To: Atty-Gen Holder
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Not having open discussions about the r-word
1. Well, thanks, your attorneyness. Just thanks. After about forty years about being called racists when we open our mouths on any topic remotely to do with race, now we get whipsawed by being called cowards for not opening our mouths. Look, we got wise about noisy race-hustlers long since… is it OK to lump yourself in with them? With Al Sharpton, Jesse the baby-momma-banging-hypocrite Jackson, and Spike Lee and all the rest of the easily offended crowd with the dark year-round tans?
2. Frankly, no one really digs being screamed at when we had one of these mandatory equal-opportunities encounter sessions, and no, it never much changed anyone’s mind, and these little sessions hardly ever cleared the air much. It just took up however many hours were mandated by whoever dictates those matters.
3. It did, however, shut up most of the virulent white bigots… forty years ago. I have a heck of a time recalling the last time in real life that I actually heard someone in a social setting uncork some casual racism, misogyny, or anti-Semitism, so mad props for social pressure and all that. Pity one can’t say the same of thug-rap music, but then I’m white so I’m probably disqualified from commenting on that.
4. Let it be noted that we do, in fact, have discussions about racism with friends and acquaintances of all color – but they tend to be those people who we are fairly sure will not come f&$#@ing unglued and begin screaming and calling us racists when we decline to blame ourselves personally for everything to do with race relations in the United States over the last couple of centuries.
5. Hoping this memo will prove of help in assisting you to understand this, although I am not gonna hold my breath about it. Will we have to listen to you bang on about this for the rest of the Obama administration? (God, it’s going to be a long four years!)
I remain,
Sgt Mom
PS – Just as a reminder, a good chunk of the Founding Fathers were not slave-owners, and very much disapproved of chattel slavery… and seventy years after the founding, we fought a particularly bloody civil war over that very issue. Do history much. AG Holder?