Turn it around and you get ...

I am writing the annual Year in Review article for the paper. This means wading through a year’s worth of newspaper archives, pulling important stories and rendering them into a Twitter-sized bite of information.

Of itself this is not unusual. Been doing this for years and years.

What is unusual is the sheer amount of racism I see in a local City Council’s actions.

I call it racism because that’s what it is.

The Council has repeatedly attempted to favor a certain group of people based, in my opinion, strictly on accidents of birth.

Someone else reading these same stories may argue it is not racism, maybe economicism (a word I just made up which means to favor or slight groups of people based strictly on economics) or even geographicism (see above note).

Both other “isms” can fit the situation because the affected people in the City do live predominantly in one area and they are predominantly among the city’s less affluent.

But when the Council members also inject the word “race” into a number of the discussions, it kinda renders the idea of the other “isms” a bit less relevant.

Why are the Council members doing this?

One council member, on the forefront of these discussions, routinely talks about the pursuit of “justice.”

Where is justice when one group is slighted at the expense of another? Where is justice when one group is favored over another?

Do you want justice to be impartial or play favorites?

Can two wrongs make a right? Is it right to attempt to rectify the wrongs of generations past on the backs of generation present? Can you really hold the son accountable for the actions of the father? Should the law be changed top benefit one at the expense of another? In looking over a years worth of Council stories, I believe several council members say the answer to these questions is Yes.

Among the stories being brought up is a failed effort to ban “sagging” which is the fashion trend of wearing pants at or below the buttocks. Race absolutely was injected into this discussion by several people, even by the people of that ethnic heritage who wanted the fashion trend made illegal in the city.

Hrm. Can self-policing be called racism? If one group demands an action and it is not racist, why is the exact same action brought by another group racist?

The fashion is often called saggin in the popular media.

In what is absolutely going to REALLY make a LOT of people mad, I tell you to take the word and reverse it.

G’head. Blame me. I’m just pointing out reality and saying the things other people want to say but won’t. Shoot the messenger. It’s OK. I can take it.