Good news! Racism in America is dead!!
At least, that's what I'd have to conclude from this foolish brouhaha. Apparently the term "black hole" (a term from science, not society) is deemed "racially insensitive". So is "angel food cake" (white) versus "devils food cake" (black), and "the black sheep of the family". No, I'm not making this stuff up. I'm just not that creative.
It used to be that "racism" meant that people of a particular race (or, perhaps, not of a particular race) were discriminated against in the areas of job markets, housing, and other standard freedoms. That was "racism". That was really, really bad. Well, apparently we've solved all that because this is just too "below the noise" to be a problem if we hadn't.
Here, let me illustrate. Suppose someone shines a flashlight in your eyes when it's dark. You might say, "Get that light out of my eyes!" because, well, it's annoying and blinding and unpleasant. Suppose, however, that they're shining that very same flashlight in your eyes at midday when you've got the sun in your face. Does the flashlight matter anymore? Not hardly. You see, at that point it's "below the noise" -- the "noise" in this case being the sun.
In the past in America there was serious racism. Like the sun, it was blindingly bad. And so we stood up against it. We worked at eliminating the discrimination in the job markets and housing markets and so on. At that juncture in time, before that evil was addressed, it really didn't matter if devils food cake was dark colored or if the unusual member of the family was called "the black sheep" because, well, this really big problem of racism was so much more noise.
Never mind that it's ludicrous. Never mind that stereotypical sheep are white (and not because they're racist, but simply because that's the way they are) and, so, anyone who deviates from the family norm is called "the black sheep" ... nothing at all to do with racism. Never mind that so many traditional sources including the Bible equate "light" with "good" and, therefore, "darkness" with "evil" ... nothing at all to do with racism. Never mind that a black hole is a scientific term for an event in space from which no light (science defines "no light" as "black" because it is) can escape ... nothing at all to do with racism. I would think that this absolutely hyper-sensitivity to any term having to do with color must be an indication that true racism is dead. Now all we have to do is eliminate the hyper-sensitivity ... right?
2 comments:
And never mind that many of these associations have nothing to do with black people, but with man's inherent fear of the darkness of night. That is why the color association of black with bad and scary things long predates sustained contact between Europeans and Africans.
Just count your blessings no one used the word niggardly.
I think it works more like this: We have universally admitted racism is bad. If a person obstructs your political goals, twist their words around to make them sound racist, and you can defeat them without having to defeat their ideas.
Recently Barack Obama's statements challenging black men to embrace personal responsibility treaded on race-baiter Jesse Jackson's treasure chest, prompting the "civil rights leader" to say something profane about him.
Your analogy works, too, but I like the opposite analogy better; we learned to deplore the darkness of racism. So when they want to assassinate someone's character they confuse the truth of what the opposition says and envelope it with darkness, equating it with racisms past....and then rail against it.
Post a Comment