AG Holder: US is "nation of cowards" on racial issues.

[Occam Bandage]

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder described the United States Wednesday as a nation of cowards on matters of race, saying most Americans avoid discussing unresolved racial issues.

In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," said Holder, nation's first black attorney general.

(more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/holder_race )

[marmar]

1. C'est vrai......Americans avoid race like the a friend who owes you money evades your phone calls.

n/t

[Number23]

8. Best analogy EVER.

:applause:

Look at the responses this thread has gotten. If this was a thread about that woman with 8 babies, the replies would be in the hundreds by now.

[KamaAina]

2. "Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives."

Indeed. 'Tis said that the most segregated hour in America is 11:00 on Sunday morning.

#2 is probably 11:00 on Saturday night.

[mzteris]

5. #3

lunch time.

[gratuitous]

3. Oh boy

:popcorn:

Waiting for the inevitable poutrage from the usual corners, and the protestations from the folks (and you know who they are) who will say that some of their best friends are . . .

It will be by turns humorous, pathetic, bone stupid, and one or two surprises will crop up.

Better make a second batch:

:popcorn:

[Romulox]

4. Says a supporter of the racist War on (mostly brown people who do) Drugs?

The common thread with so many hypocrites is a lack of self-awareness...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Even very mild prejudices leads to a lot of self-segregation, due to self-reinforcement

There are very few people who are not happy associating with members of other races.

But there are far more people who are uncomfortable in a social situation where a majority of people are from one race (or gender, or class, for that matter) and they aren't.

Which means that any social grouping where one racial group starts to constitute a small majority is more likely to accentuate than to rebalance.

You get exactly the same thing in e.g. choice of jobs by gender. There are very few women working as academics in maths; while I'm sure that part of that is genetics and part is prejudice in education and selection, I suspect that part is also that most women don't want to work in an environment where nearly everyone else is male, (and vice-versa).

[rateyes]

7. Can't argue with that. nt