From this recent column by Sylvester Brown, Jr., for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we get the following stunning insight:
His comment reminded me of a call I received from Erin Earley, 46, who had attended the recent Rib America Festival downtown.
“I’ve been going for eight years and have really enjoyed it. But this year, it took a real turn,” Earley, who described herself as Irish, told me.
“There were few people of color, no blues or R&B acts, just bad rock ‘n’ roll bands. They also charged a $3 cover for some unknown reason. I wondered if a white people’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ had been put in place,” Earley said, suggesting that event planners had sent subtle messages to keep the homeless and people of color away.
A priori assumptions:
- Rib America is somehow less authentic without homeless people.
- The same signals work on homeless people as on people of color.
Well, if that statement, with its set of a priori assumptions, doesn’t express what’s wrong with race relations today, I don’t know what does.
