I taught during toughest times of Florida's school integration years.
Florida was slow in getting around to this. I would say late 60s is when it fully was implemented. It was a trying time on both sides of the aisle. I was in a school in an area with both well-established white and black communities. There was tension on both sides. There was anger, distrust, and a lot of pushing back.
Teachers were in a way on the front lines. The black community loved their school, were attached to their teachers, and most were not pleased at the integration being forced on them. Our school and its teachers and students were wary, not knowing what to expect. Some were blatantly against it, most were thinking how to make everyone feel comfortable and accepted.
Never once was there name calling that I heard. We had to all compromise and negotiate with each other on a daily basis. Those teachers were forced from a school they loved and told to come to ours or were assigned elsewhere. The students and parents were thrown into situations they were not sure how to handle.
There was some resentment. One mother who did not want these changes got upset with me soon after orientation day about something. She said I was sitting in my white ivory tower judging folks. I called her into the room and told her more about my so-called ivory tower which was filled with tragedy about that time. We hugged, decided that we would work together and stop judging.
One parent asked me to go with her to visit their old school so she and her kids could say good-by. Another teacher asked to join us. Other parents were there saying their good-byes as well. Eyes were filled with tears because this kind of change was so hard on everyone.
We got through the rough spots somehow, but it was not easy. Most of us noticed that it wasn't long before mutual respect took the place of some of the resentment.
I have not posted for several weeks, and I will probably stop for a while after this post.
When it all boils down to the basics of what has happened the last few weeks.....it turns out that most of us have supported the goals of Black Lives Matter. Many others like I did donated when it started. There is absolutely no doubt of the need for that group and others like it.
What has been hard to get across is that when you determine that I and others are the enemy, when you assume we are white supremacists who believe we are superior....you take away any way to discuss rationally. There is a premise that if we are white we are automatically racist and misusing white privilege. That is not true in most cases.
Once someone puts me on the defensive with an assumption like that, once nothing I say matters....it's hard to feel good about it.
My gripe was never about the right to protest, it's about the manner of the protest, the way it was done. The screaming and refusal to allow both sides to be heard.
This episode in the end is not about Bernie, he can handle himself very well. It has been a clever subterfuge to make it about Bernie's supporters, which of course it is not. It has made many just quit posting rather than take a chance on hurting their candidate. I am one of them.
I don't like being called a white supremacist. It carries so many ugly connotations, and I don't deserve that. I think if you call people names and say insulting things to them, it's hard to have a conversation.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Your post is so very well put and I thank you for it.
This final sentence really resonates with me: I think if you call people names and say insulting things to them, it's hard to have a conversation.
And we must have those conversations.
K&R
Thank you for your influence on my life!
I noticed your absence. Please stay around, as much as is comfortable for you. 
Your posts are always so well written and the ideas so well articulated.
My first job teaching was the first year that Virginia Beach, VA, ended separate but equal. I was young and raised in a liberal family (my father was the first whit dentist in the area--maybe even Virginia and even maybe the whole South--to treat all patients equally and not have a separate waiting room--one for whites and one for "coloreds."
The school placed African American students in remedial classes in an attempt at de facto segregation.
To attack those on your side is either terribly foolish or the act of puppets doing the bidding of someone else.
The people who disrupted Bernie's rallies do a terrible disservice to their cause. They have aimed at the wrong target.
On DU, the best tactic is to ignore them.
SAs I said, you will be missed.
My daughter will be a first year teacher for a downtown Sanford FL elementary school.
I suggested she join the union. The beat goes on!
Just saying thanks for your work on behalf of teachers in Florida. It has not gone unnoticed.
Don't let the negative Nellies get under your skin
You are very much appreciated around here.. Don't forget that, and be back soon.
Last edited Sun Aug 16, 2015, 11:58 AM - Edit history (4)
n*****, a vicious hurtful hate laden word, for many more years by white supremacists than you have been called "white supremacist" by angry and frustrated POC. That name I was described as was called out north, south, east and west. All there has been during all those decades of me being called a n***** is talk by my so called allies. Only talk to end the vicious hate behind the ONE name I have always been called by disgusting, despicable white racists. Who are you and the rest of these oh so offended "allies" to tell POC what our manner of protest should be and what tactics POC should employ to save lives, black lives, from the white racist police and citizen alike, like those oath keepers patrolling Ferguson??? Any POC knows what these white thugs are telling them in a very explicit manner.
