Racism & Homophobia: Dropping our National IQ one day at a time.

On a day to day basis probably nothing bothers me more than ignorance and stupidity.  I feel like there is no more excuse to be ignorant.  Anything and everything you want to know is just a few clicks away on the internet.  Want to know how to make a chocolate cake?  Go to Google.  Want to know how to grow marijuana in your basement?  Go to Google.  Want to get high and eat chocolate cake?  Combine your knowledge.  Everything that you have ever been curious about is available out there.  People can no longer claim ignorance, at least not for long.  If you don't know something that someone asks you, tell them to give you a minute and you'll find out.  Stupidity is something that is hard to help.  Once a person is stupid, it is hard to fix them because they already have some information but are just too stupid to make the right decision or believe in the right thing.  As one of my friends said, (and I am paraphrasing a little) "You can't fix stupid, you can kick it, laugh at it, confuse it, and say mean things to it but you can't fix it."  (Thanks Amber that is still one of my favorites from you.)  Stupid people are the ones that have all the proof of something sitting in front of them, have been told by other people the correct information, and yet still choose to think or believe in something that is blatantly wrong.  Two of the highest forms of stupidity that are dumbing down the national IQ are:  Racism and Homophobia.  Neither one of them have ever made any sense to me.  I have tried to understand, research, and ask questions about both but no one that is racist or homophobic can give one single valid answer.

Racism: 

1. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races
2. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief

This is the definition of racism according to Dictionary.com (see I Googled it!!).  What part of that makes any logical sense?  Sure, I can process the words and their meanings, but I mean how can someone buy into that?  Growing up in Tennessee, I saw many forms of racism when I was young and that continue today.  I would hear the word "nigger" being used very prevantly when we would play any sport against Dobyns-Bennett High School (a local school that has a large population of black students) and even when I was young it made me uncomfortable.  If I asked anyone in those days, "Why are you racist?"  I would almost always, like 99% of the time, get the answer, "that's the way I was raised."  Really, that's your rationale?  You were raised that way?  So what?  What if you were told as a child that sticking a cactus inside of your ass was a good idea?  The first time you tried it you would be like, "Ouch, oh my God, that is painful and stupid.  I'll never do that again."  And then you would promptly make your way to the closest ER.  Do you think that you would keep shoving cactuses into your rectum because that was the way you were taught?  No, you would be like, "Screw that, a cactus in the ass is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of and I don't care what daddy said.  I'm not doing that again."  Well it's the same with racism.  Sure, your dad may have said "nigger" all the time, wore his rebel shirt, and complained all the time about rap music but once you become a certain age shouldn't you be able to see that your dad was retarded and didn't know what he was talking about?  (FYI, my parents were not like this.  They weren't hillbilly morons.  But I do recall a few parents that fit nicely into this category) Unfortunately, many of my cohorts felt that this was justifiable.  A few others gave into peer pressure or just went along with it because they fell into the category of stupid.  They had all the facts and information in front of them but they believed something to the contrary.  In high school, I won't say I excused it but I saw that these guys were being misled and just following along with what they knew.  I figured that by the time adulthood set in that they would see, "Gee that was stupid!!"  But nay, some continued on with their racist psycho-babble, although I will say that many did grow a brain, looked around, and figured out that being a bigoted hillbilly made zero sense.  This is the point that I came up with my favorite question/speech to a racist:  Who has wronged you more in life, white people or black people (or Hispanic or Asian or Indian or whatever race we were talking about)?  Has a white guy ever screwed you over?  Have you ever been in a fight with a white guy?  Do you actually know any black people (or Hispanic or Asian or Indian or whomever)?  Usually the answers were:  white people, yes, yes, and no.  Of course all of those answers were laced with a lot of buts, dammits, and "It don't matter".  I would then ask them, based on their answers, "Why don't you hate white people?  It sounds like that is who you should hate.  Damn white people screwing you over and beating you up.  You ought to focus your hate on those crackers!!"  Of course this would throw them into some sort of racist frenzy of ethnic slurs and expletives, but I felt my point was made.  The point is, we shouldn't ever hate an entire race.  We should hate douchebags of all creeds and colors.  Be angry with those who have wronged you.  You don't hate white people because some blonde-haired Aryan mutant wearing an American Eagle t-shirt kicked your ass in 9th grade.  No, you probably hate that one particular guy (but at this point I would hope that you would've gotten over it).  Transfer that same concept to other races.  I asked a woman I knew once the same series of questions a few years ago and she said that actually "several black people have wronged me."  She told me that there were a couple of guys in her high school when she was younger that would pick on her, grab her butt, and say some pretty perverted things to her.  I said, "Ok.  Fine, then be mad at them.  Those two guys were a**holes.  Did any white guys ever do anything similar to you?"  The answer was, of course they did, but she was already so set in her ways that it didn't matter.  Hating or discriminating against an entire group because of the actions of a few is stupidity in its purest form.  People should have the decent common sense to know these things, and they do at the heart of it all, but just choose to stay the route that they have chosen.

