Why In The Hell Do White Folks Continue To Believe That Black Folks Don't Work, Don't Like Working, Or Refuse To Work?
I don't get this one. I live in a predominantly white state, I mean WHITE. I see plenty of white people not working, getting public assistance, homeless, and PLENTY of hard-working white folks losing their jobs due to plants closing, businesses folding and moving. Yet, it never crosses my mind to say those people are lazy, they want a hand-out, or they just won't work.
And shocks me further that in the states that have some of the largest numbers of unemployed white folks, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, Kentucky, etc...... These are the main places where the most vicious racist statements against the President and black folks are coming from. That doesn't make sense. If a white person doesn't have a job or is having difficulty getting one, why would they think it's any easier for a black person?
4 comments:
I see the same things in my area of the Appalachians. Just some left over scapegoating from the past. They just never upgraded from the 19th century...
I think part of the reason some whites feel this way is dissonance. They need to feel that America is fair and everyone can get ahead. So, when this clearly doesn't happen for many groups of people, they have to ascribe it something beside an inherent flaw in society.
There's also a class component to this. Some whites look down on other white people who aren't doing well and choose to ascribe their failure to laziness. However, the big difference in this case is that the negative connotation is placed on the individual and not the group, unlike the case with racial sterotypes.
it makes them feel superior, and allows them that do think that of us to keep us in 'our places' so they feel more comfortable in who they are.
most of them don't work nor do thy want to.
Yes, I agree with what has been said. The people with money and jobs say to themselves 'I got a job, so they can get one too but they don't want to.' And they don't read or know too much about the lives other people lead - they watch Fox or something - so basically they cocoon themselves in a very limited world that reinforces their limited perceptions.
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