Why I Love Rachel Lucas

Besides the fact that she posts awesome dog pics, she also posts stuff like this:

Technically, you can say it’s “wrong” for me to have preconceived notions about people of other races. Of course it is, but no more wrong than for a black person to have them about me. If we’re all doing it, which we are, it’s utter bullshit for Whitey to be the only one held responsible or raked over the coals for it.

You want equality, then take it, on all levels.

That means when Obama uses the phrase “typical white person”, he deserves to have his figurative ass kicked just like Whitey’s figurative ass would be kicked for saying “typical black person”. It means Reverend Wright is an asshole of a racist just like David Duke. Play fair or don’t play at all.

After some job hopping, I now have a stable position which I love very much, working for an organization that most would consider pretty liberal in tilt. Today I received an e-mail about a diversity program that is being held for employees, which I pretty much ignored. I sincerely hope I am not asked by my boss to attend because at that point I will be compelled to explain exactly why there is no way I will go. The bottom line is, as Rachel points out, no matter how many different skin colors, ethnicities, and countries are represented in the room, the whites will be the only ones that will have their "preconceived notions" challenged and asked to change their "faulty" thinking about other cultures. It's been that way with every diversity program I've attended, and there is no way I am going to subject myself to that again. Oh, I've been called a racist many times. Here are a few reasons my typical white racist ass needs "re-educated":

Mistakenly calling a classmate by the wrong name (called him Troy instead of Craig)
Refusing a man's advances
Telling someone they had to wait their turn in a line
Threatening to call the cops when people were trespassing on my property, after asking them three times to please leave
Being born in and growing up in a mostly white town
Not having any black friends (gee, wonder why?)

And, of course, being white automatically makes me a racist. But somehow that's not racist at all. And the fact that people Just Don't Get the whole Reverend Wright problem is really frightening. I guess that whole "not for the color of their skin but for the content of their character" stuff was just a bunch of crap.

I believe that all people are born with the capacity for ultimate goodness, and that we need to look for the beauty in each individual. And I am the first one to tell others that we need to give folks the benefit of the doubt, judge other people on their merits as individuals based on their actions and not on their appearances, but when I live my life in that manner and a certain subset of the population consistently turns my words and deeds around and seeks ways to demonize me, well golly gee I might just begin to have "preconceived notions" about those people. Kinda like some folks have preconceived notions about me being rich, priveleged, and the spawn of the most oppressive race on the planet. Go fig.

The whole episode is frightening because of the fact that neither Obama, his handlers, nor a good chunk of the American population recognize that using the term "typical white person" in a speech, and attending a church where the pastor utters hateful speech, indicates Obama's own racism, his blindness to it, and thus a very worrying likelihood of racism in this country being further institutionalized, rather than marginalized, should he be elected President.