Prometheus 6

That USA Today op-ed pleased me so much, I'm going to drop a clue I've determined a lot of y'all need based on the conversation in newspaper comment sections nationwide.

I judge anyone who responded to the Jena 6 discussion with a discussion of criminality in the Black community to be racist. Yes, just like that. They do nothing to address or explain ANY of the facts on the ground there...they just attack. I am kinder to those who responded with respect for the issue but dismay over the avatars thereof (though they do nothing to address or explain ANY of the facts on the ground there either). I accuse them of moral cowardice.

Given the piss-poor media on this, those who think the entire series of events was "nooses get hung, black boys jump white boy" are just ignant. It took a minute for me to stop calling them ignant assholes, though. Had to remember the asshole part is only justified once you've been given the real data and you reject it.

I can actually point to a number of conversations I've had where folks started out thinking I was on some radical edge philosophy and wound up thinking, eh, he's not that weird. The were ignant of me, you see.

Being ignant is a HUGE obstacle, so I thought I'd explain how to avoid that. To those who are interested, I mean.

See, one thing that was demonstrated by how all this worked out is that we don't all pay attention to the same stuff at the same time. I've been following the Jena story since around April or so. White folks, not so much...they were following...well, I have no idea what you were following that could possibly obstruct Jena, so there you are.

This is quite the predictable pattern. So when you approach a story Black folks are hyper about, you have to assume you do not know the whole story and suspend judgement. That's the first step, and the most difficult one because the fact that you're attending to it means you DO have (let's call it) a working opinion. Set it aside...you will not only have the oportunity to pick it up, you will be required to do so.

Now. Listen for a while. How long? If you're talking to one person, you should be able to explain to that person in your own words what you think he said, and have the person agree. This is NOT saying you must agree with the reasoning.

Now that you understand the issues the Black person is reacting to, examine your opinion. Does it actually address any of the issues the Black person is responding to? If it does not, you run a strong risk of being accused of ignoring the issues of Black folks to address your own needs. Because, you see, your working opinion ignores the issues of Black folks while addressing your own.

Still with me? I'm shocked...

I believe you can handle it from there. Don't worry, you won't have to do this forever. You'll develop heuristics. It's like touch-typing...a hellishly complex operation that, with practice, becomes as reflexive as speech. And the best thing is, by extending the depth of your examinations it becomes planning.