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In reply to the discussion: Russians mock Obama with racist images on US Embassy in Moscow [View all]JustAnotherGen
(31,818 posts)I was born in West Germany - spent the first five years of my life there. Remember the terror alerts for the Special Forces families.
Have direct connections to my french family in Nice and Marseilles. Been traveling there even by myself for 25 years.
Married to a man from Italy. Own residences there.
We all have our pet countries. I've seen the same paint brushes used against my two pet countries.
And I've never felt in either of those countries that I was disliked or thought of as a savage because of the color of my skin.
When Italians threw bananas at a black finance minister - it WAS condemned. It's a minority. It's not the average Italian.
I never thought - right here on -THIS thread - that I would see someone condone and give reason to abject racist bigoted drivel towards a black American.
I understand your empathy - just understand - What you feel?
That's how a black person - your neighbors and friends and family feel when we see that image.
It's universally known as a dismissal of blacks as 'savages'.
It shows me today - NOT in the 1960's but today - they hold near and dear the 'savage' image of us - black folks in America.
I don't expect you to to have empathy or understand it. You might not be as in tune and connected with the black American experience as theirs. You cannot be expected to have knowledge of the inner emotions of every group, country, nationality or race.
But we count - our feelings - just as much as theirs.
And that's not the first time they've pulled it on the Head Black American In Charge.
What is done to him - you do to all of us.