Opinion: Battling racism in everyday life
The circus for the White House keeps operating. The candidates are turning what should be a dignified race for the highest position on the planet into a not so funhouse ride. One where the car actually tips over, goes off the rails and kills the riders.
The members of the Democratic Party, especially Nancy Pat Pelosi and Adam Schiff, have embarrassed our POTUS by bringing an impeachment proceeding to the House they should have known would be a dismal failure. Maybe it wasn’t a total wash. It did give them an opportunity to get their faces on television for days on end while they trashed the Donald. That alone must have delighted them. The speaker, Ol’ Nancy Pat, got her chance to throw a hissy fit, tantrum detracting from the president’s uplifting State of the Union address. I hope her constituents make her pay for it at the polls on election day.
When the Senate refused to call more witnesses the deceitful Dems took it as proof the president was guilty of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” because the Republican has a majority in the Senate. The House had plenty of opportunities to call its witnesses after wasting three years trying to boot the president out of the White House. If they need more witnesses to prove their joke of a case, they could have called these witnesses themselves. They are disgusting.
I have no problem admitting I often cringe when I hear some of the latest missteps of my president. He is brash and bordering on reckless when he sometimes says stupid stuff. He does on occasion put his size 12 foot right in his mouth. I have been guilty of this sin myself. Sometimes my mouth and the joke I am planning to make run faster than either my brain or my good sense and have said thing I wished I could take back.
If I was a witch who had attended Hogwarts and I could cast a memory charm on the person I am talking to so I stop myself from looking like a jackass, I would, a lot. At times, even I am surprised by what I was saying after I said it.
The older I get, the easier it becomes to hold my tongue. You should have seen me in my 20s. Back then, I loved the song by country artist Jo Dee Messina when she sings “my give-a-damn is busted.”
I enjoyed burning bridges just to watch the flames. My tongue got in the way of my eyeteeth and I couldn’t see what I was saying!
The accusation of racism in this county is everywhere. Is he or she a racist? That is how many of our politicians try to taint their opponent’s reputations. Accused equals convicted works in many cases especially in politics.
First of all, the term racist is — in my opinion — racist. It is ethnicity people are quarreling about not race. We are all members of the human race. If a space ship ever lands on earth these beings will be an alien race. If they are, killing monsters as the sci-fi stories depict, we better all become racist fast or mankind is doomed to be food for another culture.
According to Google, the state identifies six ethnic groups. They are white, African American, Native American/Alaskan Native, Pacific Islander, Asian, and Native Hawaiian. These people are Americans; can’t we just identify every citizen an American without giving another nationally top billing?
Not sure, what one would call someone who discriminate another’s ethnicity? Ethnators maybe, ethnatzis perhaps? There has to be a word ugly enough to suffice in this capacity.
I was chatting on Facebook with a friend from elementary school recently. She baked a cake in the shape of a unicorn with gold and black icing. Her cakes are gorgeous and taste wonderful. I challenge any bakery department in California to top the appearance and taste of her cakes. My girlfriend is African American. In grade school, we walked around the playground holding hands or with our arms thrown over each other’s shoulder and little kids do.
She called her cake a Negro Unicorn.
I asked her if we were able to use the word negro again. Her response was that negro is just a word. She didn’t get all pushed out of shape because I made a joke about the PC crowd never intending to offend.
Because she knows my heart, she knew I was being funny, not hateful. She has known me through our 13 years of schooling and I would never do that to her. We love each other the way lifelong friends do.
Television shows and commercials are trying to bridge the gap between the ethnic groups by casting more people of color in its programming. It is common to see people of color or a mixed ethnic couple shares the sound stage hawking whatever is the latest got-to-have-product.
Ten or fifteen years ago, television commercials featured clearly defined ethnicities and never had a black man with a white woman or vice-versa. Moreover, I think without saying it that a clearly mixed ethnic baby would never be seen on TV in a diaper commercial.
One of the first times I watched the Oprah Winfrey Show, she told a story about how she almost missed the first appearance of the Supremes on the Ed Sullivan Show by running from door to door in her tenement house repeating “Colored People on TV.”
More recently gay couples are showing up in commercials too, especially those advertising HIV medication. Madison Avenue is merely trying to reflect the actual lives of its target audiences.
The same system targets teenage dollars with rap, hard rock and hip-hop style jingles and slogans. When my husband says “I am really tired of these people, “ after having seen the same television commercial for the 50th time, I follow that up with the knowledge that we are too old to be their designated consumers.
These days the COPD machines, pre-paid burial plans and long term care insurance is the demographic where we belong.
I whine about this a lot, but this being a grown-up is not how it looks in the brochure. I thought surely, I would be 25 forever.
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Long days and pleasant nights, have a good weekend.
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Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.
