Recently, I’ve been called racist on my blog on two separate posts.  One of them was regarding Gabby Douglas’s Olympic scores, which was written before she won the All-Around.  The second was a post about George Zimmerman and how the media played the race card far too early.   So, in the history of this blog, and including all the times I’ve written about white people doing stupid shit – the two times I have written about issues involving African American’s – I have been called a racist.   This is interesting to me, especially since I have a tendency to write about controversial topics – and typically in an inflaming fashion – but it’s unlikely for me to see the gay rights community come after me saying I openly hate gays (even if I disagree with a position or methods they have) and when I was writing about how men are falling to women in regards to the sexes, I did not see a whole bunch of men coming after me calling a fem-nazi.  (And I definitely didn’t see them commenting that when I called the Casey Anthony trial a bunch of crap for the verdict, comparing it to Scott Peterson’s.)   It seems, no matter how much I get into the other stuff with what would technically be considered opposing views – I can generally get out of without the commenters calling me a “gay basher” or a “man hater” – yet the TWO times I post on something, one of them not racially motivated at all, and the other one complaining about the press tendency to make things racially motivate and provoke racial tension in this country – I am labeled a racist.

I personally, find this a more than a little disconcerting for a couple reasons:

1.  First, I have never been called racist in real life but someone who’s actually known me for a significant amount of time and wasn’t basing his opinions on his small, narrowminded view of the world.  (For instance, I was once called racist by someone’s white brother because I didn’t recognize his need to drop the n-bomb every two seconds as something he got from ‘his people’ – you’re white, you grew up white, went to the same schools as I did, just because you wear your jeans to your ass and talk about how much of a thug you are doesn’t mean you’re black and get to use “nigga” as a colorful word between every other word.  And just because I call you on it doesn’t mean I’m racist – I hate valley girls who use “like” too much as well.)

2.  The cultural make up of the people I choose to associate with has only one part of it that is consistent - and that is there no consistency.  As a matter of fact, I am far less likely to actually hang out with people of my own race than I am to hang out with people of other races because their culture is INTERESTING to me.  I enjoy sharing time and experiences with people who had lives different than mine because I like experiencing new things, not because I’m better than they are, but because different can be cool.  For instance, one friend of mine in college was a first in America Asian.  She was my best friend for the better part of three years and I loved whenever we would do things like make Lumpia’s or she would regale me with stories of her life growing up on the island.  It’s the same sort of enjoyment I got out of being in Wisconsin, and seeing how those in middle America lived – or when I went to Europe.

3.  I have never, ever, in my life judged someone solely based on the color of their color skin.  Now, if they happen to open their mouth and start spewing ignorant bullshit at me – I will judge them on that – but that is just as likely to happen with white-trash as it is with someone who’s got a different skin color than I do.

So why is it – that on these two posts where I’ve possibly touched on race – I’ve been called a racist?  It’s because I’m an elitist – and because some people get so touchy on the subject of race that they can not differentiate between the two.  It seems that when the subject of race comes up, logical thinking by some people who I generally consider smart people, goes out the window.  The post on Gabby Douglas is a perfect example – instead of people judging me on what I said, which that Jordyn Weiber was underscored based on the faults that both Gabby and her showed – their argument was “THAT’S RACIST”.   Instead of screaming racism – make a valid counter point to my argument based on the scoring devices used by Olympic athletes.  Back your statements up with facts and quotes.   You think I’m racist?  Make a valid argument where I have actually shown to prefer one race over the other en masse.  Use my own writing against me if you want.  Who knows – when you use logical, deductive reasoning with a well thought argument, it’s possible you may convince me that I don’t actually know myself as well as I think I do.