I didn't want to post this in the main comments section, but perhaps I have something to contribute. I have always been a progressive and supportive person; ie. when all the other parents wouldn't talk to the "two mommies" at the school event I went right ahead and talked to them. Recently, I was unjustly accused of racism by a person in authority. It was totally trumped up ; their accusations were that 1) I had told a worker my first name twice - which apparently is racist and 2) I had asked the worker to borrow their cleaner, which they were obviously using earlier because you could smell it and they refused and said they didn't have it. You know when i was in school a bunch of us realized that a teacher was giving a couple a hard time because they were mixed and we got them to change their ways. Well, I can tell you that this false accusation has resulted in me losing my home. What I keep trying to think is how do minorities keep from hating all of us after they are treated unjustly. But i don't know where to go from here. Becuase the accusation wasn't openly published I cannot sue them for defamation. Comments?
I keep thinking of reading Alexander Solzenhitsn (sp?) and the ways that big government undermines oppostion - there are so many ways to discredit opposition. By the way, this incident occured after I organized three other clients to complain about the lack of heat (5 degrees celsius). Coincidence? Maybe not. Supervisors don't like it when you organize. Actually, i can tell you that all the other people who were not in power at this place who were of a variety of ethnicities were shocked by the accusation against me and suggested that I fight it - but I knew that it couldn't be done. I don't know if there is room here for this type of comment since most of the dialogue here is about policy decisions (which is valuable) but I don't know where else to talk about this.