Damn I am getting old. Just remembered we already had hijacked a thread about this. http://www.sportstwo.com/threads/see-a-portland-blues-legend-before-its-too-late.328657/page-3
My cousin once choked a very large kid and had to be stopped by faculty in grade school. My cousin doesn't put up with much. One time about five teenagers tried to rob him. He announced that he would not give up his wallet. One kid attacked him. My cousin threw him aside like rag doll. The others thought better of it and they all left with my cousin' s wallet still securely in his back pocket. Have I cried? Yes, anytime a close member of my family died, and there have been many. I tried to give mouth to mouth with CPR to my mother-in-law who lived with us. I broke down a sobbed when I couldn't revive her. I cried when my step father died in my arms. I cried when my brother died in my arms. Although I didn't get along with my mother who had dementia and treated me particularly bad, I cried at her funeral when my cousin started crying and squeezed my hand. I cried for several days when my father died. I was as close to him as I am to my wife. Yeah, I get a little emotional thinking about my youth.
Thanks for the history lesson. You’re exactly my age and your upbringing was (very) eerily similar to my own in inner southeast Portland. That said, you are in denial about your white....er, mutt....privilege. Racism/discrimination was everywhere. Still is. And LO was NOT immune. Nor was it the “lower middle class, working town” you describe. My mother’s cousin was pastor at Our Lady Of The Lake and we were there often during my childhood and adolescence. We used to beg our parents to move to LO because it was so freaking much nicer than Portland. The reason you supposedly didn’t see or hear any racist issues is because your mutt privilege made you oblivious to it. You had no reason to see it because it did not impact you. You could go about your life secure in the knowledge that color was one thing no one would hold against you in LO. And it is why you are still in denial over it. No one judged you on the color of your skin so you choose to believe that no one else is judged on the color of their skin. “White privilege” is not some “false construct”. It is real, and unfortunately you are living proof. That doesn’t mean you’re a racist, just that you’re oblivious to the issue “non mutts” face very day. But as long as you’re good with it.......
I know Our Lady of the Lake very well. It's very near our church, Christ Episcopal. The other church near there was Our Savior Lutheran church where I attended bible school. Catholics were actually looked down on, including me until I met a Catholic and he didn't have horns on his head or speak in an alien tongue and I grew to like him.
BS The door swings both ways no matter where you live. I have faced just as much discrimination as anyone else on this board, for my ethnicity, for my views, for my physical appearance, for my associations, for my beliefs, for my tendency to speak my mind. I left the Federal government 17 years into my career because I was told by multiple HR people, and confirmed it through multiple Dept heads that non-minorities could not be awarded any position if there were any minority applicants, despite being the most qualified. It was Ronnie Reagan who directed this interpretation of the Affirmative Action Act and nobody has rescinded it to my knowledge. Myself and many tens of thousands of Federal employees had to start new careers, many in midlife. I could scream and cry foul, lecture you on how some of my favorite co-workers continued advancing in their chosen careers and now have the retirement they were promised while I will most likely not be able to fully retire ever. Instead, I dusted my ego off and went in search for a new career. No regrets, no animosity against anyone. That's life, insanely irrational, threatening and frustrating at times. Roll your eyes all you want but everyone here including you have a pretty awesome life because we're all free to speak our thoughts out loud and we're the world's center of diversity. It only works because there are no mods in real life, feelings get hurt, people get over it, both sides learn a little about each other. Then they move forward. To label an entire city as being racist is absurd.
That's not the way affirmative action worked. The minority only gained a position over a Caucasian if the minority was equally qualified. Otherwise you'd have a legitimate beef. When I worked I never had an instance of a minority gaining a position that I had applied for. I don't think I even had a minority apply for a position that I applied for and that included manual labor that I did in my early years.
Maybe in the private sector, where I've never run into it (as far as I know). You are wrong, as far as Federal Employment is concerned, although veterans get the same hiring and retention preference as minorities. Here's how OPM uses points employees for hiring or retention: Non-minority male=0 Non-minority female=1 Non-minority Veteran=1 Minority male=1 Minority male Veteran=2 Minority female=2 Minority female veteran=3 Points are how each agency's compliance with AAA is measured which has resulted in several decades of minority females replacing men of all qualifications in the Federal workforce. Experience and education/training are never factors considered in retention matters (downsizing), and rarely in hiring, unless no minorities apply. They will literally provide free training to any minority applicant with zero experience and award them the job over fully qualified non-minority applicants. Anyway that was the way it was in the 70's through the 90's, and I seriously doubt it has changed. It is what it is, a failed attempt at fighting discrimination with discrimination. I don't know the solution, but I know this ain't it. It's why our government moves like a slug and costs us 20 times what it should for the service. Agency budgets spend a huge portion on schooling and training for unqualified applicants, some who will never pan out, even when the best employee for the job is right there asking for the job. At one time it was the world's most efficient and amazing workforce of experts and journeymen. That will never be re-achieved as long as AAA is there in it's current form. Although it breeds hatred from some in the workforce as tens of thousands employees have had their lives ruined financially, and more importantly what they viewed as their professional identity that they were so proud of, the hatred is generally directed at the AAA and the Feds for going to extremes. Some people were too old to find/create new careers. One friend quickly drank himself to death, I suspect there were many suicides because of it. I originally thought that Reagan did it to incite racial hatred and cut costs by weakening the union. People handed a high-paying job they couldn't get anywhere else are unlikely to strike for more money. If those were his goals, he failed miserably. My 17 years as a Federal Employee were happy times with a very diverse group of wonderful, hard-working people, many of them very close friends to this day. Personally, I've never had any bitterness about it, even at the time. None. I've always enjoyed a challenge and have now enjoyed achieving some success in a pretty wide list of career fields, learned a mass of skills and information, and met a myriad of great people I otherwise would not have meet. I am now settled into a career I love and can work at until I drop if I want to or need to. Had I remained at the government I'd not have gained any of that, and had a much more boring and less challenging life. Most importantly, I wouldn't live where I live now, doing what I'm doing. I love my life and I am aware had something different ever happened in it I likely would have ended up differently, so no regrets. As for AAA, it has made huge strides in lifting minorities to levels of accomplishment they previously may have thought were out of reach, which is a good thing for all Americans. Many who might have given up on life embraced life instead, and provide encouragement to others that anything is possible for them. But I think it's time to dial it back just a notch or 2 now as the only young minorities now looking at starting their careers are Caucasian males, and they gain no edge from education, experience or exceptional performance. They are discriminated against, by law, no matter where they seek employment, no matter what employment they seek. That's your supposed white privilege.
Hey, I get a point. I dunno, when I was working all Veterans got was that they could not be discriminated against because of their service in Vietnam. I have no idea how things may have changed in the last 30 or so years.
Well, let's see. OJ Simpson went to jail. A black man became President. Twerking became a thing. that's about it, really. barfo
What about the crazy man who usurped the White House? Oh yeah, and then there was that whole World Trade Center thing. Someone claimed that thousands and thousands of Muslims in the United States were seen cheering when that happened at least that's what a lot of people are saying.
