PS: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj8neZjCEB4"]YouTube - Family Guy - Oh My God It's Jackie Chan[/ame]
As long as you're using past sins as a reference point then you are using guilt as a motivator. It's pretty similar to someone's wife getting caught cheating. Instead of leaving her you decide to work things out. Now it's not as if you're going to forget it ever happened. However, if you want it to work then you can't bring it up every time you argue. Likewise with racism. If you want to ever get past it you can't say "well that frog character must be racist because some people called us monkeys in the past." I think one needs to view these things with an honest attempt to look at intent. At some point "the look what happened in the past" can become nothing more than a crutch for someone who embraces the victim role. So IMO it's important to talk about it, but its equally important to listen with an open mind. One more thought on our sins of the past. All too often the past gets thrown into people's faces who had absolutely nothing to do with it. In other words I shouldn't be held to blame for something my great grandfather did. Nor should I be viewed with suspicion because of it, either.
Using your analogy though, the wife hasn't stopped cheating. This is my problem, the assumption is made or at least implied that racism has stopped. It hasn't. You'd have a point if it had stopped. To further your analogy, if the wife hasn't stopped cheating, you're going to be pissed if she went out to lunch with some guy, even if she doesn't do anything with him. That's more like what is going on the country. Some people may say some things or do somethings, that aren't racially motivated, yet are similar to things that are. Take the Harvard professor and the cop. I honestly think the cop was innocent, but considering the police have and still do exhibit racism and profiling as a whole (not all), you can understand the professors reaction. Brushing these things to the side do nothing to improve the situation.
Yeah, I see your point. I think for you, me, unlucky our common ground is that we all view racism as reprehensible. However, due to individual life experiences we approach the issue from different perspectives. I'm able to separate past offenses from current ones. I have the stance that what is in the past is that; and we ought to move forward, addressing only that which occurs in the present. While for others present racism is intertwined with past racism. And for me the analogy was within the context of past racism. Furthermore I still maintain one ought to give the benefit of the doubt.
