On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, MichaelP wrote:

> Please leave out appeals to God from your stated desire to not have
> racist guilt placed on your shoulders. Such references offend me - you
> may commune with YOUR personal deity all you wish but I don't wish to
> hear such communications, promises, contracts as justification for your
> attempt to improve things.

I'm afraid I didn't read anything offensive in Mr. Hartley's response.
 What gets a bit spooky is when self-appointed representatives of the
oppressed start unilaterally deciding what others can or can't say...

>   So while guilt may not be a useful concept to apply to cure the results
> of past actions by the powerful whites against the weaker minority
> groups, there no way for you to categorize as racist the process of
> persuading whites to accept their responsibility and complicity in both
> past and present actions of discrimination based on race. As long as you
> are genuine in wishing to cure or at least mitigate the situation
> please leave
> out the complaints when folks try to tell you what they think.
>
>
> MichaelP


At this point in the thread I think it would be useful to have a working
definition of "white". Sound simple? Try it.......thing is, we're going to
need a working definition if we're to persuade "them" (us) of our
"complicity...in...past...actions", never mind the present. And a usable
definition, not a bunch of post-modern jargon......

One might think we had enough to do trying to deal with existing, ongoing
injustices--the kind we can actually change--without taking on litigation
for things done centuries ago by some tiny percentage of "our" white
ancestors. And I suspect Michael P must be a very busy fellow--after all,
he's not only wrestling with the latest version of the white man's burden,
but I'm sure in the name of justice and all that is decent he's busy
trying to atone for thousands of years of patriarchy---which, by the way,
respects no lines of "race"........

Finally, Mr. Hartley's point is I think correct. Anyone can be a
racist--all you need to do is think that someone behaves, thinks, acts a
given way as an inevitable result of their racial (biological, innate)
make up. Louis Farakhan's claim of the inherent evil of the white man sits
equally with David Duke's (or the Bell Curve authors) claims to the innate
inferiority of the "black" race.

I guess I'm an old-fashioned integrationist in some sense. I still want to
live in a world where this idiotic and evil notion of "race" is discarded
once and for all....


Robert Goodby
Barrington, NH  USA