I like people who can talk straight and take it standing. There's not enough straight talkers in the world, and certainly not enough in the USA. It seems as though our opinions are illegal if they are not in-line with the normative line of acceptance. That truly seems Orwellian to me.
That said, though, this blog is more about race and ignorance than about the Thought Police. There does not exist a more sensitive and inflammatory topic than race. You should read the Wikipedia entry on race as it pertains to humans. It may enlighten you somewhat.
The USA has two presidential candidates in its 2008 Presidential race. One of them is sort of a pinkish-white color, and the other is something of a brown color. The pinkish-white one has an American heritage with clear ancestry back to Northern Europeans. The brownish colored one has an Indonesian heritage with some suspected ancestry back to Africa, although he also has European ancestry. Call them whatever race you want.
Where I have an objection is in the labeling of Senator Obama as the Black Candidate. Really, I have an objection to the use of Black, or any other physical prefix, to describe anyone. Nobody runs around saying the Tall American where I am concerned, do they? None of the political pundits are writing about the White Candidate, are they? Yet, you have CNN's own commentator Martin Roland writing about exactly that, a Black Candidate. As if there was something special about Senator Obama having dark skin.
The first sign of racist behavior, or ideology, is in identifying a class of people as a race. Scientists are contending now that human races are just social constructs. These constructs are something we are all tought as children and should shake from our psyche as adults.
Yet, when our published free thinkers, such as Martin Roland, write about race in America, I am reminded that the racist mindset spans all socially constructed races.
Martin Roland Article
In Martin Roland's article titled Race, age, gender are taboo in election (see link above), he writes a few things that finally pushed me to write this blog.
(1) "... and it's wrong for us to stand here and not support one of their own, even though we're Democrats."
This ignorant quote from his interview is incomprehensible. The very notion that Barak Obama is "one of THEIR own" is absurd. Any person of any color or any social construct in America is an American, period. Deprogramming the racial rhetoric starts with that simple notion that WE are Americans, and that none are of their own. Senator Obama is one of OUR OWN.
(2) His action item #1, ".. When you watch TV and hear folks talk about Wal-Mart moms or small, rural towns, they are talking about white Americans. These catch phrases never include African-Americans or Hispanics."
Another ignorant comment, for sure. There is no special "black consumer" button on the Wal-Mart cash register. Hispanics don't have special marked dollars that identify them as such. No, these normalized presumptions about a social group apply to any, and all, color of human being purchasing items in the American economy.
(3) "... love to toss around the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote ..."
If The Reverend were alive today and were to see and hear the mis-use of his words and meaning to continually aggrandize Barak Obama, I am certain that he would have cross words to share. It seems as though every time an article is written about Barak Obama by someone with a similar skin tone, they have to include some quip about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Senator Obama has no relation to racial apartheid or equal rights. He does not walk the streets, congregating an opressed people to fight ignorance and equalize the social caste in America.
Barak Obama is just a Senator from Illinois, just a regular American who worries and praises about the same things that we all experience in America. This goes for every person in America, regardless of their socially constructed race identity.
Racism exists solely because we see race. It comforts us to organize things into groups so that we can isolate our intersts and optimize our relationships to further our own personal goals. These comforts and goals are the very cause of racism because we create an artificial social caste to elevate ourselves out of our self-perceived social poverty.
If you want to see racism end in America, then stop using racist terminology. We're not European-Americans, not Hispanic-Americans, not African-Americans. Just plain, old, ordinary, boring, Americans. I hope that in 2008, we're going to elect an American who truly inpired us to believe that we are all just Americans. That is The Dream of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
That said, though, this blog is more about race and ignorance than about the Thought Police. There does not exist a more sensitive and inflammatory topic than race. You should read the Wikipedia entry on race as it pertains to humans. It may enlighten you somewhat.
The USA has two presidential candidates in its 2008 Presidential race. One of them is sort of a pinkish-white color, and the other is something of a brown color. The pinkish-white one has an American heritage with clear ancestry back to Northern Europeans. The brownish colored one has an Indonesian heritage with some suspected ancestry back to Africa, although he also has European ancestry. Call them whatever race you want.
Where I have an objection is in the labeling of Senator Obama as the Black Candidate. Really, I have an objection to the use of Black, or any other physical prefix, to describe anyone. Nobody runs around saying the Tall American where I am concerned, do they? None of the political pundits are writing about the White Candidate, are they? Yet, you have CNN's own commentator Martin Roland writing about exactly that, a Black Candidate. As if there was something special about Senator Obama having dark skin.
The first sign of racist behavior, or ideology, is in identifying a class of people as a race. Scientists are contending now that human races are just social constructs. These constructs are something we are all tought as children and should shake from our psyche as adults.
Yet, when our published free thinkers, such as Martin Roland, write about race in America, I am reminded that the racist mindset spans all socially constructed races.
Martin Roland Article
In Martin Roland's article titled Race, age, gender are taboo in election (see link above), he writes a few things that finally pushed me to write this blog.
(1) "... and it's wrong for us to stand here and not support one of their own, even though we're Democrats."
This ignorant quote from his interview is incomprehensible. The very notion that Barak Obama is "one of THEIR own" is absurd. Any person of any color or any social construct in America is an American, period. Deprogramming the racial rhetoric starts with that simple notion that WE are Americans, and that none are of their own. Senator Obama is one of OUR OWN.
(2) His action item #1, ".. When you watch TV and hear folks talk about Wal-Mart moms or small, rural towns, they are talking about white Americans. These catch phrases never include African-Americans or Hispanics."
Another ignorant comment, for sure. There is no special "black consumer" button on the Wal-Mart cash register. Hispanics don't have special marked dollars that identify them as such. No, these normalized presumptions about a social group apply to any, and all, color of human being purchasing items in the American economy.
(3) "... love to toss around the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote ..."
If The Reverend were alive today and were to see and hear the mis-use of his words and meaning to continually aggrandize Barak Obama, I am certain that he would have cross words to share. It seems as though every time an article is written about Barak Obama by someone with a similar skin tone, they have to include some quip about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Senator Obama has no relation to racial apartheid or equal rights. He does not walk the streets, congregating an opressed people to fight ignorance and equalize the social caste in America.
Barak Obama is just a Senator from Illinois, just a regular American who worries and praises about the same things that we all experience in America. This goes for every person in America, regardless of their socially constructed race identity.
Racism exists solely because we see race. It comforts us to organize things into groups so that we can isolate our intersts and optimize our relationships to further our own personal goals. These comforts and goals are the very cause of racism because we create an artificial social caste to elevate ourselves out of our self-perceived social poverty.
If you want to see racism end in America, then stop using racist terminology. We're not European-Americans, not Hispanic-Americans, not African-Americans. Just plain, old, ordinary, boring, Americans. I hope that in 2008, we're going to elect an American who truly inpired us to believe that we are all just Americans. That is The Dream of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.