If I Was An African American.................

[Antitrust32]

race issue is such a touchy subject, i guess i'll throw in my 2 cents.

First off i guess, I dont consider myself racist at all. I will admit being weary of a certain "race" right now because of terrorism, but lets not get into that right now. I do like to joke about all races, religion, gender, sexual orientation, because I like jokes and I like laughing and I understand that those jokes are just said to make people laugh and not to offend, which is what I believe Imus was doing... he just went overboard and it wasnt funny.

I am watching Cold Pizza right now and they are talking about race and crime in sports, and the USA today cover. Anyways, this is going to belong in the politics thread but I'll say it here. I really feel bad for the African Americans and how they are portrayed in the media as thugs (the NFL guys). If you look at the USA today cover, there are (I think) 51 pictures of people who have committed crimes lately from the NFL and 49 of those people are black. Now, for a young African American boy, who has committed no crimes, looks at this cover and thinks, man, those guys look like me and they are criminals.. maybe than I am just a criminal. It can really hurt the psyche of a certain race.

Alright, so I know people will say.. well those 49 black men committed crimes so we shouldnt feel bad so I guess I'll dig a little further. Growing up, I heard a lot of prejudice remarks (aka.. blacks cause everything wrong...etc) and it just bugs me so much. Why cant prejudice people understand the history of African Americans, I mean it wasnt til the 1860's till they were even FREE in this country, they were owned and put to work for nothing.. as degrading as anything can be for a human. It wasnt until the late 1960's that "equal rights" came into place. African American had to go to seperate schools, use seperate bathrooms, I am sure denied jobs left and right. The 1960's were not long ago people, and equality still hasnt happened. It just bothers me so much that some people arent given the chance to succeed from day one, and then the media has to put it in their face all the time. (and I am not talking about the NFL players.. they should have known better and not messed up the chance to have great careers, I am talking about the young intercity African Americans who are born to a poor family and given terrible educations with the city schools and harrassed by the media and the cops.)

An African American friend of mine from Housten, who played football at Arizona when I was there, told me so many stories of growing up, he'd just be walking down the street minding his own business and he'd be harrassed by cops, searched, belittled, etc, just cause he's a black man walking down the street. Its not fair and its not right.

To fix it we need to start from the root. We need to put more effort into the poor areas of the country, to help these kids get a really good education and realize there is more too life and they have the chance to be whoever they want to be. American is not equal, and if you think about the history and all that African Americans have had to go through in America, its never been equal and a change really needs to come. Everyone needs to stop looking at skin color and start caring about the lives of our fellow Americans.