What worries me about this Indiana Religious Freedom law isn't that it discriminates against gays - as long as gays are perceived to be richer-than-average their preferred status is golden with businesses - but that it allows businesses to escape civil-rights suits brought by individuals. That inability to escape lawsuits is an important bulwark against open racism.
I remember when I lived in Arizona. "Old times there are not forgotten." I was boarding with the Doctor, who was originally from Alabama. He didn't seem very racist, but we did have some hilarious race-inflected moments, such as the time I was trying to clean some gunk out of my VW Bug's carburetor and so was blowing into it. He came to ask a question and when I turned to face him he collapsed in laughter. (The carburetor had left a greasy ring around my lips in a bad photo-negative imitation of blackface.)
Anyway, he once invited me to his cabin on Mt. Lemmon, outside Tucson. As I explored the place I opened a door and entered - his secret library of segregationist literature! Amazing titles! Earnest tracts on the Negro danger on cheap paperback pulp paper! I was astonished! I had no idea!
Open racism is closer than we realize sometimes. Keeping it at bay is permanent work for society.
A terrible forest fire devastated Mt. Lemmon in 2003. It's likely the segregationist library went up in flames too. Which is too bad, in a way, because it had an eye-opening power to it.
And it's also important to realize racism is not just a feature of American society. Any society can play whenever a racial group can be distanced from sympathy. I was checking out Jamaican videos and stumbled across one that struck me as disrespectful of Native Americans. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time too.
No comments:
Post a Comment