Monday, August 20, 2007

EVERYONE WANTS TO FEEL VALIDATED

Have you ever gone through something and not known a single other person who'd been through it? So you write about it in your journals and possibly feel very alone. My friend is a therapist and has at least 12 clients who discuss with him how angry Baltimore residents seems to be and how unsafe they feel living here.  

I used to feel afraid to breech the topic of reverse racism. I didn't think anyone would believe me. I feel a sense of relief because now I have 2 single white female friends who've gone through horrible verbal, emotional and sometimes physical abuse for being white. One of my friends is a nurse at a hand clinic and my other friend was a hostess in the dining hall of a nursing home. She did not feel safe at all, based on what she saw happening to minority white employees. She'd run to her car after work for fear of being robbed, raped or killed. And this happened in rural/suburban baltimore county. Somehow she survived the job for 4 years.

I'm so grateful to now have 2 women who I can have an open dialogue with.

I told Jill (the one that worked in the nursing home) that Oprah had a panel of speakers discussing racism and sexism right after the Imus controversy. Jill said that the problem of reverse racism needs to be acknowledged before anything can be done about it . Wise words from a 20 year old, don't ya think? But no-one on the show, on the panel, or in the audience acknowledged it. I've been meaning to write to her.............................

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