Monday, February 09, 2009

Racist or Not? (You make the Call)

On January 20th, Inauguration, we ordered from Pizza Hut for lunch. The food arrived around 2:00, a couple of hours after President Obama had been sworn in.

It also happened to be bitterly cold here in Georgia, and my sister mentioned this at the open door as she was checking the order and paying the driver.

The driver said, "Well, they have come out and said why we are having this weather here."

(I was sitting a few feet away, only half paying attention, but I remember it seemed a bit out of the ordinary for a pizza delivery man to go into meteorology.)

The driver continued, "The reason we're having this freezing weather is because they always said it would be a cold day in Hell before we had a black president."

I was so stunned I just sat there, and in another 10 seconds the transaction was over, door shut. Then I started to get upset.

Why had he said that? I asked my sister if that was racist, and she thought he was just trying to make a joke, to get better tips. (In fairness, she might have been worried I would launch out and hobble down the steps and chase the guy. She is terrified I will make a scene.)

I didn't see the man, Jerrica said he was white, and that's what you would think she was if you looked at her. I couldn't get over what he said. He didn't exactly criticize Obama, or make any overt generalization. In a manner of speaking he was criticizing a country (or at least the South), which had always been presumed to be too racist to consider someone like Obama.

Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that his comment was racist, or at least prejudiced. I feel very strongly that if Jerrica were to look African-American that driver would have kept his thoughts to himself, and it seems to me that if you wouldn't tell a black family, it's probably racist.

Then again, I sometimes get accused of finding white sheets in every closet. (Well, there are white sheets in most closets, but you know what I mean. Looking for racism where it might not really be.) I didn't want to just judge someone on a snap impression; that's what prejudice is in the first place!

But I have never gotten over it. Perhaps it comes from the fact that since I got to Georgia, occasionally I have run into situations where it a group of people happened to not include any African-Americans, and a few times (more than a couple, but not a ton; I don't want to overstate the case) someone has felt free to tell a racist joke or make some comment.

This pisses me off to no end. How dare they assume I am going to be cool with that? I have gotten into more than one scrape over the matter.

So maybe my past experience has colored me. (no pun intended.) Maybe I'm tilting at windmills. Maybe the guy was just making a comment--something he'd heard--in an attempt to be funny and get a good tip. Maybe it's not worth getting upset.

But I'm not convinced.

What do you think?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grow a sack.

Mzsa said...

The perpetuation of racism is (in part) due to attitudes like yours...looking for racism in every comment, making mountains out of mole hills so to say. Don't look for it, there's already too much that you won't have to question. I don't think he meant it as a racist comment but if it was, so what? It's piZza mans problem.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you, the comment was racist. Because if it had been an organization for blacks, like all-black college and white person had commented (and we human beings do) then, it would be what it is...and so yes, the driver was being racist, had he been black, or asian, I would have been offended. That is the problem, not looking for racism is when people do not stand up and tell the racists why it's wrong to just make silly insensitive jokes. Could it have actually had some humor? Only if you look at 1 thing: that it would be a much cooler day than his comment quoted for Pizza hut if someone sued over the comment.