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June 26, 2017

On Racism

I don't get racism. The idea of condemning an entire group of people for real or perceived issues strikes me as odd.

If you were to take the skin off of any human being, you would be hard pressed to tell whether that person was white, black, Asian, Hispanic, or anything else. Under the hood, so to speak, we are all virtually identical. The amount of melanin we have shouldn't be used to determine much of anything, except maybe how easily one will burn in the sunshine.

Think about it this way: most cars are fairly identical under the skin. Some have slightly bigger or smaller engines, some have slightly better or worse braking systems, some have some added bells and whistles, but, otherwise, they are all fundamentally the same underneath. It doesn't really matter if the shell of aluminum and plastic that makes up the body is painted white, black, yellow, or brown, the car will run the same.

Same with people.

The idea of race being a determiner for anything is a dream. It comes, primarily, from slavers during the triangle slave trade of the 1700 and 1800s and from Nazi Germany during WW2. The people behind both of those situations were biased and in the business of manufacturing differences based on skin color, and all of those opinions have been debunked over and over again.

When I was growing up, I had a bully who was black. HE was a dick, so I blamed HIM for being that dick. The vast majority of black people I've met have been non-dickish people. So too with whites, Asians, and Hispanics; I've met some individuals who were dicks to me, but overall the vast majority have been worthwhile people. Why would I paint an entire group of people with the same brush as one or two?

America is currently over 70% white. Statistically speaking, that means you are probably going to run into more dicks who are white than any other race. Should you, as a white person, be racially biased against your own race whenever you run into those occasional dicks? If you are not condemning your own race, yourself included, for a few dicks, why are you doing the same for another race?

If someone is a dick to you, be angry at that individual. Don't use your anger to paint with broad strokes an entire group of people who happen to look like that dick.