{"id":47160,"date":"2014-09-18T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=47160"},"modified":"2014-09-18T12:30:02","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:30:02","slug":"our-national-monologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=47160","title":{"rendered":"Our National Monologue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When people say they want a &#8220;dialog about race&#8221;, what they really mean is &#8220;let&#8217;s have a monologue where I talk and you listen&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I don&#8217;t talk much about race. As a matter of fact, I do think listening is a better approach on the subject &#8211; and while I&#8217;m the only person I can speak for, it&#8217;s advice I think pretty much everyone in the world should follow anyway. Even you, Al Sharpton.<\/p>\n<p>But I saw this video &#8211; from a group called &#8220;Kids of Ferguson&#8221;, which is plausible if you assume the Kids of Ferguson are world-class videographers and editors.<\/p>\n<p>And this is what our &#8220;dialog&#8221; is?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KQfg52m0-4o\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hey, white people!&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, my skin color <em>is<\/em> my <em>only<\/em> defining feature.<\/p>\n<p>Who knew?<\/p>\n<p>(By the way &#8211; the kids&#8217; t-shirts say &#8220;Racism&#8217;s not over, but I&#8217;m over racism&#8221;?\u00a0\u00a0I&#8217;m gonna guess if I said exactly that, I would be told I can&#8217;t be &#8220;over racism&#8221;\u00a0because&#8230;I&#8217;m Caucasian? \u00a0How\u00a0<em>does\u00a0<\/em>that work?)<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s pretend for a moment that &#8220;dialog&#8221; is what anyone&#8217;s looking for. \u00a0Here&#8217;s my side of it &#8211; just three points, really, not that anyone cares:<\/p>\n<p><strong>People Are People &#8211; And That&#8217;s A Bad Thing<\/strong>: \u00a0Everyone, of all skin tones \u2013 white, black, brown \u2013 is equally worthless. No, seriously \u2013 that&#8217;s part of the Christian creation story. \u00a0Mankind is fallen. \u00a0People, as\u00a0<em>groups,\u00a0<\/em>are pretty much always awful &#8211; collections of stereotypes and group dogmas, pretty much.\u00a0 Ick.<\/p>\n<p><strong>People Are Individuals, If You Let Them<\/strong>: \u00a0If you&#8217;d like to try and get to know me as an individual, I&#8217;ll return the favor. \u00a0 There&#8217;s more to you than your skin color, you say? (You <em>do <\/em>say that, don&#8217;t you?\u00a0 Martin Luther King did, anyway)\u00a0 Anyway &#8211; bully for you! \u00a0Me too! \u00a0I mean, come on &#8211; &#8220;white?&#8221; \u00a0Any label that includes Swedes and Italians and pre-Arab North Africans, or Icelanders and Hungarians and Armenians, is meaningless anyway &#8211; just like any term that includes Bantus, Tutsis and Ethiopians. \u00a0 \u00a0Anyway &#8211; Martin Luther King once said he dreamed people would one day judge his children by the contents of their hearts rather than the color of their skin. \u00a0I&#8217;m the last guy to try to speak for Dr. King, but that video has got to have him puking in his grave.<\/p>\n<p><strong>People Are Also Trash, If You Let Them<\/strong>: \u00a0Let&#8217;s take a test. \u00a0You see a group of drunk, aggressive teenagers coming down the street. \u00a0 You can&#8217;t make out their skin tone yet &#8211; it&#8217;s dark &#8211; but what do you do? \u00a0&#8220;Take precautions, because drunk teenagers are just about the worst plague in the world, whatever their hue?&#8221; \u00a0You win the freaking cookie. \u00a0Here&#8217;s the deal; \u00a0you wanna treat me like an individual human person, I&#8217;ll return the favor with interest. \u00a0I&#8217;m less worried about the color of your skin than your attitude. \u00a0You wanna talk? \u00a0We&#8217;ll talk. \u00a0You wanna be a dink? \u00a0I&#8217;ll ignore you. \u00a0You present me a threat of death or great bodily harm?\u00a0\u00a0 That&#8217;d be a bad decision.<\/p>\n<p>Everything in between is negotiable.<\/p>\n<p>You want a &#8220;conversation about race?&#8221;\u00a0 Talk to <em>me<\/em>.\u00a0 Not to the stereotype you&#8217;ve been told you&#8217;re talking to.\u00a0 And I&#8217;ll try to do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Problem is, I don&#8217;t think the &#8220;Kids of Ferguson&#8221; are being taught any such thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When people say they want a &#8220;dialog about race&#8221;, what they really mean is &#8220;let&#8217;s have a monologue where I talk and you listen&#8221;. Now, I don&#8217;t talk much about race. As a matter of fact, I do think listening is a better approach on the subject &#8211; and while I&#8217;m the only person I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebony-and-ivory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47160"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47166,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47160\/revisions\/47166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}