Throwing the BS flag

I’ve been called a racist off and on for so many years now, for so many reasons, the term has no impact. It is like someone calling me a “porcupine” or an “elbow”. A person might as well shout “You damn Ballpoint Pen!” for all the effect it has. I don’t think I am alone in this regard.

More than a decade ago, in my capacity as a cheese monger (a story for another day), a young woman I directly supervised came to me asking to take May 1^st off. I asked her what was so important about the day.

“There is a protest in support of immigration rights being held on Boston Common and I want to go,” she said.

“You mean illegal immigrants?”

She gave me the universal wrinkled brow that implies, “Duh. That’s what I mean.” Of course she meant illegal immigrants. Who would protest for immigrant rights? Legal immigrants share pretty much all of the privileges of citizens.

The request for the day off to protest (which is itself a right) on behalf of people who were ipso facto breaking the law, struck me as very funny.

“Sure,” I said. “You can have the day off, but you should consider celebrating May 1^st the way I do.”

“How do you celebrate May 1^st?”

“Usually, I break into a stranger’s home and then invite my family and friends over for a celebratory brunch. We cook whatever we find in the cupboards and the fridge and then sit around the homeowner’s living room and bitch because there isn’t any wheat toast.”

She didn’t think I was funny. Per usual, I thought I was a laugh riot.

Later that week I told the story to my wife and a few friends and I was quickly informed that not only was I not funny, but I was also a racist.

This confused me for many reasons, not the least of which was it seemed passing strange that immigration status constituted a “race” at all. Granted, I’m not always the most rigorous thinker, but I had always believed that the silly categories we use to define race entailed certain immutable traits—skin color, nation of origin, regional differences, that sort of thing. Having lived and worked in Boston for many decades I knew many more illegal immigrants from Ireland than from anywhere else, and I had a difficult time imagining a redhead from Cork, a guy from Haiti, and a woman from Brazil sharing a common race because they all chose to ignore the same legal process. If breaking the law placed an onerous racial burden on someone, couldn’t they instantly remove the racial stigma by, oh, stop breaking the law?

Apparently, though, being impaired by my whiteness, I was incapable of understanding the issue or hearing the ubiquitous dog whistles.

I thought about this. Were they speaking of poverty as a race? That didn’t seem to work, either. What then would distinguish a poor person from, say, Kazakhstan, from a poor person from Mexico? And no one seemed to be concerned about wealth or income earning potential, anyway. A dishwasher from Manila, a computer scientist from Mumbai, and a pimp from Caracas were of the same race so long as they’d entered the country illegally, it seems.

If the only common trait this group of people shared was that they were all breaking laws our Congress had written and a President had signed, would I be a racist if I refused to support bank robbers or inside traders, too? It all made my head hurt.

Then it occurred to me. It only made my head hurt because I was looking for logic and consistency. I was looking for a rational pattern, and there was none. I was Alice, conversing with Humpty Dumpty.

“…and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents––}

“Certainly,” said Alice.

“And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’”, Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master–that’s all.”

Once I understood this, everything became so much easier. Post-modern progressives live in a world where reality is malleable, and they have seized the reigns just as Humpty did. They are the master of meanings, and if “insurrection” means one thing today and another tomorrow? What of it? Plagiarism is just a misplaced quotation mark and “proof” is one thing when it’s kept in Adam Schiff’s underwear drawer and another entirely when presented by an IRS whistleblower. “Race” can be anything. It can be the color of one’s skin (black), the region their family came from (Asian, Indigenous, Native American), or their language (Hispanic). It will be demanded that we accept a kid from the suburbs raised on play dates and Xbox, if his skin is dark enough, has more in common with a child soldier from the Congo than he does with his neighbor, who is melanin challenged. A person from Peru is just like a person from Madrid, and an individual from Lhasa, Tibet is just like someone from Tokyo, Japan. Because they have so much in common.

None of which matters, anyway, because everyone is free to self-identify as whatever they choose.

In this new world the one unpardonable sin is to remain rational. I, literally, laughed out loud recently when I tuned into the Raiders v Chargers game and the announcer said that the “NFL stands for social justice” and to this end, all of the referees were “of color” and three were women! Woo hoo! I thought. Next week it will be “Left-handed referees” or “Referees with attached earlobes”! The sky is the limit. One day we may see games officiated entirely by whatever group you can imagine. Transgender Pacific Islanders! Asians with knee replacements! Lactose Intolerant Hispanics! The least important thing, apparently, is the ability of the refs. No one would propose a game that celebrated “The Best Refs in the League”.

I’m going to remain a pariah, I’m afraid. I’m too attached to the rational to abandon it now. I’m never going to care about identity politics or “race”, never going to celebrate diversity for diversity’s sake, and never going to pretend someone spouting nonsense is smart because of their status as a victim. Never going to happen. Up is forever up in my world, down will always be down, and for the rest of my days I will continue to judge individuals by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. It is fortunate I am retired. In this new world, such attitudes probably make me unemployable.

And I’m going to keep laughing, because this is, if tragic, also hysterically funny and a target rich environment.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Peace.