According to certain members of the internet community, I am a racist. I can live with this assessment because the fine folks making it are the kind of people that push the whole “The media and government are out to get us so let's just spend our time criticizing The Machine instead of taking responsibility for our own actions” agenda. I hate that bullshit.
I mean, the media is out to get black people. Maybe they don't mean to, but blonde hair and blue eyes sell more papers than brown hair and brown eyes. Get better ratings, too. And the byproduct of that is that not only are black people under-represented in the media; they are represented unfairly when they are represented at all. I would be making a laughingstock out of myself if I pretended to know what this was like.
Also, it is all too easy for us white folks to forget that slavery was only a hundred forty years or so ago and that civil rights are barely fifty years old. If I was black (and this is pure conjecture) I'm pretty sure the recent nature of that oppression would stick with me. And it would probably piss me off. Again, I can't pretend to know what that would be like, because, as you may have noticed, I am very white. But I'm pretty sure I would be mad.
From what little I can tell over here in Whiteyville, one of the results that come from being pissed off about being dealt into a society that doesn't even realize how unfairly it's treating you is a general urge to blame that society when things go wrong. I mean, it seems fair, doesn't it?
Of course it does.
But fair doesn't mean shit, really. Fair is what five-year-olds want. Life is what they get. And if you want life to bowl you over and leave your guts and entrails for the birds to eat, wander around this planet blaming others for your problems. You won't get too far, but at least you won't have to take credit for your own actions.
Anyway, the fact of the matter is that I don't like Barry Bonds. For jokingly typing that I was “pretty sure” I would hate him if he was white, I have been called a racist (to be fair, I knew some of the fine folks at NOIS were reading me and I baited them with the line?and yes, this passes as fun for me. I promise I'll get a life again when the heat abides).
And so be it. I mean, I've been called a sexist, a pervert, a misogynist, and every other name in the ever-growing proverbial book since I got this gig a few years ago. And I can't lie and say that all of those accusers were wrong. Some of them even had good points. So maybe I am racist. I don't think so, but who knows for sure?
So anyway, I don't like Barry Bonds. I feel he's getting cheated by the media, I feel he's getting singled-out by Major League Baseball for his alleged steroid abuse and I feel that he has been wrongly ostracized as the poster boy for a widespread epidemic, which is unfair as hell.
But I also think he's a bitter jerk with no appreciation for the majority of the folks who worship him, no respect for his teammates and no class at all.
And for that I am a racist.
Whatever.