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I Have Bad News and Badder News

(shhhh.....I'm allowed to invent words)

But before the bad news I have an interesting observation. I was sitting in my history of film class, watching some crappy movie with about 120+ kids when a particular scene's crowd response caught me by surprise. A panning shot showed a crashed car with nobody in it (an earlier shot showed us a man, woman, and dog in the car). The shot continued and we saw the dead body of the man laying twisted on the side of the road. *silence* The shot continues and we see the injured body of the dog laying on the side of the road.....the whole crowd goes "awwww!" Isn't it a little odd that the dead man elicits NO emotional reaction from the crowd, but a dog that isn't even dead but is merely injured gets a loud pitying sound? Yeah, we humans are pretty screwed up.

And now on to my bad news.

Racism is alive and kickin. Ok ok, so nobody ever said that racism was dead, but I realized recently that I have never been witness to a truly racist comment. The closest I get to hearing racism is Ed telling me that I blame everything on him because he's black and then me telling him it's true. But I recently took part in a conversation that went something like this:

x: *sigh* I...that's just so wrong...
me: What is?
x: That. They shouldn't be dating.
me: Why?
x: It's just...you know...white people with white people, mexicans with mexicans, blacks with blacks...
me: What? That's totally racist!
x: Oh I'm not racist...I don't care so much about the other races...just white people should be with white people.
me: But it's just color. Why do you think that?
x: I don't know, I just....it's just wrong.
*later in the evening*
x: I like the Chappelle show.
me: (jokingly) But I thought you didn't like black people.
x: (not jokingly) I don't...but he's funny.

And here's the badder news. (shhhhh...)

This ignorant racism is being spawned by none other than the people who should be looking at themselves as models to children: parents. Guess what mom and dad? Your words actually GO INTO YOUR KIDS HEADS and then those words MAKE AN IMPACT on how the kid thinks! *gasp* I know, big surprise, but you, being the parent, are the first person your kids look to in order to understand the world. One of the parental figures of this misled little girl was later overheard complaining about mexican families with no money and "fat black mommas" (despite his own weight problem) and...and....this is just a sad world. Idiotic racism being spread through the stupid views of people too self-centered to take the time to look at the facts.

And after that somewhat depressing ranting...here's a picture of me in my new Versace glasses:


"Do these make me look fat?"
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