by Mande Wilkes And I\u2019m tired of it.<\/p>\n While I can concede that some people are racist, and some systemic racism lingers, it\u2019s hardly rampant or pervasive. On the whole, black Americans and white carry on together just fine.<\/p>\n To claim otherwise, actually, is to hurt children \u2014 black children, specifically. How must it feel to be a kid and to be told, over and over again from the get-go, that the world is out to get you? While it\u2019s not causative, it isn\u2019t hard to understand, then, why black youth suffer from high rates of incarceration, poverty, drug use and teen pregnancy. Honestly, had I grown up with the world at my ear, telling me I\u2019m despised, I can\u2019t be sure I wouldn\u2019t have had a rockier time of it.<\/p>\n There are consequences, is what I\u2019m saying, when you convince a whole segment of America that they\u2019re hated. Not for nothing, one of those consequences could be that a black teen, having been brought up to believe that racism is everywhere, might behave defensively when approached by a white cop. In that instance, we can\u2019t discern whether the issue was racism itself or, as likely, the mistaken and unwarranted fear of racism where it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll keep it real, for a moment, and confess that I\u2019m not saying anything new on the subject. So much has been said about racism that it\u2019s hardly possible, at this point, to deliver any large insights.<\/p>\n But I reached my breaking point a few days ago, upon hearing news of the editorial board of a college newspaper charging that bra manufacturers are racist. Why are they racist? Because \u201cnude\u201d is a common bra-color designation, and black women\u2019s skin isn\u2019t actually \u201cnude.\u201d Or something.<\/p>\n Anyway, interestingly, this recent ratcheting-up and battening-down of hysteria coincides with genuine and growing racist sentiment \u2014 but it has nothing to do with the black population.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, a number of Americans have convinced themselves that Islam is a race and a religion to be feared, and, more than that, annihilated. You might imagine that to a Jewish person like me, Islamophobia would be comforting \u2014 a measure of commiseration about the ongoing Mideast unrest. But in fact it bewilders me that unofficial American policy seems to be that an entire population must be either converted or killed.<\/p>\n Which is all to say that right now it\u2019s safer and sounder to be black in America than to be Muslim anywhere. Perhaps that\u2019s progress of sorts, but it feels like more of the same. Something\u2019s changed, subtly but swiftly, over the past couple of months. Suddenly there are charges of racism absolutely everywhere, from seemingly everyone, irrespective of whether those accusations are grounded in reality. This isn\u2019t entirely new, obviously, but it has intensified as of late. by Mande Wilkes And I\u2019m tired of it. While I can concede … Continue reading “Everything is racist now, even bras”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[492],"tags":[2135,10046,10045,65,157],"class_list":["post-16072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-black-americans","tag-bras","tag-mande-wilkes","tag-race","tag-racism"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16074,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072\/revisions\/16074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wikes\"](\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wikes.jpg\")
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\nMande Wilkes is a wife, mother, businesswoman, author, etc. residing on the South Carolina coast with her family<\/em>. Read more of her columns<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"