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well, i'm not exactly a kum ba yah type of person, as you've probably always been able to tell. but i do try not step all over people, unless i'm provoked. i've always been of the "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything" camp. which may be hard for some to believe when they see the way this thread has degenerated.

if you'll look over the thread and note the patterns, nosy, you'll see that i've only been repeating myself because i keep getting confronted about my own belief as if it's the most horrible, ridiculous, unbelievable thing in the world, over and over and over again. someone will come back with some nastiness 3 pgs after the convo has been dropped.

i stated my opinion, and in the ensuing convo evany felt the need to put up a pic of black people being attacked by dogs, with a sarcastic comment to boot (tho she called it irony). that kinda broke it for me. that showed just how much respect she had for the dilemma of black people. it had nothing to do with the subject, and i found it very insensitive and offensive. evany probably thinks she's the most color blind person in the world, but the mere fact of not understanding how that pic, out of context, would affect a black person shows that she really has no idea about why we have a racial divide in the first place. no one else commented, so i guess no one could understand it's impact. then it became a lot less of a debate and more of kira's a bigot idiot and certain white women are insensitive bores.

i never asked anyone not to have negative feelings, either. i am sick of some people being so nasty about it when the man has just died, but i'm certainly not going to try to change the opinions of someone who's already white-washed him (pun intended). i've been spending my time in this thread, when i wasn't defending him, defending my own beliefs. why i would have to defend either a few days after he dies, and as a black woman affected by that, is just a part of living in this society, i guess. honor's not one of the things to which we pay much lip service.

is it so hard just to have a little respect for the dead? and those who mourn him? hmm...that may be waaay too much to ask. i know i'm going to get many posts protesting that request. a touch too maudlin, probably.

yeah, i guess you're prolly right, desi.

evany, please, please, don't presume to tell me why that photo upsets me. you were not sitting in your livingroom scared shitless when these things were happening. you have no idea what danger i was in during the civil rights movement. you weren't even in the country to experience it, much less the color to feel it viscerally. this is exactly why this became a racial conversation. the fact that you think you can tell me what i experienced during those years, dispute why mj is as important as mlk to me, is frankly just totally unbelievable. the fact that you think you can tell me about the civil rights movement, when i was in it, and all you know about it is what's written down, is just mind boggling. if that's not one of the most racist things i've ever encountered in my life, i don't know what is. you should be glad we're on an anonymous message board, cause if you tried to tell a group of black people face to face that you know more about civil rights than they do, they'd probably put their foot up your ass. also, the fact that you have no idea whatsoever why this is so damned offensive, tells me you don't even know what racism is...or maybe it's that you just don't know what being a human being is.

intellectualism has no place in this. you and heat putting up pictures and quoting history timelines has no merit at all. i lived this shit, you idiot! if you can't grasp the gravity of that and respect the position i'm coming from based on my own personal experience, why oh why am i even bothering to continue this convo? i should have realized this 13 pages ago! my gawd! it's stupefying!

(and here i fucking go again...i guess i can just never give up)

Real people, real black people, went out and faced racists with guns and dogs in the fight for civil rights. No amount of music by Michael Jackson, the Supremes or any other black artist would have or could have changed those racists even one tiny iota.

this is wrong. patently, wrong. first of all we were not facing the people. we were facing the police. most of the people who eventually accepted civil rights were sitting at home reading about it, watching these things on tv, being mortified by what they saw. they were the vast majority, or this country would still be in the throes of racism. those were the people who were also able to accept, and be moved by, black music.

music has changed the world, evany. the peace movement, hippie era, is the first and most prevalent demonstration of that. this country changed because it's youth embraced peace, and used music, and demonstrations, to protest a war, an establishment, a way of life. maybe not as simplistically as that, but music figured in most prominently. black music did something similiar. it helped a country accept a race of people. it certainly wasn't all just because mlk made moving speeches and walked many miles of demonstrations. it wasn't all one thing. it was many things. black music, and mj played a very big part of it. black people acknowledge that contribution, as has been said a million times, everywhere, by everyone, black and white, in the last 10 days. i acknowledge it even more than many.

this has been a really great way to mourn a man who affected my life profoundly. thanks, evany.