Kneeling during soccer matches

I wish I knew who some of you were in order to stay away from you or at least know in the back of my mind what kind of people I am actually dealing with (in some cases I am lucky enough to have figured out who you are and I take note of all the "liked" messages so I can steer clear).  These statements are not surprising because I have heard them from others but they are disappointing and hurtful.       

You seriously believe this?
"Do you mean significantly different (lower) admission standards for blacks into every university?"

I went to UGA and they ended the legacy leg up that folks we're getting (mostly white ppl) around the time I was there. Kids weren't being let in because they were minorities solely, they had to have the grades to compete academically.

Connections in Corporate America are key and a lot of minorities didn't have a lot of those connections until the last let's say 10 to 20 years.

America is screwed if we have people like you who live here and think that a bunch of black people are like woe is me all the time. My uncle is super light skin and he even talks about how when he was early on in Corporate America he realized that he was more likely to get hired than a dark-skinned person. People have been discriminated against because they have what are considered ethnic names. Things are a little better now but people had to do a lot of assimilating and then breaking the rules once they are able to get in the door.

So you are the one with the side-eye when folks get into the schools and your kid didn't thinking that the black kid was giving a break because he's black no he was giving a break because he's smart and the school needs more diversity. Thank your forefathers for creating such a discriminatory environment to where you all are being "screwed" on opportunities now ... let you tell it.

America has a lot of catching up to do. It has had its foot on the black community's neck from the 1600s to now. No 40 acres and a mule as promised, mass lynchings, voter suppression, education suppression, housing and financial suppression, medical experiments with no sedation ... all during slavery to Jim Crow.

Side-eye your forefathers who held these truths to be self-evident that all people weren't created equal for a long as time

I saw this episode of Tucker's live ... he is the epitome of white privilege tunnel vision. Watching him, Hannity and Ingraham is straight up Comedy Central. When the book White Fragility was mentioned... I thought of this episode and the closed minded comments he made. My fear is that anyone who points out racial inequality is considered to be a liberal which is a joke. Folks who watch Fox News as law love categorizing people as liberals and conservatives or left and right.

I don't remember if I posted this story already because I have been sharing it with a lot of people. If I have I apologize for the repeat.

I preface this by saying that many children do not really understand race and have trouble knowing who is what. Even my own daughter asked me in the first or second grade what race her dad was (he is White by race, but Brown in appearance especially in the summer). We have some stories where many people thought he was some race or ethnicity that he is not. Some of their reactions were quite eye-opening about what people think about certain races.

But on to the story...even before the discussions after George Floyd, I was speaking about race with some Black friends. One of them told me this story. He was with family and his oldest child came up to him crying. She was 4 or 5 at the time. When asked why she was upset, she said she had just figured out that she was Black. She was devastated. This pre-school aged child had seen/heard enough in life to realize that being Black was going to make her life more difficult. This is a sad statement on the ways of life.

As a White person I have not had to go through many things that Black people have. My husband's best friend is Black. He is first generation American but 6th generation Bahamian. He is very, very dark skinned Black. His stories about work-related travels to various parts of America would shock many White people. Like the time he was in a pawn shop in Kentucky where he got told "we don't serve your kind here" and before he could walk out of the door they pulled a shotgun out and pointed it at him and told him to get out!

Racism is alive in America and there is a lot of work to do to make sure our children's children don't live in that kind of society (too late for my kids to avoid it entirely...they have already seen and heard it themselves).

I think most of us could/should do a better job at being nicer to one another. I would say we should all (over 21)meet and have a beer...but...you know...the pandemic.

If people keep using the words black and white Nothing will change. Even as a teenager I had a problem with ethnicity or race questions on official documents- technically there is only one race and it’s the Human Race. That is what people should be teaching their children.

I wish it was 99%. It is not. Trust me when I tell you how often race comes into play in daily life.

It is definitely not 99%.  Nowhere close...

But teaching your kids to be "color blind" is not the right message.  Saying that you don't see color allows people to ignore very real differences in culture, identity, and experiences.  The failure to see and acknowledge racial differences  makes it difficult to recognize the unconscious biases everyone has and when those biases result in situations they are discounted as having nothing to do with race.  Teach your kids that different races are different and have different experiences.  But teach them to respect, appreciate, and celebrate those differences.  You can teach that there are differences and still teach not one is better than the other but that because of society and deeply rooted structural issues everyone's experiences are not likely the same.  You can discuss that with your kids and still look to change those biases but to not recognize them doesn't help.  There are so many articles that you can read and data that you can explore on why not seeing color is an issue and does not positively progress the stop of racism and bias. 

Because most of all of us on here have kids it reminded me of this article that I ran across a while back but has some application to this conversation.

www.scarymommy.com/black-child-friends/?fbclid=IwAR1Txebxn40__nVFuI9xWj5vtIxEYGvpNq3leL0lpQEKqg2ZT4NJcZYpPaQ

 

I never said I raise them to be color blind, I said I raised them to judge people by the content of their character. Once they were old enough to recognize there were indeed differences they were also taught not judge others based on those differences, be it religion, culture, poor, rich, etc. ... but they are to judge everyone as individuals. They treat others as they expects to be treated, with respect. Basically the "golden rule". Individual accountability is a big deal to me. People don't get to treat others poorly and then hide behind a race, religion, or any other social institution. I will continue to educate them on history, good and bad, and let them understand why some see the world from different perspectives. I am not going to teach them they have unconscious biases, but to judge someone on ones actions and words.

Btw, much like you, I enjoy learning about different cultures and find it interesting as well. Sounds like we are more alike than different. 

Oh, and 99% would make up approx. 326 million of the 331 million in the American population, leaving around 3 million who don't raise there kids to see other races as equal. that's alot... Too much!... but America is working on it! What percentage would you place on it? 

We can agree to disagree on the percentages... if it's 95% that are against racism, that still leaves 16 million, and with those numbers it might be more common to experience racism. Unfortunately, racism will always be around in some form, you can never truly wipe it out. I've read and heard about different Asian populations that are against each other (i.e. Chinese vs Japanese, vs Korean, etc). There are some black people that are racist against other races... Hispanic, white, etc... but 95-99% overall is a better than it has been, and we as Americans can keep striving for perfect. It's opening up and discussing like this, understanding others that can help to increase those percentages. And thanks for listening as well. 

It's amazing you guys are still talking about politics... and it's increasingly obvious you know just as much about this topic (and covid/medical topics for that matter) as you do soccer.

STFU and give it a rest.

It's a SOCCER forum. I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.

Wow. This is like reading the comment section of a Huffington Post or Breitbart article.

Getting back to the title: my two kids will never kneel for the anthem-and it was their choice.