When I Say So

Q: How will we know when racism is over? What does the United States look like without racism? Who determines that racism no longer exists?

A: Nothing racist has happened to me in 12 years. There are things that people have told me are racist and should stagger me to my knees, like the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. I have been told that because of this it should affect me because of my race, and that I should be shocked and angry and humiliated and determined take a stand. I was not shocked, or angry, humiliated or determined.

So what’s wrong with me? How come this racism hasn’t changed my life? How come the organization Black Lives Matter doesn’t matter to me? How come I want to make jokes, like a picture of a GrumpyCat who says ‘9 Lives Matter’? How come Donald Trump doesn’t make me panic with fright? Every day people ask questions like “Is it racist if I’m not Mexican and I eat at taco?” and then the next day say “Am I racist against Mexicans if I hate tacos?”. I just roll my eyes.

Could it be that racism is over? No, I don’t believe that. Maybe racism is over just for me. Maybe the kind of racism that most people actually encounter, not just what they speculate about, just doesn’t happen to me. That starts to make more sense.

Somebody once said “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”

  

“Your ambitions blind you to the nature of reality.”

What if racist acts of all sorts are going on and they only affect certain people but the race of the person doesn’t affect the perception of racist acts. Think about that for a minute. One of the ideas going around is that there is this thing called ‘white privilege’. It is a bogus racial theory designed to make you feel guilty for being white. How? It does it by identifying things nobody really pays any attention to unless they have a racial theory in mind. In other words, it racializes your perception. It forces you to look for the gorilla.

That is to say that if you look at the world determined by your ambition to see racism, then you will see it a lot more racism. If you look at the world determined by your ambition to always see the operation of evil, then maybe you will not see the operation of love, or charity, or courage.

Did you ever have a friend get a new car you never heard of, and suddenly you see that car everywhere? Did you ever start eating a new kind of food that you never tried before, and now you see restaurants of that type all the time?

What is racism? It’s a false ideology. It is enough to know that it is bad. It is a sin. It is evil. So when do we rid the world of evil? When does nobody sin? Racism is just a particular sin. It doesn't kill people. Murder kills people.

Racial identity is just a lie. Fools believe lies. Liars lie as much as they can get away with. What you need to do is tell the truth and move on. Don't internalize the lies. Don’t racialize your mind, don’t racialize your identity. If your aim is to see the good in people, then do so.

People will tell you all the time. Racism is real, it still operates, we’ve got a long way to go. And then they’ll say it has been around for centuries. Well, so has murder. So has rape. Everybody is against murder and rape. Everybody is against evil. It’s not a new idea. Why are you in such a panic? You’re not going to end it. It’s not going to end in another hundred years.

What is the crime of racism? How does it hurt? It simply the crime itself done for racist reasons. Then what is the crime? Is it an insult? Is it misrepresentation? Perjury? Is it theft? Assault? Assault with a deadly insult? Murder? Rape? Human beings have been dealing with crime since the beginning of time. It’s nothing new.

How will we know when crime is over? What does the USA look like with no crime? It looks like Heaven. Paradise. Nirvana. The Elysian Fields. It looks like everyone is perfectly equal. Hey, that’s all the same thing. It requires you to be dead.