When the movie “White Men Can’t Jump” came out in the early 90’s, I thought to myself, “Damn, they got me.” And when a black person teases about rhythm difficulties for white people I have the same thought.
To a sensitive white person either of these comments could be considered racist, but they are not; they are stereotypical, but kind of accurate, and painfully funny.
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So why is it a problem if I say ‘black people eat fried chicken’ or ‘Mexicans eat tacos’?
True, these are racial stereotypes, but are they injurious enough to be considered racist? Isn’t the problem with racism the injury that it causes? If a racially-based comment is NOT injurious, is it racist?
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Remember back to the days of Fred Sanford and George Jefferson and how much grief they gave us honkies. It was not injurious, but instead healing … and maybe even culturally valuable.
It seems to me that as a country we might be ready to graduate from the era of hyper-sensitivity. It seems that although there are still a lot of black people living within a struggle that is certainly the result of the racial oppression of yesterday, the tide of racial fairness is clearly moving in the right direction, and that to continue to be hyper-sensitive is counter-productive at this time in our history.
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