Racism and the Booger Desperado

What the Word Racism Has Got Like

Ever watch a group of lit­tle kids when they don’t know they’re being watched. You see some inter­est­ing things. One girl might talk in tones and accents more suited to a 30 year old about how she just can’t do any­thing with her hair. Another girl might talk about debat­ing whether to open a sav­ings account to stock up some money for that really impor­tant camper that Bar­bie needs. The boys are of course way behind the girls socially and are in a lit­tle group to see if Ray­mond can really make a fart sound by putting his hand in his armpit and cock­ing his other arm like a chicken wing. But all is peace­ful in the rec room.

And then? Sud­denly there is com­mo­tion! One of the younger kids has bro­ken out of his pen! And as he wan­ders into the room he is pulling some­thing out of his nose! He holds the big, globby thing up to the light to exam­ine it and a chill runs through all the others.

As he turns to show it to the other kids they all cower and run behind things. That’s when the change comes over him. The look on his face is that of the viking chief sur­vey­ing the live­stock and the women in the unde­fended sea­coast vil­lage. As the peo­ple cower from him the hunter in him takes over and he runs around the room, bran­dish­ing his weapon. Thirty sec­onds ago all he wanted to do was play show-​​and-​​tell with it but now that he sees its power he is putting it to good use.

Run! Run! He’s got a booger!

This is the way the word Racism is being used. For fur­ther exam­ples you might look at Neo-​​Neocon’s take on the racism derby or at Big Gov­ern­ment’s dis­cus­sion or maybe you’d pre­fer the more off-​​beat vison of Pro­tein Wis­dom. Then think of what the word is about. I’m giv­ing you three of my top go-​​to blog­gers here and even they are dis­cussing it like it is some­thing on the order of, say, North Korea just invaded South Korea. My father was in a fight with peo­ple for whom racism meant blood and fire and exter­mi­na­tion. In my own life­time peo­ple have been killed because they wanted to be able to vote but were the wrong color.

So let’s try to get a grip. The for­mer vic­tims of racism expe­ri­enced their victim-​​hood via chains, forced labor, and death. You might not want to run into the booger-​​bearing kinder­garten com­mando while wear­ing your taffeta evening gown but let’s face it: a sui­cide bomber he ain’t. Racism isn’t just big­otry, but an espe­cially bru­tal, dehu­man­iz­ing, vio­lent kind of big­otry. To use it as a syn­onym for he’s a poopy-​​head is prob­a­bly not a good idea.

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Tags: booger commando, Racism