Friday, August 10, 2007

A Forward from Farmmom

Someone finally said it.
How many are actually paying attention to this?

There are African Americans,

Mexican Americans,
Asian Americans,
Arab Americans,
Native Americans, etc.
...And then there are just -
Americans.
You pass me on the street
and sneer in my direction.
You Call me "White boy,"
"Cracker," "Honkey,"
"Whitey," "Caveman,"
... And that's OK.
But when I call you Nigger,
Kike, Towel head,
Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey,
Beaner, Gook, or Chink
... You call me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot
of violence against you,
so why are the ghettos the most
dangerous places to live?
You have the United Negro College Fund.
You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You Have Yom Hashoah.
You have the NAACP.
And you have BET.
If we had WET
(White Entertainment Television)
... We'd be racists.
If we had a White Pride Day
... You would call us racists.
If we had White History Month
... We'd be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites
to "advance" OUR lives .
... We'd be racists.
We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
a Black Chamber of Commerce,
and then we just have the plain
Chamber of Commerce.
Wonder who pays for that?
If we had a college fund that only gave
white students scholarships
... You know we'd be racists.
There are over 60 openly-proclaimed
Black-only Colleges in the US ,
yet if there were "White-only Colleges"
... THAT would be a racist college.
In the Million Man March,
you believed that you were
marching for your race and rights.
If we marched for our race and rights,
... You would call us racists.
You are proud to be black,
brown, yellow and orange,
and you're not afraid to announce it.
But when we announce our white pride
... You call us racists.
You rob us,
carjack us,
and shoot at us.
But, when a white police officer
shoots a black gang member
or beats up a black drug-dealer
who is running from the LAW and
posing a threat to ALL of society
... You call him a racist.
I am proud.
... But, you call me a racist.
Why is it that only
whites
can be racists?
There is nothing improper about this e-mail.
Let's see which of you
are proud enough to send it on.

6 comments:

Pop said...

Couldn't agree more. You might also mention that WalMart has a section in their book department just for black-related books.
-Pop

David Neylon said...

I agree with this. However I know that makes me racist.

FarmGirl said...

I'm proud of my heritage, and not all of it is white. However, I am one pale woman, everywhere that isn't my arms, face, and shoulders.

So yes, I'm proud to be white, but I'm just as proud of the Native American in my family history as I am of the Irish immigrants that were my umpteen times removed ancestors.

I do think that the minorities play the race card entirely too much. Fine, your ancestors were slaves. Mine were in the Potato Famine, you don't see me demanding that the Euoropeans give me 'tater tots now do you??

Anonymous said...

I recall when my sister was in a college class on ethnicity and, as I recall, the professor was a Jew. This professor was saying most of us Southern white folks who don't know where our families are from... we're mostly Scots-Irish with some American Indian. My sister *just*had* to tell him what our Grandpa used to say... "we were here when the Indians got off the boat." Grandpa was joking and we all knew it.

On racism, look at the word "race" and the addition of the "ist" suffix which denotes being involved in race. We're all one race or another, as well as one sex or the other for that matter, so we're all involved in race and sex just by being. That means we're all racist *and* sexist (two negatives, depending on who's griping) by default.

As for the minority activist groups, I've come to call them the National Association of Constantly Complaining People. If they say the moon's made of blue cheese and you disagree, you're a racist. Why are they not marginalized by their own deal?

mustanger

Murphy said...

I remember a number of years back, a scholarship. Pretty stringent, grade-wise (read: waaaay outta my league) but the one of the main considerations was that it had to be for an african-american. Submission was done via e-mail and snail mail of resumes with qualifications.

The winner?

A you man, entering his third year of college, maintaining a math and sciences double major with an impossibly high GPA. One of those guys that we all love to hate. I think the little bugger actually helped out at an actual orphanage, or some crazy business like that. Fluent in several languages, some of which were tounges native to Africa. Grades, volunteering, languages, African heritage (born there, now naturalized), this guy had it all.


Only problem: He was white.

Scholarship got yanked, uproar ensued, I had a big bowl of Chuckle-Os. I wish I could remember what the result of that whole thing was...

Not that it's a perfect world, but one reason why I liked the military. Most rewards were merit based. White, black, brown, or purple with orange stripes, if you knew your stuff and performed well, that is what really mattered.

FarmGirl said...

Murphy, yeah, that would about do it for me. I'd have been laughing my butt off for about... oh... ten minutes. Then I would have been waiting for the media uproar about how a white student usurped a black scholarship.