I’ve been called a racist more times than I should probably be comfortable with, in my life. It’s not something that I’m proud of, I’m just merely stating the fact that plenty of people I’ve interacted with in my life tend to think that I harbor some racist beliefs. I’m not going to argue about the semantics behind such, but when the day is over, sure, I might find some humor in dark jokes, or race-related topics, but I genuinely don’t dislike my fellow man and woman, for no sole reason than the color of their skin. I typically grow to dislike my fellow man and woman, because I think they’re toxic personalities, and not the color of their skin or what box they check off under nationality on any sort of legal documentation.
The thing is, I think I get tagged as a racist as often as I do, because I’m pretty frank and candid when it comes to talking about race, stereotypes, and calling bullshit or double-standards on behavior when it comes to race. Like take for example, America has become this country that’s so riddled with white guilt and apologetic to the black community, that the African-American community has somewhat of an immunity when it comes to criticism, because a large portion of America is afraid to step on the toes of black people.
Unfortunately, it’s a tale of two extremes, and for every two people who are overly cautious around black people, there’s a closeted or not-so closeted bigot, that absolutely abhors black people, and actually acts on it, discriminating like slavery never was abolished.
However, in spite of the PC bulletproof vest that the black community tends to have against white people, other minority groups don’t have the same luxury. Asians and Hispanics especially, are treated like this third-tier group, and not only do they endure all sorts of criticism from white people, black people love to clown on Asians and Hispanics as if their entire demographic never endured discrimination in their entire lineages.
Just look at the 2016 presidential race as no further proof of how flagrant and publicly people, including the shithead that was voted into the highest office of the fucking world, blamed everything negative on the planet on Hispanics. And with the world in pandemic now, the same people have turned their crosshairs onto ALL Asians, despite the fact that it was at a Chinese wet market where some dumbass ate a bat and put the entire planet in this predicament in the first place.
And this is the world we live in. Where it’s the hopes and dreams of many, to see racism completely eradicated from the world, but that’s a pipedream that will never, ever, ever happen, because history exists, and as long as people are reminded that racism happened at some point, racism will continue to happen. It’s a catch-22 where racism should probably be best to be forgotten, but then there’s the old adage that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
I think the only way racism ends is if the idea behind the M. Night Shyamalan film The Village actually comes to fruition, where a group of people colluding to exist as pilgrims who never introduce the idea of discrimination, in isolation from the modern world, all while the rest of the planet dies off and then the people in the village can repopulate the planet without the concept racism ever existing in the brains of people.
In other words, racism is never going to not exist.
I think about this a lot lately and it’s under the topic of new dad brogging, because of the obvious notion that my daughter is a biracial kid. Despite the fact that she’s half white, she’ll never be fully identifiable as white, and historically Koreans have been some of the worst cultures in the world when it comes to accepting biracial children, much less anyone, unless they’re celebrities of some sort.
As great as it would be for her to go her life without dealing with racism, it’s not going to happen. The world is a fucked up hateful place, even to this very day, and with each passing day where the leaders of our country are a stacked deck of other racists, it’s only going to become worse and worse until we may as well be on the highway back to segregation.
It’s bad enough that the so-called president continually insists on regionalizing coronavirus, and publicly labeling it as “the Chinese Virus,” so that all his brainless followers can knee-jerk aspire to blame not just the Chinese, but all Asian cultures because arr rook same, and Americans are woefully ignorant when it comes to delineating between Asians.
But just in the news in the last month alone, we’ve got the following unfortunate stories:
- An “art director” for Lululemon “designed” a $60 t-shirt of a Chinese takeout box with bat wings, complete with Wonton font and titled it “bat fried rice;” they were since fired, but not before the thing went viral, and what people don’t seem to realize that in spite of the justice of firing of a racist idiot, the idea already made it onto the internet, and if people weren’t thinking of the tasteless joke before, they will now as a result
- Right here in Atlanta where I live with said daughter, someone(s) is/are going around putting these bronze plaques with Winnie the Pooh holding a bat with chopsticks, with “Wuhan Plague” in Hobo font on it, around the city. APD and the local Homeland Security unit for some reason doesn’t seem to think this has any bias behind it, further reinforcing the notion that Asians get no sort of respect or even consideration when it comes to racial discrimination
- Out in Illinois, at a protest for white people to demand that hair dressers and Mexican restaurants to get back to work, a woman was spotted holding a sign with a Nazi slogan of Arbeit macht frei, or Work Will Set You Free and somehow thought that that was a good idea. I’m still hoping for a follow-up story of her getting identified and doxxed
- Out in the San Diego area, a man went out to the grocery store in a literal, KKK klansman’s hood, in public broad daylight
- And of course, there is the story of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was shot and killed while out on a jog outside of Savannah, Georgia, by two white men while, because they thought he was a guy who was robbing the area, back in February, but absolutely nothing happened with local law enforcement until the story broke nationally and federal intervention managed to get the case moving
If stories like this don’t convince you that racism is not only not going away, but very alive and rampant, then I don’t know what to tell you. This is the world in which I have to raise my daughter, and all I can really hope that she isn’t exposed to too much of this bullshit as she grows, because people around us aren’t ever going to change.
