The Man (or woman) in the Mirror

On Don's blog (link in sidebar) he announced the forthcoming release of his African-American preteen calandar. He got a comment on his blog who acted like a victim of sorts because being intentionally proud of your culture is ok if you are black, but not ok if you are white. Although on some political extremes he may be right, in general the sentiments he expressed were a passive-agressive way of expressing latent racism, in my opinion. Here is what I said:



I don't think people necessarily get mad when you are confident in who you are and where you come from. Even if you are a white guy who listens to country music and has a pick up truck. (I am listening to country music as I write this, and am the only adult male in my family not to have a pick up).

I have a few things to say in response to this:

1.) The problem is that every movement of "white pride" that I have heard of seems to be about putting other people down that are different, instead of building up their constituencies with opportunity and support. When white pride brings opportunity to the poor in Appalachia and to the chronically poor or their ilk in the inner city instead of burning down churches and lynching people of color, and standing at the border as a self-appointed border control in states (yes I am more liberal on immigration too.) that were historically Mexican and had nomadic people groups...well then I think they might get more support.

2.) When you are a majoirty of a population, you have much of your nation pushing images that are positive and look like you. Especially in America.

Case in point, look at most pictures of Jesus on display in America. Now we all know that Jesus was Middle Eastern, so why don't we have pictures of Jesus that look more like Saddam Hussein than a Norwegian underwear model?

3.) Aren't there lots of ethnic white pride movements? What is St. Patrick's Day if it is not a expression of pride of certain white people? Columbus Day (although there are protests of that every year in Southern Colorado)? What about President's Day? Or, more recently, the wave of the Blue Collar Comedy tour? Isn't that an expression of "redneck" culture without the racist connotations.

Ok......enough of my rant.