Hal - Deliberately Basic

Learning to Live White, Without Getting Killed

The recent brouhaha over the remark made by radio host Don Imus is sending yet another message that having white skin makes you evil. If you have black skin, you can open your mouth and say anything. You can insult blacks, demean women, and spew filth for the whole world to hear. This is called music, or RAP. The sad thing is, you can get paid millions of dollars for it. Considering the white – black relationship in the US today, that remark could get me shot, banned, ostracized or hanged under the right circumstances.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not condone racial remarks and slurs of any kind, by anyone. Hey, remember me? I’m the guy who stood up and argued for black equality in the sixties. I’m the one who fell out with the “white is right” establishment back then. Even now, I still have liberal attitudes, and I don’t see that changing, much.

Another thing to set straight, this is not a hate article. I don’t hate anyone. I strongly dislike quite a few people, and absolutely disagree with their point of view. Al Sharpton, is a self-serving attention seeker who I would love to hate, but alas, I don’t even hate him. You don’t get to my age without being wronged a few times. People and life will knock you on your ass if you live long enough. But, I see no reason for hate. Hate is negative energy, and will hurt me more than the object of hate.

That said, I am sick and tired of inequality among the races, specifically concerning free speech. Or in most cases concerning whites, the lack of free speech. Over the last 25 plus years I watched as the news media butchered not only celebrities, but their own colleagues for inappropriate remarks. At the same time, certain black comedians have made their entire careers with disparaging, insensitive, dialog about whites. And of course we have that horrible thumping, hate-filled music, RAP.

I predict Don Imus will disappear, and a year from now, he will go the way of Jimmy the Greek, a used to be in his own time. Ultimately his name will mean nothing, or forever be associated with his racial remarks. Forgiveness, (Al Sharpton, remember that Christian concept?) disappeared long ago, especially for a dumbass. I wish he would stop that damned begging to be forgiven. Meanwhile, on a stage somewhere, a black comic will say something like, “…all the white people in the audience are scared shitless now. The niggers are comin’ fo yo ass…”

Sometimes black comedians – and Latinos do this as well – go on for most of their act using racial slurs. They ride the backs of poor whites as if only they understand poverty. They use the words redneck, hillbilly, white-trash, briers and dozens of other aspersions to degrade and belittle the entire white race. Now, imagine a white comic trashing the black race with ethnic clichés.

Was Imus an insensitive, dumbass for making his remarks? Of course he was. There is no arguing that. However, I believe there is a much larger issue that needs to be addressed.

Why is racial denigration okay for non-whites only?

I have black friends. I don’t hang out with a lot of black people, and the few men I know personally, don’t talk to me this way, and I would never in a million years refer to them in a derogatory manner. I have respect for them, and I believe they have respect for me. This is equality. God save us from the news media.

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