I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. The chain mail was astonishingly ignorant, and was definitely written by one of those racists who thinks they're fair and open-minded (probably because they have a token black guy in their fraternity).
While I agree in principle that all-black foundations and such are unfortunate, they're still a necessity because American culture is still inherently institutionally and psychologically racist. Historical and economic factors make sure of that. The tendency to keep poor people poor and rich people rich in America has hurt blacks more than anyone, and the fact that they're stuck in ghettoes is just because they were forced to start out there.
My addition to this whole thing would be this: There's no "white pride" beyond Aryans and Klansmen, because the entire concept of "whiteness" is a myth. There's plenty of Irish pride, Italian pride, English pride, French pride, and so on and so forth. Many people are proud of where they (or their ancestors) come from, not what color they are. And there's nigh-disgusting amounts of "American Pride" from all sorts of races. The same goes for "blackness" by the way. Most "blacks" in America are indeed descended from slaves brought from Africa, but Africa isn't the only home of "black" people - many, many countries in South America, including Jamaica and Brazil, are home to very dark-skinned people - and even if they are descended from Africans some five to ten generations back, does that make them African? Is an aboriginal Australian still a "nigger" because they have dark skin?
Also, as you said, racism isn't reserved for white people. Any black calling someone a cracker or honkey or whatnot is as racist as any Klansman. The situation is different of course, but that doesn't make it "all right". The same goes for crime and violence, of course - it's up to the individual to rise above it, or there will never be any progress.
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While I agree in principle that all-black foundations and such are unfortunate, they're still a necessity because American culture is still inherently institutionally and psychologically racist. Historical and economic factors make sure of that. The tendency to keep poor people poor and rich people rich in America has hurt blacks more than anyone, and the fact that they're stuck in ghettoes is just because they were forced to start out there.
My addition to this whole thing would be this: There's no "white pride" beyond Aryans and Klansmen, because the entire concept of "whiteness" is a myth. There's plenty of Irish pride, Italian pride, English pride, French pride, and so on and so forth. Many people are proud of where they (or their ancestors) come from, not what color they are. And there's nigh-disgusting amounts of "American Pride" from all sorts of races. The same goes for "blackness" by the way. Most "blacks" in America are indeed descended from slaves brought from Africa, but Africa isn't the only home of "black" people - many, many countries in South America, including Jamaica and Brazil, are home to very dark-skinned people - and even if they are descended from Africans some five to ten generations back, does that make them African? Is an aboriginal Australian still a "nigger" because they have dark skin?
Also, as you said, racism isn't reserved for white people. Any black calling someone a cracker or honkey or whatnot is as racist as any Klansman. The situation is different of course, but that doesn't make it "all right". The same goes for crime and violence, of course - it's up to the individual to rise above it, or there will never be any progress.