i hate racism

Read “Talking About Racism: How Our Dialogue Gets Short-Circuited” by Paul L. Wachtel (RrA p. 541-555)

· Blog – Extending the Critical Context #11 on p. 555

I have witnessed one racial confrontation. At summer camp in 2008 training week before the start of summer camp we had in our cabin a group divided between 4 white kids 2 black kids and one fat white kid who acted like he was black and spoke with an accent that made his words indistinguishable. What transpired was when Ralph took some of my Pringles (I was not in the room at the time) and another kid in the cabin called him a mootcher which Ralph and the other black kid heard as n***er and were thus understandably angry and reacted to it, one thing led to another and a can of aerosol was flung at a high velocity across the room, smashing into one of the beads near one of the kids faces. As a result one of the white kids in the cabin was called a racist, (something which he was not) and one of the black kids got fired and the fit white kid quit. I was really disturbed by this because it was only a day before that everybody in the cabin was getting along well. At this point in time I whished that racism never existed.