Georgia Principal accused of racist graduation speech comment:'All the black people are leaving!"

[marylander1940]

• Nancy Gordeuk, founder and operator of TNT Academy in Stone Mountain, Georgia, made the statement at Friday's graduation ceremony
  

• According to those who were at the event, Gordeuk accidentally dismissed the senior class early without letting the valedictorian give his speech
  

• She grew upset when some students and their families did not heed her orders to come back into the auditorium for the speech
  

• After commenting that all of the black people were leaving, most of the crowd and students got up and left in anger
  

• On Saturday, Gordeuk apologized for her remarks, which were made 'in the emotional state of trying to let this last student finish his speech'
  

 

A day of celebration quickly turned to disgust when a high school principal started spewing racist comments, causing most of the senior class and their supportive families to leave the graduation in protest.

 

Video of the commencement ceremony for TNT Academy in Lilburn, Georgia on Friday shows the moment the schools' founder Nancy Gordeuk stood up and admonished some of the students for leaving, saying: 'Look who's leaving...all the black people!'

 

At that statement, the incredulous crowd grows loud with anger and most of those sitting appear to get up and leave the church where the ceremony was taking place.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3074872/Look-s-leaving-black-people-Principal-shocks-racist-comments-high-school-graduation.htm

[marylander1940]

Deej and Daddy:

 

I accidentally placed this thread on the gallery where I place 90% of my posts.

Please change this to the Lounge, I've learned how to change a tittle and the new software is fantastic but I can't find a way to either delete this or move it o the Lounge.

My apologies for all this trouble and one more time thanks a lot for all the recent changes and specially the polls that allow us to get to know the opinions of likes of other members.

sincerely,

 

Marylander1940

[+ stevenkesslar]

I agree that this thread should be moved to the Lounge. It would be a very useful thing to talk about.

 

Whether you like Jon Stewart or not, this interview with Common and the article about Oklahomo say pretty much everything that needs to be said on the subject. This is how it's done:

 

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/2ucec5/exclusive---common-extended-interview

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/us/former-university-of-oklahoma-student-apologizes-for-racist-chant.html

 

And to go to the Granddaddy of Tragedies, this is what TIME Magazine eloquently had to say about what happened in South Carolina: "The routine encounter that gets out of hand, the abrupt escalation from questions to gunfire - the themes are so common that it's hard to avoid two conclusions, which sit uncomfortably together in the American mind. First, that it must be scary to be a police officer in such circumstances. And second, that it is even more frightening - with an overlay of humiliation - to be the black man in the picture." TIME's solution: "Enlightened law enforcement leaders are coming to understand that the best path forward is more video, not less...The good apples are able to rely on more than their own word when they find themselves in trouble. The bad apples feel less free to level their weapons with impunity."

 

Twice in my life I found myself in trouble, with police officers staring at me suspiciously, in one case with their hands on their holsters. Both times were in the middle of the night, at my front door, in a house I owned, after someone had called the cops because they thought there might be a break-in. In one case I was ordered by cops to "put the knife down." I immediately bent over in submission while saying, "It's not a knife, it's a screwdriver, and I am putting it down, officer." It is a little humiliating to have to do that when all you are doing is working in the middle of the night making sure the floors are ready for the guy coming to install new hardwood at 7 am.

 

When I read stories about what happened in South Carolina, to be brutally honest I have to say that in my scary moments I am glad I was white, because it probably slightly lowered the chances that something would abruptly and horribly go wrong. Although to also be brutally honest, it's not just about race. My scary moment with the so-called "knife" was scary because it happened in Portland, Oregon, and as it was happening I had in mind an incident that shocked a lot of people, including me, in 1992, when a 12 year old white boy was shot to death by cops in his own house when a mentally ill burglar was holding a knife to his throat. The boy was struck in the head by two bullets and the burglar was hit and killed by 14 shots:

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2010/09/nathan_thomass_parents_reflect.html

 

There is a pattern here. And you can decide whether you want to believe that nothing will ever change, and there will always be another tragedy, which there will. Or that if you talk about it, things may change, which they have. And if you believe in the latter, which I do, you can not possibly bring enough honesty, humility, and especially humor to the conversation.

