We're All Racists; We're All Innocent

The previous post got me thinking. We have a really stupid situation vis a vis race in America. We've gotten so lost in the nonsense, and the posing and the crap we've lost sight of the simple truth.

We're all a bunch of racists.

Now I'm not saying this in an accusatory way. Just as a fact. A fact we need to come to grips with.

I dare anyone to try to pretend that Blacks aren't racist. The antics of the "reverend" Jeremiah Wright puts paid to that nonsense. As does the hilariously and obviously racist nearly 100% vote for Obie among Blacks.

At least no one has had the stupidity to suggest that it has "nothing to do with skin color". It has to do with nothing else. We all know it. Whites are generally just being more or less polite enough not to cram it into their faces too crassly.

(The same cannot be said for the other side, who persist, as usual, in hurling the accusation.)

OK. Let's just get over the fact that we're all racists. It's just true...Black, White, Yellow, Brown. We all prefer our own kind as a general rule. It doesn't have to be negative or destructive, it just is what it is. Often we like each other...at least individual members of other races. But we mostly like to hang with our own color. I mean, you can't help but notice: neighborhoods, bars, cafeterias...wherever people are allowed to self-segregate, they do.

The weirdest thing about it is that we find it so weird. It's so perfectly natural.

Now, there a lot of things that are natural that we control in our behavior. We don't defecate in the road...or mate in the town square. But we still defecate and mate. We just do it in a way that doesn't gross out everyone else. Same with racism. Whites have learned that doing it in public just makes for a nastier, lower culture, and so we don't do it in the road—or the town square. That makes us civilized human beings, not hypocrites. I mostly prefer to be around White people who speak English, but I don't make a big deal of it around people of different races and languages. I try to be nice and get along.

Isn't that really good enough? Isn't that all anyone can reasonably ask? And shouldn't we all get brownie points for behaving well, especially since we're fighting against natural instincts? Why should anyone be policing my thoughts? Why should anyone demand I feel differently than I feel, especially when it's perfectly obvious they feel the same way?

And shouldn't we appreciate the efforts made by each other? Shouldn't Blacks appreciate the attempt at courtesy and acceptance made by Whites? And Vice Versa?

Rather than teasing out and condemning every minor manifestation of natural racism, let's celebrate the great and difficult restraint we all demonstrate every day in trying our best to get along.

Wouldn't we be happier, more grateful people if we looked at it this way?

If we did, being resentful, accusatory, antagonistic and demanding perfection would be understood to be utterly counter-productive..serving only to stir rather than quiet the natural urge to racism.

Demanding the "end" of racism is as stupid as demanding the "end" of walking upright.

Let's get over the idea that people shouldn't be racists, and just accept the fact that they are, and all do our best not to let the natural tendencies manifest too strongly, and move on.

And let's try to be reasonable, and not stupid. Let's not...any color...push the issue with such abandon that it results in the excitement rather than the calming of racial tensions.

Constant agitation just serves to create resentment which will find an outlet that nobody wants. It always does.

The Gunslinger