"Obama wins!! Racism is over! Down with the white supremacists!"
I couldn't help but think how out of touch this person really is. I have no idea how long this had been up on the wall. It could have been written on the very night of the elections as far as I know. Maybe they were just all jacked up on the high.
Just because a man is elected President and that particular man has certain qualities in his heredity doesn't mean that will change the way thousands of yokels think. Yea, it would be great if this accomplishment changed the minds of every single racist idiot. Realistically thinking, it might change the thoughts of a few hundred. If we're lucky.
If you truly want to see if racism is gone or not then talk to people. Offer them an intelligent argument or even make certain jokes. I warn you though, depending on the person this might lead you to getting your ass kicked.
In my line of work you run into it a lot. If a club has a dress code policy then that club is racist. It has nothing to do with the club trying to keep a specific style. It's a direct racist attack against the person that is wearing the wrong kind of clothing. At least that's what that person thinks.
Let's say you work at a club. Your duty is to use a hand held metal detector on every person that walks in. You skip a couple people because they're your friends or they walked outside to smoke. The next person that walks up is a black person with baggy clothes on. You ask them to stop so you can swipe them with the metal detector. They start the argument that you didn't swipe the last two people. Obviously your only swiping this person because they're black, your racist and you think they're carrying.
Now every person has different experiences in life. I've known a very limited few white people that were racist. I keep myself away from them. If I need to talk to them about something I will but I don't have a need to keep company with people like that. I've also known a lot of black people that are much more racist. Typically I've met them through work either from working together or from them being assholes at the door. I'm a big white guy that works the door and if I don't let you in for what ever reason I'm racist. I've heard it from blacks, asians, middle easterners and even white guys who think they're black.
It would be great if everyone could remove racism from their lives. I don't think it will ever happen. As long as someone looks at another person and thinks they might be bad in some way, racism will never die.
It's ingrained in us all from the very roots of our lineage. It can get better. People can forget about the color in people but they can't forget about the feelings they have towards certain character types.
They might forget that Chris is a black man but they won't see past what Chris wears.His baggy pants, unlaced shoes, hoody, vest and hidden face. They'll see how dirty his clothes are and how he walks in the dark lit streets. They'll stop to wonder if he's going to try and sneak up on them without realizing that he's just walking home from work. They'll never even notice if he's black. They see the character not the color.
And if you really want to know if racism is dead. Ask any non-white gentleman over the age of 60. They'll tell you tales that you can't believe.
1 comment:
Just bumped into your blog. I like the way you differentiate race from character. In the UK, there's a class of youth (black, white, Asian, mixed) that wear the same clothes and the image of them is associated with muggings and stabbings. It's the character association, not the colour. In my job I've been called black bastard, Paki and white bastard in the past two weeks. I'm a white guy and a teacher. I know it's simplistic (and I'm not) but I prefer to think that there are two types of people in this world. People who are shit and people who aren't. Colour is meaningless. Steve
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