Racial Sensitivity and Black People

Let's make one thing perfectly clear. I am not racist. I have nothing against people of another color. It's unimaginable to me that blacks and whites were not allowed to use the same facilities in my parents' lifetime.

I'm all for racial equality. What I'm not OK with is this backlash. Black people have called themselves all kinds of things in the past and the one that seems to be the safest right now is African-American. I refuse to use that term. African-American implies that that person's heritage is rooted in Africa but now lives in America. Nelson Mandela is not African American. He's African. Ziggy Marley is not African-American. The Jamaican custodian who works in my school is not African-American. He's Caribbean-American. I don't want to have to do research. You might argue, "Why refer to their race at all?" Because you know what? Sometimes I might need to. I might refer to the fact that he's black. Or bald. Or tall. Being black is not a secret. Black people know they're black. Why can't I mention it? I'm white. So?

There's a story that just came up that burns my ass. In Dallas, some county commissioner was talking about how traffic tickets were being lost. He mentioned that it was like "a black hole." The two black people in the room got offended. Seriously. They said it was racially insensitive. They compared the term to "Jewing someone down" in terms of inappropriateness. "Jewing" someone down is a term based on a stereotype and can be considered offensive. Calling something a black hole is not because a black hole is called a black hole because light doesn't reflect off of it, so it is...BLACK...that is, devoid of light.

Now there's a whole other issue. I've even seen a kid's book called something like, "Is everything black bad?" I can understand that. Black hats, black hearts...if you're growing up black and keep hearing all these things that are also black being described as bad, you might make a connection.

So, fine, maybe it's time to eliminate the word black to describe Negroes. Maybe it's time to use a more scientific word. Let's see, the scientific word for whites is Caucasian and they seem OK with that...the scientific word for African-Americans is Negro. Or better yet, come up with a new word that hasn't been tainted yet. Like Troont. "We're a mixed marriage. I'm White and she's Troont." Is that offensive? I think not. It's just really weird.

And another thing. I love blues music. I like some reggae. I think Jimi Hendrix was the greatest electric guitar player ever. Richie Havens' performance at Woodstock was incredibly moving. Sharon Jones, Etta James, Jimmy Scott, Miles Davis, Guy Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley and probably more are all on my iPod. But if I say I hate rap music and detest the hip-hop culture, I might be called racist, and in fact, have been.

The sensitivity police are out of control. Can my kid play with a black crayon? My 6 year old describes people as having brown skin or peach skin. I never taught him that. He sees it with his own eyes. I never taught him the right terms: "African-American and white." He calls it likes he sees it. I encourage that. He told me of a girl "with brown skin" at camp who was sad because no one would be friends with her, so he sat down with her. That was incredibly sweet. Is he racist because he saw that she had brown skin? Hardly.

It's getting so I can't use my favorite joke anymore:
"I like my coffee like I like my women..hot and black!"

Now I just say:
"I like my coffee like I like my women...hot and sweet...with a spoon in them."

It still works, but in a different way.

Now this is not directly related, but it goes along with all the knee-jerk reactionary stuff. Obama's goddamn New Yorker cover. if you haven't seen it, the cover of a magazine shows a drawing of Barack Obama in the White House Oval Office, dressed as the Taliban with a flag burning in the fireplace and an Osama bin Laden poster on the wall, fist-bumping his Black Panther wife.
The cartoon was obviously pointing the ludicrous things people believe and are saying about the Obamas. The New Yorker is, in effect, saying sarcastically, "Yeah right, this is what they're like...sure." To say it another way, they were satirizing the people who are calling the Obamas Mulsim and unpatriotic.

But people, being people, got upset. They took it literally. They think that if you show Obama as a Muslim, no matter the context, then you think he's a Mulsim and are trying to tell the world that he is Muslim. If you put a poster of bin Laden on a magazine cover then you are promoting him and pissing on the memories of those who died on 9/11. Rarely have I seen such unanimous misunderstanding. People do not understand subtlety and nuance. People are thick and superficial.

Take the recent rash of "parody movies"...please!
Formula: Take a bunch of right-now-popular-and-current movies and celebrities, string references of them together and throw in some crude slapstick humor and you've got a movie. "Superhero Movie", "Date Movie," "Disaster Movie"... One of these movies (I don't know which) features a scene parodying the movie 300 where the Ancient Romans are battling and then suddenly Britney Spears arrives, shaving her head. Get it? Or another in which Gandalf tells Frodo not to throw away the ring and Frodo turns around and kicks him in the balls. Satire at its finest. This is what I'm saying. People don't do subtle. Show them something titillating so they remember it, and then show it to them again in a different context and they'll jump and clap because they recognized it and that passes for clever.

I mean, I'm a smart guy. Not physicist-smart, or even street-smart, but reasonably intelligent. But I often feel like I'm smarter that most of the country. That can't be true, can it?