An event worth clearing North Texas readers' schedules looks like this year's Leadership Dallas-founded event. Besides the fun that comes with dressing up and attending a holiday meal, it looks like the real food for thought may come from an airing of perceptions and perspectives. The Dallas Morning News editorial Dallas Dinner Table: Breaking bread while talking of bias" lists five preliminary responses to one question: "Describe the most recent time you observed or experienced differential treatment based on race or ethnicity."
One answers appears to be from former New York Post columnist Rod Dreher, who draws on his memory of the response engendered by his take on singer Aaliyah's funeral: Before I moved to Dallas, I wrote a column complaining about the undue importance our society places on celebrity – this, in response to a lavish funeral being planned for a young pop singer who died in a plane crash. I hadn't thought about the fact that the dead pop star was African-American. But the morning the column appeared, black radio in my city started a campaign to incite its listeners against me, based on my race (I'm white). I received hundreds of phone calls, almost all of them insulting me. The most depressing thing to me about this episode was what it said about the impossibility of a white person critiquing any aspect of a minority culture or behavior without being slammed as a bigot.
posted in articles on December 18, 2003 4:31 AM | t (0)
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