re: If you are white, how much experience do you have actually dealing with black people?

I was trying to come
Up with another word, like maybe engaging with or encountering, but I thought those sounded weird. So I just used a simple word "dealing."

This is a discussion for mature people, though, so...

Well, I grew up with and interacted with black people every single day of school from Kindergarten until I graduated college. I played football and ran track in high school and whites were probably in the minority in those two sports. I got along great with all of my teammates and know of two of those guys that I talk to on a regular basis. One of whom, was in my wedding. The family that lives across the street from me is black and my daughter and son play with their daughter an average of 2 or 3 days a week. During the summer, if we cook out on the grill or I fire up the smoker, he will come have a beer and chat with me for a while. If he needs to borrow a tool he doesn't have, he comes and asks me. If I don't have a tool and need it ASAP, he is the first person I ask if he has one.

I'm really shocked at how the south is pointed to as being this totally segregated, racist place in America today. Yes, the history of black people in the south has some blemishes, to say the least. But, in all honesty, it seems to me like the south got most of it's racist energy out of our system back in the 60s during the original civil rights era. Look at a map of where black people live. The majority live in the south. We grow up together. We work together.

All that to give an example of one of the most eye-opening anecdotal experiences I've ever had regarding race relations in the country. At my first job after graduating college I worked with a guy who got hired on about a year after I did. He was from Wisconsin. Well, one day he's asking me what it was like growing up in Alabama. He said he was curious because when he got to the state, he was expecting to find this completely brutal and vicious attitude from white people toward black people. Because that's what is portrayed of AL. Anyway, after a little conversation he informs me that he did not have daily interactions with black people until he joined the company. Not through high school and not in college, outside of a couple professors he had in college. He grew up in a gated community he claimed had a grand total of 5 black people (2 different families) and he was told, by his parents, to stay away from them at a young age. He attended a small private high school, that had less than 5 black kids in his graduating class of about 75 kids total. And he said he had a very small group of friends in college and they were pretty exclusive in who they associated with even then (none of them were black).

That really blew my mind and pulled back the curtain on race relations in some of these places that love to look down their noses at the racist hillbillies from the south. How can you go 20+ years of your life without having some sort of interactions with people outside of your demographic on a regular basis. I'm not even saying daily. He told me it was not even thought of as odd that he could go months on end without ever speaking to anyone who wasn't white? In my mind, from the way I was raised and the people I was around, that seems damn near impossible.

Never been a issue. I have black friends I have white friends. I know some worthless white folks as well as some worthless black folks.

Grew up in a majority black middle Ga county and lived around them my entire life. Many are like family. I don’t think Twitter or most social media is representative of how we truly interact or view one another. Most of the division I see is media driven or instigated by people with financial motives.

The problem isn't black people and white people. The problem is trash on all sides. Stop letting the trash tell you how to think and realize that normal people are pretty damn normal.

ETA: Grew up in Broadmoor and went to Broadmoor High in the 90's. I also have worked with and have had all races, creeds and colors work for me. Crappy people are crappy people. Always have been, always will be. Why did we give them such a loud voice and hold them as heros and idols?

I went to public school in rural south Louisiana. I live in mid city Baton Rouge. I spend much of my time with black people including friends that I grew up with.

I grew up in a town where I was a minority, and that gap is getting wider by the day.

I also worked as a Diversity lead in two of my jobs. I already spoke of this experience plenty here. I was ultimately forced out by black racists. That event, along with a few others, pushed me away from the Democrat party.

quote:

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wankers

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That's the correct word to use in this context.

I’m married to a beautiful black woman so I have a little experience.