I know, another long blog: Thoughts about Racism
Posted by Ryan Woods
This will all be very disjointed and very random.
The conversation went like this:
Ryan: Man, I'm freezing.
Cook: Do you want me to warm you up?
Ryan: Sure, you want to get naked?
Cook: What are you a faggot?
Ryan: Hey dude, I don't like that word.
Cook: Oh, it's ok. One of my best friends is gay.
He wasn't being mean to me. We always tease eachother like that. I just didn't like him saying "fag".
It reminded me of a Weekend Update with Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon. The skit went a little something like this:
Jimmy: Today at the San diego zoo a black bear was found to have...
Tina: Wait a second.
Jimmy: What?
Tina: Why do you have to call it a black bear? You don't call a Polar bear a white bear! You know what you are Jimmy? You're racist...no, you're specist.
Jimmy: Oh really? Really Tina. Well I'm going to make a fool out of you Tina Fey 'cause I happen to carry something around with me. (Jimmy pulls out a framed picture of him with a black bear in a wedding dress) I happened to be married to a black bear! So whose the idiot? You or the guy who married a black bear...thats what I thought.
end scene
Use whatever word you want, racism, prejudice, bigot, intolerant...whatever the case...what's up with it, huh?
Rasheed Wallace (a basketball player) used the slave/master relationship when complaining about him being on the receiving end of many technical fouls this week. If a white guy says that, there would be an uproar. As a matter of fact those of you who know sports might remember the idiot John Rocker who ruined his career by making racist remarks a few years ago. Doesn't Rasheed (who gets paid millions and millions of dollars for playing a game) disrespect those who lived in slavery just as much as a white guy who makes those remarks? Just because he's black doesn't mean that he has the right to equate him getting fouls (for 16 million $ a season) and his ancestors getting beat as slaves. Seems wrong doesn't it...even if he is black.
Is the unnamed cook at my work justified in using crude remarks about the homosexual community simply because he knows someone associated with that group? Behind his comments, I believe, is the fact that he has no ill will toward that group and that he's just joking. But does that change the fact that he's using a slur against a particular people group? Could he have said the "N" word if he had friends who were African American? Doubt it.
In closing, I wish I were Jewish. I wish I were a minority of some sort. It's a get out of jail free card when it comes to comedy. I can't make fun of many people. If I were Greek, though, I could make fun of the Greek culture. If I were a Jew I'd make fun of Jews. You get the idea. I think Seinfeld even had an episode about this topic. The unspoken rule apparently is that you can be disrespectful of your own people. The only problem with this is that making fun of white people isn't funny unless you're a African American doing it (and that itself should be against the rules right?).
In second closing...I often get up in arms about the fact that as a white male I am a member of the most discriminated group in America. You know all the arguments associated with that point of view...there can't exist scholarships soely for white males. Or. If it comes down to two canidates for a job these days the minority always wins over the white dude. Blah blah blah. My only thought that I think I think about this is that it's amazing that it has not been even 50 years since segregation ended in America! Thats pretty amazing isn't it? Though we were in the post civil war era, though we had that one thing called the emancipation proclamation, though we no longer had slaves here in America, we were still a legally and blatantly racist society within this existing generation. That means that African American's have only had one generations time to work their way up from the forced bottom rung that we (Caucasian America) made them start at. That seriously and genuinely sucks doesn't it?
In my real and final closing I'd like to leave you with this: I don't like Jessie Jackson. I think he's more racist than most hillbillies from Arkansas. I don't like Rasheed Wallace. I think he's more racist than a Church of Christ elder from Texas.
the end
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