Wednesday, July 22, 2009

An answer to the answer

I have no reading of the matter.

Mine was just a question.

I understand what is involved: racial prejudice (which lives in contemporary reality as well as the personal and collective memory of American society and its members, notwithstanding great strides forward).

I can understand this, though I have little to help me appreciate the rawness of America's experience of racism.

Until recently, racism, strictly speaking, was rather unknown in Italy, for the simple reason that there were virtually no people of non-European descent living in the country, and very few visitors.

Regional prejudices were strong, however, with people from the North looking down on people from the South.

When, back in the Fifties, many southern Italians moved to the city of Turin, for example, it was not unusual to find places with the notice, "for rent, save to Southerners".

The problem is becoming more strictily racist nowdays that Italy is favored destination of emigrants from North Africa and elsewhere.

Our experience of the phenomenon is very much different from that of African Americans, and of American society generally, though: people come to Italy of their own accord, not on slave ships.

The sensibilities are therefore different, and I recognize that.

As things stand, there was enough to my ears to raise the question, out of simple incredulity: I found it hard - and still find it extremely unpleasant - to believe that policemen might enter a man's house, and gratuitously manhandle him.

If you tell me that this can happen, I cannot but acknowledge the existence of a sad, though simple state of affairs.

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