 

What I love about Common in the Jon Stewart interview is that he's not interested in playing "gotcha." He's interested in harmony, and healing, and extending a hand. And what I respect about Isacc Hill, the head of the black student association, is that he obviously figured out somewhere along the way that empathy + forgiveness = change. A lot of people with PhD's don't know that.

 

You could argue that is wisdom, which it is. Or you could argue that it's just the only thing that makes sense when you know you have way more to lose if you end up on the wrong side of a misunderstanding. I figured that out pretty quick when I had cops with guns staring me down.

 

My reaction to the story at the top of this thread is that in a certain sense, we should all be grateful to Nancy Gordeuk, and we should all embrace ignorance. However much they hurt, you can take back words. She did apologize. You can't take back bullets. The good thing about saying something ignorant is that you can learn from it, and it can actually be the seed of change.

 

Maybe this thread actually does belong in The Gallery. Because really this probably has more to do with images than words. By the time you are using words, and you are having a conversation, or certainly if you are cracking jokes, you are already into the solution. The problem starts with images. We're ALL used to seeing things a certain way, be it black or white.

 

TIME really nailed the solution, which is video, and images. It is way better to see things, as they are, and to be able to at least try to see things both ways.

Like Stewart and Common say, let's get it on.

 

Thanks to people like them, I am more aware than ever of how scary it can be to be "the black man in the picture."

 

If everybody tried to see it both ways, I'm pretty sure we'd have less of this:

 

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-HU263_040815_J_20150408143300.jpg

 

And more of this:

 

http://small2.myjub.com/eyecandy_img/26895/cocky_boys-jecht_parker_fucks_kenned_5_26895_2.jpg

 

http://40.media.tumblr.com/c1165adc8785d10e722c3b8095f28250/tumblr_nhxal94MrE1u6iv3do1_500.jpg

 

I know which one I'd rather have.

[+ stevenkesslar]

http://www.projectq.us/images/uploads/marcus_patrick_nude_gay_atlanta4.jpg

http://www.projectq.us/images/uploads/marcus_patrick_nude_gay_atlanta1.jpg

 

And speaking of subjects I'd like to shed some light on ............... :-)

[+ stevenkesslar]

I agree that this thread should be moved to the Lounge. It would be a very useful thing to talk about.

 

Thanks for moving the thread Daddy and Deej.

 

I hijacked this post because it seemed like an opportunity to say some things and get a reaction. Hasn't work so far. Maybe because I'm suffering from verbal diarrhea, and people are just hoping I'll get over it soon, or maybe because I sound like The Buddha, and the truth has now been revealed.

 

In the event that there are any others out there (yoo hoo) who don't mind verbal diarrhea, or preachy/Buddha stuff, here's another related post I found on Youtube that I found interesting. I found it particularly provocative because the words come out of the mouth of a black man who is dressed kind of weird and Muslimy, in response to the question, "Is Common a coon?"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1-UDaJbYU8

 

No need to watch the whole thing, unless you really like Common music, but what he does say around Minute 3 of the video is really interesting.

 

And - spoiler alert! - he does end by quoting none other than - The Buddha: "Return to him who does you wrong your purest love and he will cease from doing wrong. For love will purify the heart of him who is beloved as truly as it purifies the heart of he who loves."

 

Buddhist or not, those are good words for whores to know.

 

Of course, if you are Christian you can read the Gospel and Luke 6:29 will tell you pretty much the same thing:

 

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByxdRozIIAAKxSt.jpg:large

 

"If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also."

 

Anybody else want to take a crack at this? :-)

[bigvalboy]

 

I hijacked this post because it seemed like an opportunity to say some things and get a reaction. Hasn't work so far. Maybe because I'm suffering from verbal diarrhea, and people are just hoping I'll get over it soon, or maybe because I sound like The Buddha, and the truth has now been revealed.

Anybody else want to take a crack at this?

 

Excellent post...

[+ stevenkesslar]

Excellent post...

 

Oh, goody. I was afraid I was just revealing I am an ass. :-)

 

[bigvalboy]

Oh, goody. I was afraid I was just revealing I am an ass.

 

 

:D Always better to like ass than to be an ass...Kidding aside, your post was spot on. In particular, the video of Common and Jon Stewart was full of truth, which isn't always easy to hear.

[ZhenXBear]

Some very hot pictures gentlemen! I've actually never had the opportunity to have an intimate experience with a gay/bi black compatriot. In my 20s when I would go out to clubs there were a group of black friends who always sought me out for hugs! Nice guys who I'd often meet for dinner or dance with and talk to but no one ever asked me out solo, so I was content to be friends.

