Lemme Juss...Tell You What Happened Today

Warning: The following article should not be a watermark for the usual level of seriousness found in my articles. They will be even MORE serious, dead serious, from now on. Watch.

So I work for the MDA right now, and part of my job is calling people to get them to go to this fundraising event called the Lock-Up. How it works is, they are pretending to arrest someone for an hour during the day, usually a business owner, and that business owner has to notify everyone they can to try and get money donated to the MDA on their behalf; they refer to it as "bail," just like when real charges are filed against you for sodomy. I lay this out for background to what happened at work today, something that really bothered me to the Tootsie Roll® core of my being. My coworker, lets call him Zuul, called a man, gave the beginning part of our little shpiel describing the fundraiser, and just about the part where Zuul was talking about how the money raised goes towards sending some local kids with Muscular Dystrophy to a summer camp, he alerted Zuul to the fact that he was offended by the whole theme. Zuul stopped, and proceeded to ask him why he was offended by the idea of being locked up to benefit a charity. The man said that, as a black individual, he didn't find it the least bit cute or even acceptable that the theme for the event was "going to jail." He stated that it was offensive to a black man, to tell them they are getting arrested for a good cause, because of how the prison system has taken advantage of the black community. He then, in a move so ignorant, self-absorbed, and downright unfounded, stated that this was comparable to "asking a Jew to go to a gas chamber for fun and raise money." Now, Zuul is an African-american male as well, a strapping young lad if I may say, and he told me about this as soon as he got off the phone. I was apalled, of course, then shocked at the reaction it garnered from not only Zuul, but another coworker of mine, a young jewish female; we'll call her Padme. Zuul and Padme, after briefly discussing the facts of the conversation, actually said they understood where he was coming from with his statements, and Padme, to my flabbergastation, said she actually might AGREE with him! She's jewish! Are you kidding me? Needless to say, I was in absolute shock, and proceeded to argue with my coworkers, in a civilized fashion, about how ridiculous it is to compare a mock lock-up to a fake GAS CHAMBER. As a member of neither party involved, I was personally offended by the notion that someone could compare these two completely different situations with such non-chalance. Don't get me wrong, I am no apologist to the U.S. prison system; there are far more problems with the notion of "corrections" in this country than there is space here to list. But wait a minute now, are you seriously going to tell me, because a vastly disproportionate number of black males are encarcerated in the prison system, that now it is comparable to a regime of ethnic cleansing? You want me to believe that we can liken a judicial punishment system, in which it is basically unarguable that the majority of individuals incarcerated actually do deserve to be there, to a mass gathering, relocation, and extermination of a group of people based solely on ethnicity? Are you listening to yourself? I was honestly livid, and had to stop talking about it, because I started to get the "you don't have the first-hand perspective on it that you need" garbage that so often simply enables people to say whatever ludicrous idea they come up with. And truthfully, I also had to stop because I was about a half a pack of Smarties away from telling Padme that if she thinks the two are comparable, she should ask a Holocaust survivor for their thoughts and watch the shit get smacked out of her, probably by her own grandmother. That sounds harsh, but seriously, you'd get the same response you would if you told Buzz Aldrin at a bar that the moon landing never happened. The thing is, it's not only the unbelievably audacious statement itself that pissed me off, it's also the fact that someone actually thinks that it is okay to make statements like that. It is not okay. Racial profiling, as wrong as it is, does NOT equal genecide, and to suggest so is unacceptable. I wish I had been on the phone with that man, because I bet no one has ever had the balls to rebuke a statement he has ever made concerning race. A minority talking about race has become an untouchable entity, even if what is being said is completely without merit and frankly quite offensive itself.
The idea of reverse racism is something I've been just as upset with recently as racism itself, because it should never be okay to honestly accuse someone of racism when there is no logical foundation for it; though it does seem to be okay and happens all the time. The most visible example for me came during the NBA dress code controversy while back, which many people felt was a racist policy for targeting black players and making them dress "like white people." Wait, so what you're saying is, a black man can't wear a suit, right? That's what you're saying, because you think that making everyone wear suits on the sidelines is racist against black players. When you follow something called logic, it is plain to see that you are, in fact, assuming not only that most white people wear and want to wear suits, but that most black people don't and don't want to. Sounds a little judgemental to me, maybe even, a little RACIST? Assholes. The NBA can make you wear whatever they want on the sidelines, because they EMPLOY you, you have a CONTRACT, and you signed up for all of this when you agreed to make millions of dollars a year to throw a ball at a circle. Like you're a victim. Assholes.
Then there's another realm that is distinctly different, but definitely related and bothersome in it's own right, thought not nearly to the same extent. These are things that insult MY intelligence and perspective, as someone who strives to NOT be a racist on a regular basis. I saw a commercial the other day, which showed a mailbox, then a traffic light, then a young African-american boy (I usually say black because African-american assumes that the person is of African descent and is an American citizen, which may not be true, but i'll assume this time). It told me, in an instructive tone reminiscent of a modern children's program, that both the traffic light AND the mailbox were invented by African-americans, and that I should support African-american education by giving money to a certain fund. I'm all for education the young minds of our society, that's fine, but why did you need to tell me that African-americans invented things? What, did you think that I thought that African-americans never invented anything? I'm not a racist, I don't assume that African-americans can't do anything on their own, so don't act like you're telling me something surprising. If a commercial came out which told everyone that a white person invented something, we would all let out a resounding "Yea, and?", which is what I did when I saw the real commercial. And it's what we should all do. Give money to education because it's helping less fortunate youth get a better chance, not because a commercial just proved to you that African-americans actually CAN do useful things. Black people INVENT SHIT? HOLY FUCKING ASS, NO WAY! Give me a break.
Stay tuned for the second part of this peice, in which we explore my take on the societal issues that Zombies must face on a night-to-night basis.