BethFromVA

Or a doctor. And even that man thing is in question.

Then apparently we are coming from the same perspective. That's a grand assumption, isn't it? Maybe like the OP's assumption that a lady switched seats simply because she's black? I can understand WHY she may feel that way, but it doesn't assure that she's right about the situation. Look, if Helen Keller could overcome all she had going against her, if Jews who were exterminated in the millions nearly to extinction and who still suffer injustices, if Stephen Hawking can overcome all his handicaps and be a BRILLIANT scientist, then my dear, I definitely believe people can overcome how she (or anyone in her situation) allows people to make her feel. Maybe... Funny, I would have rather voted for a good candidate, something we didn't get on either side. But that's another thread. :thumbup:

Not to sound flip, but wearing scrubs I'd be afraid they'd think you have drugs with you. Just a thought... And oftentimes I have known many in situations like that (regardless of color) aren't that thankful for the help. Expectant or demanding, maybe, but not always thankful.

I will admit, Melly, that I wouldn't be caught dead driving through Houston's Fourth Ward, much less getting out of my car. And it has nothing to do with racism -- simply survival.

Okay, WTF? Anybody seen the ad for the new show created by The Bachelor folks called More To Love? It's a bunch of overweight "average" women looking for love. Some of them all weepy saying they just want to be loved too. Omg. 'More to Love' -- Fox orders dating competition series for the heavy set--The Live Feed

Wow, now that's downright fugly. But yeah, the Dallas area is still a bit "bubba" compared to places like Houston. And don't even get me started on west Texas or east Texas. Probably far north and south Texas too. Shoot, that covers pretty much all of Texas other than Houston. Maybe it happens in the Houston police department too. Never know. I just wasn't familiar with it in everyday life.

If it helps you feel better about how you jumped the gun, we have you beat. I went and looked at our house on a Friday (wasn't overly impressed, and could only look through the windows anyway -- a realtor told me abut it and sent me there thinking it was open). Told hubby about it in passing that evening, and we went to look at it inside and out on Saturday. Went back again on Sunday to check out a few more things about the house. And there was a sealed bid on Tuesday morning. By that evening we learned we won the bid and owned the house. :thumbup: Feel better?

Maybe it depends on where you are in the south, Lulu...? I lived in Houston for 27 years and frankly I never got a sense of racial issues. Maybe because Houston is big and no longer considered a "southern" city. It's a hodgepodge of a bit of everything. I didn't hear friends/family/neighbors/residents say anything racist about people and didn't see it outright. Nor have I been a party to it myself. And before anybody thinks I was insulated, I was far from it. We lived in an area that became VERY mixed over the years. Again, not saying it doesn't happen, especially in "good 'ol boy country," but maybe in the bigger southern cities not so much...?

Yeah, I think it is a big part of homebuying. With me, the first house was just so... BIG. To be our age and be able to get a house that was so... BIG... amazed me, even though it was a fixer-upper. Nothing really huge cost-wise -- it had a new roof and a few other things -- but it had been empty 3 1/2 years before we bought it (it was a foreclosure, owned by the VA, and went through a series of priced too high/too many things wrong, and went to priced much lower/many things fixed). It had NO yard (weeds, dead and live), the sprinkler was broken, needed painting/minor wood repair outside, painting inside BADLY (not to mention how dated it was), and just general stuff to prettify it. Oh, and the kitchen was a poster child for 1972. :thumbup: It was really gorgeous when we finished it -- then we sold it. As a matter of fact, I pulled it up last night on GoogleEarth (street-level, if you can believe it) and saw a pic of it since we've left. The morons who took it over have turned it to crap. At least outside. Very disappointing.

If Barack were white, the left would likely have played the gender card and gone Hillary.

And for what it's worth, Indio, you're not looking too dark there yourself, so how is it you're the expert on the black experience? Serious question that I know sounds snarky but isn't.