 

I still can't believe we're making decisions about people today based their skin pigmentation. I keep hoping for an alien contact so that someday we'll all view each other as Terrans.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Some very hot pictures gentlemen! I've actually never had the opportunity to have an intimate experience with a gay/bi black compatriot. In my 20s when I would go out to clubs there were a group of black friends who always sought me out for hugs! Nice guys who I'd often meet for dinner or dance with and talk to but no one ever asked me out solo, so I was content to be friends.

 

I still can't believe we're making decisions about people today based their skin pigmentation. I keep hoping for an alien contact so that someday we'll all view each other as Terrans.

 

Sorry about sharing my VD (verbal diarrhea) with everybody, but here's some more things I wanted to touch on based on your comments.

 

My guess is as long as we're the USA, we're going to be making decisions about people based on skin pigmentation. The question is how we do that, and to what effect? One line that resonated for me in the interview above is "We have to learn to love, not hate." Easier said than done. At an even more basic level, I think what I'm still learning is simply how to help make people, including myself, feel safe. Maybe that sounds easy, but it is a basic job requirement for any good escort: how do you make people who are making themselves vulnerable based on their often hidden or emerging sexual orientation feel safe? And it translates directly to the issue of race.

 

I grew up in an almost all-white suburb of Chicago, went to all all white Catholic grade school, an almost all-white Catholic high school, and a college that had a "token" black student population. Until college, the closest I came to being around a lot of black people was when I was in a car with my Mom and Dad and siblings driving on an expressway through the South Side of Chicago, on family trips to Michigan, during which I learned that the South Side was a dangerous place where "n******" lived. I didn't have the upbringing that made it easy for me to embrace the fact that I was gay, and it certainly did not make it easy for me to understand or embrace black people. As a young adult I thought my Dad was racist, but I eventually figured out it's not that simple. Certainly, going through my coming out, which was more than a little challenging for him, made him more open-minded. But I think I can be grateful that he always had at least a reasonably open mind for his generation. I was surprised when he told me several years ago that when he was in the Navy, during World War 2, he got in a physical confrontation with a Southern white sailor who kept picking on a black sailor just because he was black. I am proud that one of the books on my shelf is a copy of "Dreams From My Father," Obama's first book, given to me by my own father in 2008. He could not bring himself to vote for Obama, but he was curious and open enough to read his book and share it with me.

 

Maybe I have my Dad to thank for whatever sense of basic decency or openness I have. Throughout my life I've wondered what made me go in some of the directions I did, and my best guess is that some lurking idea that I was "different" - meaning gay - might have led me to explore things that I might not have otherwise explored.

 

During college (in Minnesota) I spent a term of school in an Urban Studies Program in inner city Chicago, which was basically completely foreign turf to me. The first day we arrived a handful of other students and I, all white, walked for several hours around parts of the North Shore. At one point we were walking down a more or less empty street and a black woman walked toward and past us. She was obviously looking at us like we were Martians (or Terrans, if you prefer). After we passed her she shouted "Hey" or something like that from behind us, and asked where we were going. We explained we were students and we didn't really know where we were. She said something like "You don't want to go where you are going," told us to turn around, and she gave us specific block by block instructions for how to get to the nearest rapid transit stop. What she didn't tell us, but we later figured out, is we were right about to walk through the middle of the Cabrini Green public housing complex. If it weren't for the fact that we were all white, and we were about to walk through the middle of an area known for a high level of mostly black-on-black violence, I don't think she would have stopped us.

 

A similar thing happened a few years later, after I graduated and was working for a non-profit organization in Chicago. I was going to a meeting on the South Side, and was standing alone outside an el stop waiting for a bus. I was probably the only white person, in a suit, with a briefcase, on a very busy street that probably had hundreds of black people walking around. I noticed an elderly black man staring at me. After a few minutes he approached me and asked me what I was doing there. At first it felt weird that my presence was somehow being questioned. Then he explained to me that this was an area where a white man might not be entirely safe, especially one dressed in a way that suggested I had money, and I might want to exercise caution.

