Right?
The best part of the episode has got to be this:
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
I like how he thinks having black friends exonerates him from expressing a really, really racist sentiment.
2 comments:
Funny how this makes headlines but the discrimination against allowing gays to get married isn't as headline worthy.
Funny how this makes headlines but the discrimination against allowing gays to get married isn't as headline worthy.
Sometimes they do; there was a tragic one just a couple of days ago about a woman who died alone in a hospital room even though her partner was her guardian and had power of attorney over medical decisions - because they weren't married. And that is so beyond horrific it is mind-boggling (of course, I find it mind-boggling gays can't marry at all).
But then I see articles like this and I'm reminded that fighting for a right is no guarantee anyone will actually be able to exercise that right - that getting a right is only one part of the battle to acceptance.
Loving v. Virginia was in 1963, and interracial couples still are delegitimized. And yes, it's one guy - but 1963!!!
And it brings up this other part, and that's how being accused of being an -ist or a -phobic is worse than perpetuating an -ism.
"I'm not a racist! "I'm not homophobic! How dare you say such things to me! And my outrage over being called on my shit is more important than the dehumanizing treatment I've been putting my fellow citizens through - sometimes illegally. My feelings matter more than your rights!"
I can't help but feel like until we stop legitimizing the idea that saying, "I'm not a -ist" is a fine way to respond to the fact you've perpetrated an -ist act, then we're still privileging the person doing the oppressing. And that makes me depressed about the future.
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