Jacoby is dead wrong, as usual.

Only a few weeks ago, race relations had reached such a low point in the troubled east Texas town of Paris that federal Justice Department mediators were called in to try to bring together black and white citizens, but the public meeting quickly dissolved into rancor.

Now fresh racial tensions are erupting inside one of the town's biggest employers, the Turner Industries pipe fabrication plant, where black employees charge that hangman's nooses, Confederate flags and racist graffiti have been appearing throughout the workplace for months.

Paris first drew national scrutiny in 2007, the year after a 14-year-old African-American girl, Shaquanda Cotton, was sentenced by a local judge to up to 7 years in a youth prison for shoving a hall monitor at Paris High School.

Three months earlier, the same judge had sentenced a 14-year-old white girl to probation for the more serious crime of arson.

http://www.chicagotribune.c...

The black workers are discriminated against in pay and promotions as well.

His POINT, for those who missed it (pinheads) like TSM is that the more we bring it out and belabor it the more we divide.

The racial issue of the past is something no sane person can be proud of, we all know it was wrong.  But like so much in life, we can't undo it.  Unfair labor practice STILL exists and it isn't just Black who feel it.  If you think women are always treated fairly when it comes to raises and promotions against a male then you are indeed a pinhead.

Things are changing, they've been changing for a long time.  You can't just snap your fingers and right all the wrongs in our history regardless of which sector of our population you want to target so all we can do is continue to work on it until all people are treated fairly.

As long as someone is pointing a finger and accusing others of mistreating them when we ourselves did no such thing, there will always be division.

"truth in the booth"~ how many times did I hear that?

I hardly think using the term "pinheads" advances Jacoby's point .

His POINT, for those who missed it (pinheads) like TSM is that the more we bring it out and belabor it the more we divide.

In contrast to Holder's point, which is that we haven't brought it out yet, let alone belaboring it. 

its usually the racists that cry racism (TSM)<<<<<<<<<<< << wouldnt last a minute on MLK blvd after sundown

Americans have been jawboning about race for 2½ centuries, and we are in no danger of running out of things to say. More race talk is the last thing we need. As a nation and as individuals, the less race matters to us, the less thought we give it, the more racial progress we will make. Our goal should be not to dwell on "things racial" but to see beyond them.

Just as millions of Americans already do.

(Just  thought I'd run that one by ya again.)

People should be GRATEFUL that, as a nation, enough people looked beyond race and elected the first Black president.  That some of our highest offices in the land are, and have been held, by Blacks.

People should be shouting from the rooftops more about our progress and how far we've come rather than than mixing it with old hurts from the past.

I have a saying I use in groups.  "It's ok to visit the past, that's how we learn.  Just don't take up residence there."

Americans have been jawboning about race for 2½ centuries

Not in any meaningful or constructive way, as you, learnem and Jacoby have clearly demonstrated.

The more you make the claim it's not needed, the more you make the case that it is.

Americans have been jawboning about race for 2½ centuries

For the first eighty+ percent of that, only white people got a say.

People should be GRATEFUL that, as a nation, enough people looked beyond race and elected the first Black president.

Damned right.  The alternative would've been disasterous.

Nancy, as I said on somebody else's blog a couple of days ago, I personally think we've made great strides in the last couple of decades regarding race relations.  Then this:  Maybe Holder just doesn't run with the right crowd.  (I think it was lost on the last go-round.)

RF, try, just for once try, forming a response that doesn't drag that tired old news into it.  Even you should be sick of that crap by now.

Your first two words were right on target..the last 5 were totally unecessary. 

RF, try, just for once try, forming a response that doesn't drag that tired old news into it. 

Gee, but I thought you were *HAPPY* the American voters showed some sense this time.

I personally think we've made great strides in the last couple of decades regarding race relations.

Let me guess.  You're white?

"...and many miles to go before I sleep..."  the world,our nation ,our very selves are a work in progress~ thank goodness. Always room for improvement.

Talking about problems is what most professionals advocate from personal relationships to societal problems. Some visiting of the past is required to understand how one got to today~ then it is time to consider how best to move forward. If that is what Jacoby is implying~ he has a point.

Race in America has been talked about ( or, it  has been the salient, if some what at times a mute,  pariah in American politics and social development) for a good four hundred years.

80 percent of that time the dialog was dominated by the white folks.

You can't talk about race relations  in America without dealing with the last four hundred years too. It's impossible.

--virgil

why do a few people on this board have white guilt?   me or my ancestors werent anywhere AROUND the US during slavery.....

slavery was a FACT, not only in the United States for many years (hundreds), but all over the world...the Jews were slaves in Egypt...the indians were made slaves by the spanish in mexico....also in south america...slavery continues today in Africa...

i treat people by their character, not their color.....gee who yaps about race the most???  effin Jesse HIJACKson and the good Rev Al (Not so Sharp)ton.  if they would get off their soap boxes, a majority of the black/white issues would disappear...theres been a double standard regarding black/white (no hate crimes against blacks...affirmative action....preferential treatment on college entrance, yada yada yada)

and lets just look at the inventions of the white man for the last, oh thousand years....would we EVEN be having this discussion online....better yet, even not face to face, had it not been for the white man??? 

whites, more than any other creed, have benefited society throughout the years to the point we are....so i dont want to hear your white guilt, because of your crooked ways giving you a guilt trip, about (in my best whiny ne0-marxist voice) oh oh oh...i feel horrible about families being on welfare for 5 generations"

you have to better yourself before you can better other people...and SOME of you on this board are nowhere near bettering yourself to  that point yet

 Talking about problems is what most professionals advocate from personal relationships to societal problems. Some visiting of the past is required to understand how one got to today~ then it is time to consider how best to move forward.

I think as I look here I really only agree with sagefever.  The progress we have made though history has only been made by having a dialogue.  There are still some underlying issues that have not been solved.  Learnem's rant about a double standard only goes to prove that those issues are still there.  After the cartoon from the Post came out some people saw blatent racism while others could not see how racism would be interpretted.  Instead of looking at how others may view this cartoon we throw out defensive stances.  I highly doubt anything will ever be resolved without looking at the issues underlying our society.  Of course, Holder's comment only hurts such a discussion. 

the Jews were slaves in Egypt...

Actually no, they weren't.  Oppressed in lots of places, chiefly European, *SINCE* then, though.