 

In both those instances, as well as other ones I won't bother to bore you with, black people made decisions about me based on the color of my skin, and the decision was basically to reach out to me to help make sure I'd be safe. It was almost a weird form of reverse bias, because their decisions were based on the idea that a person who looked like me might not be safe in a neighborhood full of people that looked like them, even though I obviously had not been mysteriously transported there from Mars (or Terra).

 

In between these two encounters came what will always be one of the biggest and best White Liberal Orgasms for the political whore I was becoming. It was the evening in 1983 when Harold Washington was elected the first black Mayor of Chicago. His victory party was a huge love fest that contrasted with what had been a thoroughly racist general election campaign, during which I'd experienced the two acts of racially inspired minor violence I've suffered in my life - being punched by a white man and kicked by a white woman while I was handing out campaign flyers. During the evening of April 12, 1983 I think I was hugged and kissed by more strangers than I ever have been before or since. Every one of them was black, and every one of them was doing so because I was one of a relative handful of people in the huge ball room who happened to be white. It was an outpouring of love consistent with the words Washington spoke during his campaign: ""I can't believe there is no redemption. But that redemption is not gonna come out in hatred. It is gonna come out in positive attitude toward our fellow man.... We are high and good and moral people." Arguably, it was also the beginning of my escort career, because it was the first time I learned how good it felt for strangers to have their hands and lips all over me. :-)

 

Speaking of hands, lips, and sex, I hope you have the opportunity to have a deeper, intimate experience with a black "compatriot". Having superficial experiences like the ones above helped me feel safe in white skin around black people. On a deeper level, it took a lot of sex with men to make me feel truly comfortable as a gay man in my own skin. The sex I've had with black men has often been a kind of doubling down, because it makes me feel at least a little vulnerable based on my race as well. It's a big first step to hugs and healing. The images and symbols we carry with us are very potent. I am very glad I've put myself in situations were I was able to feel safe and loved by men of every skin color (even purple, thanks to Purple Kow, but not yet blue - as I've never had sex with a Smurf).

 

Who'd a thunk it could be not only safe, but really sexy to reach out and have your hands and lips and tongue all over somebody who looks like this:

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KauDrg8a3UQ/U3jl9j1KRxI/AAAAAAAAhqI/L-BpNb9_JGs/s1600/Kwesi-Keller-swimsuit.jpg

[ZhenXBear]

Sorry about sharing my VD (verbal diarrhea) with everybody, but here's some more things I wanted to touch on based on your comments.

 

My guess is as long as we're the USA, we're going to be making decisions about people based on skin pigmentation. The question is how we do that, and to what effect? One line that resonated for me in the interview above is "We have to learn to love, not hate." Easier said than done. At an even more basic level, I think what I'm still learning is simply how to help make people, including myself, feel safe. Maybe that sounds easy, but it is a basic job requirement for any good escort: how do you make people who are making themselves vulnerable based on their often hidden or emerging sexual orientation feel safe? And it translates directly to the issue of race.

 

I grew up in an almost all-white suburb of Chicago, went to all all white Catholic grade school, an almost all-white Catholic high school, and a college that had a "token" black student population. Until college, the closest I came to being around a lot of black people was when I was in a car with my Mom and Dad and siblings driving on an expressway through the South Side of Chicago, on family trips to Michigan, during which I learned that the South Side was a dangerous place where "n******" lived. I didn't have the upbringing that made it easy for me to embrace the fact that I was gay, and it certainly did not make it easy for me to understand or embrace black people. As a young adult I thought my Dad was racist, but I eventually figured out it's not that simple. Certainly, going through my coming out, which was more than a little challenging for him, made him more open-minded. But I think I can be grateful that he always had at least a reasonably open mind for his generation. I was surprised when he told me several years ago that when he was in the Navy, during World War 2, he got in a physical confrontation with a Southern white sailor who kept picking on a black sailor just because he was black. I am proud that one of the books on my shelf is a copy of "Dreams From My Father," Obama's first book, given to me by my own father in 2008. He could not bring himself to vote for Obama, but he was curious and open enough to read his book and share it with me.

 

Maybe I have my Dad to thank for whatever sense of basic decency or openness I have. Throughout my life I've wondered what made me go in some of the directions I did, and my best guess is that some lurking idea that I was "different" - meaning gay - might have led me to explore things that I might not have otherwise explored.

