Navigate

Contact

Credits

Urban Cadence

The trump card

Thursday, Mar. 18, 2004 @ 6:55 p.m.

The views expressed in this entry are those of the author and are not intended to represent anything other than the annoying, opinionated (but still nice, cute and adorable) nature that is him. Welcome to Planet Narcissist, heh! :)

I'm about as anti-racism/sexism/bigotry as anyone can get. After all, I am a member of a social minority group myself. But I really can't stand it when people from minorities use their status as a "victims" to exaggerate situations inappropriately.

I was talking to a group of friends a few months ago, and one of them happened to be an African American. Great guy. We were just kidding around, and he jokingly insulted me. I took it in good nature, of course... but I just had to have a comeback line. Because that's what people do when they're kidding around. They KID. So I said "Yeah, right... and the pot's calling the kettle black."

And he flipped out. Right there. He said that I made a "racist remark".

You've got to be kidding. Since when did a harmless old proverb become a racist remark?? So I thought, maybe he didn't know that it was an old proverb. I tried to explain it to him. He snapped back at me for talking to him like he was stupid. "What, now you think I'm too dumb to know what it means?" And he wasn't kidding at all. He really took offense to it.

This is ridiculous. So apparently, the word 'black' has become a taboo of sorts, and 'the pot calling the kettle black' has become a phrase with negative racial connotations? It's an OLD PROVERB that describes nothing even remotely discriminatory, fer cryin' out loud!

Fact: black is a color. So's brown. So's yellow. If I wanted to describe something as black/brown/yellow, I WILL, simply because it IS. There's no reason to give a sharp edge to a word that is simply descriptive. "I have a pair of black shoes". There, I just said it: BLACK. There's nothing gawddamn wrong about it. But if I had said it to that guy, he'd probably be quick to draw an analogy to black people being stepped on in society like a pair of shoes or something. Which may be right, but that's not the issue here. It's beyond sensitivity. It's downright ridiculous.

This isn't the first time I've come across something this absurd. Couple of years ago, I was in a supermarket with an ex who was Jewish. He was deciding between a big pack of chips and a smaller one that was cheaper. So I just joked sarcastically, "It's just a 60-cent difference! Take the big one, don't be such a cheap ass!"

Yep, he took offense to it. We had quite an argument. He demanded an apology... but I refused. I would have said that comment no matter who I was with, whether Christian, Buddhist, Satanist, Black, White, Purple, Green, Polka-dotted Martian in a bikini, it didn't friggin' make a difference. It was a JOKE. And it wasn't a racist one. It was a jab at a personality trait that's got absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with race or color.

I'm really not trying to be an asshole. It's just that these non-issues have gotten so ridiculously sensitive, it's just insane. It's as if people are now using their minority status as trump cards to deflect criticisms of coincidentally stereotyped personality flaws or even something as basic as physical descriptions. We hear it everywhere: Why didn't you get that job? Oh, it must be because I'm gay, and the boss is a bigot. Why didn't you get the raise? Oh, it must be because I'm latina, and the boss is sexist and racist. We've become so accustomed to being the victims that it's so instinctive and comforting to overlook the fact that "it might just very well be me".

Now, I hate stereotypes as much as Bill Gates has money. But if a person exhibits a characteristic that just happens to be a stereotype attached to his or her race/sex/gender, let's call it as it is: a coincidence. The problem isn't racism, sexism, or bigotry. The only excuse for our personalites is ourselves.

So don't diffuse the blame on race/color/nostril size/length of armpit hair/whatever. That's merely a coincidence.

PreviousNext

Recent Entries

Yoohoo... - Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009
The Prude - Saturday, Aug. 01, 2009
Filler/Teaser - Friday, Jul. 31, 2009
Rest in peace, Squeaky... - Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009
California - where discrimination is legal! - Tuesday, May. 26, 2009