Monday, April 23, 2007

DUDE!

Are you ok? You've been gone for almost two weeks!
Not that much has been going on, other than Don Imus and Virginia Tech. Two separate incidents, and even I'm not obnoxious enough to tie them to each other. I'm going to leave the Virginia Tech massacre as a terrible tragedy. Some other time I might get into identifying crazy people and sequestering them to protective custody.

Today, we are going to talk about racism. Yes, I said it.

I start by saying yes, absolutely, there are lots of racist people in this world. Don Imus may in fact be one of these. However, we need to talk about another racist: Reverend Al Sharpton. He has been poisoning your TV and your mind for years. People like Al Sharpton make racism worse.

Think about it: If the owner of a store that shop at comes out and start annoying the shit out of you, you are less likely to shop there right? You might even utter something like "That place sucks, their owner is a dumbass".
Let's morph it to sports. Let's say you meet Derek Jeter in person, and he's a prick to you. Maybe he is hanging out with other teammates. Even though he was the only one mean to you, it's reasonable for you to say "The Yankees suck. They are a bunch of arrogant bastards."
If you are familiar with my insane thought process, you know where I'm going with this. Al Sharpton makes the black community (I hate the term African-American, how many of them still have any ties to Africa? Or even care? Am I a British-German-Irish-American? NO!) look BAD. He is a fat, obnoxious person who seems to think he speaks for all black people. I am quite sure that he doesn't. He is making assumptions and claims that he feels are best for "his people" when in fact he is doing more harm than good. Surprisingly, Jesse Jackson has kept relatively quiet on this issue. Maybe he is smart enough to know when to keep quiet, or he just sees what a jackass Big Al is making of himself.

Now let's move to the "harmful language" in question. Don Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos". The funniest part about this debate is that according to Sharpton, being called a "ho" isn't nearly as bad as being called "nappy-headed", because the latter is (to him) a racial slur. He of course cannot attack calling a woman a "ho", because he would be attacking THE ENTIRE HIP-HOP INDUSTRY, which employs a big old pile of black dudes. Hm, so now ho is OK, but nappy-headed isn't. Interesting logic.

I think what I'm getting at here is that Al Sharpton is taking the Fox News approach to racism. Instead of suggesting a solution, he decides to SENSATIONALIZE the situation, all while claiming a "fair and balanced"-style approach.

As for Mr. Imus, I call him a pussy. If he thought about it, he would know he's getting fired either way. So why lower yourself to apologize? Stick to your guns of free speech and being opinionated and run with it. If nothing else, you'll be guaranteed a show on satellite radio. Instead, he apologized and fed Al Sharpton's fire. By backing down, he has made other radio shows both scared and completely under the microscope.

Ugh, I'm so sick of this crap. Here's the deal: There are still plenty of racist people in the world. If they are ignored, they will go away like the bullies that they are. Any time anyone drops the "N word" around me, I tend to ignore it and ignore them when possible. Just like when you were in elementary school, if you ignore them they will go away. Then we just wait for the racist generation (baby-boomers and their elders) to die off and we'll be OK.

However, if the "gangsta" mentality that all white people are bad continues, we will be right back where we started. Can't we all just get along?

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