 

During college (in Minnesota) I spent a term of school in an Urban Studies Program in inner city Chicago, which was basically completely foreign turf to me. The first day we arrived a handful of other students and I, all white, walked for several hours around parts of the North Shore. At one point we were walking down a more or less empty street and a black woman walked toward and past us. She was obviously looking at us like we were Martians (or Terrans, if you prefer). After we passed her she shouted "Hey" or something like that from behind us, and asked where we were going. We explained we were students and we didn't really know where we were. She said something like "You don't want to go where you are going," told us to turn around, and she gave us specific block by block instructions for how to get to the nearest rapid transit stop. What she didn't tell us, but we later figured out, is we were right about to walk through the middle of the Cabrini Green public housing complex. If it weren't for the fact that we were all white, and we were about to walk through the middle of an area known for a high level of mostly black-on-black violence, I don't think she would have stopped us.

 

A similar thing happened a few years later, after I graduated and was working for a non-profit organization in Chicago. I was going to a meeting on the South Side, and was standing alone outside an el stop waiting for a bus. I was probably the only white person, in a suit, with a briefcase, on a very busy street that probably had hundreds of black people walking around. I noticed an elderly black man staring at me. After a few minutes he approached me and asked me what I was doing there. At first it felt weird that my presence was somehow being questioned. Then he explained to me that this was an area where a white man might not be entirely safe, especially one dressed in a way that suggested I had money, and I might want to exercise caution.

 

In both those instances, as well as other ones I won't bother to bore you with, black people made decisions about me based on the color of my skin, and the decision was basically to reach out to me to help make sure I'd be safe. It was almost a weird form of reverse bias, because their decisions were based on the idea that a person who looked like me might not be safe in a neighborhood full of people that looked like them, even though I obviously had not been mysteriously transported there from Mars (or Terra).

 

In between these two encounters came what will always be one of the biggest and best White Liberal Orgasms for the political whore I was becoming. It was the evening in 1983 when Harold Washington was elected the first black Mayor of Chicago. His victory party was a huge love fest that contrasted with what had been a thoroughly racist general election campaign, during which I'd experienced the two acts of racially inspired minor violence I've suffered in my life - being punched by a white man and kicked by a white woman while I was handing out campaign flyers. During the evening of April 12, 1983 I think I was hugged and kissed by more strangers than I ever have been before or since. Every one of them was black, and every one of them was doing so because I was one of a relative handful of people in the huge ball room who happened to be white. It was an outpouring of love consistent with the words Washington spoke during his campaign: ""I can't believe there is no redemption. But that redemption is not gonna come out in hatred. It is gonna come out in positive attitude toward our fellow man.... We are high and good and moral people." Arguably, it was also the beginning of my escort career, because it was the first time I learned how good it felt for strangers to have their hands and lips all over me.

 

Speaking of hands, lips, and sex, I hope you have the opportunity to have a deeper, intimate experience with a black "compatriot". Having superficial experiences like the ones above helped me feel safe in white skin around black people. On a deeper level, it took a lot of sex with men to make me feel truly comfortable as a gay man in my own skin. The sex I've had with black men has often been a kind of doubling down, because it makes me feel at least a little vulnerable based on my race as well. It's a big first step to hugs and healing. The images and symbols we carry with us are very potent. I am very glad I've put myself in situations were I was able to feel safe and loved by men of every skin color (even purple, thanks to Purple Kow, but not yet blue - as I've never had sex with a Smurf).

 

 

Steven, thank you for taking the time to write about your experiences, they were incredibly vivid and painted an amazing picture of all of the events that have contributed to your evolution into the person you are today. I also grew up in the Midwest (Ohio) in a small community that had no racial diversity. It wasn't until I was in college that I had the opportunity to meet people of all races and color. My social experiences there were amazing and enabled me to learn so much about other cultures and customs; it was an profound experience. I've never had similar experiences to what you did in Chicago and all of the settings I've worked in (healthcare) have been pretty racially diverse. It wasn't until I worked in the SE part of the country that I met people, both black and white, that were more polarized about racial issues. Some of the stereotypes that racism plays into on both sides of the aisle were shockingly demonstrated in that part of the country. I once had an employee, beautifully kind elderly black woman who was well educated, tell me that at times she was looked down upon in her own community because she had an education and a financially comfortable means. I was shocked to hear this needless to say. That part of the country was also the only part that I've ever been openly discriminated against because I was gay (can you say "Southern Baptists"). These negatives aside, some very good, kind, people who will open up their homes and invite you for dinner live there as well.

