So, a friend of mine forwarded me this email today... I know, I know. Email forwarding is best off being ignored and sent to the spam folder and when acknowledged in passing with a grunt when you friend asks what you thought of it, but this one had a title that just grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go for some reason.
The title read...
"Fwd: Proud to be white"
And the email read as follows... (I'm leaving it intact with all of it's shit grammar, spelling, and incomplete thoughts, because I just really don't know where this guy is going some of the time.
"This is great. I have been wondering about why Whites are racists, and no other race is......
Proud to be White
Michael Richards makes his point.....................Michael Richards better
known as Kramer from TVs Seinfeld does make a good point. This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act.. He makes some very interesting points...
Someone finally said it... How many are actually paying attention to this?
There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, AsianAmericans, Arab 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 Yom Hashoah. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP. You have BET... If we had WET (White Entertainment
Television), we'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you wouldcall 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 when we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that?? A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant but any color can be in the Miss America pageant. 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 Colleges in the US . Yet if there
were 'White 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 running from the law and posing a threat to 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. I sadly don't think many will. That's why we have lost most of OUR RIGHTS in this country. We won't stand up for ourselves!
BE PROUD TO BE WHITE!
It's not a crime YET ... But getting real close!"
Classy, right?
Reading all of this, I felt compelled to delete it to the trash bin, roll my eyes and say "Oh well", but the churning feeling of gravel this had put in my guts ended up getting the best of me. I pulled it out of the trash folder and proceeded to write the following response.
Sorry, but yeah... This reads as extremely racist to me, and even just a tad bit whiny. The Michael Richards thing, for one... The guy full on blasted a guy in the audience, who was heckling him and called him "Nigger". Not just once, but several times, and went further by saying that "If this were a few decades ago, they'd have you hanging from a tree with a fork in your ass." Again, extremely racist. As a guy whose done stand-up in the past, I've been heckled too, and it sucks, and it makes you fucking furious, but at the same time, I don't care what race someone is, or if they call you something that's the "white" equivalent of a racial slur, it doesn't make it okay to hit their ignorance back with more ignorance. If Michael Richards didn't want to get the shit storm he had justly brought down on his has-been head, he'd have just engaged the guy in the audience like any good comedian would do when someone fires something off at them. Disarm it and turn it into your own joke. Or better yet, just call him an asshole and be done with it. There were plenty of other ways that shit could have gone down without having to lose your shit and act like the only thing to do is put him on blast over the color of his skin. It's bullshit of the highest caliber, and for anyone to try and defend what he did is even lamer.
As for the rest of this shit pack of other whiny "Oh, it's so hard for me because I'm a white guy" statistics, Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American man, but his accomplishments were enough to transcend the racial boundaries at a time when white people were living on a pretty high horse. Martin Luther King day represents that wall "supposedly" being torn down, but obviously, that's not the case. MLK's accomplishments aren't or at least shouldn't be centralized to African Americans. He helped everybody. Saying that white people are the only ones the world considers racist, is wrong at worst and a half-truth at best. White people get called out most as racists, because we've got a history of opressing different races. We're not going to live that down for a couple more generations at least, so why don't we just get the fuck over it and move on already? On the other hand, ANYONE can be a racist. African American, Asian, Mexican, etc. Anyone can have a prejudice against someone else for any stupid reason without even talking to them. It's no more right for anyone to call a black guy "nigger" than it would be for him to call me "cracker" or whatever. Our own past racisms have bred a flawed system where people of so called "minority" races find it okay to take pot shots at slurring white people. Am I saying that's okay? Absolutely fucking not but this whole "You call me 'cracker', you're not racist but if I call you 'nigger', I'm a racist." arguement is just as fucking childish as a pair of five year olds fighting crying to their mother because one of them called the other one a 'doo-doo head'. It's a stupid arguement, and I think any sane, rational person should be able to rise above it and turn their backs on anyone who stoops so low as to call them by whatever racial slur might apply to them.
Racism isn't going to end. People are going to be hating other people for dumb, surface reasons until the end of fucking times, and even in the age of Obama, where a significant wall has been broken down and people want to believe racism is over, racism is still around and still going to be around until humanity nukes itself back to the Stone Age, as illustrated by this ignorant ass chain email. And that last line, "It's not a crime YET..." Give me a fucking break. Whoever wrote this piece of crap should be shot out of a fucking cannon for being brainless. Racism is still alive because of people who believe in this shit. Who believe that white people should have shit like "White History Month" and stuff like that. That's exactly why Black History Month does, and SHOULD exist. African Americans get one month out of the year. Other races get maybe a couple of holidays, but at the end of the day, America was built by white people. (although, I could argue it was also built on the backs of slaves from Africa, but that would get me started in a whole 'nother direction and my fingers are already tired.) White people get America for the rest of the year whole fucking year.
Rant over. I know it won't win me any friends, but I'm half tempted to forward this back up the entire chain of email addresses I've got here from the ones before it, because I think anyone who had to read a dose of this poison should be presented with an antidote and they can feel free to write me back and disagree.
My name is Len. I'm a 'white' American. I'm part Scotish, part German, and proud of my heritage going back as far as 800 A.D. I believe in pride in one's culture and heritage over pride in the color of one's skin. Skin is what's on the surface of us, and whatever color we are, that's not what makes us "who" we are. Anyone who believes that I question that they've ever taken a step outside their own neighborhood. That we even refer to ourselves as white people or black people just rings as stupid to me. We don't refer to Asians as "yellow people", or Middle Eastern people as "brown people". At least not loud enough that I've been hearing it, so why don't we all just quit with the dumb "color coding bullshit" and go back to hating on someone because they're an asshole, or because they cut you off in traffic. Y'know, the shit that really fucking matters!
Grow up, 'white' people...
Sincerely,
Len N. Wallace
I hope when the person who sent this to me reads this, they'll give it some serious thought. I've known them for a very long time and have come to love and respect them a great deal, but there's clearly something there they need to be taught.
