Tag Archives: white people

Dallas

Dallas: (n) a city in NE Texas.

If you want to lose your prejudice, travel.

I dare say it is impossible to refrain from some sort of stereotyping of other individuals and races as long as you remain in one locale, or only scuttle about a hundred miles or so.

Although you may try to be open-minded, black people seem ridiculous when you’re only around white people. And white people all look like slave owners when you are living in an urban area, surrounded by your identical color.

Travel is an amazing thing.  You immediately see two lies played out:

  1. People are different
  2. A region can reflect an attitude

In both cases, it’s just not so.

Although the South touts hospitality, it is only dribbled out based upon whether the Southern lass or gent deem you to fall into the realm of normalcy.

And people being people—possessing biological, mental, spiritual and emotional propensities—generally speaking ooze out favored sentiments.

The first time I went to Dallas, Texas, I was expecting cowboys, Southern jargon, big, thick steaks and beautiful women adorned with pumped-up hair and large smiles.

Don’t get me wrong—these are available.

The Chamber of Commerce, the churches and the politicians make sure they have representatives of this style of Dallas on call for the tourists.

But when you step a little deeper into the community, you find human beings. Most of these souls don’t have enough security, finance or agenda to be hateful or loving.

They’re just doing the best they can.

So these folks are not different at all and feel no compulsion to reflect the attitude of Dallas or any other metroplex they might need to represent.

Bigotry is kept alive by business, religion, politics and entertainment wishing to keep us separate.

We have certainly learned this year that when the same problems are thrown at people who are supposed to be different, those who survive stumble upon mutual solutions.

Color

Color: (n) pigmentation of the skin, especially as an indication of someone’s race.

To find a real black person you have to go deep into Africa.

The only white people are albinos.

To get yellow skin usually requires liver disease.

And red skin is any one of a number of young girls in Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break.

Yet for some reason we decide to take these colors and differentiate not only race–not only customs–but certainly intelligence, morality, violence and quality.

What actually is the difference in color between an American Negro and an American Hispanic, or an American housewife of Beverly Hills after leaving the tanning booth?

It can’t be about color. There just isn’t that much variation.

And of course, once you get right below the epidermis, we all pink up.

So what in the hell is this all about?

At one time we were so frightened there wouldn’t be enough squirrels, rabbits and wild turkeys in the woods, so we tried to thin the herd of our human competition by making them lesser, therefore teaching them they couldn’t eat the actual meat of the buffalo, but could have all the internal organs they wanted.

Are we still stuck in that survival mode?

Are we so terrified that we’re going to be exposed as lackers or slackers that we try to characterize one group of people as already occupying that space–and then colorize them?

 

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Chink

Chink: (n) a Chinese person.

I am prejudiced against skinny people–mainly because I’m fat.

I am intimidated by handsome men, truthfully because I’m quite plain.

I get nervous around other writers because deep in my heart, I need to be the best.

And the only reason I would ever call a Chinese person a “Chink” is because deep in my heart I know he or she is superior to me in attitude and talent, and I need
a way to degrade the prowess.

Certainly white people would never have brought black slaves from Africa unless the natives were superior to them working in the fields. Even after Emancipation, the white community was intimidated that the black work ethic would overtake them and lead to their poverty. So it’s easier to call them “niggers” and send out the signal that they are to be relegated to a lesser position.

We’ve done it for years with gender. All the terms used for women have eventually exposed a disguised prejudice.

  • “Ladies”
  • “Weaker sex”
  • “Little miss”
  • And of course, “bitch”

I’m not quite sure why the word “Chink” is in the dictionary. Perhaps it’s to remind us that there will always be people who are better at what they do than we are, and simply humiliating them with a condescending name does not take away their power.

We live in an America where there is still prejudice against the black race, even though we mimic their actions, customs, worship style and sports efforts in almost every way.

If bigots actually did think they were better than the people they prey upon, it would still be disgusting, but at least comprehensible.

But knowing that bigots are mean-spirited because they are secretly jealous and wish they possessed the abilities of those they attack may be the Earthly definition of satanic.

 

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Chasten

Chasten: (v) to reprove

There are things that work and there are things that don’t.

