Race Matters CD 5-8

4). “Progressives should view affirmation action as neither a major solution to poverty nor a sufficient means to equality. We should see it as primarily playing a negative role- namely, to ensure that discriminatory practices again women and people of color are abated. Given the history of this country, it is a virtual certainty that without affirmative action, racial and sexual discrimination would return with a vengeance” (West, 95).
“Unfortunately, black conservatives focus on the issue of self-respect as if it were the one key that would open all doors to black progress. They illustrate the fallacy of trying to open all doors with one key: they wind up closing their eyes to all doors except the one the key fits” (West, 97).
“Black people have searched desperately for allies in the struggle against racism- and have found Jews to be disproportionately represent in the ranks of that struggle. The desperation that sometimes informs the antiracist struggle arises out of two conflicting historical forces: America’s historically weak will to racial justice and an all-inclusive moral vision of freedom and justice for all” (West, 111).
“Americans are obsessed with sex and fearful of black sexuality. The obsession has to do with a search for stimulation and meaning in a fast-paced , market-driven culture; the fear is rooted in visceral feelings about black bodies and fueled by sexual myths of black women and men” (West, 119).
3.) Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another
Visceral: characterized by or dealing with coarse or base emotions; earthy; crude: a visceral literary style
Xenophobia: an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.