Trey Smith
I get so very tired of hearing that America has entered a "post-racial" era. We are told again and again that people are no longer judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Horse hockey!
Speaking of hockey, the Washington Capitols defeated the Boston Bruins in a thrilling Game 7 of their first round playoff series. While crestfallen that their hometown team lost, many Bruins fans seem far more upset at the Capitols player who scored the winning goal in overtime. His name is Joel Ward and he happens to be black.
You can go here -- if you have the stomach for this sort of stuff -- to read how the word, "nigger" is liberally used. So many of the tweets seem incredulous that their beloved team was taken down by someone other than a white guy.
It shouldn't surprise us that so much animus would be heaped on a black hockey player. The same sorts of comments are leveled at Barack Obama all the time! Many right wing discussion forums are not that much different than dropping in at your local KKK meeting.
Simply put, far too many of my white brethren in the US, care little about the content of a person's character and everything about the color of their skin. A white person can, sometimes, get away with murder, but a black/brown/red/yellow skinned person can't get away with littering or jaywalking!
Sadly, the N-word lives on in too many hearts.
Nigger
ReplyDeleteIt's just a word, people need to get over it (though I'm not saying we should put it into our everyday vocabulary). It only has a negative meaning because we gave it one. The word comes from the French word for "black", so the word "nigger" was originally used to describe a person's skin color, a physical characteristic. It only became racist over time because we made it racist.
I find it comical that white people are so afraid of saying it even if they aren't directing it towards anybody.