Sick and Tired

Today I read another example of racism. Or really not-racism. In the Opinion Journal (the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal) I read of Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski who referred to children playing in trees as "monkeys". Since she was a delegate for Barack Obama, he had to ask her to step down due to her racist views. I am sure that it will be obvious to everyone that this was a blatant rascist attack when I mention that the children were African-American. I don't see what that has to do with anything, much less racism. It is so tiring to hear of people being offended when there is no offense intended. Even more, if someone says something to offend you, let that be their problem. We make issues and problems worse by giving them credence. I am NOT suggesting that racism is not real. It is all too real a problem. But finding instances of it where they do not exist doesn't solve the problem anymore than ignoring it makes it go away. The way to make the issue of racism go away it to make it of little importance. Ignore the fools. Teach the children that race and color are not important factors in determining the worth of an individual. I don't think this will take much effort. Let me give some background and a story as illustration.

I am your "typical white, male American". In other words, I am descended from Europeans. I grew up in South East Idaho and am currently living in Utah. I didn't know many African Americans growing up. In fact, I can only think of 3 that I went to High school with. As far as other ethnicities, I had a few Hispanic friends and lots of "white" friends. I was not exposed to much in the way of ethnic diversity. You would think that would have made me a bit biased. In fact, it did. To this day, I have yet to personally meet an African American I haven't really liked. I can't say the same for all the non-African Americans. This came from the way I was raised.

I served a mission for my church in Brazil and while I was there I met thousands of people of various shades of white, black, grey, yellow, orange (you get the point). Some didn't impress me much but most of them were just wonderful, caring people. One of the things that I loved about Brazil ( and there are too many things to name here) was that most, if not all, of the people had mixed ethnicity. This resulted in everyone being black and white. It was nice that no one cared. This is the point we need to get to here in the US. I had a room mate once who said he refused to put his ethnicity on his drivers license. When asked why, he said,"It doesn't matter anymore than my eye color does. That's enough of an identifier for me." I couldn't agree more.

Now is the time when I would like to point out all of the recent "perceived" injustices when there were none but the list would take too long to compile. Suffice it to say that my wife and I are working very hard with our kids to help them know that ethnicity doesn't determine what kind of person you are; you do. How people percieve us isn't our problem; it's theirs.