-- unknown
When I saw this quote the truth of it just hit me. White america has just become aware of the rage that black america feels. When they heard rap for the first time unadalterated and unfilted they were apalled to find out how young blacks talked and how they thought. I must admit that I too was appalled by the language used in the music and videos, but I wasn't as surprised by the anger.
I grew up with blinders on. My family lived in a predominately white neighborhood and I went to predominately white schools. There I should have been more aware of the inequites and distrust around me but I was for the most part obliviouse to it. When confronted with bigatry I just marked it down as an aomoly, thinking that this is not how the world works in general. that each encident was a unique and seperate incident. It wasn't until I was in my thirties and was confrunted not with the often lammented "driving while black" but the less talked about "walking while black". This happens to people of color all across the country and is something that I and others of us have grown to expect when in a strange neighborhood. I know we shouldn't become acustomed to being treated like a second class citizen but some things over time you just learn to live with. Unfortunately or fortuneatly according how you look at it this happened in my own neighborhood.
About a year after this happened a friend was reading a book assigned to her for a class at university. I thought the subtitle was provocative, it was "Why are middle-class blacks angry? Why should America care? I asked to borrow it after she was finished with it for class. The book itself is called "Rage of a Privileged Class" by Ellis Cose. It was so good and helped me to understand myself and my family so much better that I went and bought 5 copies to pass to other members of my family. Whether you are black or not, this book shows a side to the black middle class that is seldom discussed and often dismissed. When I next went home to my parents house my siblings and I discussed the issues this book brings up. We were all surpised to have had the same type of things happen and the same feeling. We all thought that it was "just me" and had tried to bury or dismiss them.
We in my family and apparently many other BUPPIES seem to have forgotten the sentiment in that earlier quote. We will never forget it again.
