are the smallest problem, the next problem is going to be the financial aid forms. She’s just 17 right now, so her parents will be required to sign financial aid forms, which believe it or not has stopped a few people that I know dead when it came to applying for assistance for college.

Her parents likely don’t even file taxes, though I don’t know this for certain, hopefully not though, because if they do at all, they’ll not be interested in sharing that information with their daughter.

They will also prefer to pass when it comes to signing anything. It’s like second nature when your life is as hard as it is. I have another friend patiently waiting until she turns 24 because her parents would not assist her in filling out college forms.

Starting with her grades, again she’s shy, though I’ve known her since she was very small, I hadn’t seen her in several years, so she doesn’t want to tell me she barely graduated, if that’s the case.

She just tells me that her grades were not that good. I can see that, when your restroom is a bucket, grades aren’t great.

But this is the time for change, a young girl that actually wants to do something with her life, but thinks she cannot, that’s just sad.

This is the time in her life that she has the power and the will to break the cycle created generations before her. Four of her own siblings were taken away from her mother by the state, her mother was in fact taken from her mother.

So I began my search online for the girl that doesn’t want to live and create children in a crazy world of poverty, the girl who’s parents find crack cocaine more powerful a motivator than an actual address, and a toilet.

Without much experience in this area, I started my search at my own daughters High Schools webpage. I know that even if we have to find her a job, and I have to help her a bit, we can accomplish an Oregon Transfer to a local university, it took me 4 days to get her to tell me that she REALLY wants to go to Oregon State.

My house is full, 5 great kids, a husband, and we take care of ‘uncle bob’, but if it means this young woman has a chance at a future, it’s going to be just a little more full here real fast.

Before we go to the community college and make an appointment with a counselor, which I’ll be doing very soon, I wanted to look online and see if there are any possible scholarships for her.

I know that the options for someone with ‘bad grades’ (I do not know the GPA, just that she says they are bad) are probably slim to nill, but I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t spend a few hours searching.

I scanned through several of the scholorship options on my daughters high schools home page. Until I came to the one that brought me here.

African America? I really thought with the changing of the United Negro College Funds name that this kind of discrimination must be gone! You’re saying here that the young woman’s skin has to be black for her to even apply for this scholarship?

I realize this is irrelvant, as I’m assuming she does not have a 3.0 GPA, but I must ask the question, would it be alright for me to start a scholorship fund that was open only to caucasion students?

This kind of ignorance really pisses me off, so much that I needed to stop my search and come here and share it. How long will we stand for racial separation? It doesn’t matter which way we go with it, against Blacks, Whites, Mexicans, or purple monkeys, it IS racism.