Best of The Zombieslayer

The Best of The Zombieslayer

The race post

September 19, 2005

With, without
And after all, isn't that what the fighting's all about?

-Pink Floyd

I have utmost respect for Laura, but finally found an issue that we don't agree on besides guns. Don't worry, I'll convert her into a gun nut. Just give me more time.

She quoted a writer who talks about white privilege. Granted, every time I see a cop, I wish I was white. I've been harassed so many times by law enforcement for "walking while colored" it's not even funny. And middle-class whites think I'm exaggerating too, which really pisses me off.

"Well, were you wearing blue or red?"

"You wear blue and red all the time and you never get harassed, you heartless jerk. And no, I was wearing black."

Also, Sygyzy had an excellent post on his blog a few weeks ago that showed our American press showing a white couple who "found" some food while a black guy "looted" some food. So I'm not denying racism still exists and that there is white privilege. But I will say that class is way more important than race. It's not even close.

White privilege only works if you're middle-class or higher. You go into the bar and start talking about white privilege to a white guy who just saw his uncle, his brother, and his best friend just get Annakin Skywalkered in the latest refinery accident and you'll have an instant enemy.

I really like Roseanne. I know a lot of you hate her, but I like her. I remember her ranting once about how America is obsessed with race. Obsessed with it. Yet, nobody ever brings up class.

You and I will not have the same lawyers and accountants that a rich guy, regardless of race, will get. We might invest in stocks, they buy companies. We buy cheap, fixer-upper rental homes, they buy apartment complexes and hotels. We might rent a boat, they'll buy a yacht. We buy tickets to a basketball game, they buy a basketball team. We have to deal with the TSA idiots, they take their private jets. And "they" are of any color. "They" have more in common with each other than we do with one of "them" of their color, whatever it is.

I used to deliver pizza to a country club that costed $22,000 a year to be a member of. I got a chance to see what they looked like. A few of them even looked like me, but believe me, I'd definitely be more comfortable at a dinner table with the refinery folks I grew up with than them.

I remember one kid getting a Porsche for his sixteenth birthday and smashing it. No problem, Daddie bought him another. Now, I will readily admit, I'm privileged. I got a Ford Taurus with 250k miles on it after graduating college. My Daddie said if I could keep it running, I could have it. That's still better off than 90% of people in the world, seriously.

But when we keep obsessing with race and conveniently skip over the class topic, we're going to do more harm than good. I'm looking forward to the day when race and racism are reduced to humor, like on the Dave Chapelle show. I'm looking forward to seeing Dr. Martin Luther King's dream of when a person isn't judged on race, but on character. I'm looking forward to the day when nobody asks me my race, not my employer, not my school, and not someone with guilt who thinks he should feel sorry for me.

I'm looking forward to the day of discrimination, the way it should be. If you're American, you get a leg up in America over the person who is not American (it's the reverse right now, and I'll prove it in a later post). That's how it is in Thailand. How come it's the reverse of that here?

By the way, the white side of my family's doing considerably worse than the coloreds. It has nothing to do with race though, and everything to do with class. Let us not forget that all colors worked side by side in the coal mines and when the mines collapsed and a lot of the miners died, the owner would always ask if his donkeys made it out.

Shootin' Political Correctness in the head since May 2005. If you're soft skinned or weak at heart, you might want to try elsewhere.