Racial Pride?

I recently received this blurb as a bulletin here on myspace (my retorts/remarks/comments are in purple):

Proud To Be White
Someone finally said it.
How many are actually paying
attention to this?

There are African Americans,
Mexican Americans,
Asian Americans,
Arab Americans,
Native Americans, etc.
And Irish Americans, and French Americans, and Italian Americans. . . What's your point?

...And then there are just -
Americans.
This is what we all are, IMO

You pass me on the street
and sneer in my direction.

You Call me 'White boy,'
'Cracker,' 'Honkey,'
'Whitey,' 'Caveman,'
... And that's OK.
I confess, this hurts my feelings.

But when I call you Nigger,
Kike, Towel head,
Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey,
Beaner, Gook, or Chink
... You call me a racist.
. . . but on the other hand, i don't do this as a retaliatory measure. In fact, these are words not generally found in my vocabulary at all.

You say that whites commit a lot
of violence against you,
so why are the ghettos the most
dangerous places to live?
As if anyone WANTS to live in a ghetto.

You have the United Negro College Fund.

You have Martin Luther King Day.

You have Black History Month.

You have Cesar Chavez Day.

You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.

You Have Yom
Hashoah.

You have the NAACP.

And you have BET.

If we had WET
(White Entertainment Television)
... We'd be racists.

If we had a White Pride Day
... You would call us racists.

If we had White History Month
... We'd be racists.

If we had any organization for only whites
to 'advance' OUR lives
...
We'd be racists.

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
a Black Chamber of Commerce,
and then we just have the plain
Chamber of Commerce.

Wonder who pays for that?

If we had a college fund that only gave
white students scholarships
... You know we'd be racists.

There are over 60 openly-proclaimed
Black-only Colleges in the US ,
yet if there were 'White-only Colleges'
... THAT would be a racist college.

In the Million Man March,
you believed that you were
marching for your race and rights.
And white civil rights were in danger WHEN in this country?!

If we marched for our race and rights,
... You would call us racists.

You are proud to be black,
brown, yellow and orange,

and you're not afraid to announce it.

But when we announce our white pride

... You call us racists.

You rob us,
Again, as if the only people who ever rob white people are nonwhites.

carjack us,
and shoot at us.

But, when a white police officer

shoots a black gang member
or beats up a black drug-dealer
who is
running from the LAW and
posing a threat to ALL of society
... You call him a racist.

I am proud.

... But, you call me a racist.

Why is it that only
whites
can be racists?

There is nothing improper about this e-mail.

Let's see which of you
are proud enough to send it on.


I must confess, i don't understand racial pride at all. Race isn't an accomplishment! You don't work really hard for years, scrimp, save and sacrifice to finally achieve your race as a reward for all your efforts; it's an accident of birth. So i had mixed feelings about this bulletin when i initially read it. While it's true, if there were a White Entertainment Televison, all kinds of action would be taken against it, but on the other hand, why would a white person feel the need to make his own Million Man March? Since when have whites' rights in particular ever come under fire? The programs the author of this bulletin is so derisive of (NAACP, United Negro College Fund, etc) were put in place for a reason: that was the only way an impoverished black child could afford college, and most blacks' lives needed advancement because they weren't getting the same advantages afforded their white contemporaries (this is history, my misinformed author-friend, not opinion or something other races are doing specifically to piss you off). Whether or not these programs are still relevant or necessary in this day and age is a subject for a different discussion.

I guess my basic problem with a post like this is my same problem with the whole racial issue in the first place. Racial hatred is never going to die unless people give it a rest (i.e. stop making the comments, stop teaching the sentiments to your kids, stop using the slurs). I also believe racial hatred is being partly sustained by this concept of racial pride. People of all ethnicities need to come down off their Pride Pedestals and start working toward the equality we all claim to want.