The article opens with eight bad old racial or ethnic slurs that no polite person uses these days and goes on to ask why, if those words make us cringe, “redneck” is any less cringeworthy.Why, indeed? RTWT.
Well … this voice mail claimed to be from a Chicago cop — the real deal (he went out of his way to note), not some poseur running around merely playing SWAT guy. He said he was African-American and a long-time faithful reader of the magazine.
AND, he said, that article was the most offensive thing he’d ever read. And he was going to throw the entire magazine into a garbage can. And he was never, ever again in his entire life going to read one word in S.W.A.T. Not ever.
“Why?” you might ask?
She goes on to make an important distinction.
Prejudice, we all have. It’s an emotional reaction. An assumption or a set of assumptions that may be based on experience or inexperience. That group of guys standing outside the pool hall looks dangerous to us. Even though we’ve never tried them, we’re sure we’re going to hate artichokes. We dislike frilly pink things. We think Japanese people are going to be “different than us.” Guns are scary.
Bigotry is prejudice that won’t yield to reason. Bigotry is blindness. In fact, bigotry is choosing blindness over sight. Bigotry is … well, it’s when all rednecks, or all blacks or all whatever are guilty of the actions of a few. Bigotry is when guns are not only scary, but evil. Bigotry is when you not only believe in global warming or the war on terror, but you think that anybody who disagrees with you should be locked up for treason. Bigotry is when you’re an atheist who thinks all Christians are benighted idiots. And bigotry is when you’re a Christian who smugly “knows” that your God will send every one of those atheists screaming into hell while you sit up in heaven, smiling.
Good stuff. I'm glad to see her blogging again.
6 comments:
"I'm glad to see her blogging again."
Amen.
Saw a 'Whites Only' (or 'Colored Only'; can't remember which) sign from Selma, AL in a local antiques shop. Almost bought it as a reminder of the ignorance from that time. I decided against it as I don't need reminders when I see it on an almost daily basis.
Thunder,
If you don't mind my asking: Do you see ignorant folks or do you see racism still. I have had the interesting experience, three of my children are Christian refugee's from the Sudan's religious cleansing. My ten year old still wakes up (PTSS) caught in a memory of out running the machete wielding gangs. They are as dark a black as can be. I see more racism/ discomfort from the black community, us being white it drives some of them right batty to have those children in our home, to have our mixed family at their places of business, buying the special things we need to care for their unique needs. Yet the White community has been much more open and welcoming. It has been a very eye opening experience for our Family.
Actually, I do still see racism where I am. This town, as late as the 1980's, used to have painted on the back of a billboard a slogan that roughly stated that blacks weren't welcome there. That is now gone and there are some black families that live here now, but I still hear the 'N' word tossed around at work occasionally.
Oh my, I can honestly say I have never come across that attitude here, but then anyone who knows me even a little bit wouldn't dare try it. ;) I have been told that it still exists. I think they "might" see it more when the kids get older, high school age. My oldest son who is 23 has told me that some one at work asked him why he had "N's" in his family. He politely told them to go "f" themselves sideways with a spiked pole.
Racial bigotry is alive and well, though the classic forms are maybe not as mainstream as it used to be. Living here in the boonies, I know examples of old-school white good ol' boys who talk smack about black people. Sometimes it almost seems like a pro-forma thing with them, though. One of the most outspoken local bigots, when it comes to actually doing something about it, maintains friendly and honorable relations with the few black men we actually have here. It perplexes me.
Of course bigotry isn't just a white thing, though we're supposed to believe it is. Having been born and raised in Detroit, I know for a fact that there are a whole bunch of black people who would be scandalized at the thought of a white couple presuming to raise black children. They seem to feel so strongly about it that if you asked whether they'd think the machetes were preferable, I suspect they'd ... not answer honestly.
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