Cap Anson Team Photo With Black Child

[bk400]

Originally Posted by raulus

Along similar lines, my great-grandfather immigrated to the US from Northern Italy in 1901, along with his 3 brothers. Looking at some historical maps of the tiny town where he ended up in Northern California (Philo, for those who know Anderson Valley), a section of town was labeled as "Itey-Town", where the Italians lived.

I think I also read somewhere that Italians were not viewed as white until the 50s or 60s. Certainly my dad was called by Italian ethnic slurs as a kid in the 50s and 60s. Although I suspect that still happens to some extent today with just about every ethnic group, given how kids are at school.

This is a confronting sentiment. If it took 50 years for Italians to be considered "white", imagine how long it would take for black people.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by bk400

This is a confronting sentiment. If it took 50 years for Italians to be considered "white", imagine how long it would take for black people.

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The goal is to live in a society that doesn't define people by skin color, but defines people by character instead, like Martin Luther King envisioned.

Unfortunately there seems to always be a group of people that want to make everything about race.
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[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

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The goal is to live in a society that doesn't define people by skin color, but defines people by character instead, like Martin Luther King envisioned.

Unfortunately there seems to always be a group of people that want to make everything about race.
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Have we reached that goal? King would certainly say that we have not. The flip side of your statement is "Unfortunately there seems to always be a group of people that want to push back against progress for marginalized groups by pretending that racism (or sexism, or whatever) longer exists."

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Have we reached that goal? King would certainly say that we have not. The flip side of your statement is "Unfortunately there seems to always be a group of people that want to push back against progress for marginalized groups by pretending that racism (or sexism, or whatever) longer exists."

It's not a group thing. Some people are racist, some are not. I see a real problem in putting everyone into a group based on some characteristic, then pitting the groups against each other. If it's racist to put down one group (and it is,) then it's likewise racist to turn the tables and put down a different group.

People are people, period, and I wish we could all just realize that and quit separating segments of society from each other with all the group-think.

Cap Anson was quite clearly a racist. He did not represent anyone but himself in that. Other people in his day were not racist, and they, too, represented themselves, not some group of people with some attribute in common.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Mark17

It's not a group thing. Some people are racist, some are not. I see a real problem in putting everyone into a group based on some characteristic, then pitting the groups against each other. If it's racist to put down one group (and it is,) then it's likewise racist to turn the tables and put down a different group.

People are people, period, and I wish we could all just realize that and quit separating segments of society from each other with all the group-think.

Cap Anson was quite clearly a racist. He did not represent anyone but himself in that. Other people in his day were not racist, and they, too, represented themselves, not some group of people with some attribute in common.

Hi Mark, I mostly agree with you here. The segmentation and opposition is not a good thing and yet we see it more and more. I have many thoughts about that but it would go way off topic...