On Race Relashuns in Amerika

When a person such as myself makes a conscious choice to talk about this social construct we call "race," we must know we that are opening ourselves up to all sorts of unusual behavior and mayham.  I am OK with that - just let me have my Jack Handy moment first, please.     

It seems that nobody thinks it is their job to work on having production conversations on this increasingly insidious and slippery topic we call "racism." From where I am sitting, it has become very much an "us vs. them" situation.  And it stinks.  Like 10 day-old garbage.  And if it's nobody's responsibility, then how are we going to move forward and through it?  Until we start talking to each other, there is no moving forward.   

The other day, me and two girlfriends were having a discussion over dinner about one of my many OKC SNAFU dates.  I was telling this story and I got called out for throwing race into the mix - and I felt immediately threatened. Claws.  PAUSE. 

This morning in the shower, I was having a conversation with me, myself and I, and I managed to make me chuckle about myself's typical knee-jerk reaction when confronted with issues of "race."  I am personally offended.  And, as horrifying as America's history is when it comes to things said and done in the name of race, there is nothing personal about it.  Whatever your stance on race, the fact remains that the construct itself is, by nature, impersonal.  So in hindsight, it seems rather ludicrous that I would take such an offensive position.  In my defense, i will offer this: my programming may write a check that my a$$ can't cash, but my heart and my soul remain unfettered by the folly of wo(man). 

This conversation with my girlfriend got rather loud and we began attracting some attention in the restaurant.  The girlfriend who was observing all of this told us later that the desire each of had to be "right" seemed to trump any meaning the conversation may have had.  So - how do we begin having these meaningful conversations about race?  My Jack Handy moment: after setting aside the need to be right - and that is a biggie - I realized that the actual content of the confrontation was unimportant.  And what became important was looking at my own strong reaction (lovingly, of course) and figuring out how I might channel that energy into a more positive exchange next time. Oh, and there will be a next time. 

In the end, i know that these are just my thoughts, and my opinions, filtered through my own experiences and the precision-lens sharpness of a Ritz Kracka.  But my hope is that we can start to focus on the similarities in the ways that we experience "other" we can all relate to, regardless of the diversity of our experiences or the blind spots that our own lenses may create.