Violence and Nonviolence

 Excellent article. Thanks for the opportunity to respond.  I have been a Zen Buddhist for over 20 years yet I find myself habitually becoming impatient with others particularly while I am driving. Intellectually I know I am one with everyone and everything but I do not translate that into peaceful compassionate action very often. I am now writing about skin color and I notice white privileges are frequently unnoticed by white people. I sense there is some violence  to people of color as a result of white's failure to share privileges, particularly   with African Americans and Latinos, even though white persons often do not intend to be violent. In this country,  white people often think that people of color, particularly black people, are not as good as  whites. Part of that is unconscious through semi-conscious acculturation. The continuance of white privilege for so long leads me to believe that we now  need to at least gently (non violently) shock some white people into discussing racism with other white people.so that whites  acknowledge and share  their privileges. I am a recovering racist and  I would appreciate anyone with any ideas about skin color and  privilege to let me know what you think. Warm and kind regards to everyone.

 Hello there,

I believe that we are all racist and it is impossible for us to fully comprehend the subtleties and idiosyncrasies of it.

I believe we can work to become more conscious of the subtleties of our racism but it is impossible to totally get rid of it.  It seeps into and through every aspect of our being - we are so inculcated into the dominant discourse.  It is also structural in our institutions, organisations and ways of doing things.  If you haven't come across it, you might find the documentary 'Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes" useful if you want to work with groups to raise their consciousness about racism.