Tuesday, November 03, 2009

You may be a racist if...

A few years back Jeff Foxworthy was striking comedy gold by alerting people to the warning signs that they may be a redneck. Two of my favorites: You may be a redneck if you have more than one major appliance on your front porch. You may be a redneck if your house is mobile but your truck isn't. These warning signs were necessary because people are a lot more likely to recognize redneckism in others than in themselves.

I was reminded that the same was true of racism by this amazing statement on the Christwire website:

I am extremely terrified of Chinese people, but I am not racist. You should feel the same way too.

See entire article

No evidence is offered for why the Chinese might be doing all the terrible things the author imagines other than that they are not Christians. A purer expression of racism is hard to imagine. But that got me thinking that I should give people warning signs that they may be racists.

You may be a racist if you suspect an entire nationality of people of plotting terrible disasters simply because they are not like you.

You may be a racist if you think the Obama family has any less right to live in the White House than previous first families.

You may be a racist if you demand more proof that Barack Obama is a citizen than anyone ever asked of previous presidents.

You may be a racist if you think bi-racial children aren't "accepted."

You may be a racist if you think immigrants today are assimilating more slowly than your ancestors did.

That's all I have time for now, I have to go to work. If you can think of more put them in the comments.

1 comment:

Saul said...

You may be a racist if you think only "a certain kind" of person would date or marry someone of a different ethnicity or race.