The wacky side of racism.

It is a sad day indeed when a people have lost their sense of humor and ability to take a good ribbing. I have noticed, that with the rise of super politically correct ideals, things like humor and sarcasm are often labeled incorrectly as some sort of ism. Simple jokes and off color remarks now require in depth therapy and city wide sensitivity seminars, removing actual acts of racism, sexism or homophobia from our radar. This was illustrated perfectly when I came across an article on the Bilerico Project several months ago. I don’t read the Bilerico project often because their writers tend to come off extremist and very degrading of anyone who is not a black transsexual with a club foot. Never the less, a blogger had written this long story about the movie Bruno and lamented that now his neighbors were calling him Bruno, because he shared typically feminine qualities with the character. The entire article was screaming about oppression and an evil Hollywood system that made cruel stereotypes about gay people that were unfounded in reality.  He even went as far as to blame Sacha Baron Cohen for making his life harder.

I wanted to crawl through the computer, pinch him on the nose and tell him to calm down and stop being such an overly emotional faggot. (I can say that word since I have gay friends and my bf is gay, so we are cool, right?)

This entire piece was one big pity party and it wasn’t something I hadn’t seen before. As gays and lesbians become more and more accepted into society, our political loses create an atmosphere in which we are drawn to the conclusion that every joke or insult is meant to rip and tear, as opposed to simply being the innocent jokes that they are. How could this guy claim that Bruno was creating unrealistic stereotypes when this man obviously embodied some of them? So you’re a flamboyant queen, who cares? Wear your mannerisms with pride.

But no, not this guy. Much like the man crying racism because people were not attracted to him, this guy was a perpetual victim and the world was out to get him. It was somewhat disheartening. Of course, when I was discussing this with him and giving him my point of view, he then turned on me, assured I was attacking him and was actually a conservative bible thumper sent out to destroy his blog post.

After that I lost all pity for the guy and just wished him a painful night of hard gas.

So, at this point you are probably asking, “What the hell does this have to do with racism you fat bastard?” You really are rude… you know that?

Here is what this has to do with racism. As mentioned above, we have become a society of people who are no longer able to take a joke, a mass of people so concerned with appearing sensitive that we have lost the ability to laugh at ourselves. I offer you this piece of evidence for your approval.

Why can't that ass be real?

Two white Northwestern University students are in hot water after photos of them wearing blackface for Halloween surfaced this week on Facebook and sparked campus-wide outrage.

Student leaders at the Evanston school are holding a forum Thursday night to discuss issues of racism on a campus of overwhelmingly white students that two years ago had a similar incident involving two PhD students wearing blackface.

“While I fully support the principles of free expression, at the same time I am deeply disappointed to see any example of insensitivity that demeans a segment of our community,” new Northwestern President Morton O. Schapiro wrote in an campus-wide e-mail. “It is my hope that we can use this incident as a catalyst to reflect upon the values of inclusiveness and respect for others that are central to Northwestern’s mission.”

One of the students covered himself in blackface and wore a T-shirt with the word “Jamaica” on it. The other dressed as a female tennis player in blackface, a stuffed bra and toting a tennis racket.

White people doing blackface?! It must be racism! Hurry everyone, we must meet and discuss feelings, lest we become rabid monsters!

It couldn’t have just been a stupid costume, could it? No, it has to be racist. Now, no one knows the intenti0ns of these two students. No one knows their views on race and for all we know, they could be staunch supporters of minority rights. However, because they wore these costumes, they must be racist and now we must all go through the cathartic motions and mourn our innocence.

The problem with this is simple.

There is a double standard when it comes to race portrayal in this country. I don’t recall anyone getting upset when the Wayan Brothers dressed up as white girls, in the movie “White Chicks” and that movie was chalk full of white stereotypes. Therein lies the problem, because, if that movie had been reversed and white men had dressed as black woman, the film would have never seen by you or I. It is very difficult to talk of feelings and racial sensitivity when there is such a blatant double standard. If it is wrong for one group of people, it is wrong for all. Isn’t making special rules for one skin color not racist in its own right?

There are many acts of actual racism out there that we must address. Anytime that anyone is treated unfairly because of their skin color, sex or their sexuality, we draw away attention from their pleads for equality by labeling everything as an “ism”. Racists, sexists and the like are bottom of the barrel in  terms of humanity and it bolsters their cries of stupidity when we claim every act is one of their design.

The same goes for us queers. When Perez Hilton called  Will.I.Am a faggot, we went nuts and screamed about gay tolerance and hatred. Yet, we awarded Margaret Cho with a crown and all she does is use offensive gay slurs. Obviously we know there is a difference between intention and actualization, but we spend little time fact checking our moral outrages.

I can take anything you lob at me, so maybe I just happen to be difficult to offend. I also tend to make serious topics into humorous ones, as that is the way I tend to process most information. It will be a cold day in hell when I allow someone elses words to affect my state of mind and make me feel like a victim. I worry that we are unaware of the power we give racists, homophobes and intolerant bigots when we so clearly wear our war wounds. If we are ever to come together as a people we have got to learn to discern the difference between hostility and humor.

The only thing these students are guilty of is hanging out with a guy with a massive paper mache butt.

Drool….

Read the entire article at The Huffington Post

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