Free At Last
Racism, 14 May 2008
Memo to America: CONGRATULATIONS!
I admit, I resisted. I didn't believe. But I've come around. Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have convinced me. And so I'd like to congratulate America on eliminating racism. Yay us!
In fact, let me go one step further and admit I was wrong. As a liberal, I thought for years that the only way to truly eliminate racism was time. Over the years, an increasingly diverse and open culture would educate the young, while old racists would gradually die off. Turns out that's a strategy for patient suckers. All you really need to do is redefine actions so that they're not racist anymore!
And if recent reports are correct, two of the last big racist holdouts just got redefined:
NOT LIKING BLACK PEOPLE
This was always a biggie. There's a lot of gray-area stuff when it comes to racism, but even back in the day, not liking black people was fairly conclusive evidence. But thanks to Barack Obama's historic candidacy, this former benchmark of bigotry is no more. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!
"They won't go for a black man, that's just it. I don't think it's being racist necessarily, they just don't like black people that well. The arrogance and all that bothers me more than black, but black is a close second. Our generation was back when blacks were the back of the bus, and it's hard to change that outlook. I just feel like I couldn't vote for him." - R.K. Horton, West Virginia.
There you have it. And really, that's the tiny concession a lot of white Americans have been waiting for. And now that they're free to dislike black people in a non-racist way, especially in regards to arrogant black people who won't stay on the back of the bus, I think the healing can finally begin.
CALLING BLACK PEOPLE MONKEYS
This was another one that was difficult to topple. Comparing black people to jungle-dwelling animals - something that looks vaguely human, but is in reality no more than a beast to cage and make dance for our amusement - was for some reason seen as offensive for nearly three decades.
But our long national nightmare is over, thanks to Georgia resident Mike Norman. Norman's establishment, Mulligan's Bar and Grill, has for years been regarded as the Algonquin Round Table of northwest Atlanta outer-ring suburbs thanks to thought-provoking signage like "I wish Hillary had married OJ".
And now, some dare call him a racist, just because he's reselling T-shirts he bought off the Web that have a picture of Curious George above the "Obama '08" slogan. Please. As if there was any racism on the Internet to begin with. But I'll let the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's paraphrase of Norman's defense speak for him.
'Norman said those offended are "hunting for a reason to be mad' and insisted he is 'not a racist.' Norman said he sees nothing wrong with depicting Obama as Curious George. 'Look at him... the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George,' Norman said. He said he did not design the shirts himself but bought them through a Web site. He said he views it as just coincidence that the character on the T-shirt is a monkey."
See? People were literally ready to lynch Norman over a coincidence. Plus, as many enlightened commentors from Atlanta pointed out, since we've spent the last eight years calling Dubya a monkey because he's stupid, it's not racist to call Obama a monkey because he's black.
It's almost ironic. After all, it's right-wing not-racists who've been warning us for decades that the forces of "political correctness" would make it so that the most innocent, innocuous utterances from pale, pink lips would get that speaker thrown in jail as a hate criminal. But not only were those fears completely unfounded, the exact opposite has happened, and it's the black-hating offensive Southern white males who've freed us from the shackles of racism once and for all.
Well, except for Jeremiah Wright. That dude is totally a racist.