a racist memorial

No problem with recognizing African-Americans whose lives were lost on 9-11. Recognizing them because “the racist whitey cracker devils didn’t” seems to be the faux paus.

Unless you consider “working-class American civilian” a group of humanity.

I think that falls under the heading of any WWII movie. Definitely more than three.

The crime isn’t that blacks are under-represented in WWII movies. The crime is that they were considered to be incapable of serving as well as whites. Those who had a chance debunked that myth. But few had that chance. For the most part, historically accurate portrayals would put black soldiers in WWII almost entirely in service and support roles, which don’t tend to get much screen time.

I think there’s nothing wrong with memorial services that are tailored to a particular community, but the statement that it is being done because people think only white people suffered makes this all seem like an attention-getting political statement rather than a true memorial service. It should be done to remember the lost. That’s reason enough.

Yet another thread about the blacks and their racism.

<shaking my head in frustration and unexpressable angst>

So, a memorial for the “White-Americans” who lost their lives would be OK?

Sure…

Well said.

The UK is building a memorial to commemorate the British victims of the attacks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2189864.stm

Do you find that offensive, im2evil4u?

Fucking limeys. Americans were the target, dammit. Ya’ll can just suck it up, ok?
::ducks and runs like a bat out of hell::

Before I get too offended, might we have a cite? Sometimes there are two sides to a story.

<pops back into thread>

Yeah, I can see New Jersey from my rooftop (waves at Jerseyites) and have been reading a lot of 9/11 stuff and such a statement by a church official should have been picked up by now, even if only to fan outrage by the POST or something. Where’s the church, who said it (it looked like you copied it from somewhere), when’s the ceremony, etc?

Like people have been saying: A ceremony remembering African-Americans who were killed=fine. Saying you’re holding it because Whitey has been neglecting their deaths somehow=nonsense.

To put it mildly.

Hmmmm. I’m a semi-regular viewer of the Today show. It’s the only TV ‘news’ I get. I have to say that each time I’ve seen families of 9/11 victims or survivors of 9/11, they’re always white. I never even noticed the absense of brown faces until I read this thread.

This is not to say that on episodes of the Today show I’ve missed or other news shows there haven’t been non-whites. I’ve only seen, however, the white people. This, of course, is just my limited observation. I know better than to accept this as fact.

Although I can’t agree with the sentiment that ‘most people are under the impression that only white people suffered’, I can say that whenever I picture a victim of 9/11, I picture a white person.

Well, about 80% of America is still white so the vast majority of those who died were. If you were in NYC and saw the posters covering every lamppost downtown you would have seen plenty of non-white faces; one lovely Nigerian woman’s face in particular will never get out of my mind. Go to a bookstore and look at the new Portraits of Grief book comprising the NY Times columns and you’ll see every color and every religion looking back at you. Plenty of Asians and Asian-Americans died too, and lots of people from Europe. There’s all sorts of charities set up for different groups; Windows of Hope, for example, is helping the 125 families who lost someone in the the wiped-out morning shift of the Windows on the World, mostly “minorities” from dozens of countries:

http://www.windowsofhope.org/pages/faqs.html

But the typical victim, according to the NYC coroner’s office, was 37 years old, and the largest single city affected was Hoboken, NJ, in the 84% white county of Monmouth, and the largest single census tract was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The ‘Today’ show isn’t really a valid sample. Here’s the memorial page of the Vulcan Society for black NYFD firefighters.

http://www.vulcansocietyfdny.org/id34.htm

The firefighter’s families are high-profile and make good copy, so you’ll see a lot of them, and the NYFD is mostly white. The cultural and social reasons why the firefighters are like that is a topic for another thread.

But there’s nothing weird about a randomly selected group of people in America being mostly white. And you see and hear plenty about the different groups in NYC, and the coroner’s office didn’t bother to sort them out by race, religion, or ethnicity. Neither did the terrorists. They all died together.

One of the few good things that happened on 9/11 was the sense that we were all in this together.

We still are.

Regards,
Shodan

It was part of a news segment on 77WABC - AM radio, whom I consider a valid source of information. I have so far been unable to locate a site for ya’ll to peruse.

Please don’t misunderstand my OP. I was not offended by the fact that this church was having a ceremony. I was offended by the statement of the church pastor and that was all. Again, I make the statement that I considered that all races were lost. I watched it all happen. I considered all people, while I remained practically homebound for the entire week afterward, mourning for those lost and dealing with my own fears. Till this day, I consider them everyday I drive over the Verrazano Bridge, with a clear view of where the towers once stood.

As for my later statement, “why have a separate memorial”, as I read it now I think I didn’t clearly express myself. My intention was to point out that it appeared that the pastor wanted to get a political point out to (at the very least) the listening area (and now thanks to me, Dopers across the world). Why use something like 9/11 to get his point across? We are all aware that racism exists. In my opinion, this is not the time to divide when we all experienced lost TOGTHER

Note to Moderators - please put the little pad lock on this post - I think I have caused enough havoc :eek:

Thanks for clearing that up, im2evil4u.

We’re having a memorial outside the school in my neighborhood, and there’s signs all over announcing it and asking that, hey, if there’s any more names we missed on this list of dead people from this neighborhood, please let us know.

What a wonderful world.

I don’t think you need to apologize, or lock the thread. You raised a valid objection. Why does everyone apologize when they have a valid criticism of a minority group? Check out the thread on the Philly paper and the murder suspects (in GD I think)

I’m honestly not apologizing; I never apologize, since as a woman I am always right.

I’m PMS’ing :smiley: - the boobs are very tender

It’s actually 69% and in NYC it’s 35%.

Hide the silverware and guard the women!

Here’s a thought: let’s have a memorial to honor just the WHITE people that died in the WTC…

…there would be a nuclear explosion of outrage from every minority that exists.

I am very very puzzled about the double standard…

Yes Toaster there would be resentment. And it would be just as wrongheaded and petty as your resentment is.