Episode 62: If You're Racist, Don't Read My Blog

"All we see is faces, color/all the other races,  other/why can't you just be my brother?/we don't have to kill one another."

                                               -Imagine Dragons, "Love"

  Racism, or any other kind of prejudice, has no place around me. No place at all at Mr. Hardy Saves The World. Slurs make me feel sick to the stomach. Seeing videos on the internet of people being harassed for their race or their sexuality, or whatever else, enrages me. Being nice to each other, or even just merely not being vile to them, is perhaps the easiest thing to do besides breathing. 

    Some of my favorite people, currently and in the past, are/have been people of different races. And not in the way that racist people say "I have black friends" to hide their racism. Race has never been an issue for me, and I'm glad that I was raised by two parents who didn't teach me hate.

   In school, admittedly, the majority of my friends were white. Today, the majority of my friends are white. But that is in no way some exclusionary tale where I resist the friendship of minorities. It's a simple unconscious thing - people genuinely tend to befriend others of their same race. It's not racism, it's just what happens. I love my minority friends just as much as I love my white friends.

    Is it possible to be racist against white people? Absolutely. I once heard someone say "you can't be racist against white people". That's stupid. Just because something is the majority doesn't mean it's okay to be prejudiced against it. Racism against any race, even whites, is disgusting. And I don't think reparations make much sense either - slavery is undoubtedly an evil, dark stain on our history, but I am not a slaver, nor have I ever been, and I don't think there's a single traceable person in my family history who was one. People shouldn't have to pay for racism they didn't take part in. The way to fight racism isn't to dwell on the bigotry of the past, but to fight the bigotry now and try to improve the future.

    America is a melting pot. We were made by immigrants. So, we should be kind to our immigrants. And kind to everyone no matter their heritage, as even the white Europeans were immigrants, were the minority, at one point. 

   The world has enough going wrong with it for us to spend any time at each other's throats. Especially not for something so trivial as the shade of a person's skin. It's so dumb to think the value of a person is any different because of their race. And it breaks my heart a little bit to see Christians spout racism. God created each of us in His image, so if you say people are lesser because of their race - you are calling God's image flawed. You are also saying He is an errant Creator. And I don't think anyone reading this blog needs to see this, as I think the readers I do have are people who know and understand this, but just for the record: Jesus isn't white. Hebrews 12:14 says, "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." 

   Being a racist is not making every effort to live in peace with everyone.

   The title for this episode is taken from the ending of AJR's song "3 O'Clock Things", in which the singer says "if you're f*cking racist, then don't come to my show". 

   As I'm typing this, yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. You may be thinking this blog episode was written as a sort of special for the holiday, but honestly I just wanted to talk about the topic and it's nice how things work out, huh? If you wanna consider this the MLK Day special, go right ahead. And remember: please don't be racist.

Follow this YouTube link for a totally epic video!

https://youtu.be/USE86UbsV8c

Anyway, see you next week!