Category: Racial tension

Detroit, Human rights issue, Racial tension, Racially motivated

Could You Live without water? The Residents of Detroit are!

The ReadyWriter

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More than 2,000 Detroit residents took to the streets last week to protest the “discriminatory” water shut offs in their city.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund complained that the water shut offs were “racially motivated,” and that the city was targeting “the most vulnerable citizens” while ignoring major corporations who are millions of dollars delinquent on their water bills.

In the meantime, the water department showed favoritism to corporations while targeting poor blacks who can’t flush their toilets, take showers or have the use of water as a bare necessity. Instead the folks who are being cut off are almost one hundred percent African-American.

This is not only a human rights issue but a disgrace that this is happening in what is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world.

Racial tension, Racist, Racist remarks

White Woman Mad that Black Woman Joined Her Yoga Class

The ReadyWriter

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Jen Caron, a self-described “skinny white girl,” enjoys yoga. Or at least she did—until a large black woman joined her yoga class.

A few weeks ago, as I settled into an exceptionally crowded midday class, a young, fairly heavy black woman put her mat down directly behind mine. It appeared she had never set foot in a yoga studio—she was glancing around anxiously, adjusting her clothes, looking wide-eyed and nervous. Within the first few minutes of gentle warm-up stretches, I saw the fear in her eyes snowball, turning into panic and then despair. Before we made it into our first downward dog, she had crouched down on her elbows and knees, head lowered close to the ground, trapped and vulnerable. She stayed there, staring, for the rest of the class.

Over the course of the next hour, I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body.

Imagine: there you are, in yoga class, when all of a sudden, directly behind you, you sense a fairly heavy black woman who you can feel directing resentment directly at your body. Reality—or nightmare?

I say if you were focusing on your yoga class and not the large black woman behind you, it wouldn’t have mattered.