Tonight AAGSAR returns to You Got Roots?!, our BlogTalkRadio series kick-started to encourage cross-culture dialogues on issues impacting the lives and research efforts of People of Color.
On tap this evening, You Got Roots?! will go-in on racism, prejudice and culture bias as experienced by People of Color — both on and offline. A discussion that includes examining dynamics within the broader Genealogy community? FOR SURE but not exclusive to it!
Race-issues swirling inside the Genealogy community thrive due to society’s acceptance of race disparities as they apply to People of Color in general. Racism persists because society grants a select few permission to perpetuate it — and to be fair, because the “select few” make conscious decisions not to acknowledge and change immoral artifacts inherited from our blemished history.
Mainstream Genealogy thought leaders, companies and groups [unfortunately] take their social/engagement queues from peers and the culture at large. The result? A prolific, familiar dysfunction where the interests of People of Color are at worse ignored and at best, tolerated.
If you haven’t already, you must (yes, MUST) checkout Jay Smooth of Colorlines as in 4:38 minutes he breaks down why we’ve made very little headway in having a productive discourse on race — Moving The Race Conversation Forward.
“When we constantly focus only on individual stories it distorts our sense of how racism works. It encourages us to see racism only as the product of overt intentional racist acts by individuals that can be fixed simply by shaming and correcting those individual defects.
And it encourages us to see individual stories of transcending racism as proof that there is no more racism. That if we have a black President and Oprah is a billionaire then there must not be anything else to talk about. And any problems that other People of Color face must be due to deficiencies on their part. It must be a problem with THEM instead of a problem with THE SYSTEM.” – Jay Smooth
Need MORE food for thought? No worries — read our dude Michael Twitty of Afroculinaria spitting Cliven Bundy TRUTH and Michael Skolnick of Global Grind on FIRE about the Sterling comments of earlier this week.
I’m with both Michaels — enough is enough. My patience and tolerance for the level of ignorance People of Color are subjected to — in ANY environment — is G-O-N-E.
GENEALOGY: Diversity In Black & White – The Problem (Part I) | Want to be heard? (347) 838-8307
Time: 6-7PM ET
Let’s talk Good People. It’s ON!
Luckie | #YouGotRoots
ESSENTIAL READING: Moving the Race Conversation Forward Parts I & II by Colorlines
You Got Roots?! 