You Might Not Mean To Be Racist...

...but you are.

Nothing's funnier than watching a racist get mad for being called a racist. And if you let them talk long enough in an attempt to defend themselves, you'll see just how racist they really are. The denial always makes it worse.

The fact is, we all have subconscious or unconscious biases. Test yours now! Racism is and has been rampant in this country since its inception (and even before that). It is not just individual racism either; the most insidious form of racism is institutional. The pervasiveness of racism over time seeps in to everyone's conscious, somehow someway. Even the victims of racism can internalize racist beliefs. 

That's called "Uncle Ruckus Syndrome."

Having these unconscious biases is not wrong necessarily; even when we have good intentions, we often act on our unconscious biases. The problem is when we deny their existence and continue to act on them, consciously or unconsciously. If large groups of people are offended by what you say or do, figure out why, apologize, do better and keep it moving. 

Overcoming these biases takes a conscious effort. People need to acknowledge these biases first, and then consciously work through them. What makes me laugh/cry is when people deny the possibility that their views could be taken as offensive; they get offended that anyone dare to be offended and they completely miss the irony in that perspective. Or worse, they just deny that racism even exists, which takes a cognitive dissonance that I will never fully understand.

A lot of the actions I describe in the videos below are micro-aggressions. Taken as a single, solitary incident, a micro-aggression (an unintentionally racist/sexist/homophopic statement or act) is, well, exactly what it says: micro. Not that big a deal. But imagine being on the receiving end of these acts, multiple times a day, over the course of your entire life. Any single act could be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. That's why it is important to be conscious of your thoughts and beliefs and especially your actions. 

These acts in and of themselves don't make you a bad person. Ignoring or denying them does. You should understand or at least make an attempt to understand the reality of what you're doing. And if you still think you're doing nothing wrong, then yes, you are a bad person.

The purpose of this series of Vines is to bring awareness of those unintentional, subconscious moments of racism and discrimination. Honestly, it has turned into one hell of a social experiment. Check out the comments on some of the vines to get a better look at the mentality of "The Unconscious Racist." It's funny, sad, scary and pathetic all in one!

Actually, the real purpose of this series of Vines is to make me laugh and hopefully a few other people laugh, too. It's good, and necessary, to laugh at ourselves and at serious issues; that is, if we can learn from it and attempt to do better. 

Some of the acts or beliefs described are much more serious than others. For example, calling the children of immigrants "anchor babies" is way worse than saying, "I don't see color," but both stem from a similar mentality of reasserting the status quo. "You don't see color" means you don't see the realities of racism, which in turn means you must think people complaining about racism are liars. Calling people "anchor babies" is clearly more hateful, but denying the existence of the different treatment of people with darker skin in this country is insulting. 

Although I take this subject seriously, it's all in good fun and it's all love. Enjoy!

 
I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

The Bigotry Industry and Its Diminishing Returns

Kim Davis and Annie Wilkes. Wait, no. Annie Wilkes and Kim Davis. Or is it...

One of the best things about the social media era is people's ability to identify with groups of like-minded people and take down other individuals and groups they believe to be immoral. We see some piece of shit like Kim Davis (the Kentucky county clerk who refused to process same sex marriage licenses) trying to impose her beliefs on others and deny them their civil rights and we can unite against her.

One of the worst things about the social media era is people's ability to identify with groups of like-minded people and take down other individuals or groups they believe to be immoral. People see a person like Kim Davis standing up for her beliefs in the face of an unjust, immoral government, and they can unite in her defense.

This happens all the time. Some horrible person does something horrible, the internet and the majority of society at large is outraged. We get them fired or jailed. We shut down their business. We make their life miserable for a little while. A few days (sometimes hours) later, a group of people comes to their defense, claiming it is actually their rights being violated.  Davis is being championed by some as a Civil Rights hero, on par with Rosa Parks. Certain Republican presidential candidates have flocked to her side. Mike Huckabee said God came down in the form of Kim Davis. 

Damn, God, you couldn't choose a more flattering vessel?

