I heard this story on NPR today, but the way it was presented on the radio, it wasn't clear that these passengers were Muslim. What I heard was that a big family got on and were talking about where their seats were, near the bathrooms, not over the wings and that passengers who overheard thought the comments were odd.

Anyway, I'm pretty angry about airport so-called security measures. Does it really help anything or anyone? I think it's all busy work. And in all these years, I've never heard anything other than "orange threat level" which is next to the top.

As far as Chatty's reference to 911, what I understood her to mean was that sometimes when faced by an outside attack, people group together. In fact, much racial and ethnic identification initiates and becomes reinforced this way -- a attack from the outside strengthens what the victims, in this case, have in common. Sometimes the only bond is that some other group is against them. If that external threat is removed, there's not much cohesion left.

Seek,
From the beginning of this discussion, I have not understood why you feel that one is safer walking through a poor white neighborhood than a poor black neighborhood! I simply don't find that to be true and I make it my business to go everywhere.

I don't think it is any sager to be around poor "good ol' boys," than it is to be around a group of Hispanics, or blacks, etc...

Why do you feel that is so? Is it your experience?

Violence is not a race, nor a color. It is an act committed by any race, any group, and splinter group is a possible violent group.

If we disenfranchise any group or person, we run the danger of violence, whether it is the child at school that feels left out or the blacks who feel profiles and held back.

Chatty so easily posted enough violent white criminals for us to show us that some crime is almost a "white," crime.

Do you live in an area that has made you feel unsafe near a certain poor racial group?

Dancer

If I may chime in -- I have traveled a lot, here and abroad, in cities and in rural areas, and even once upon a time used to hitch hike.

I was the victim of violent crime twice -- both times in Vermont, in a rather suburban area and in the country. My car was torched (country) and my house was shot up --missing my head by a few seconds and a few inches (suburb). Two separate and unrelated incidents. The second one was racially motivated as I am a white person and was associating with black people. The black people in my company believed it to have been the KKK. We all fled for our lives.

dancer: not sure where you got the idea i think it is safer to walk through a poor white neighborhood than a poor black neighborhood. i never said that.

i must not be writing clearly. you have misunderstood several things i have written. it does bother me to be misunderstood because i try to go out of my way to explain things.

i was simply talking about an idea that urban ghetto areas might be more dangerous than poor rural areas. i think i said in my scenario that both areas would have "people of color" - i did not say one had white people in them. please do not misquote me or mischaracterize what i am saying.

whoa. you faced down four guns and lived to tell about it? would you care to elaborate?

I'm exhausted from working in the E.R. today.
But spare me small towns.

It was in a small town where three civil rights workers were killed years ago and the town filled with the KKK.

(I say again, I have worked against the KKK, I know how they operate.)

It was a small town in Wyoming where a young gay may was beaten and hung on a fence to die slowly and suffer unimaginably.

It was in a small town that years ago a church that was most black was burnt to the ground by whites, killing people, killing children.

These small enclaves of white small communities are becoming obsolete, thank God.

Let us remember the small towns and their biases.

And Orchid is right. People check the names of who lives in a neighborhood to avoid moving into a mixed race one. They also keep people out by refusing to sell/rent, to races other than "white."

My city was small when I was a girl and the KKK had rallies at our local Safeway parking lot. It was a nice neighborhood too.

Shame.

Dancer

Blaming or insinuating all crimes, or the majority of crime is committed by poor blacks is like saying all dog attacks committed are by ferocious pit bulls....DAH! That is sooooo NOT the case... and I will match my expertise on this subject with anyones...Haven't we beat this racism dead horse enough yet???

i don't understand how things get so twisted. nowhere did i ever say or insinuate the majority of crimes are committed by blacks. but i do think it is very interesting that this keeps being asserted. and just for the record, i do not believe that and never have.

i was trying to make a point about perceptions in ghettos and poor rural areas (never said "small towns," either).

i guess it is the nature of the beast that people read into things what they want to read into them.

anyway, this subject will never be done until racism is not an issue anymore.

i don't know if anyone has taken the opportunity to explore their own prejudices as a result of this thread, but if they have, then that is awesome and if not, it has just been an exercise in futility.

i have learned a few things from reading the posts of others and have given more thought to what i have written and to the group dynamics.

don't worry and don't get frustrated, seek. No doubt all of us who posted must have learned a wee bit about each other and the subject. Including dancer.

I'd say there was serious learning here even with our entangled. communication

Remember seek, you are among friends. None of us who posted or regulars are angry enough to beat each other up.

Now this is something really off base, but I always found it interesting that I was attracted to men with darker complexions. ( I met my husband when he had a really dark tan, - ooo la la, and that with blue eyes.) Blond and very white men never turned me on, - so to speak. Weird,…I can't explain it,…but I guess I was racist. Hahaha. Although I have a light complexion, and am a bleached blond. I wonder why that is?

I think Obama is truly sexy. Did you all see his shirtless body pictures?

I think everyone does have a type they favour. It can't be really explained why, - just as racism can't always be explained why, other than some obvious reasons, like how one was raised.