Sad

It was just reported that Boise State star tailback, Ian Johnson, has been receiving death threats. Why is this? Because of his pending marriage. Johnson is an African-American and his soon-to-be wife is Anglo-American. Yes, that's the reason for the death threats.

I hear many, I'll just call us whites (even though we're not really), say that they're sick of "blacks" (even though they're not really) pulling out the race card. They're sick of "blacks" pulling race into every issue and making it the issue, even though it's not. They're sick of everything having to do with race. It seems that many have the philosophy that if we ignore a problem, it doesn't exist or if we ignore it, the problem will simply go away. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. If one ignores that they have AIDS, well, they're going to die. It's not just going to vanish mysteriously into the night. So, many just don't want to hear about it. They want to pretend that racism doesn't exist anymore and they want everyone to hold themselves accountable for everything in their lives, so that no excuses can be made.

I can understand bits and pieces of that. I get sick and tired of excuses being laid before me or others on a consistent basis, but I typically don't consider "race" to be such an "excuse." Whether we want to believe it or not, racism is very much alive in this country today. It's just more latent, as far as I'm concerned. While the majority of people may tend to be kind and courteous to individuals of different ethnicities than their own to their face, one may see a completely different attitude behind their back.

I read some very ignorant statements the other day by, I presume, "whites." They stated that it was always "blacks" in trouble, always "blacks" committing crimes, "blacks" were the thugs, they couldn't speak English properly, they wore distasteful clothing, listened to distasteful music, had funky hair, all had platinum teeth, all were involved with gangs, all made excuses and never took responsibility for their own actions, etc. Another said something along the lines of that all "blacks" should be lynched, although, he used another word for "blacks," which I won't repeat. Almost comically enough, he commented at the end of his comment that he wasn't a racist.

While I'm sure that many people get sick and tired of hearing the race card being pulled and sometimes, rightfully so, unfortunately, racism is still very prevalent in this country, which gives legitimacy to the card being used at times. I too wish that we didn't have this problem still. I too wish that the race card had no place in this country, because there was no racism. But, that'd be naive of me to say. Even in the year 2007, where gay marriage appears to be the most polarizing issue in terms of marriage, an African-American man and his soon-to-be Anglo-American wife received death threats because they're of a different skin color. Sad. Sad. Sad.

To that, I wish Mr. and Mrs. Johnson all the best and more than anything, that they can stay safe and secure all throughout their marriage and that we can slowly improve as a country in regard to the prevalence of racism.