As an American, you have a right to be an asshole, but not if it impinges on other people's rights. That's a very basic principle. Your rights and beliefs are no more important than anyone else's. Kim Davis has a right to feel any way she wants about marriage. She can claim she is defending the sanctity of marriage despite being on her 4th marriage. She has a right to be an idiot and voice her opinion. She does not have a right to deny other people's rights. This is not a case of "an unjust law is no law at all" and the fact that someone would think to compare her to Martin Luther King is disgusting. She is upholding the unjust law that we, and the Supreme Court, overturned; the one preventing gay people to get married.  Davis has every right to disagree with it, campaign against it, and protest it, but as a civil servant, it is her duty to follow through with it. Do your job. And don't take a job you know you might object to. If I'm Muslim or Jewish, I'm not going to work on a pig farm. 

That sort of sounds like I'm comparing gay marriage to slaughtering pigs. Not cool, man. Point is, if you feel that strongly about something, don't take a job that will require you to go against your beliefs. 

The reality of this situation is that Kim Davis was happy to become a martyr for her bigoted, misguided cause. She knew she would receive plenty of support. This was her one chance to do something meaningful with her life, even though it was illegal, hateful, and essentially pointless. How else could she make it on tv and come out to Eye of the Tiger and meet presidential candidates and receive thunderous applause from hundreds of people?
  
This is far from the first time a horrible person has been hailed as a hero. Davis is essentially Pennsatucky in Orange is the New Black, the hillbilly who killed abortion doctors (after having several abortions of her own) and became a hero of the Pro-Life/Anti-Choice crowd.

Anti-Choice Christ.

Memories Pizza in Indiana caused a national outrage when they said they wouldn't cater gay marriages. People bombarded the store with calls, emails, and probably angry letters and tweets or something. We made life so very difficult for their little business. 

So difficult that 29,000 people chipped in and raised damn near a million dollars for their bigoted little business. 

No matter how you feel about Mike Brown and Darren Wilson and Ferguson, it's hard to justify raising over half a million dollars for a guy for killing an 18 year old, particularly when that guy was already in a Union that paid his legal fees and was on paid leave after the incident.

There will always be a diverse array of ideas in the world, including hateful ones. Any activism for one side of a cause gets balanced out or overpowered by the other side. Progress is always met with resistance. Hate is powerful, and hateful people are usually the loudest and most persistent. 

Although it is an unintelligent, backwards way of thinking about the world, bigotry can be clever, too. This new ploy of claiming "religious freedom" is definitely a clever response to the changing social atmosphere, but it should be called out for what it is: an excuse for bigotry. Kim Davis, or Mike Huckabee for that matter, is no Martin Luther King. Or Martin Luther for that matter. Huckabee is trying to score political points and Davis is trying to score a payout from gofundme or a future speaking tour at megachurches all over the country.

So what do those of us with a modicum of empathy and humanity do? Stop calling out bigotry? Every time bigots get called out, some will rush to their defense, yes, but that just lets us know who the other bigots are! Despite great progress, we have a long way to go, and calling out the ones holding us back is the only way we will move forward.

In Kim Davis's case, the group Survivor is threatening to sue for unauthorized use of their song, so maybe this time the asshole won't get her payday. She has become a martyr, though, and that is enough for most of these bigots. They finally feel like they matter.

On a larger scale, though, what it really means is they don't matter anymore. Their bigoted way of looking at the world is becoming less and less common, which is why she became such a big story in the first place. That's actually a sign of progress.

If a few bigots benefit from their outrage inducing hate, we are still better off as a society for calling them out. Even though she has become (the ugliest) poster child for her outdated cause, the people's lives she was interfering with are happier now, and that's all that really matters.

