fig96 said:
Well said on all counts, and I really appreciate the genuine attempt at discussion here.
I also think that it's worth noting that exposure to different cultures doesn't mean you understand what they've experienced. There's a huge difference between having friends of another race or culture vs actually living that day in and day out, and seeing more narratives told from those varying perspectives opens up a whole new world of storytelling.
i acknowledge that. i do get it more than most.
i've been the only anglo in a month long business deal in china.
i've been almost the only white kid in the elementary school for 3 years.
i even ended up being the only white couple in new orleans the night before the Bayou Classic.
i have a lot of experiences. my first day in SA on the way from the airport i saw my first dead people, whole white family had been hacked up with machetes on their ranch.
you know what? the blacks and whites in SA that we lived with had no trouble identifying what was wrong with that.
getting a roll off the dinner table is a VERY different experience in a mexican household in Kingsvillle than it is in a rich white house in Tyler, or a single mother minnesota black family of 6 kids. different again in SA in the 70's, and different again in china.
being a minority CAN be uncomfortable (or worse) in ways that you can't really get without experiencing it.
but you wont get that from a movie either. cheap one liners or blatant agendas can't get you there.
when you interact with real people - of any color, we all like and want the same things - good humor, good food, basic comforts, generosity, good manners, fair dealings, basic respect, honesty, despite human history, it's truly not that hard.
10 years ago, in america you could enjoy all of those things in most places in america without significant tension.
today, politics and race/sex baiting is forefront in every news story, movie, political drivel, tv show, etc. It is making people tense around each other that would never have been that way 10 years ago, if we'd have been allowed to keep growing as a society.
but strong, educated, informed, financially viable, armed and united americans cannot be EXPLOITED, and thus that demographic has been under attack for a long time. this is part of it.