Last night, while casually browsing my Twitter timeline, I saw an interesting tweet. I follow lots of people and I like to see what others are thinking so it fascinated me that this guy (we'll call him G) was really ticked that someone (we'll call them Pug) had placed G's name of a list titled "Racists". I could see G was really mad, so I wandered over to Pug's offensive twitter account and browsed the list. Wow. Many of the people on the list were people I follow and a whole lot of them were people that I admire very much.
While browsing the list titled Racists, I saw a lovely tweet about Alveda King (whom I think is a saint) and just the usual conservative tweets about the DHS bill, Hillary's email, Menendez, pro-life, etc. Looked like my own timeline. So I wrote a quick note to G and said, "It's a funny list. I didn't see one racist comment. But I guess pugs can't really tell the difference." Well that got me into the fight. Pug decided not only did I belong on the racists list, but I also got my own list called Dumb-Dumbs. Ah, to be back in the schoolyard. It took me back to 4th grade and a little incident over an eraser. But I digress.
I never really cared if someone called me dumb or racists. I know who I am and I know what is in my heart. However, I am starting to really get mad about it because my adult children are sometimes labeled that for their beliefs. It bothers me so much that we surrendered the word to a mix bag of ignorant usages.
I know. When I say that to my friends they ask me, "what do you mean? Racists, means, well you know, racist."
But if you look up the definition of race you'll find this gem from Cliff Notes
The term race refers to groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant, meaning that people treat other people differently because of them. For instance, while differences and similarities in eye color have not been treated as socially significant, differences and similarities in skin color have.Ok, so it goes on to say
Although some scholars have attempted to establish dozens of racial groupings for the peoples of the world, others have suggested four or five. An example of a racial category is Asian (or Mongoloid), with its associated facial, hair color, and body type features. Yet too many exceptions to this sort of racial grouping have been found to make any racial categorizations truly viable. This fact has led many sociologists to indicate that no clear‐cut races exist—only assorted physical and genetic variations across human individuals and groups.So race means exactly nothing. It reminds me of Global Warming and Global Climate Change. When I was growing up, we called that Seasons. And race, well that used to refer to "Humans". So when someone calls me a racists, I usually say, no, I like Martians too. But this screwed up word usage is getting darn right mean.
Some years ago I was sitting in a courtroom waiting to be "Voir dire'd" for a case. I couldn't wait to get up there and "educate" the moronic defense attorney who kept asking everyone if they could set aside any racial bias in the case. The defendant was unable to speak English and by my discerning eye appeared to be from Mexico. I couldn't wait to be asked the question so I could answer that the man appeared to be human so no racial bias would seem appropriate but the bigger question was if he was here legally. Unless of course the Public Defender was asking about race and if we overlook the little legal status fact and repaint the jurors as racists. But as fate would have it, the line up in front of me all complied with the ignorant question and I never got to lecture them on using that word incorrectly.
I might have even gone on to say, which physical characteristics would they think I might discriminate against. His height? His weight? His eye-color? Maybe his wrinkles? Maybe the word the Public Defender was looking for was bigot. Or sectarian.
I know that the word "racist" has been used so much, the meaning has blended into being against anyone who disagrees with another point of view. But as I said earlier, it is getting down right mean.
Another story came to mind last night after I thought about the name calling Pug. When I was much younger, I had to move and a friend let me move in with her. She lived in Inglewood. For those of you who don't know the area, it is a predominately black area. Now when someone says that, immediately many minds go to thinking "hood". But not really, this was pretty much a working class area with the nicely manicured lawns. Many evenings I would get home late from work. I rode the bus so I had a bit of a walk from the bus stop to the apartment. Even though it was dark, I wasn't concerned. As a matter of fact, many times, I would be walking and see people coming toward me. Often the guys (always black) would say, "hey, you shouldn't be walking alone at night." Or "be careful, watch out around here." I would always politely thank them but I would laugh to myself. They saw me as the "Latina" chick walking alone. I can only think of one time when I saw some guys walking toward me and I quickly crossed the street. It wasn't that they were black but it was that they looked evil. They looked like they would hurt someone.
The words of Martin Luther King always come to mind when I think of things like that. I judged them on what I believed to be the content of their character. I could have been wrong but I used that discretion.
I have experienced discrimination. Who hasn't? I hate USC, they hate UCLA. I like the Lakers but hate the Celtics. They hate Lakers Fans. I am a Republican (not for long though) and I was by all definitions, a RINO when I first joined the party. Sorry, but I liked Ford. And I have been hated by many for being ProLife.
And now, as a conservative, I am hated just because I exist. I love Jesus. I read the Dalai Lama and I pray every hour for this country that I love.
I pray for all humanity because I love humans.
And finally, I pray that as enlightened humans we stop using words incorrectly to hurt other humans.
