Am I a racist? Short answer? No. Long answer? Probably.

I once had a friend in junior high whose most embarrassing moment was screaming He's got a gun! and dropping to the floor when a black guy reached for his wallet at a restaurant. That was the moment I knew that wetting your pants is NOT the most humiliating thing you can do and went home content.

I think I have tried to live my life in such a way as to avoid that kind of scenario at all costs. No one wants to be a jerk. And if you were born not in the South and/or after the civil rights movement than you really don't want to be a racist jerk.

I've actually felt a little called out though recently, and I'm beginning to realize that I can do a lot better than I have been.

My sister in law turned me on to this sight that deals primarily with race relations, and at first I've got to say I felt a little ugg, can we let it die already? Can we all just try to get along and live our lives?

Then I made a comment about white girl butt, to which I got the response there are a lot of black girls that don't have butts and you know what? that's true, I know a couple. Whitney Houston is an excellent example. I read a post talking about black history month that essentially gave a short quiz on black history, you know how much I knew about black history? Eli Whitney and Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman and Malcom X, that's about the extent of my knowledge, and I began to think that these people who harp about latent racism might be on to something, because I can plead ignorance, but the truth is I have often chosen not to know.


Don't get me wrong, I think black people are as cool as the next white person does. I really enjoy the music, the seemingly more embracing culture, how darker complexioned women can rock the colors yellow and purple in ways that I will never be able to. And I strive to be cool, I try like only white people can to do that hey, this is so natural, man. I am so at ease with your culture that I know very little about and I feel so at ease immediately, so I am for sure not racist.


The thing is, that's a bunch of whooie, if you walk into a room of sneeches with no stars upon thars, but there are stars upon yars, I don't care how cool you are, it's going to take a second to find your way into feeling cool with that. Period.

And you know, in my unfortunate friend's defence, she was a pretty nice person in general, and living in a rural town in Washington State, she only seen three black people in person in her entire life. I feel like I can defend her a little bit because I grew up in that same town and while I like to think that I am not an idiot, I had seen the same three black people, and it did not really prepare me to be the super cool person that I wish I was.

But I think it's time to get out there and try, and it's probably past time to make the choice to know something outside of my own experience. And hopefully, at some point, I'll be for sure not racist, and maybe a little bit cool.