[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by molson

I think people should be able to associate with anyone they want. I just think there's generally different motivations behind that desire, and they do have different impacts on society. And so I'm not going to criticize people who want to put together a minority club, just because some would criticize a majority club.

It's tricky because it's generally accepted to be proud of being "black", but not accepted to be proud of being "white". It was OK to be proud of being Irish, or Italian, or French, but as time goes on and we lose those ties, we get grouped together as "white" and are basically told we're the default race, we have no identify, so we can't express any particular pride in that status.

The obvious solution is to be proud of being "American" - but blacks and whites alike don't seem to be able to happily share that status with each other yet. Whites have kind of been forced into it more, because of the stigma of positively identifying oneself as white. Blacks haven't been forced into it in the same way, partly because they whites won't let them, and partly because there identify more as "black" than "American".

The last two paragraphs were rambling......Ah, to hell with it, I'll just hit "submit reply".

I'm not proud of being American, but I am proud of best West Virginian.