People use numerous cues, visual and otherwise, to decide which people are worthy of their trust. I generally fall into that category. Whether it is ID cards or people telling me their life stories after knowing me for 5 minutes, it just happens.

Now I’m not saying that racism doesn’t happen. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in both Alaska (2 years in highschool) and Oklahoma (visiting my parents). In Alaska there weren’t many weeks that went by were there weren’t Native gangs ganking someone because one of the white gangs had scrawled a swastika on the wall of a bathroom, or vise versa with the white gangs. In OK, at this very moment, if you go out and ask someone about Obama, you have a decent chance of being informed that they, “won’t vote for no black man”.

So I’m not under the mistaken impression that racism doesn’t exist. I *am* under the impression that both sides make extensive use of racism as a weapon; in order to keep that weapon powerful, it has to be fully loaded with ammo (new cases of racism). Instead of dealing with the REAL racism in places like Oklahoma, stuff like this “black hole” comment is manufactured. Why? Because this is easy, and dealing with real racism is both hard, and not politically correct.

After all, every time I say that the southern US is racist I get blasted for using stereotypes without knowing what I’m talking about. Buddies, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the southern states, and I was blown away by the overwhelming level of racism in those places. Those feelings aren’t completely unanimous among the population, but they are nearly ubiquitous in their strength across the slave states. Before I went there it had never occurred to me that people would find skin colour to be such a big deal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc1zGRUPztc

In my case it is because I am simply trying to protect all those people who wish to communicate using a perfectly good language from being restricted in their communication by a small number of other people who want to see that language distorted for no good reason.

My life would be negatively impacted because I would be denied access to some of my vocabulary, which reduces my ability to communicate effectively. Why should I be forced to find convoluted alternative ways of saying things that can be said more concisely using words that were designed for the purpose and are in reality inoffensive? I would object to that.