 

Your thoughts on self awareness, racial understanding, and sexuality are beyond insightful.

[+ bigjoey]

My guess is as long as we're the USA, we're going to be making decisions about people based on skin pigmentation.

 

I beg to differ. I have been all over there world and have discovered that people make judgements and decisions of others based skin pigmentation and race and tribe and religion. Unfortunately, this is not limited to the USA. As I have grown older, I think that people view "the other" in a differ light than themselves. It might be that the media covers more things instantly today but there seems to be more violence based on these things than when I was growing up.

 

Bottom line, I agree with what you said, just not the phrase "...as long as we're in the USA...."

[bigvalboy]

Quite impressive Steven....it is articulate and insightful, and was a rather nice post to start my Saturday with. "Two Thumbs Up"....

[JDXXX]

Excellent post...

 

+1.

I Agree. Well said, Steven. .

[+ stevenkesslar]

 

Actually, we agree. Just to clarify, I didn't say "as long as we're IN the USA." I said "as long as we're the USA." It was an intentional distinction.

 

You are right that people all over the rest of the world make judgments and decisions of others based on skin pigmentation and race and tribe and religion. I spend a lot of time in Mexico, and it was a little bit of a surprise to me at first that if you watch Mexican tv, it is loaded with images of Mexicans who look "white," and it's harder to find images of Mexicans who look "black." There's probably no country in the world where discrimination is not an issue.

 

One nice thing about the word "discrimination" is that it's not always a bad thing - it depends on how, and why, you do it. Here's two different definitions of discrimination: "1) the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people, or 2) the ability to recognize the difference between things that are of good quality and those that are not." The first is obviously bad, and the second mostly good. I think, or at least hope, that how we discriminate has been slowly shifting from the first way to the second. One of the cool things about the 2008 election for President to me is that it was NOT like the Chicago Mayor's race in 1983, in which the central campaign slogan of the white candidate encouraged people to vote against the black candidate "before it's too late." . In 2008 we mostly took the high road. I'm not a huge fan of John McCain, but he was intentional in trying to tamp down many of the inflammatory or racist words that were floating around the body politic. It was cool we could have an election in which the best man won, in my humble opinion, even though he happened to be black, and even though he was running against a white named Clinton, who happened to be a woman. To beat the drum of American exceptionalism for a minute, I can say THAT certainly made me proud to be an American.

 

I think there is something unique about the way this has played out in America. To use Common's language, we have certainly had "issues" between whites and blacks in our history, not to mention people of other religions and nationalities. But that gives us a unique opportunity to reach out to each other and get over our "issues", and I think that can only make us stronger, as individuals and as a nation. Some of this is simple math. We are becoming a "majority minority" country. If you like the fact that Silicon Valley puts the USA at the center of global technological wealth, which I do, we can thank immigrants of every color, but particularly Asians. If you are an aging white guy that likes Social Security and Medicaid, you ought to like Mexico, not only for its sun and hospitality, but for its workers. I've read projections that in a generation or so, half of the work force in Texas is going to be of Hispanic origin. If Social Security depended on the demographics of white people, it would go broke a lot sooner. Kids who live in the USA today whose parents were born in Mexico are going to be paying for our retirement.

 

My Dad decided not to vote for a black President, but he at least read his book and tried to understand him. Here's the word he used to describe what he didn't like about Obama: "patronizing". Here's one dictionary definition of the word patronizing: "to treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority." I can see why my Dad saw that in Obama. But nobody disliked the part of Obama's 2008 message that we are one people and we ought to be kind to each other. And if you detect a certain smugness in him, is it really bad that a lot of smart people describe him as one of the smartest people they know? Particularly when he was running against a candidate in 2008 who picked Sarah Palin for Vice President, who top Republican strategists who worked with her on that campaign now publicly admit (read the book Game Change) is a remarkably ignorant person?

