Fashion Board 4-6-04 to 5-7-04

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Seb: great post


I think there is some basis for this. I see it in my own family. My grandfathers were terrible racists, one overt and the other more quitely, but as adamently (To be fair, the overt racist was not discriminatory - he hated just about everybody, including the eye-talleons. I think the fact I married a Catholic took years off his life. According to his brother, when they were growing up, people used to tell ghost stories of Jesuit priests stealing babies to cook and eat.).

In moments of weakness, my parents sometimes inadvertently reveal the fact that race is still important to them, but they do their best to appear non-racist. My favorite example is my mother describing her co-worker "I don't think of her as black." I think for their era (very early baby boom) this isn't too bad. As I said, they've been careful to hide their impulses, especially from their kids.

I tend to be pretty race neutral myself, but I can admit that when I'm in a sketchy area race probably enters into my risk analysis. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.

My kids live in a highly integrated neighborhood, and I hope that when they are adults, the idea of discrimination on the basis of race is the kind of bizarre anachronism that discriminating against Italians and Irish is today (I'm trying to be optimistic but realistic here) and that their kids will think the concept totally foreign.

We'll see, I suppose.

Baltimore is one fucked up town for bigotry. I have some friends from that town who harbor some really repulsive views. Its strange - they seem to cling to bigotry like its a tradition that should be passed down. Very strange phenomenon for a city so North.