Some Thoughts on Racism
First we need to define some terms. Let’s start with racist. You would think it’s about human races, wouldn’t you? Well, there’s a problem.
All modern humans are the same race, Homo sapiens. White people and Black people can donate blood to each other. White people and Black people can donate organs to each other. White people and Black people can get together and have children, and those children can have children, too.
That can’t happen between different races. Horses and donkeys can have offspring, but they are sterile, and are called mules.
Maybe we should use the term Melaninist? I’m not sure that’s a word.
Unfortunately, many people choose to use the term race to foster hate toward others who don’t meet their criterion of similarity. In the 1940’s, German Nazis killed Jews by the millions. It wasn’t about skin color. I’m sure some of the Jews were whiter than some of the Nazis. I look at pictures of Albert Einstein, and he looks to me to be whiter than Hitler.
Einstein had to flee Germany to save his life, anyway.
Some people are criticized as anti-semitic for objecting to the way Jews in Israel treat the Palestinians. Both groups are Semitic, as they trace their roots to the second son of Noah, Shem. It’s more of a family feud. It can’t be racism.
However, it has become “woke” to declare that everybody is racist, and it’s arrogant to believe you are not racist. On one level, it’s true, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is people who hate other people, and other people who don’t. To put them all in the same bucket does nothing to improve the lives of all those people who are just trying to get along.
I object to being put in the same bucket as Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, or Derek Chauvin. I don’t believe I am being arrogant to insist I am not as racist as they are.
I was born and raised in California, and went to school with lots of kids of color. Not just Black, but Mexican, Portuguese, Philippino, and Armenian. Shades of every kind of skin. Nobody was allowed to think they were better than anybody else.
On second thought, there was a ranking among Latinas that was curious. They even had labels for the depth of brown color: The lightest were from España, a little bit darker and you were Mestizo, and the darkest of all were Indios. I had a couple of girl friends, and they ranked themselves - nobody told them. And they couldn’t be talked out of it.
I use the word Latinas on purpose. All Spanish nouns have a gender affiliation. Trying to force a neutral Latinx on a language that doesn’t accept such artifice is tilting at windmills and reflects an ivory tower elitism that invites the ridicule of the world.
If I ever meet a person who wants to be referred to as Latinx, I’ll do it for them on a personal basis, though.
I have tried all my life to make friends with anybody who will share a friendship.
One of my most memorable occasions was getting royally drunk with a bunch of Black soldiers in the Kentucky Club on BC street in the city of Koza, Okinawa.
We were all celebrating the charges being dropped against Sp4 Jim McQueen that day. At the suggestion of Sgt. Stroman, I had filed a counter charge against an officer who had set Jim up for a court martial on charges of inefficiency. It was a bullshit charge because Jim was the only Black soldier in the shop, and the officer wanted his shop to be lily white.
After I submitted my papers, which contended that Jim was no more inefficient than the rest of us, the only difference was him being Black, the officer, a white Georgian, threatened to court martial me, too, reminding me he had kicked my foot and woke me up the week before when he caught me dozing one afternoon. I told him he was making my point, and if he was charging Jim, he should charge me and the rest of us in the shop, also.
He dismissed me back to my test machine, and when I got off work, I was greeted by a bunch of Black soldiers who informed me that the charges against Jim had been pulled. That’s how I got into a bar on the Black side of BC street with a bunch of Black soldiers and got drunk without having to buy even one drink.
Luckily, nobody was driving that night. There were always “sukoshi” cabs to take us back to the barracks safely.
These are just my observations and opinions. You are welcome to your own. Just hold back on telling me how racist I am. It’s an unnecessary offense, and will not improve the situation.