Indio, I may not be black (and I'm giving you that because you really don't know), but frankly you don't know WHAT I am other than I'm not black. You don't know my skin color, what my hair looks like, if I have an accent, you don't know my background, where I grew up, what sorts of people I grew up around, what people influenced me -- good and bad, what my experiences were/are/continue to be. Nothing. You claim I know nothing about the "black experience," and that's true. But you know just as much nothing about me and mine. With all due respect, the only one who seems to be preaching right now is you towards me. You know absolutely nothing about me, yet you speak as if somehow black people have a corner market on racism, bigotry, or mistreatment in general. I think we've already proven here that racism goes all ways. Bigotry goes all ways. -Isms are directed towards all people. I wasn't preaching to the OP about anything. I was simply offering up another possibility. Somebody simply moving seats could have to do with her color, sure. But it could ALSO have to do with her weight/size, the perfume she is wearing, room on the bus, any number of things. And I still hold to the belief that it COULD have been any of the things listed here, but I don't automatically jump to the belief that it was racially motivated. I do no service to her by automatically jumping on that bandwagon, further victimizing her, now do I? If these people's actions were innocuous, then she is feeling pain over nothing -- in these instances. You know, life is always going to put shitty people in our paths. What we do with that is what makes us. We can either be victims or we can rise above it. Though what we are confronted with is not our choice, what we do with it is.

Been there, done that! :thumbup:

I hate to admit it, but I'll be honest and say when I see people that are "humongous," I have stared. I don't mean to, but I think it's because, being big myself, and knowing how miserable it is, I can't imagine being "that big" and living with that. :thumbup:

That's a beautiful story, BJean. As for your parents, I would guess that "bigotry" just wasn't an issue back then. Not that it didn't exist, just that it wasn't recognized and addressed like it is today. It just "was."

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's an either/or. A concrete slab is to heavy to have a basement underneath, and a basement is always under a subfloor. So you did nothing wrong, you just had to choose one or the other.

Me too. A lot of people are usually surprised when they meet me. Expecially that I don't have horns and a tail. :thumbup: And that's a big part of the problem: I misunderstood and thought you were. Not really, considering that I don't have cable, but yes, I could scan the internet for news sources. Sometimes I find stuff. Sometimes I don't. True, and understood. Also understood. Well, this is true... but we are smart women. We can figure out a way to make it fun anyway. Besides, I CAN have a fun, heated debate with people I absolutely disagree with where nobody has come away with hurt feelings. Lulu is a prime example: We couldn't disagree more, but I really enjoy her and (she says) she enjoys me too. To be honest, I wouldn't have her any other way than the way she is, even though we probably wouldn't agree on which side of the earth the sun rises. Very fair. Yes, Rodney.

Yeah, I know it can't be done in all houses. You pretty much have to have a concrete subfloor to do tile like that. I guess that's why you see mostly wood floors out east this way because of all the basements. In Texas, I doubt anybody has a basement (well, Houston, anyway) because of the clay ground. They just can't have them there. My upstairs master was tiled, but it was the smaller 3-inch tiles (I don't think you can get much bigger than that with a wooden subfloor unless the tiles are thick), and even so, I have some broken tiles. It's very 80's looking, as is the tile in the shower, and I'd LOVE to re-do them both. Hubby apparently isn't onboard with me in doing it ourselves. Punk. :thumbup:

By the way, I'm sorry it's so long and I quoted so much of what you said, but I thought it was important to address all of your concerns.

