Before you freak out, please read this entire blog. Thank you.
Before we got into the whys and hows about this blog let me just tell you a little experience I had on MySpace a few years back. I’ve always been an ardent supporter of gay rights. I’ve attended PRIDE rallies, I’ve volunteered my time, spent my money, and have been engaged in the gay community for nearly 20 years. A couple of years ago, I was on MySpace and read a blog about gay marriage and the blogger was looking to rally other gay people for blog protest. I commented on that blog and said that you don’t have to be gay to support the cause. I feel everyone has a right to love and be loved regardless of your lifestyle. His return comment made my heart hit the floor: Well, Regina, saying lifestyle is offensive because it denotes choice. I had no choice in being gay. WHAT? Is it possible that I – a practically card carrying member of the Pride Parade – OFFENDED a gay man? I have more gay friends than anyone I know! I’ve done a lot to advance equality and I’ve put my money where my mouth is and here I am offending someone.
What does this have to do with why I feel bad for white people? Our social climate has changed and is continuing to evolve. We have many people of mixed ethnicity and many more who are in interracial relationships. Just going back to 1964, there were still 9 states where Jeff and I couldn’t legally be married! As we grow and change to accommodate our changing world what we label ourselves change as well. We were black, Black, Negro, African-American, Black American, and Colored. Different regions will denote different preferences. There was a big movement this year to have Negro removed from the Census forms but we still have the United Negro College Fund. Call someone colored now and take offence but we still have the NAACP and that CP still means Colored Persons. The Black Community is MY community but if I was not in the community I would be baffled by these idiosyncrasies as well.
But the shifts in the paradigm don’t end there. As I mentioned earlier, we have an exponential growth of people of mixed ethnicity. It was mulatto, then mixed, then biracial, then multi-ethnic, and now who knows! Paula Patton just said that biracial is offensive. As a person of multiple ethnicities I feel like I can’t keep up! How are white people keeping up?
Even white people with the best of intentions, like my intention to support the gay community, will have a hard time finding out what is the right way to approach us. I know that Jeff has asked me questions and my first reaction was WHAT but once I settled in and let him ask and looked at it from his perspective it was never his intention to say something wrong he just wanted to know more.
April is Confederate History Month in Virginia. I think it would have been more palatable to have Civil War History Month or something that didn’t evoke a connotation of white supremacy. I DID NOT WRITE THAT THIS WAS A WHITE SUPRMACIST THING. I wrote that I wish it didn’t FEEL that way. Again, I felt bad for white people. We have Black History Month, BET, Black Power t-shirts, Starz in Black and the list goes on and on. With our ever changing social dynamic, I have to ask is it fair that we can have all that but if you wear a White Power t-shirt, write Stuff White People Like, or have Confederate History Month should it still FEEL wrong?
We are discussing it tonight on the show at 10pm ET. Call in to discuss it live at 646.716.8825 or feel free to leave your comments below and please, be mature about what you post.
A little quirky, a little fun, a little serious, and very loud! I'm the voice behind the radio broadcast and writer behind this blog. I'm always on the lookout for something new, innovative, creative, fun, or just pisses me off... GAME ON! 
um, regina, you’re all over the place on this one. i’m not real clear as to why you fell bad for white people.
the paula patton thing is just plain silly. what she is really saying is that SHE feels separate from the Black community, not that calling her biracial is separating her from the Black community. she is very wrong when she says people don’t call president obama biracial. where the heck was she during the last two years? in a cave? my question to her is if she is referred to as Black isn’t that ignoring and denying her white heritage? she has some personal issues that she needs to work out and not ask society to conform to her hurt.
regarding the Black History Month, BET, Black Power t-shirts, Starz in Black etc … let us not forget why we have these things. remember that there are countless institutions that Black were not/are not allowed to benefit from or because of so saying that these entities are some what skewed is almost like forgetting whyw e needed them to begin with.
“With our ever changing social dynamic, I have to ask is it fair that we can have all that but if you wear a White Power t-shirt, write Stuff White People Like, or have Confederate History Month should it still FEEL wrong?”
there is a history that will never go away. white people have to carry the burden of their ancestors until they correct those practices. just as Black people are living the burden of our ancestors and working to improve our status, the burden is on them to do better. they have not corrected their past. thusly white power will continue to have a negative connotation regardless of the intention. the confederate was steeped in hate, thusly it will continue to conjure negative feedback among non-whites and/or Black supporters.
i tend to tell people, put Blacks as jews and whites as nazis and you will have a better understanding of what is needed and expected. there is no one in this land that would associate any good with a swastika.
I feel bad because even if they have the best of intentions they may offend because what is offensive is different per person, per region, per day. You don’t agree with Paula Patton either but that’s yet another mixed message out there that will continue the ability to clog the open dialog that is needed in order “correct the past.”
I love that you are willing to address these controversial topics Regina! I have often felt confused within my own Native American culture in similiar ways- what is politically correct has changed there over the years as well. I have to stop myself before calling an event a “Pow-Wow”, because even though that is what I grew up dancing in, apparently it now offends people to call them that!
I will admit that I have had similiar thoughts regarding African American/Caucasion relations in this country. I have tried to teach my children that while there are cultural differences, religious differences, skin color differences.. the thing I want them to know is that we are all equally entitled to certain God-given and inalienable rights. I understand completely the logic behind the United Negro College Fund/affirmative action in trying to undo wrongs that have placed people in a position of unequal opportunity. My question is this though: at what point does the playing field become equal? Can it ever, for African American or Native American families who were put into some cycles of poverty that may rarely be broken? I am so saddened by the fact that the events of the 1960′s civil rights movement were only 50 short years ago. It will take time, but I pray that one day we will reach a point where none of this precarious balancing act is needed and ALL colors can stand as individuals. I hope my comments don’t offend anyone- I am truly a person who respects all people and wants our country to become more unified in purpose, without taking away the beauty of our differences!
Regina,
Thanks for your patient sympathy. And thanks for bringing this up- as a white guy, I wouldn’t know how to start. The most dominant aspect of this situation is that it involves the very sensitive, easy-offended types. The first thing we need to do as a nation is RELAX.
Confederate History offends those who relate the Confederacy to Slavery. While that is a valid view, they forget that the South wasn’t fighting for the right to have slaves (only) but for state governance, not federal. I’m sure I sound like a broken record when I reiterate that Union states didn’t give up slavery until Emancipation was passed and enforced. It was years after the Civil War before Union States counted former slaves as more than a fraction of a person. Confederate History has lessons to offer that should not be ignored or overshadowed because of the worst aspects.
This balance of the historical worst against the best happens vice-versa too. For example, I took a course on the Holocaust wherein the professor taught (or was required to teach) the philosophy of the Third Reich. Students were enrolled to learn about the most horrific era in the 20th century, but first we had to understand the monsters who perpetrated it? Would the course really be incomplete without that lesson?
This hypersensitivity is what tears us apart. People from all backgrounds are just trying to relate to people of other backgrounds. If more of us would calmly explain the accepted norms and social idiosyncrasies instead of lashing out, we’d all get along better. Your statement is bold and controversial, but such discussions should be the norm.