Whenever there is a stereotype, the stereotyped person always has to work harder disproving his stereotype than someone who does not carry the same stereotype.
The stereotype I’m talking about here is in reference to white people not caring about black people. You can debate all you want if we are working hard enough down in our South after Katrina. But whether we are or we aren’t… either way, it looks terrible. We are failing them as a society.
There are black people all over the world we ignore. Darfur is a current tragedy. But we cannot allow this kind of ignorance and passive stance go on in our country. GET THOSE PEOPLE OUT OF THERE!
This is an article about this in the New York Times: (you’ll need to register, if you haven’t.)
From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy – New York Times
Also, here’s a link to Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you have never read this, it is a crucial document in the civil rights movement in our country.
I wanted to point out one part that came to mind this morning. Dr. King writes:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
The reason this came to mind is because it is always the moderate who does nothing. They just assume other people will take care of the situation. The moderate is also the majority. Devestating things can happen when the majority lets someone else handle our societal injustices.