I’m Prejudist And So Are You

Let’s face it, we’re all prejudist and biggoted in some way shape or form. Some of us are better and dealing with it than others. K and I discussed the almost autobigraphical nature this place has turned and I wanted to write about favoritism. My choice, not his.

DISCLAIMER: Racism, prejudice and biggotry are bad things. You might get offended. Take it all with a grain of salt. There is a bit of truth in what people say.

Maybe racist isn’t the best word to use. Prejudice is a better term. We all are prejudiced in some way. But I have seen and lived with favoritism for many years.

My grandmother was “Old South” Texas. She referred to blacks by adjective and gender as in, “We had a ‘Negra woman’ stay with us once when I was a child.” The way she referred to people had nothing to do with what she thought of them however, that was just her way of explaining who she was talking about.

So is that racist? In my opinion, no. No different than any one of you referring to me as that Irish guy Jef, that Protestant Jef or plain “that white dude with the blog”. No, that’s not the way I want to be referred to all the time, but I know that’s a way to describe me. It’s only when the tone and connotation change to negative that it becomes racism or we project the actions of one individual upon an entire group.

My point is this, we all want to be around people we are like. If that means you like being around people because they are like you, is that prejudiced? It’s only prejudiced when you become closed and negative toward others it becomes a problem. I don’t like being around unintelligent people, does that make me an idiot hater? No, it just means I prefer the company of people who have some intelligence and common sense.

So that brings me to New Orleans. (You knew it would come around to this.) This hasn’t been getting a lot of press, but isn’t this just what we have been talking about? See This Story

Signs for workers crowd medians all over the city.

Mike Dunbar, a black business owner whose company removes Sheetrock and insulation, put up some of them.

But he won’t hire immigrants.

“I’m not prejudiced,” he said. He worries if Hispanic workers settle into the area, black residents won’t have jobs when and if they return.

So far he’s hired only nonimmigrant workers from Georgia and Texas because his former employees have not returned.

Sorry, but I think this guy is prejudiced. I think he just wants to give jobs to African Americans and he’s come as close as he can to being prejudiced without saying it using the economy as an excuse. As ethnic a history as that area has, there should be no room for this behavior. A white guy says, “Hey, I just want to give white guys jobs,” and the press is all over it. An African American says it and it’s just page 2 news. By the way Hispanics are now the majority population in Texas. If this guy was smart he would notice that and start to do more business with the Hispanic population.

So you tell me, who’s really prejudiced?

All this on the heals of the death of Rosa Parks. A simple black woman who just wanted to sit on the bus. Interesting how a simple decision can change the way we look at the world.

And my grandmother, long gone from this world, her time came and went and I don’t refer to African Americans as “Negra’s” despite hearing that word a lot as a kid. It’s just Gary or Susan now. I don’t think we are a really more advanced people than we were thousands of years ago. I think we just have more technology and a shorter memory and attention span and we find the facts to support our side of the argument but not the facts to support the truth. Egyptians enslaved the Jews – rather Hebrews – witches were suspect of strange things in early New England Massacheusettes, Hitler hated lots of people but Germany won’t let you be a Nazi and radical Muslims still hate Americans, specifically Jews and Christians. The only conclusion we can draw is that things don’t change we just have more technology to track it.