I Affirm Your Racism

I may have said this before, and if I did I apologize, but it is an important link to the point that I would like to make here. Several years ago, I dated a woman who said to me, "You are more prejudiced than any white person I know." I wasn't shocked and I think I laughed at this pronouncement of my attitude towards blacks. I had not thought about such a thing even though I knew that blacks were more than capable of being prejudiced. It seemed to me, based on our conversations, that she saw me as prejudiced because I didn't give black people a pass. I didn't express sympathy for the black family on welfare. I didn't express sympathy for the kid with the $250 sneaker who couldn't form a sentence. I didn't buy into Afrocentric beliefs when I thought them ridiculous. I didn't buy into Kwanzaa but Christmas and I didn't have the chip on my shoulder that was common place with blacks. If I had continued dating her I probably would have had to go to black, oh sorry, African American, indoctrination.

My life has not been an easy one but its not due to my skin color. My life has been influenced by the decisions of my parents and ultimately by me. There are other external decisions that I did or did not have control over that have brought me to this place. But I have not for any period of time thought that this or that happened because of the color of my skin. OK, so once I was called the n-word by a stupid taxi driver because I didn't tip him. But I didn't tip him because he didn't help me with my bag and he called me the n-word because he was stupid. OK, I thought once that I was admitted to a college because of affirmative action. And once, a couple of months ago, that my boss's boss had a problem with me because I'm black but in hindsight I think its more that I'm a Republican and she hates Republicans. But I digress.

I'm saying all of this to say that there are times we look for racism in all the wrong places. For example, we have been taught, mostly by liberals, that blacks can't be racist. But each and every time I hear about black on black crime I think to myself, why do we hate each other so much. And when I look at the preferential treatment given to light skinned blacks versus dark skinned blacks I wonder who has the problem. And yet another example is welfare and the misnomer that it "helps" families, especially black families. Well, lets see, a woman goes on welfare and she gets paid to have children because that's what she's really doing. Each child she has means more money. But she can't have a man in the house. So she is dependent on the government to be her sole provider, her husband and her baby daddy. And that makes a family. Now, if that's not racism I don't know what is but liberals were up in arms when welfare reform came to be several years ago.

And then we have affirmative action. This policy tells us that because I'm black I need a step up because I really can't make it on my own. So much for being judged by the content of my character. But liberals will say, we are leveling the playing field. Let me tell you how they are leveling the playing field. They are placing black kids in institutions of higher learning that do not fit their educational experience. And so the kid will go to a school that they don't belong in and they will either sink or swim while the good natured liberal pats himself on the back for doing a good deed. And when the next cocktail party comes around they can stand around and drink martinis and congratulate themselves. And I'm told that Republicans are racists? Did I miss something here?