Enough About Race!

Uh, can it get any more ridiculous? Do people just sit around waiting to be “offended” by whatever perceived insult or slight rolls down the pike? Have a look at this article. Right, racism, here we go again. What was it, just a couple weeks ago we learned the Gadsden Flag might have a nefarious, racist plot that was over 200 years in the culmination thereof? Well, let me tell you: Yes, there are people that sit around on a hair-trigger waiting to be outraged.

I was sitting in a coffeehouse the other day, minding my own affairs and contemplating going outside for a pipe, when a young man sat at the nearest table. He unlimbered his personal electronic device and proceeded to regale us with rather irritating rap music. Then a woman walked in, sat down at another table, and politely asked this young man if he could please turn down the music. Well, of course, she was wrong. That wasn’t “music”, that was simply noised any backed up drain could make when a plunger is put to it. Be that as it may, the young man was “offended”. I found myself rather amused and clandestinely tuned in to see how this major incident in hate and bigotry would play out.

Evidently, this young man was of some Hispanic heritage, since he informed the coffeehouse of this status. Which was rather humorous since nobody paid attention to that fact in serving him or so on. He told this woman that he felt “disrespected” because she “pointed” towards him and such hand gestures are “racist”. Make a note of this, folks. If you are going to teach a class, for example, never point at the blackboard. That might be construed as a racist act and the blackboard might need to seek professional counseling and a legion of activists to tweet out angry diatribes about the status quo of the lighter complexioned people. Who, evidently, run the nation. Barring the current president, of course.

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The rather ironic thing was this woman was of a minority group herself. I guess folks are resorting to an odd type of political cannibalism in this need to be offended over something that can be construed as “racism”. Assuming it isn’t racist to me to say that. And this woman at the coffeehouse backpedaled so quick to deny this racism that it created a time warp that spun us back into the 1800s. I was rather pleased because tobacco was cheaper back then and quickly wished to discover a good tobacconist before logic and reason catapulted us back into this lamentable present. Alas, she backpedaled more and spun us back before Columbus and I had to rush about to find a breechcloth and pay homage at the temple mound before I could do so.

It would appear that, soon, we shall not be able to say certain things without someone being offended and fifteen hours of groveling apologies will be necessary (and not accepted without accompanying checks, cash, and money orders) in order to appease the angry watchdogs of political ultra-correctness. I would guess we shall have to delete an entire color from the English lexicon to ensure that word isn’t accidently applied to phrases that might offend someone. I have no idea how this all manifested, but it is rather tiresome, to say the least. However, I have a pretty good idea as to where it might have begun.

A few decades ago, some “concerned parents” were upset and “hurt” because of a certain racial slur used in Mark Twain’s books about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Remember those? Required reading in high school literature, a classic of American literature, great American writer, and so on? Now, Mark Twain was anti-slavery and definitely not a racist for the times he lived in. But never to let the facts interfere with whining, those concerned parents wanted those books banned from school. And they actually succeeded in many places. Ok, Twain wrote of what was what in the era he lived in. That’s called being “real” in today’s parlance. But now, he can’t say what was said well over 100 years ago! Usually, liberals are against censorship. But they’re not against it when they wish to use the vehicle of censorship themselves.

They use the vehicle of censorship when it comes to anything they deem “hate speech”, or “racism”, or “(Insert Victim Group Here)-ophobia”. Then censorship is not only acceptable, but it better be carried out lest there be ten federal investigations into it. “We must get to the bottom of this!” And indeed they shall. Because we are in a race to the bottom of free speech. Everyone “needs” to be “offended” so they, too, can be a do-it-yourself activist. There is no better method to do this than to have your Anger Radar (patent pending) set on ultra-sensitive to find “stealth racism” trying to creep into our public speech under cover of things no one paid any attention to until these self-anointed protectors stepped up to whine about it.

Not a week goes by that someone hasn’t “found” something to be “offended” about. Who knew everything had racial overtones until these folks so helpfully pointed it out to us? I mean, gosh, we’d have never guessed otherwise! I didn’t know a cheesy photo of a runner giving a piggyback ride to some talk show host was racist. I sure am glad they pointed this out because otherwise, I’d have chalked it up as another gag-moment photo I wish I hadn’t looked at. But I wouldn’t have pegged it as racist until the whiners told me it was. It’s helpful for them to stoke the fires of racism and keep it alive for everyone by claiming to be so against it. That way, the human race can never move on, each ethnic group finding bold, new ways to be offended and find how people hate them. Even if they have to invent those reasons themselves.

