Let's Get Racist (In Here)

<--This is the sequel to Trainspotting. Fun, fierce, fabulous!

So last night I asked my friend to rate himself on the racist scale, from 1 to 10. 10 being an awoved/involved racist and 1 being "I call bullshit".

The problem was, I delineated the eschelons of racistness after he rated himself a 6, which he then thought was too high (and it is), so we settled on a 5. To ease the sting of my unseemingly devised confession extraction game, I gave myself a hearty 4.

The point of this whole exercise was to own up to ignorance, bigotry, generalization, scapegoating, and fear, the 5 deadly sins of which we are ALL GUILTY, to varying degrees. I'd be lying out my arse if I said I haven't made hasty associations between a person's exterior and his character, or that I haven't acquired and nested expectations of color, size, background in what I read, watch, kiss. My worldview results from my ubringing by immigrant parents in a progressive environment amongst people with strange accents from a place I'd never even seen until I was a teenager, and finding myself at odds with my auto-Americanism and my parents fought for, misunderstood, conditioned, and adjusted Americanism.

Therefore, I don't give a fuck who's "in the room"--if I wouldn't say it if a [insert race] person were present, then I simply would not say it. I would die before I'd write off a race of people with a single derisive comment or term, because I've been wrong too many times and have had my preconceptions twisted and turned too many times to believe that people exist foremost in a handful of pigment-determined absolutes.

It can't be that easy.

I've met a black guy who was not, in fact, "ripped". He's my fucking dad!
I met an Asian kid who was dumb as dirt. And his parents weren't that upset about it!
There was the intolerable Russian, the prodigal Jew, the Estonian schoolboys who called me a nigger (multiple times, as we shared a row on a plane headed west), the white dude with 2 kids and no legal income, the Hispanic girl with wealthy parents and a perfect GPA, and the most proximate example, the black girl who loves music by old white guys, and will never again reduce herself to using, endorsing, or shrugging off a racial slur. That's tasteless, tacky, embarrassing, rude, abrasive, inconsiderate, and highly unbecoming.

Especially not when I open my eyes and set foot on a college campus where white people are not the majority. Simply having senses intact will emphasize the fact that the only thing separating me from an Arab, a Cambodian, a Korean, a Swede, or a Nigerian is....

nothing. In some cases, a lake or forest or desert but we're all biologically identical and race does not exist (if you disagree, then define it). There is no tangible qualifier to determine difference among humans, so "white" "black" "Oriental" "colored" "mulatto" "pardo", conveniently, provides a means to subjugate, terrorize, colonize, and comfort.

On my scale, then, a 4 would indicate that stereotype fascinates, entertains, and amuses me, and that I can take a clever racist joke in stride, assuming that it's delivered with impeccable comedic timing and calculated sensitivity. Otherwise you're no better than an incest-ridden idiot redneck and you can get off my property before I shoot yinz.



How's that for a stereotype?