 

To state the obvious, the consequences of ignorance are huge. To dive into the muck on another issue, in the last week Jeb Bush has gone through this remarkable verbal gymnastics that started with saying that he would have gone to war in Iraq, just like his brother and Hillary Clinton would, based on the information we had at that time. Then he ended the week saying mistakes were made and he would not have invaded. There are 2.7 million American veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war, and various studies have estimated 14 % to 20 % of them have post traumatic stress disorder. This thread is about being able to see things clearly, and saying a lot of vets have PTSD is basically saying they have an impaired ability to see things clearly. Clint Eastwood is a master at making subtle movies about heroes, and whether it's Invictus or American Sniper, meaning whether it's about Nelson Mandela and race or American veterans and war, his movies beg us to look at things with open eyes and empathy and try to understand and learn from our past. At one point Jeb Bush said it was a disservice to veterans who have made the ultimate sacrifice to have a backward looking and hypothetical discussion about the Iraq decision. Given what we now know about the consequences, and given the fact that ISIS and Iran both scare the shit out of me, I'd argue it's a disservice to veterans NOT to think very long and hard about these issues and try to see them from every possible perspective.

 

Back to Obama and discrimination and how we see things and the good old USA, read what former CIA veteran Michael Morrell says on how well some of our leaders have made discriminating decisions on issues that matter greatly to all of us:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/10/michael-morell-cia-bush-cheney-obama-palin-snowden/27038281/

 

This guy is no liberal. He is for "enhanced interrogation" and for metadata collection and thinks that George W. Bush is "contrary to public perception, very bright," and I mostly agree with him. Why I really put this in this thread is his assessment of Dick Cheney. Here's part of the extended USA Today article: Morell "is scathing about efforts by Vice President Dick Cheney and a top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to press the argument after the 9/11 attacks that there had been links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. When CIA formally concluded that that there had not been, he says, Libby demanded the agency withdraw the paper. "I have never in my 33-year experience had a policymaker demand that something be withdrawn," Morell says. "Highly unusual. Unprecedented. Never happened before; never happened again in my experience." In other words, Cheney and his subordinates deliberately manipulated the way Americans and arguably even his boss saw things, leading to impaired vision and a very bad decision.

 

Compare that to what Morell says about the "black man in the picture" - Obama: "One of the smartest people I've ever met. Extremely thorough. Asks extraordinarily good questions. Very open to what people have to say. Willing to change his mind if he hears a good argument. ... (But) people's weaknesses flow from their strengths. One of Barack Obama's great strengths is: 'Ask all the questions. Let's get all the information on the table. Let me hear from everybody, right?' One of the weaknesses of that is it takes longer to make a decision." If that is Obama's greatest weakness, I know this. If we have to make a very hard decision about ISIS or Iran, I'd rather have a "patronizing" black President like Obama making it than someone like Cheney or Libby, who are deliberately trying to obscure the way we see things and that lead us to to preconceived conclusions and actions that are poorly thought through and are going to literally blow up in our face.

 

This thread has gone around the world, but to really bring it back to the focus, I think as much as my Dad was trying to be open to Obama, his use of the word "patronizing" suggests to me he found a way to avoid voting for him that was not racist, but was perhaps partly ignorant. At the heart of the matter, it suggests that black men who go in one direction (from Al Sharpton to Michael Brown) will be viewed as some version of the "angry black man" and black men who go in the opposite direction and are overly kind or overly intellectual (if that's even possible) will be dismissed as insincere or "patronizing." It's a false dichotomy, but what it boils down to is that if you compare Obama to Brown, in one case you may be dismissed if you do, and in the other case you may be shot and killed if you don't. As I said earlier in this thread, it's about a lot of things, not just race, but having once been the guy viewed suspiciously by cops with guns making decisions about me, there is a certain virtue in being "patronizing."

 

Images and symbols and experiences matter. We can't understand what we don't experience. When I reach out and make myself vulnerable, my experience is that I usually learn something new. That is a large part of what whoring is about. People hire whores like me and make themselves vulnerable to learn new things about themselves and others. If you are white and you haven't hired a black whore or had sex with a black man (or Latino or Smurf, if you can find one), you should probably consider it, because it is a great "twofer" way to make yourself open on multiple dimensions, and to see things and experience yourself and somebody else in a different way.

 

And mostly, of course, to have fun, because some times seeing things in a different way turns out to be incredibly sexy as well.

