Intentional Racist

Can I just say that I think little Asian kids are the cutest li’l beezers in the world?

Seriously, can I say that?  It’s not racist, is it?

I ask because it sorta sounds like something that my late Aunt A would say, and boy howdy, was Aunt A a racist.

Aunt A hated black people. Hated them. A lot. She tossed the n-word around like it was a football – especially after she had a couple of gin and tonics in her – and she is the only human being I’ve ever heard use the word “darkie” unironically. Every year Aunt A would come to our house for Christmas Eve; we kids would take bets on how long it would be before she started ranting about how the n-words were ruining East Orange, NJ. Her record was nine minutes.

$375 or best offer on E-Bay. Wow.

The odd part of this was that Aunt A adored black kids. Or at least her quaint ol’ racist concept of them*. One of the ways that Aunt A displayed this love was by having the largest collection of “pickaninny” figurines north of the Mason-Dixon line. Pickaninny figurines portray little black kids with bones in their hair and big wide smiles, re-enacting scenes from “Little Black Sambo” and eatin’ watermelons and stuff. They’re really quite horrid. I understand that black people collect them now, which astonishes me. If I had Aunt A’s figures I’d hit them with a hammer**.

Now If I were a totally excellent blog writer I’d figure out some tidy way to tie this all into the Washington Redskins controversy while touching lightly on the Confederate flag foolishness. I don’t know if I can do this, but I will note for the record that my Aunt A would have had no problem with the name “Redskins,” any more than she’d have opposed the name “Darkies.” Personally, I’d walk a long way to avoid being on the same side of history as my aunt.

In her favor though, I do believe that Aunt A would have unapologetically opposed the flying of the Confederate flag anywhere for any purpose whatsoever. But that was because she hated southern people almost as much as she hated blacks, so I’m not sure that counts.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Accidental Racist is a terrible, awful song that tries to explain away behavior that many fellow citizens find hateful and demeaning. Personally, I wouldn’t sport a Confederate flag any more than I’d wear a shirt saying, “127,000 Japanese-Americans were Interred in WWII and All I Got Was this Lousy Tee Shirt.”

Unless I was wearing it ironically, of course, but I’d leave that to George Takei. That dude has frickin’ earned it.

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* I’m not sure at what age black children became repellant to Aunt A, but it was probably at about the same time that they began to understand what she was saying.

**After checking their value on E-Bay. I’m not a fanatic.

Tags: Accidental Racist, blacks, Brad Paisley, culture, East Orange, George Takei, humor, Japanese Internment, n-word, racism, Redskins