During the Obama presidential campaign in 2008, there was an on-going joke within my office about the end of racism. I joked with my American colleagues that if Obama won the election, black people would forever lose the ability to claim racism as an excuse for failure to accomplish their goals or succeed in life. The loss may even impact other situations where people make insensitive jokes or are suspected to be discriminating. After all, how can discrimination in the US be a problem if the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is black? Clearly that would indicate that a majority of Americans voted for him (unless his name is Bush); and how could that happen if the US was a racist country? So for the last half of 2008 we had a running joke in our office where I called my white colleagues racists several times a day for almost anything. Why? Because I needed to use it up while it still counted.
Took the last cup of coffee from the pot? Racist! You knew I wanted coffee and didn’t want me to get some because I’m a BLACK MAN!
Let the sugar run out? Better hope the next guy who needs some is white. Otherwise: racist.
Why you putting CREAM in your coffee any way? Can’t drink it unless you WHITEN it first? Racist.
Ask me to proofread a document for you and I find spelling errors? You trying to dumb it down so I can understand it? You RACIST!
And of course the most fun came from watching the ‘huh?’ facial expressions when I caught someone off guard after they said something completely innocent and I interjected, “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” or “What’s my being BLACK have to do with THAT?!? They would cock their heads to the side in total confusion while everyone else laughed. It got to the point where guys would come to my desk with an empty coffee pot and say, “John, I just took the last cup. Normally I’d make more but I’m feeling a bit racist today. You understand don’t you?” This lasted for over six months and obviously, not every mixed group can enjoy this kind of dry humor. There were lots of laughs—But…
Now we have a list of Fox News “analysts that make racially insensitive comments about President Obama who feel emboldened by his inability to play the “race card” and by the fact that other journalists and analysts would be hesitant to call them on it. That is partly why Glenn Beck can get away with what he does. The other part is that Fox knows the audience they are playing to is receptive to any and all anti-liberal attacks because many of the people who watch that channel have what they call “strong beliefs.” For the record, a “strong belief” is what some misguided souls have who cannot articulate a rational foundation for the belief, though they insist that it invalidates all other beliefs by virtue of its inherent rightness—and of course, no attack is too vicious or out of bounds when they are dealing with people who do not believe as they do.
HAVING SAID THAT…
There are those roads, that once started down, lead to very ugly and intolerant places. Remember some of the insensitive things we’ve seen in the news recently? Now even KFC is producing ads that sink to new lows. Knowing full well about the black people/fried chicken stereotype, this respected company produced this little gem:
Granted, they are not running it in the US, but is this the new political climate we are operating in? Would they have run this ad a year ago? It seems quite possible that my office joke was more prophetic than I could ever have believed.
The Dwindling Racial Argument
During the Obama presidential campaign in 2008, there was an on-going joke within my office about the end of racism. I joked with my American colleagues that if Obama won the election, black people would forever lose the ability to claim racism as an excuse for failure to accomplish their goals or succeed in life. The loss may even impact other situations where people make insensitive jokes or are suspected to be discriminating. After all, how can discrimination in the US be a problem if the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is black? Clearly that would indicate that a majority of Americans voted for him (unless his name is Bush); and how could that happen if the US was a racist country? So for the last half of 2008 we had a running joke in our office where I called my white colleagues racists several times a day for almost anything. Why? Because I needed to use it up while it still counted.
Took the last cup of coffee from the pot? Racist! You knew I wanted coffee and didn’t want me to get some because I’m a BLACK MAN!
Let the sugar run out? Better hope the next guy who needs some is white. Otherwise: racist.
Why you putting CREAM in your coffee any way? Can’t drink it unless you WHITEN it first? Racist.
Ask me to proofread a document for you and I find spelling errors? You trying to dumb it down so I can understand it? You RACIST!
And of course the most fun came from watching the ‘huh?’ facial expressions when I caught someone off guard after they said something completely innocent and I interjected, “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” or “What’s my being BLACK have to do with THAT?!? They would cock their heads to the side in total confusion while everyone else laughed. It got to the point where guys would come to my desk with an empty coffee pot and say, “John, I just took the last cup. Normally I’d make more but I’m feeling a bit racist today. You understand don’t you?” This lasted for over six months and obviously, not every mixed group can enjoy this kind of dry humor. There were lots of laughs—But…
Now we have a list of Fox News “analysts that make racially insensitive comments about President Obama who feel emboldened by his inability to play the “race card” and by the fact that other journalists and analysts would be hesitant to call them on it. That is partly why Glenn Beck can get away with what he does. The other part is that Fox knows the audience they are playing to is receptive to any and all anti-liberal attacks because many of the people who watch that channel have what they call “strong beliefs.” For the record, a “strong belief” is what some misguided souls have who cannot articulate a rational foundation for the belief, though they insist that it invalidates all other beliefs by virtue of its inherent rightness—and of course, no attack is too vicious or out of bounds when they are dealing with people who do not believe as they do.
HAVING SAID THAT…
There are those roads, that once started down, lead to very ugly and intolerant places. Remember some of the insensitive things we’ve seen in the news recently? Now even KFC is producing ads that sink to new lows. Knowing full well about the black people/fried chicken stereotype, this respected company produced this little gem:
Granted, they are not running it in the US, but is this the new political climate we are operating in? Would they have run this ad a year ago? It seems quite possible that my office joke was more prophetic than I could ever have believed.
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