Monday, April 25, 2016

The New Racism

This isn't a very well thought out post, but, hey, that's why it's a blog. Back in my day (the 80s-90s) there was of course racism. Everybody (white) in my neighborhood knew where the one black family lived, and I doubt anyone ever talked to them. But one thing was different. There seemed to be an exception carved out for athletes/actors/performers/etc. White people loved rooting for their favorite black players. No one got pissed off when Billy Dee Williams was cast in Empire Strikes Back. Suburban white kids eventually embraced rap music, and I don't mean Vanilla Ice. White people loved Bill Cosby, even before he anointed himself chief scold of the black community. These might be silly examples, and they certainly didn't reflect a lack of racism in general, but that's the way it was.

Now you get a bigot eruption when a black person gets cast in a movie, or Beyoncé releases a CD, or frankly any time there's some sort of prominent black person anywhere. Some of that's social media which gives any asshole a platform (like this sucky blog gives this asshole a platform!), but not just.