Homophobia:

1.  An extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people 

I also Googled this one and was given this definition from Dictionary.com.  My favorite word in this definition is:  irrational.  See even the dictionary people know that it's stupid.  Homophobes were really prevalent through my early years.  Anytime someone was suspected of being gay, it was an automatic reason for people to shun them, make fun of them, and hate them.  I think in youth, that people tend to not like or be uncomfortable with things that they do not understand.  A majority of people growing up in the time that I did (the 80's and 90's) were raised on the story of:  boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy and girl get naked and lay on top of each other, and boy and girl get married.  It was what was "normal" to the majority of us.  When we found out that there some boys who thought that other boys were hot, it was confusing.  When boys saw that some girls fancied other girls, most of us honestly thought it was kind of hot, but still confusing at first.  It was at this point that the homophobia could've been potentially avoided.  It was confusing, so we should've asked older and wiser people about it, gathered the information, and then realized, "So what!?!?"  Why should it matter who was attracted to who?  I was attracted to girls that had a nice round butt and blonde or black hair.  One of my buddies would only date really skinny girls.  Another liked blondes only.  Did that make any of us the subject of ridicule?  No, it was what we were attracted to.  If you are straight and you hate gay people, it is the same as being a guy who only likes big boobed blondes hating all guys who only like super skinny black haired girls.  Homophobes hate people who are attracted to people that they aren't attracted to.  When you look at it that way, does it make much sense?  Let's take it a step further and this can even tie into racism as well.  Let’s say that you were born a white, redheaded female with green eyes and as you grew up you openly hated all blonde, white, blue eyed females.  You petitioned against them, you picketed Hooters, you called them demeaning names like "Honkey-Crackerass Blondie" or "Cottontop Hookers", and lived your entire young life raging against them.  Let's say that further on down the road of life, you started active campaigns to ban them from marrying and opened rehab centers where they were offered to have their hair dyed and given color contacts.  If you did all of this, 99.999% of the population would call you a quack and a moron, or they would probably ignore you because your ideas were so ridiculous and didn't even warrant attention.  Now replace everything I just said and make the redhead a straight person and the blonde a gay person (and the rehab facility would to be there to get the "gay out of them") Same exact concept.  The redhead was born a redhead and the blonde was born a blonde (ok, not all of them but you get the point) and that is simply who they are.  They had no choice and no say as to what color their hair would be when they were swimming around their mom's belly.  Just like a person doesn't choose the color of their skin or who they are attracted to.  The skin color is strictly 100% genetic and who you are attracted to is just something that is hard-wired in your brain.  I can't explain why I like a nice, round butt on a girl any more than a gay guy can explain why he likes a nice round butt on a guy. 

When it comes to gay marriage, being actively against it is just as dumb as it was 50 or 60 years ago when there were laws against whites and blacks marrying.  We look back now and think, "Wow, how stupid was that?  That makes us look pretty narrow-minded."  Why should anyone care if two women or men are madly in love and want to commit to each other for the rest of their lives?  How can this possibly affect straight people?  New York recently legalized gay marriage and a large number (not sure how many) of gay/lesbian couples have been married there since the inception of the new law.  Do you want to know how it has affected my marriage with my wife?  None, not at all.  It has not strengthened nor has it weakened our marriage.  We didn't suddenly say, "Well, now that they gays are getting married I guess our marriage doesn't mean anything.  Let's get a divorce."  No, we were happy for them.  If two people love one another and treat each other well, then it doesn't matter.  The only way gay marriage could ever affect straight marriage would be if all straight couples were forced to divorce and marry another same-sexed person (which of course I know would never happen).  I wonder if this is what some of those people that rally against it so hard think.  Do they think they are going to be forced into a gay marriage of their own?  Are they going to have to leave the person that they have so dearly loved?  That's all I can figure is going through their heads.  As long as it is two people who love one another, then I see no problem with it, but if you want to marry your horse then we might need to have a talk. 

Racism and Homophobia boil down to one of the stupidest stances in modern times:  Hating someone for something they have no choice in.  Sure a black person (see Michael Jackson) can spend thousands of dollars trying to bleach or whiten their skin but at the heart of it all, they are still a black person.  They did not change who they are, they just lightened up their skin a bit.  And yes, a gay guy can start having sex with women but at the base of it he is still gay, he is still attracted to other guys.  They just changed their behaviors to conform to a socially accepted norm, but they're still gay.  Why waste time on hating people who are different?  It seems like a colossal waste of time.  I am sure that some will read this and rush to judgment against me, but I really ask that after you are done judging me that you go back, read my points, feel my logic, and then make a logical decision.  You may not particularly like the way a person looks or the way a person lives but it doesn't mean that you have to treat them like garbage, they are still all people.