Tribes
From ejectejecteject.com:
"Only a few minutes ago, I had the delightful opportunity to read the comment of a fellow who said he wished that white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself could have been herded into the Superdome Concentration Camp to see how much we like it. Absent, of course, was the fundamental truth of what he plainly does not have the eyes or the imagination to see, namely, that if the Superdome had been filled with white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself, it would not have been a refinery of horror, but rather a citadel of hope and order and restraint and compassion. That has nothing to do with me being white. If the blacks and Hispanics and Jews and gays that I work with and associate with were there with me, it would have been that much better. That’s because the people I associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal."
Great post from someone who makes the point I've tried to make over the last few days but much more eloquently. It's not about race or class, it's about character.
H/T: Instapundit.
posted by Presley Bennett @ 9/05/2005
4 comments
4 Comments:
Saije, I've been thinking about the same thing, and I couldn't agree more. It's really too bad that logical statements like this are so hard to make these days without suffering a barrage of charges of racism. It really isn't about race, it's about the quality of individual character.
I don't think that's true. Having grown up poor, I think poor people are as likely to act with dignity as those with "means", if not more so in some instances. To say that being poor (and/or black) is a license to rape, loot and kill is just bizarre.
No, I didn't think you were suggesting that..I thought you were being sarcastic towards those who do seem to excuse criminal behavior as caused by poverty. I remember during the LA riots there was looting by all races. And I don't think a lot of those people were "poor" by most definitions.
This is a pet theme of mine but I resist blogging about it because I don't want to be labeled a moralist. But the hurricane has really brought a lot of these issues to the surface. There are many stories of people who risked their lives to help other people, black, white, poor, black, etc. And then there are those who took advantage of the situation and raped, looted and murdered. They didn't do that because they were poor or black or misunderstood.
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