As I have said here before, I don’t like talking about race. But at some point, this whole “I’m offended!” crap has got to stop. Hey, people, are you aware this is how wars start? Someone is “offended” and the next thing you know, we’ll have nuked fifteen cities and people will act like they don’t know how that war got started. People need to grow up and get over this. Look here, let me clue you in about something. People actually don’t care about you as much as you think they do. They’re not sitting there in the coffeehouse thinking, “I’ll put that (insert minority here) in his place!” They’re thinking, “I’d just like some peace and quiet without this guy’s rap competing with the coffeehouse’s decidedly awesome jazz that I enjoy.” But, see, the dude thinks he has the right to do whatever he wants without regard to anyone else. And if you don’t like it, he’ll turn it into a racial issue to justify his own poor public behavior.

Speaking of coffee, remember last year how a certain coffeehouse chain wanted their baristas to engage the public in talking about race? Well, you know what? I think we’ve had enough talk about race for the next one hundred years. It really is pathetic people. You define yourself by the color of your skin? I’m going to lay some very unpleasant facts on everyone. There are few people in the United States who are not racially mixed to some extent or the other unless they just came over here. Hey, you know the president? You guys think he’s black? Do you remember the dude is half white, too? The reason I don’t like Obama is not because he is black or white, but because his policies stink to high heaven. To me, he’s no different than any president that came before him. And that’s why I don’t like him.

It’s one thing to be proud of your culture and heritage. That is an awesome thing to do. But don’t turn it into a battle cry. You’re not respecting your ancestors at that point. You’ve turned them into a political tool and a weapon. How does that respect them? And you didn’t suffer the very real sufferings they did your own self. They went through that hell hoping you would have the opportunities they didn’t. Not so you could live in this no-man’s-land of imagined racism everywhere you go. You think people whose great-grandfathers were in the Confederate army have no right to celebrate their own heritage? What, they’re supposed to just shove that in the steamer trunk and lock it away forever? They have as much right as you do to celebrate as you do to celebrate where your people came from. See, it’s called the First Amendment. You should try reading it sometime.

People these days want to stand in front of crowds and hold up the Constitution and so on. But have they read it and understood it? That isn’t just some piece of paper by which we justify sending our men and women off to die in foolish overseas gambles we call “war”. This was supposed to be the framework by which we knew we could be secure in saying things that might not sit well with everyone else. Because if we don’t allow the speech of people we personally think are awful, then where do we end up? Right. In a place where anything can be construed as “racist” or “hate speech” and no one can say a darn thing without someone demanding an apology and then refusing to accept one if someone does offer one.

Excuse me, but what is this all about anyway? Is this some kind of shakedown for cash? People want reparations for slavery here. Ok, who’s going to pay that? Where are the guilty parties? Do you know? Can you show us the paper trail? And, guess what? You’re going to have to provide a genealogy proving a direct ancestor was a slave. That’s what a court will want in addition to the responsible party paper trail. Next on the list will be a requirement for a “blood quotient” card the government will provide to show how much of a percentage you are from an actual slave. Meaning if your ancestors married out of slave-descendent people a few times, you don’t qualify because you don’t have enough blood quotient to be a direct descendent. The government will say, “You’re only 1/16 from a slave. The rest were freemen. Sorry, not enough blood quotient…” You think the government won’t do that? Guess again. While Native American tribes determine blood quotient, blood quotient is what decides tribal membership. And the government will surely use that template for any reparations talks.

When do we get to be the human race first? Anyone know? Will there be a time when we can honestly discuss the very real problems in our communities without someone getting offended and upset when it isn’t their kids suffering as a result? They’ve built a cottage industry around this whole thing and very real people die every day because these activists have not spent one second finding a solution that actually saves lives. You think words hurt people? Yeah, well, what hurts them worse is a 50% alcoholism rate in certain areas and tens of thousands of kids in foster homes no one will adopt or isn’t allowed to. Why? Again, because of the race. They have to be adopted by their own race and where are these activists then, huh? They’re sitting in front of a TV camera whining about something a talk show host or some politician said. Meanwhile, a few hundred kids more are carted off to foster homes because both parents died in a drunk driving accident and the rest of the family doesn’t want them, or the parents were murdered by intra-family violence, or the kids were literally dropped off at a fire station unwanted. Yeah, tell me more about what you’re doing for your “community”.

So, enough about race. If you want to help your people, then DO things besides get offended at remarks that have no so much as injured anyone but you. When you’ve adopted those kids from those foster homes I told you about, then you can return to being offended at the drop of a hat. But until then, how about shutting the heck up? The proof is in the pudding.

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