on the controversial tip.

File this under stupid white kids:

A friend of mine who is a morning show host at Joel's radio station usually uses his blog on myspace to discuss emails and letters recieved from listeners - one of such pertained to the oh-so-hot-button issue of racism. I can't link the blog because it no longer exists, but trust me, it was interesting. A lot of it had to do with things such as the notion of "reverse racism", the playing of the race card and similar.

So, being a person who enjoys the spirit of debate and a major I said my piece in there about how I felt - about how racism is not exclusively a caucasian trait [ie. no such thing as reverse racism] and how I felt that people who complained about things like The Latin Grammys being exclusionary [um, yeah, we may not have the White Awards, but we've been winning the majority of them since their inception.]

Anyways, I felt that what I said was reasonable and truthful. Apparently someone didn't think so because I got this in my inbox:

DISCLAIMER: identity of said myspacer is protected simply because I would have been ashamed to have sent this to another human being myself! I'm ashamed for the caucasian race after having read this.

"I just have to say I was reading the post about black vs. white on Fisher’s page and I have to tell you are so off base. Racism is for ignorant people no matter what color and that is the bottom line. Yes back in the day black people where slaves and treated awful; and there is no excuse for what happen in the past however it was in the past. White people were slaves to in the past too you don’t see us complaining about it and not to mentioning it has happen to our ancestors not us! Look we all need to live together as happy people no matter what race we are and if we keep pulling the race card all it will do is keep racism alive."


So I thought about it, and I had even said that I FULLY agreed sometimes the race card gets played in inappropriate situations, but it is not an invalid arguement ALL the time. This whole "white people were slaves too...you don't hear us complaining" was what clinched it for me. Seriously, what the hell is THAT? That makes generations of slavery against other people acceptable? I'll admit it was a bit of passion before reason, but I was pissed. I sat on it for a bit, but now I responded with the following:

wow.

i respect your opinion on reparations owed to former slaves, but i think your position of [and i quote from your email] "White people were slaves to in the past too you don’t see us complaining about it and not to mentioning it has happen to our ancestors not us!" is highly ignorant, but as person who has never experienced slavery [nor likely to have ever studied it, i'm only left to assume] it's not surprising. perhaps if you want people to take your counter arguement as serious, intelligent, and informed; you may want to try using spelling and grammar check to weed out further evidence of your stupidity.

send me any more emails like this and i will report you. if you have something to say, reply to the blog comment instead of filling my inbox with this crap.

thanks,
k

i know the old adage about arguing on the internet, but she pushed my buttons.