"Race Is The Elephant In The Room"

(This photo of Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich was found at Daily Kos.)

I am proud of Gregg Popovich speaking out on the race issue in this country, and Whites need to listen to what he had to say. He said:

Obviously, race is the elephant in the room and we all understand that. Unless it is talked about constantly, it's not going to get better. People get bored, ‘Oh, they're talking about that again. They pulled the race card again. Why do we have to talk about that.' Well, because it's uncomfortable. There has to be an uncomfortable element in discourse for anything to change, whether it's LGBT movement, or women's suffrage, race — it doesn't matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable.

"And especially white people. Because we are comfortable. We still have no clue what being born white means. And if you read some of the recent literature, you realize there really is no such thing as whiteness. We kind of made it up. That's not my original thought, but it's true.

It's hard to sit down and decide that yes, it's like you're at the 50-meter mark in a 100-meter dash. You've got that kind of lead, yes, because you were born white. You have advantage that are systematically, culturally, psychologically rare. And they've been built up and cemented for hundreds of years. But many people can't look at it that way, because it's too difficult. It can't be something that's on their plate on a daily basis. People want to hold their position, people want their status quo, people don't want to give that up. Until it's given up, it's not going to be fixed."