The Race Card Part I -- Eric

Alright, just woke up to post this, cause I thought about the hypocrisy of this "playing the race card" terminology. I'm simply sick of hearing about it. There's no such a card to be played, because if there were, truly a card to be thrown down, in order to gain some sort of an advantage, I would probably have played it once or twice myself! It simply does not exist. You know what else doesn't exist? The newly coined term, "White Guilt". Yeah, that does not exist at all.

I'll have to thank my man Cliff for breaking this down for me, during one of our late night vent sessions. You know, when you just want to get with your homie, and vent about the world, family life, and stresses of the job (insert the song "Slap" by the rapper Ludacris here). It's good to be able to speak to someone that can also articulate the same things you're feeling, so on that note, thanks for this one Cliff.

See, I don't believe these terms were coined by black people, because if they were, the terminology would've been correct. You really have to know what being of the oppressed (...oppressed...oops, I'm sorry, probably should say suppressed now that we've "evened the playing fields"....what a crock) feels like, before you can start making up terms to describe the feelings.

From hence forth, instead of calling one out on "playing the race card", or accusing someone of being coerced based on "white guilt", race relations will be measured on a sliding scale:

Black Hypersensitivity<--------------------->Extreme White Indifference
|==========================||==========================|


Now, we're going to move the slider between either end when we want to call a flag on the play. OK, now let's throw some names out and see where we rank them:

Jesse "The Nutsacker" Jackson <--> Almost off the left margin
Bill "The Loofah" O'Reilly <--> Off the right side of your computer monitor
Clarence "Coca Cola" Thomas <--> Trying to out do Bill O
Newt "The Adulterer" Gingrich <--> Over there by Bill and Clarence
Al "Big Perm" Sharpton <--> Left field

Anyway, it's a fun game. We can play with this slider all day with other famous names and incendiary characters, but I believe you may have already gotten the point.

You see, after the whole Rev. Wright clip being played over and over, and then Barack's speech after, I couldn't put into context the way I was feeling about the issue. Do I understand, FULLY, what Rev. Wright was trying to articulate? YES. Do I actually agree with a lot of his sentiments? NO. Do I believe the man is a America-hating nut case? NO. Unlike most, I listened to him, understood his view point (you know, given the fact that he actually lived through some unpleasant times in America), and passed him off as going over board. Well, that was him being "Hypersensitive".

So, Barack gives a beautiful speech on race relations. It made me feel more a part of America than ever before, and actually made me see Barack as a true and genuine American. Then, the next day, all the criticism, all the attacks, all the complaints about him distracting us from denouncing Rev. Wright. I was saddened. Instead of talking about race relations, which I totally thought his speech would spark, all the conservatives were doing was detracting from it. Thus, we arrive at the "Indifference". I did not notice any "White Guilt" out there, and I simply don't get any of that when having honest discussions about race with those I respect.

The reality of it all is there are two view points on this race issue in America, for non-blacks (Tony NOT included):

1. Slavery ended long ago, get over it
2. The playing field has been leveled, and everyone has an equal opportunity

Both of these points of view are dumb, but I don't want to get off into that right now... Don't y'all worry, this is only part 1. There's more...