On being racist

[I wrote this on 4/15, but had to think about it and come back to it because it's so emotional for me]

I don't get how someone can say something racist but not BE a racist. I'll work on that one for my kid (not). I'm actually teaching him to believe what people say about themselves and others, it's usually pretty revealing. Imus said something mean that was particularly, stereotypically BLACK AND misogynistic. He said that about good people.

I'm already sick of "white" people running around trying to defend him by saying, "He's not racist," as if they are the world's honest purveyors of such a judgement, "You can believe me because I know him, and I'm 'white'!" I don't believe you, and I don't even care if he's racist or not, and that point doesn't even matter.

This guy made a disgusting racial slur, what are we going to say about it?

It doesn't matter that other people have said worse things. Yep, they are wrong too.

Yeah, there are worse problems in the world, but what are we going to do about this one? It seems like an even bigger problem that white people are giving it because no one wants to deal with it--all the "white" people sound so f-ing clueless about why this HURTS black people. Where is empathy? Where is acceptance? Where is understanding?

It's like there's this collective media, "Oh damn, we can't get away with hurting people anymore without getting punished for it."

HOORAY! GOOD!!!!! I CAN ONLY WISH THAT THAT WERE TRUE!

I sat and watched Glen Iffil on Meet the Press gracefully tolerate, and pointedly grill, her blabbering colleagues as they seemed to cry, "No fair!" because rappers get away with murder, but not their innocent, elite, mean, "cool" political shock jock. How anyone equated rap with what's going on in political dialogue (uncivil discourse) escapes me...Don Imus is more like Ann Coulter or Michael Savage (who did not get named) than Snoop Dog (who did).

Hey Mr. [looking up his name], let me know the secret about how you can tell the Nazi killers from the Jew-haters, and I'll work on separating the misogynists from the rapists and murderers.

Words matter, yes, words matter.

"Let one therefore keep the mind pure, for what a man thinks, that he becomes." Upanishads