The title, by the way, is sarcasm. I know that doesn’t always come across too well in text.

Coming from here: http://elainemiller.com/blog/2013/blackface-racist-stereotyping-and-other-sophisticated-humour/

and here:  http://elainemiller.com/sorting-hat-says/racism/

There’s an honest wondering that many folks have, wherein they embrace the ideal of “everyone should be able to express any view they have or else we’re on the slippery slope to Orwellian censorship”, and then wonder to themselves whether it’s okay to say “shut up with your racist/sexist/etc-ist people-hating public words”.

What I’m saying ain’t “Shirley Q we’re coming to lynch you (see what I did there?) and make sure that none of your funny ways will be heard ever again.”

What most folks are saying is “Portland Eagle, you are a gathering space for the gay and leather community, why would you book an act full of unimaginitive and ancient hate, thus fertilizing and encouraging the casual acceptance of racism, a thing which hurts, harms and even kills our fellow humans.”

And what I’ve been saying , is “Allies, be educated, be mindful, speak up against racism, and don’t feed the backwards drag of barbarism and xenophobia with your money or your approval.”

Me, I’m not looking for philosophical gradations of grey. In this culture, one does not *learn* rasicm (or any of the other isms), in the way that one may learn algebra. One absorbs it through the poison soup of the culture we swim in. So we have to unlearn it the hard way, by picking at the unexamined foundations of our thought patterns.

And we humans aren’t good at examining our unconscious assumptions, which is why -even for goodhearted folks willing to start – it’s so easy to get tired along the way and just plump ourselves down any old where and declare that we’re done.

Please, everyone, consider anything I write to be an encouragment to get up and keep going, keep learning. I don’t have any definitive answers (I’m a student, not a teacher) but I do know that using a position of power to mock folks less privileged is not the path to the society I want to live in.