Bigotry in the Bedroom

I saw a commercial today featuring an interracial couple engaging in pillow talk regarding their daughter considering a military career. I was suddenly a little girl racing to the kitchen to tell my mother that I had just seen something I had never seen before -- a black woman in a commercial. I confess that I am old enough to remember a much whiter world than the one in which we live today and how the common sight of people of color was not as prevalent as it finally is. It was not my doing anymore than it was my choice, but I am somehow embarrassed by it having been so accepted by so many for so long. I don't remember what was being advertised in that ad so many years ago and I may not remember today's couple was discussing anything as important as their child's future in years to come, but they were a black man in bed with a white woman and that smacks of bravery on the part of the people who casted that commercial. My daughter was in the room when it aired and unlike the little girl her mother was, she thought nothing of it. In the bigoted society in which we live, that fact alone makes me proud of the way I've raised my children, teaching them from birth that different is neither better nor worse -- only different. The commercial itself made me laugh to think of the racists who saw it and began screaming their racial epithets to fewer people than used to listen to them. Perhaps their screams were out of anger and hatred alone, but I like to think that it was also out of fear as they realized their way of thinking is finally on the way out.

Out the Bigots To End Bigotry

I've met people who are continually unemployed, uneducated, lazy, drunk or a combination of all four, but the one common thing that can be said about these particular people is that they are or were racists.   By its very definition, racism means an individual is of the belief their own race is superior to all others.  As such, that says that these unemployed, lazy, drunken, idiotic under-achievers, think or thought they are or were better than members of other races by virtue of not their accomplishments, of which they are lacking, but by their skin color.  In their stupid supremacy, they take credit for something over which they have no control anymore than do the people over whom they feel so superior.  Research on racism confirms what we already know and have known for some time, but have failed to eradicate it from our society.  Of course, we can't nor should we be able to criminalize freedom of speech in any capacity, but that right is one of which great advantage is taken by many who wish to garner support of their own opinions to amass a majority.  

Our Constitution is a pain in the ass.  I love it and I would not change a single syllable, but my love of the Constitution forces me to say things like, "I would defend to the death a Nazi's right to march down Main Street speaking his tiny, little mind."  To say, "I defend to the death every racist's right to bespeak their parents' stupidity."  Or, "I defend to the death the homophobe's right to malign an entire segment of society because the homophobe doesn't accept and probably failed science."

So racism is not illegal, but that does not mean we can't make the racists feel like it is when they are caught practicing it.  There are many racism posters to hang in a great many places.  There are countless anti-racism quotes to be repeated and or spread about via email, Facebook, or Twitter.  Can you imagine Dr. King on-line?  I often think what the great movers and shakers in history would have been able to accomplish with today's technology after having achieved so very much without it.  People like John Adams, Ben Franklin, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Gandhi changed the world for the better without the Internet and under great threat to their own safety, yet we do very little with the advantages of technology they did not have.  Use the Internet to report racism and bigotry of all kinds.  Out the Bigots.

There are many racism questions like why racism exists, but it is time to end racism.  Don't have questions about racism.  Question racism.  Racists are only proud of their racism when they are surrounded by other racists for bragging purposes.  Otherwise, they keep their loud mouths shut unless they are denying their ridiculous opinions, so they know it is wrong.  As such, they need to be outed.  A video on a cell phone or a Twitter or Facebook entry with a picture to out the racist during his act of racism will immediately begin to reduce the bigotry by identifying the bigots.    

I love my country and the words upon which it was built and by which it is governed, thus giving me the right to say, without fear of retribution, the Constitution is a pain in the ass.