S'okay, we can start over starting over. :thumbup: I don't know about "most of the time," but we have cited proof many times and what I feel we got in response were comments that you didn't want to read the links, or the posted material was too long, or it was attacks asking if it was from FOX. It's frustrating to try to communicate with somebody (as I'm sure you well know, lol) when they seem to not want to even try. Now granted, we'll never change each other's minds on things, but if one side seems to want information and the other side provides it, only to feel rebuffed, it pretty much closes down the conversation at that point. I'm going on memory here, so forgive me for not being able to cite specifics, but what I took issue with were assertions made by you which came across as anything but opinion. They came across as fact. To be fair, you may not have said they were; so for me, what I'll do to meet you halfway on this is ask you if you are asserting something you can back up with data or if it's your opinion -- and if it's your opinion, why do you feel that way. Does that sound fair? But if you ever do have evidence to support a fact/assertion/opinion, I'd be willing to read it. Believe it or not, I HAVE had my mind swayed on some things by people I never saw eye-to-eye on. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true. I know I can tend to do that, and I'll work on it. I don't see plain as being that way, but I'll let him speak for himself. I'm pretty much a pit bull sometimes, and I know this about myself. Many things I couldn't care less about and don't really fight for a stance; but other things that I'm passionate about, I get a bit overboard. I can't promise I'll change overnight, but it IS something I recognize in myself and will try to do better. Maybe it's just in the presentation...? The way it is presented, maybe because you are such a staunch believer in a topic, it comes across as if there is some data to back up your assertion. Maybe if you say, "It is my opinion that..." or I/we ask, "Is this your opinion, or have you found data that says 'X'..." it will help us communicate better.

Ditto. I have gotten into heated arguments with people on various message boards who were mistreating others because of their race. So for anybody to think that I am okay with racism, all I can say is they are very wrong. I guess my thing is that I need to know it's overt -- whether it's racism, sexism, weight-ism, or whatever. Anybody can believe it's one way when it's really another if they knew what people are thinking. When it's overt, there is no question. When it's not overt, I'd prefer to think it's something less harsh. Obviously we all handle things differently. As for your friend, that just chaps my hide. So much for that "brotherhood" in the military, eh? I would hope that is one place that racism is not experienced. For crying out loud, they are all fighting for the same freakin' team! They are to have each other's backs! If that person is good enough to give his or her life for their country, then WTF does it matter what skin color they are (as if it mattered anyway!!)??

Was her husband also black? Not that it really matters because either way, obviously her husband was good enough to die for his country and possibly die trying to save his buddies. I think that behavior is totally shitty, especially from supposed "higher-ups" in our very government.

Hehehe, don't get too excited. My club is way over in the closet and I'm too lazy to even keep it nearby.

Seriously? Usually pretty hysterical and emotionally unstable. lol Sorry, you asked. It's what I see. However, I don't always disagree with you. Shocking, I know. I very much agreed with your post to PG the other day and wanted to vocalize my agreement partly so you can see that we can actually agree on things. And believe it or not, I DO try to find similarities in our thinking. I don't seek you out to "pound on you," as you stated. I think we're both intelligent, passionate women who have strong beliefs that we adhere to. And truly, there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it's just about the presentation (on both sides, yes) more than the belief or stance. My posts on this thread started out thinking (hoping) that maybe what the OP experienced wasn't what she thought it was. There is always that possibility she did, but I also thought there was a possibility she didn't but simply misinterpreted. Based on the limited information provided, both theories are plausible. It wasn't to demean her in any way. Beyond that, yes, there are -isms as far and wide as one can imagine. People are mistreated because of their gender, their size (height and weight), their race, their hair, and/or any other types of differences you could imagine. Blacks aren't the only ones who experience racism. Everybody has probably experienced (or will experience) some form of it at some time in their lives.

Um... deal... though it's odd that you would offer up a truce and say you would be "happy to never post any personal attacks about me" when you did just that in the paragraph above your offer AND the sentence right before it? And for the record, you weren't the only one I was talking about. There are a number of people I've met online who tout things as fact when they are only emotionally based. When we're talking about policy or changing the system, I'm sorry, but I want to see data and facts to back up somebody's claim -- especially when it's presented as the gospel truth. If one says it's their opinion, that's a totally different thing and can be handled as such. I can't speak for Plain, but I'm sure that's why we call you on some of this stuff because it takes multiple posts and lots lf wailing and gnashing of teeth before it is admitted to be opinion instead of truth.