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"If this did happen, it would be the result of suicidal national policies that increase the degree of race-consciousness" I can see how policies can make thing

"If this did happen, it would be the result of suicidal national policies that increase the degree of race-consciousness" I can see how policies can make things worse. So how would you recommend doing it different? My best guess is that not doing anything ensures problems get worse or stay the same. My perspective is from growing up in a small town in south Georgia. I left in '87 and am visiting here at the moment. 22 years after I left, the racial divide is exactly like it was. What will happen in 2050 if that "Hispanic" population still has things then just like they are now? I can certainly see a tipping point towards violence. Your anecdote as seeing Henry as Henry is spot on the way it should be. But how do we get there? Its not that way today with the policies implemented. It wasn't that way prior to the policies being implemented. So I'm guessing it won't get there by doing nothing or removing the policies.

tokenadult 17y ago
* So how would you recommend doing it different?* National leaders and government policies have to tend consciously and intentionally toward reminding people who share a country that they are more alike than different, and that "race" categories are arbitrary. The United States Census officials who post the official definitions http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm already acknowledge this when they write, "These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature." But the federal officials who have academic training in demography and who know about all the failures of definitions and ambiguous cases need a lot more back-up from elected officials and everyday members of the general public in insisting that we are all mostly Americans here, and terms describing a person's general pattern of physical appearance and presumed ancestry may say nothing about the person's ability to get along with his or her neighbors or to be an active contributor to free, democratic, free-enterprise society. In earlier days, there were race-conscious policies of a different kind in the United States, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Jim Crow policies of legally enforced segregation. If we stay race conscious for too many more years, the segregationists will have won, as their corrupt thinking will have spread all around the country, to regions that formerly didn't know it.
- jhancock 17y ago
  Your point "need a lot more back-up from elected officials and everyday members of the general public in insisting that we are all mostly Americans here" seems the right answer but I don't see how we get there from here. While in my home town in south Georgia, I listen some to the talk radio which I assume much of the locals listen to. Most of it is various forms of veiled posturing for 2010 elections. I hear undertones of racism and classism in most of the chatter. We seem to have evolved from being openly racist (20++ years ago) to being racist without having to talk about it directly.
  - billswift 17y ago
    " I hear undertones of racism and classism in most of the chatter." You probably hear it because it's mostly in your head. A common problem with "intellectuals" who expect southerners and "rednecks" to be racists.
    - jhancock 17y ago
      I seriously doubt it. I am a southerner and many have called me a redneck. I am very plugged into the folks I have grown up around. Racism is alive and well my friend. Obviously, not all the people I know are racists, but there are more than enough. And its by far not a southern phenomenon.

tokenadult 17y ago

* So how would you recommend doing it different?* National leaders and government policies have to tend consciously and intentionally toward reminding people who share a country that they are more alike than different, and that "race" categories are arbitrary. The United States Census officials who post the official definitions http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm already acknowledge this when they write, "These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature." But the federal officials who have academic training in demography and who know about all the failures of definitions and ambiguous cases need a lot more back-up from elected officials and everyday members of the general public in insisting that we are all mostly Americans here, and terms describing a person's general pattern of physical appearance and presumed ancestry may say nothing about the person's ability to get along with his or her neighbors or to be an active contributor to free, democratic, free-enterprise society. In earlier days, there were race-conscious policies of a different kind in the United States, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Jim Crow policies of legally enforced segregation. If we stay race conscious for too many more years, the segregationists will have won, as their corrupt thinking will have spread all around the country, to regions that formerly didn't know it.

jhancock 17y ago
Your point "need a lot more back-up from elected officials and everyday members of the general public in insisting that we are all mostly Americans here" seems the right answer but I don't see how we get there from here. While in my home town in south Georgia, I listen some to the talk radio which I assume much of the locals listen to. Most of it is various forms of veiled posturing for 2010 elections. I hear undertones of racism and classism in most of the chatter. We seem to have evolved from being openly racist (20++ years ago) to being racist without having to talk about it directly.
- billswift 17y ago
  " I hear undertones of racism and classism in most of the chatter." You probably hear it because it's mostly in your head. A common problem with "intellectuals" who expect southerners and "rednecks" to be racists.
  - jhancock 17y ago
    I seriously doubt it. I am a southerner and many have called me a redneck. I am very plugged into the folks I have grown up around. Racism is alive and well my friend. Obviously, not all the people I know are racists, but there are more than enough. And its by far not a southern phenomenon.