But Heather, neither one of those groups targeted based on skin colour.
Feminists and gay rights groups? No, but they both are activists who are speaking up for protected classes. Minority rights groups who also write or speak on critical race theory receive the same flavor of criticisms as feminists do (for being angry), and as gay rights do (e.g. the Gay Agenda). People of color, women, and LGBTs are members of disadvantaged classes, and speaking up about it tends to draw ire from males, whites, and males - though not necessarily all those three together.
Also, I am bothered about the psychological implications of telling disadvantage blacks that the system is designed to discriminate against them. To my thinking, that would foster hostility and a sense of grave injustice. I don't see how that would "lift the disadvantaged group up" but I can certainly see how it would make them bitter and deeply resentful.
I have worked in and traveled around East St. Louis, IL....a deeply impoverished and nearly entirely black community that is notorious for its high crime rates. If any community represents inner city ghetto life, that is one, and I've many times been involved with artists from the area. The Katherine Dunham center is located there, and she was part of the university that I graduated from and teach at, so I have found myself in East St. Louis often. My house is also 10 minutes away from that city, too, so getting gas for the car or buying bread and milk at the store will have me crossing paths many many times with impoverished blacks.
And of course, I've dated and have been intimate with blacks as well, AND I can say that quite a few of close friend I have and that I trust are black. But many times, saying that falls on deaf ears, so I tend to also bring up my residential and professional locations.
In all this time, even when I've driven through the projects, and even when I've witnessed groups of black men grabbing their lead pipes and guns ready to come to blows in gang wars, and even when I've seen 8 year old kids running around with baseball bats hitting down stop signs while I've done work in the city, I haven't been targeted. I've done work there for around 25 years, Paul, and as much as they see and discuss white privilege, the worst they feel about whites is that they don't trust them.
This in a city where white people go for strip clubs and for the bars that don't close at 2am. A good amount of gay bars are located there too since the city wants some sort of tax revenue when other communities don't want "vice" businesses.
My point is that as notorious as East St. Louis has been in media about crime, poverty, and violence rates, one would think I'd found myself run out of town, killed, raped, beat up, you name it.
No, what is deplorable in that area is that they're killing each other. The city council and police force and school administrators demonstrate corruption by taking the tax dollars and putting them toward personal luxury items. And the people are left on their own to figure out their own safety and education.
As far as I'm concerned, as much as I've actually
been in areas and with people that are believed to be a threat to me, and talking with and working with as many people as I have there, my impression is that the hostility is mostly self-directed. Conversations about white privilege run the same amount of heat and understanding as feminist conversations about male privilege, queer discussions about straight privilege, and more recently trans folk discussions about cis-gendered privilege.
Hope that helps you see where I'm coming from, at least on a personal level.
