@Serraph105 said:
@mattbbpl said:
@mrbojangles25: Yeah, which is a shame because this is some of the most impactful stuff to discuss. I don't buy into that whole "it's rude to discuss politics and religion" idea as it simply avoids some of the topics that are most central to peoples's lives, worldview, and philosophy.
There is a bit of an art to discussing topics that are controversial, though. Doing things like finding common ground and building from there are a good rule of thumb.
I remember having a conversation at a previous job between three or four co-workers only one of whom was younger than myself (she was in her early twenties and I'm thirty everyone else was older) about how there are cultural differences between black people and white people. People weren't being assholes about it (which was kinda rare for that group), but having a fairly nuanced and careful conversation about differences in culture that can and do exist, nothing negative mind you just things you might see. The younger girl was very adament that we couldn't say such things or even aknowledge that the differences existed in the first place. It was kind of furled eyebrows sort of moment that said, "Really?"
Yeah, that's the thing that bugs me; it's like they don't want us to acknowledge our differences like it's a bad thing.
You look back at all the "respectable" black celebrities, the people that at least I personally admire (Morgan Freeman, pre-date rape Bill Cosby :P, etc...), they all think the whole "color blindness" thing is nonsense; they think we should be acknowledging our differences in order to celebrate them, and I agree.
A few weeks ago on these forums I mentioned something about "black culture" in another thread and, naturally, liberals assumed I was trying to isolate and persecute black people simply because I was talking about black people (at all), and I think conservatives assumed I was solely talking about rap, hoodies, and Black Lives Matter because apparently that's the only thing they know about black people. I wasn't talking about any of that: I was talking about the Harlem Renaissance, Tuskegee Airmen, Blues and Jazz, contributions to American cuisine (Creole, Cajun, etc), and so forth. Black culture in the historical context.
It just sucks we "can't" talk about this shit. I've got a black roommate, she and I talk about this stuff all the time; admittedly, it took us a long, long time to establish that kind of relationship (me being a privileged white male, her being a less-than-privileged black woman) but that's more because it was awkward and unknown, not because it was taboo to her.
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