The Hungry Tanuki

Racism: Bad jokes and perceptions October 22, 2008

First a little about me, I am a white christian leaning male, come from an upper middle class household, and I am gay. Remove the gay and there is the makings of a mighty fine neo-con. But by the grace of god I am homosexual and I am not a neo-con.

That said, I have not lost the more basic moral ideals that come from a rather conservative sheltered upbringing. I make off color jokes sometimes, but I am not racist and for someone to assume that of myself or someone else is offensive to me. Yes we must grow beyond our upbrinings and almost all healthy adults (I hope) do but that does not mean that because some 19 year old white girl tells an off color joke that she is a “bigot” or an “stupid asshole”, it just means that from her upbringing she does nor know any better. There is at least a little but of truth in every stereotype, but because someone points it out in a joke it is not necessarily meant to offend. I personally believe that when someone searches out predjudice it tends to do more harm than good. In this day and age where the gay community is at a turning point in becoming accepted in society and no longer being treated as different or sick we must open our own eyes and realize that we can be just as hateful and discrimatory as the straight community. Racism has never been exclusivly white and homophobia has never been the sole domain of straight people. Not everyone is as pc as we would like to be but we need to move beyond literal interpretations of words and phrases and look at the whole picture when making judgements. Thank you for listening. Here ends my rant.