William Smith, Jr. and James Yates after finally getting married in Rowan County, Kentucky, on their 6th attempt.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

Through Sickness & Health & False Assumptions

We all have moments when we question the sincerity of others, especially when it comes to sickness and health. I've learned that when most people say things like, "I don't understand why I can't lose weight, I work out all the time and I barely eat!" it really means, "I occasionally walk around the block and skip the 8th piece of pizza." I know this because I do this. When really thin people say, "I eat all the time!" what they usually mean is they nibble on a small amount of food throughout the day or eat a normal amount and exercise obsessively. We all share these slightly fabricated visions of our own realities at some point. 

A similar thing happens when it comes to sickness. I usually tend to think people exaggerate their conditions, especially when I've never had that condition and don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. A friend's mom used to have wrist pain and carpal tunnel syndrome from her job as a secretary. She'd miss a lot of work because of it. I always thought she was being dramatic. When people complain about migraines and miss work because of them, I always used to think that was bullshit. It's a headache. Go to work. That was of course until I experienced my first migraines and wanted to crawl out of my own skin and jump off my balcony to ease the pain. 

You just don't know until you've gone through it. Even then, it may affect someone else in a completely different way. As I experienced more, I learned not to judge and that I really don't know what others are going through. I still had (have) moments of stupidity though. A while back, one woman I worked with had a hypersensitive sense of smell. She always complained about barely perceptible scents in the office and she once asked my boss to tell me to never wear cologne. I took offense because I barely wore it and who was she to tell me I couldn't smell how I wanted? It was not like I had a cloud of Curve following me. Get over it. 

That was the mentality I had going into an adjunct instructor meeting a few years back. A woman in her 50s comes in and sits close to me. She was holding up a white duster mask over her nose and mouth. She explained to another adjunct that she had a hypersensitive sense of smell. 

Here we go again.

She said how difficult it can be when there is a class full of students, all with different chemical compounds in their hair and on their body and clothes, in poorly ventilated classrooms. And some of them with their damn cologne!

Ugh. I hated her immediately.

She went on to explain that she had worked for a company that didn't properly protect its employees from a certain chemical they used and she was basically poisoned. The chemical got into her system and caused her allergies to go into overdrive. She was currently in a lawsuit against them. She had to quit her job and could only work part time as an adjunct. There were times when she could barely breathe. 

Huh. This didn't sound like the whiner at my old job. In fact, it sounded like I rushed to judgment. It sounded like I was an asshole.

As the reality of my assholeishness started to set in, she said the name of the company that poisoned her. It sounded familiar. I had seen it somewhere. 

I looked down at the bag containing my books and other school supplies laying by my feet. There on the bag, I kid you not, was the logo for the same company that had poisoned this woman. 

What. The. Hell. 

I slowly moved the bag underneath the table with my foot as I continued to nod my head, listening to her awful story and wanting to disappear.

 

Kinda like this.

So that incident helped me realize that I can't possibly judge other people's health situation. I still have doubts about that lady at my old job (she called out and complained constantly) but even then, how do I really know? After the poisoned lady shared her story, there were still times I doubted people who complained about allergies. Recently I discovered the horrors of many allergies, in particular Lavender allergies, and I now thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster everyday for not giving them to me. I get bad headaches sometimes and I think about how much of a jerk I was for questioning other people's toughness in dealing with headaches. Yes, there are certainly some people who blatantly lie about their conditions, or play up their conditions for sympathy or financial gain, but for the most part, there's no way to know how a sickness or an injury affects each individual.

I see this a lot with mental health especially. People with severe depression are told to "get over it" or "shake it off." People don't understand it is a chemical imbalance. The brain is just another organ, and sometimes it doesn't work properly. You don't tell someone with kidney failure to get over it. You tell them to get treated. People who have no experience with depression have no frame of reference. Just because you were sad once when a family member dies doesn't mean you know what depression is. Same with anxiety. Just because you get nervous before you have to speak publicly doesn't mean you understand what someone with an anxiety disorder goes through. It's not something you can just think about real hard and will it away. 

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, don't be an asshole? Yeah. Don't be an asshole. Stop judging or trying to "fix" people's illnesses. 

And don't ever carry bags with any type of logo, ever. Just to be safe.  


I Love You All...Class Dismissed.