reddit comment on racism

[cos]

A comment I wrote on reddit got posted to "bestof", for the first time (after I mentioned the idea, in response to a commenter who said it was one of the best comments they'd ever read o reddit). Based on some of the responses it got, I feel like I really succeeded in what I was trying to say, and I'd like to get it out to a wider audience. To make sense of the comment, though, it helps if you first read the original post I was responding to: Someone confessing a blatantly racist outburst.

Comments

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

That was excellent.

[gingerkat.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! Well articulated and you made a great point without being insulting in the least. It definitely gives us something to think about.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, good job!

Any idea why that anonymous poster wanted to be yelled at? S/he messed up and knew it before posting.

[dossy.livejournal.com]

Argh!@#!@$ I'm sure you're going to unfriend me/etc. all over the place, but I just couldn't help get emotional in my response to you and the OP.

This isn't a matter of racism. Racism is something one paints with a broad brush. Racism is wrong. Being a colored person myself, trust me, I've lived on the receiving end of a fair share of racism.

What the OP on reddit described wasn't racism. It was reality. It was a story about a person acting like a jackass and being responded to in kind.

If the kid was white instead of black and responded so disrespectfully, they should have received the mini-speech about how they'd better start saving up for that double-wide trailer and develop an affinity for Coors Light and corndogs and Nascar, etc.

Stereotypes wouldn't exist if SO many people didn't actually behave in such ways. Why do we keep pretending like this truth doesn't exist and that "racism" is something different than plain old human pattern recognition?