POC have been conversing with our "allies", with admirable patience, for decades, and so far nothing has changed. So you have been called a name. Really? Any excuse or contrived offense is all that is needed by my so called "allies" to get their feelings offended by the "terrible" #BlackLivesMatter members. What a joke all you offended privileged citizens are to get on your high horse because someone called out some who might act in a manner that justifies the label. There are white racist Democratic Party liberals and progressives, especially toward the ideological center of our Party and center right. I engage with them everyday. THAT IS A FACT. Deal with it. POC have to everyday. Smile in my face and walk away muttering under their breath about those n******.
It's gotten to a point where with or without our "allies", this expired patience with our allies who haven't stood up in numbers enough EVER, to let whoever is in our Congress and Executive at any given time, know that systemic and institutionalized racism has to be ended is the clue, to me, that a majority of the privileged DO NOT want an end to their privilege.
The school integration you dealt with as a teacher helped to start tearing away at white enforced american segregationist apartheid, which you did not mention by the way, despite many reservations on both sides. People do not like change. Hell, many slaves did not leave the plantation because they were afraid of the change involved.
Most Caucasians exhibit enough unconscious racism precisely because of white privilege and that fact speaks for itself because there has been NO end to Systemic, Institutional and Cultural racism on any level of american society. I had left from this site, until primaries were over, and I'm going back to my respite from this site after this. It is the honey laden words of the privileged who use logic such as this that I had to respond to. I was in Boston during the integration of the public schools there and at a news station as an intern, and I got first hand info as to the anxiety, angst and spin of the many different groups and of the primary races involved. It was ugly. But I REPEAT, It started tearing down AMERICAN APARTHEID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It IS about some BS supporters period, like it or not.
I'm not posting very much myself since the dustup with #BLACKLIVESMATTER, which I support 100% with NO reservations at all. None. Nada. Zilch.
.
Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2015, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)
"It is honey laden words of the privileged who use logic such as this that I HAD to respond to". I know you know that any response of yours other than the one above would never make me change any other words or cause me consternation enough to worry about any offended genteel privileged sensibilities over a word that describes to a tee some in the Democratic Party. I am never surprised when I find offensive words to describe a POC coming from a RW clown, but I am always somewhat non plussed when I find it in a Party that depends on the support of POC to stay relevant. Back to retirement, you have a good one yourself...
For now~ He has Gotta go.
He will be back!
I'm 42 - and this one sentence -
I can't help but understand - these little pups in BLM? They are wiser than us both. Good, bad, indifferent - they are calling the failures out.
That's not to say people like you and my dad - or my Aunt Boot who went to University Alabama (she would be in her 70's now - let that time/era sink in) didn't do the best you could.
You did.
But I also think its safe to say - I'm the wind at BLM's back.
And to white folks who are offended - I'll say what Mama JustAnotherGen taught me - she's alive and kicking and a close to 70 year old white woman who likes BLM's chutzpah . . .
Sticks and Stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you.
Or can they?
Say a word enough times - and it sinks in and makes you cold.
heaven05 is cold now.
So am I.
Your best hope is this younger generation.
Neither heaven nor I can help you.
love the momma....and her chutzpah, it seems to have drifted down to you I'd say....keep fighting, cold or not, I just won't give anyone a pass who thinks they are slick, privileged and are liars, disruptors and what I hate the most, WHINEY..geez it's enough to drive one crazy.....
I'm going back to leaving these whiners to their crocodile tears...just couldn't let this one pass. I'm around, daily...
anymore. I will look for you elsewhere, it's a much bigger internet now than it used to be, so forums who want to keep their best contributors, need to step up and end the trolling or that's all that will be left.
You are a great, informative contributor to this forum, it will be the forum's loss.
See you around Social Media, working for Bernie!
Once someone puts me on the defensive with an assumption like that, once nothing I say matters....it's hard to feel good about it.
My gripe was never about the right to protest, it's about the manner of the protest, the way it was done. The screaming and refusal to allow both sides to be heard.