Perhaps one of the most misleading ideas promoted in our society is the notion that a thousand paths lead to the same singular destination.
 This has caused us to believe that we can ignore the wisdom of time and forge our own thoroughfare–and as long as we get “somewhere near it,” we’ve done a good thing by being independent.

Independence is over-rated. More often than not, it’s permission to fail instead of succeed–because leaving the sanctity of good counsel to prove your autonomy usually comes with a bundle of extra problems which have to be explained away later, as you cautiously tout your victory.

But let’s make three things clear:

1. Complaining is not chastening.

Human beings should not have to endure the incessant repetition of a grouchy spirit hounding them over their actions.

2. Assuming is not chastening.

Trying to take on the profile of “the gentle soul” who innocently assumes everyone knows the truth of the matter is often useless and can be vindictive if the silence causes another soul pain.

3. Prejudice is not chastening.

Asking a black man to hold his tongue because he’s “the son of Cain” and therefore not as worthy as white people is not a rebuke granting growth, but instead, instilling inferiority and fear.

Chastening is understanding what needs to be done–seeing that someone has taken a faulty turn and correcting him or her before the misstep turns into a tumble.

It must always be done in love, it must always be done quickly, and it must always be drenched in mercy and grace.

 

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Black

Black: (adj) the very darkest color

  • Dictionary BA black comedy.
  • A black cave.
  • A black situation.
  • A black scenario.
  • A blackened sky.
  • Black as sin.

Sometimes we wonder why ignorance persists.

We muse over our alleged newfound openness and genteel demeanor concerning our differences while continuing to perpetuate myths.

First and foremost, there are really no black people. Even those who live deep in the heart of Africa are not actually black.

The human race is an unusually diverse palate of browns–even white people are peachy-beige. We apply hard names with hard definitions onto individuals in order to quietly segregate them in a conversational way, since we’ve made it illegal to do so in a general way.

Black is beautiful.

Black is classy.

Black is the new orange.

The truth is that human beings are neither black or white. They continue to be, and always will be, unpredictable.

 

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Absolute

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Absolute: (adj.) not qualified or diminished in any way: total absolute secrecy  2. a value or principle that is regarded as universally valid or that may be viewed without relation to other things: good and evil are presented as absolutes

Absolutely valid. Wow.

I was just sitting here thinking about how in my lifetime, I was instructed in a whole bunch of absolutes which ended up being absolutely ridiculous.

As a boy I was told that black people and white people shouldn’t mix because God had ordained the more pale parts of His creation to be enlightened and the darker ones to be servants. Yes, I was tutored in how the Creative Heavenly Father color-coded His human family to make it clear how they should be categorized.

  • This was an absolute. It was wrong.

I was told by my parents and church that rock and roll was “of the devil” and no good could ever come of it because the beat of the music was purposefully coordinated to the heartbeat of the human being so as to stimulate our juices, to make us act like the natives in Africa, who ran around naked, committing all sorts of sins of the flesh. I was a good white boy from Ohio. I didn’t want to turn into a pigmy or a cannibal. So at first I avoided the demon rock and roll–that is, until I sat down and really listened to it and realized that it energized not only my physical heart, but touched my teenage searching one as well.

  • They were absolutely sure that rock and roll was evil. They were wrong.

I was told that divorce was a sin and anyone who committed it and remarried was in danger of hell because they would be committing adultery. Matter of fact, I saw many ministers and politicians who had to abandon their occupations so as to purge themselves of their sinfulness due to the separation from a spouse. But enough politicians and preachers broke the bonds of marriage that eventually a new doctrine had to be brought forth to give retroactive forgiveness for “splitting the sheets”–and now nearly all the churches in America have a ministry geared to those who are no longer matrimonially entwined.

  • This was an absolute–until it wasn’t.

So to be candid,  I’m a little fuzzy on the concept of “absolutes.” I hear people scream them at the top of their lungs today–many of them the offspring of the former “anti-mixing-of-the-races, rock-and-roll-is-hellish and divorce-is-iniquity” crowd.

I think I have come up with a simple conclusion: the only absolutes we know for sure are that we are all human, we should never judge and Mother Nature and God are much better deciders of what will continue to evolve and what the planet doesn’t need.

Yes–I guess I’m absolutely human.  That is the absolute I am comfortable in donning.