The Typical White American... whatever that means.

I accidentally happened upon an article entitled "Dylann Roof Is The Typical White American".  The general message in the article by africanglobe.net was that we are a fundamentally racist society and that nobody should be terribly shocked by the behavior of the psychopath asshole that walked into a church a couple weeks ago and killed a bunch of innocent people.  How in the serious fuck is this convoluted garbage even close to being acceptable in a society that is supposed to be trying to end racism?  Change one word in this headline and Al Sharpton's fucking head would explode.  The best attorneys at the ACLU would foam at the mouth for a piece of the outlet with the audacity to publish a headline reading "The Typical Black American."

Racism is ugly and it's ignorant.  Period.  I'm not "offended" by this headline; I'm pissed off at the double standard.  Hack publications like this one and hack media outlets like Jon Stewart (I can't for the life of me figure out why so many people think the sun rises and sets on his ass) keep saying we're perpetuating racism by ignoring our history doing nothing about it.  I don't see anyone denying the atrocities committed by whites against blacks in the history of our nation and many others.  I've never heard anyone say slavery was a myth.  I've heard of holocaust deniers; not slavery deniers.

I'm completely aware of the history of slavery and bigotry in the United States.  What would you have me do differently?  I generally don't like people no matter what color they are but I always treat people with respect and courtesy unless their actions and attitude, not their appearance, dictate that I treat them otherwise.  Isn't that doing everything I can do to end racism?  Would it be better if I preached ad nauseam about every injustice I see or hear about committed against someone who isn't white while ignoring the injustices committed against white people?  Wouldn't that in itself be the very definition of racism?  I'd be treating an entire demographic differently based strictly on the color of their skin.

I suppose it's racist of me to point out what we're all aware of but afraid to admit:  racism is ok as long as the selected demographic is being given concessions or opportunities that others aren't.  We all know the examples:  NAACP, United Negro College Fund, BET, ...

On 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace asked Morgan Freeman what we should do about racism.  Freeman responded "stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man.  I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."  Simple.  Brilliant.  Jon Stewart condemns us as a society, smugly and cynically saying he's confident we'll continue to do nothing.  He wants us to do something, and he makes faces and noises and people laugh, but he fails to deliver on the rest of his message - what exactly would he have us do?  Maybe we should try it the Morgan Freeman way...

DS