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| Independence Day, Over the Years . x . Home . Contact | |||||||
| It's A Camera, Not A Gun Independence Day, 4 July 2005 . Washington DC ... and without apologies ... from the perspective of a black man Elvert Xavier Barnes Photograpahy . Writings . Ads ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
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| 4 July does not mean to me what it means to my white friends ... | |||||||
| The first thing a white person must do in order to effectively fight racism is to learn to listen, and more than that, to believe what people of color say about their lives. This may seem obvious, even trite, but I assure you it is more important than it may appear. One of the biggest problems with White America is its collective unwillingness to believe that racism is still a real problem for nonwhite peoples, dispite their repeated protestations that it is. Survey after survey for decades has demonstrated the same pattern; whites saying that racial discrimination is pretty much a thing of the past, and people of color saying that it continues regularly and that they have personally experienced it, often several times a month. That whites refuse to believe what people of color say about racism in their own lives - and have refused to believe it in every generation, in itself, is a form of racism. | |||||||
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| 4 July 2005 . WDC . click image | |||||||
| A white man's lie, about my black life, ain't my fuckin' truth. | |||||||
| As a 51 year old gay black man who, over the years, practiced integration (with white people) Independence Day does not mean to me what it means to my white counterpart. Though, over the years, they and I would often travel and/or celebrate holidays together, including Independence Day, and with the exception of Frank Gramarossa who'd pass in the spring of 1989 the places that they and I would visit together but not unlike the homes or the times that we shared once they would accompany or get close to me but, in fact, whenever they'd come around not only would I no longer be welcomed sometimes in my own community but in most cases and as a direct result of their malignment with me I'd have to move and/or relocate from my home as well as change jobs. And by the time that I'd realize what they had done ... it would be too late for me. Yet, at no time during the course of our relationship did they not know, exactly, what they were doing. And that what they were doing which was just the opposite of what they had pretended would have devestating impact on my black life. But not theirs. | |||||||
| Your addictions like white women's bulimia be not my afflictions. | |||||||