 

http://i1.wp.com/therighthairstyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Black-Mens-Hairstyles-2012_291.jpg

[ZhenXBear]

 

Speaking of hands, lips, and sex, I hope you have the opportunity to have a deeper, intimate experience with a black "compatriot". Having superficial experiences like the ones above helped me feel safe in white skin around black people. On a deeper level, it took a lot of sex with men to make me feel truly comfortable as a gay man in my own skin. The sex I've had with black men has often been a kind of doubling down, because it makes me feel at least a little vulnerable based on my race as well. It's a big first step to hugs and healing. The images and symbols we carry with us are very potent. I am very glad I've put myself in situations were I was able to feel safe and loved by men of every skin color (even purple, thanks to Purple Kow, but not yet blue - as I've never had sex with a Smurf).

 

+1.

I Agree. Well said, Steven. .

 

Who knows, perhaps JD will indulge me some day, and I will walk this path with him. For me, my lack of experiences with men of color (except my first boyfriend who was Spanish) have always been a matter of simple trajectory and circumstance, coupled with a true desire to be intimate only with someone who I also had a deeper desire to know on a personal level. My decision to explore the escort venue has been one of great introspective thought and it's taken some time for me to be at peace. I am looking forward to great experiences that have meaning and enrich my life on this journey.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I love this story:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/moms-facebook-photo-of-hero-cop-strikes-a-chord-119449508142.html

 

 

To quote from the story:

 

Touched by the trooper’s kindness, Joseph’s mother, Dr. Nada Owusu, posted a photo of the two men, with a note of gratitude, to her Facebook page on Friday. “Facebook friends, join [me] in expressing my gratitude to God and to Officer [Matt] Okes…a Virginia State Police officer,” she wrote. “I took this picture at 2 am in the middle of nowhere. My son had his back tire blown off his car last night on his way home from school. This kind officer approached him, didn’t ask if the little Mercedes was stolen but rather got on his knees to replace his tire. When his effort failed he stayed with my son all night till we arrived at 1 am with Triple A. He provided all the needed protection especially from those tractor trailers till we were done by 2 am and drove behind us for a while before exiting. Today I salute Officer Okes! He is our hero and our Good Samaritan.”

 

I was pretty harsh in another post calling out somebody on the race question, but I actually think we are making progress, two steps forward one step back, and even on the question of white cops and black men, it's important to remember that most interactions between white cops and black men go well, that cops of all races protect people of every color, and that the "eyes on the prize" is NOT ignorance and hate, but more understanding and love.

 

Hopefully we're moving as a society from what the first picture in this post portrays to what the last picture in this post portrays.

[JDXXX]

Who knows, perhaps JD will indulge me some day, and I will walk this path with him. For me, my lack of experiences with men of color (except my first boyfriend who was Spanish) have always been a matter of simple trajectory and circumstance, coupled with a true desire to be intimate only with someone who I also had a deeper desire to know on a personal level. My decision to explore the escort venue has been one of great introspective thought and it's taken some time for me to be at peace. I am looking forward to great experiences that have meaning and enrich my life on this journey.

 

I hope you will walk along side of the path with me too, Mr. Bear as the "colorlines" need to be broken here regarding having relations with a Black man. We as a nation need to move forward with the turn of the century - not move backwards like it was back in the 1950's and 60's as race relations were horrifically demonizing as it's time to be more open-minded about race, and not closed minded as being intimate with another race is a disease. LOL.

 

I hear this ALOT from other friends or possible clients on how white guys have never hired or been intimate with a black man, and feel somewhat embarrassed to try it. It's comments like that is what makes it seem like being with someone of my race is a disease, and that needs to stop as we are human too - not aliens from outer space. LOL.

 

Like I said in a previous thread regarding Race/Age preferences, I am totally colorblind when it comes to Race or Age, and Steven Kesslar along with other escorts I know in the business who are older are prime examples of my point exactly. My friendships or relationships with client/escorts are not based on race or age - it's based on the quality of kindness of the individual is what wins me to build a solid foundation together as two people who care for one another.

 

Race has no barring in my eyes of what makes the person a "special" force in my life, and hope maybe as time goes on, other people of different ethnicities(like Steven, and a few others I'm close to) will see it the same way of race not being an issue to enjoy a person of different ethnicity presence or company. .

 

Mr. Bear, Let's walk that path, and we'll "indulge" a new experience for you together as one. . Never know what it'll be like unless you try, sweetheart. That's the key to the answer of what you're searching for.

 

We'll make a possible meeting happen one day soon, baby. OK? .