Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   Thinking Date:   9/29/2016 4:40:01 PM

I have been reading a lot about the new African American History and I know that Obama spoke at it's opening.  It is part of the Smithsonian complex.  But what I am thinking is why we need a separate African American History.  We already have an American history museum, so why wouldn't the "African American" history be incorporated in the American History Museum? Aren't we one people?  Isn't African History part of the American Story too?  Seems to me that this kind of thing promotes the idea that we have a separate history.  What next, the Italian American Museum?  Will every sub-group require their own history museum as part of the Smithsonian complex?

I have a friend on FB who is black.  At one time he was my executive assistant and for a lot of reasons, he refers to me as Mom.  He and I spend a lot of time talking about race.  And his friends get into it too.  One thing I find is that a lot of his friends get angry when I ask them the hard questions:  Like exactly how often have you been harassed by the police for no reason?  One a week, once a month, once a year, once in your life?  And I often ask them why they have such anger and hatred of the police for stopping them, where many times they are being stopped for meeting the description of someone that has committed a crime.  They get mad at the police, but why do they not get angry with the thugs of their own race that cause the situation to begin with?  And why can't they put themselves in the cops shoes when someone appears to be threatening them, and they shoot.  What do they think they would do in that situation?    The thing is that because I am a white woman asking these questions, they get really angry.  I mean really angry, and will unplug from the discussion with the quip that I am part of the problem. 

The other day I used the example of my being a white woman who drives a white Lincoln Navigator, with a little bit of damage on one side where a deer ran into me.  Well, supposed I was in Alex City and there was a hit and run the witnesses said the accident was caused by a white woman driving a white Lincoln Navigator.  If the police stop me to question me, should I consider that as harassment? 

My take away is that a lot of black people have gotten to the point where they only read black websites and are being fed a continual diet of how they have been wronged and how they are oppressed at every turn.  It's not even that they have to have experienced it themselves, to believe that it is happening all the time. 

I am a long way from a racist.  I've had numerous black friends and employees over the years and in the beginning of my career, I worked for a black woman and 80% of our office was black.  One black woman told me that in her experience, black people were harder on other black people than they were on whites.  But the conversations we had back in those days were much, much different than the conversations that seem possible now. And I wonder why that is?  Social media?