Recently, Michael Richards made some "bad choices" while performing at The Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California.
After being heckled by some Black people in the audience, Richards lost it, asking that the hecklers be removed and, in the process, called them "niggers".
The above isn't something that everyone in the Former United States of America doesn't know and is probably nothing that most people in the so called western industrialized world don't know.
However, the shock over the incident is very curious. It's almost as though people think that racial discrimination is a thing of the past in the FUSA.
One thing that should be very clear in our debate over "illegal immigrants" is the ethnic hatred implied in many of the arguments. The same thing is being said today about Latinos that has been said about Americans of African decent for a long time. They're lazy. They live "off of the government", which means that we hard working white Americans have to part with some of our income to support them. You can't understand what they're saying. They're being hired in place of white Americans, causing so called "reverse discrimination".
I've had an experience that I'd like to share. I grew up in a racist household. Those same points were made in my household on a microcosmic level for years. I was the only one of four members of my immediate family that didn't buy into the hate. This may have been because some of my best friends were African-American. In fact, at one point in my life, my only friends were African-American because we lived in an almost exclusive African-American and West Indian neighborhood.
I wasn't a half bad football player when I was a kid, but, when we played sandlot football, I was always the last to be chosen. The captain of the last team choosing sides would look around, as if there were others to choose from than me, and finally say, "OK, I'll take the little white boy." It didn't bother me. I had fun anyway.
By the time I left the racist household in 1972, Dr. King and those who followed him had done a great deal of work trying to bridge the divide.
By the time I was hired by a Fortune 500 global corporation at the end of 1972, I was beginning to think that race relations had become more than tolerable for most "normal" people. There were some with whom I worked who still used the "n" word, but I figured them to be ignorant red necks that were never going to change.
I did well as a corporate technician and, as the cliché goes, worked my way up the ladder.
First, I became a Shift Coordinator. This was still an hourly job, but it carried some extra responsibilities with it. It was also a prestigious job among hourly technicians and a stepping stone to further advancement.
I did well in that position and was considered for the position of salaried Operations Supervisor.
The first time I was considered for the job of Operations Supervisor, another person was chosen. I was surprised that I had been considered and grateful for the consideration.
The second time the opportunity arose, I was fortunate enough to be chosen. That was in 1988.
There were three production plants on the corporate plant site and each plant had an Operations Supervisor. The maintenance department also had a supervisory person whose position was equal to production plant Operation Supervisor.
At this particular plant site, the four site Operations Supervisors, along with the Human Resource Manager, served as the hiring team.
Michael Bonanno is a published poet, essayist and musician who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of his poetry can be found at The Poetry Corner at OpEdNews.He is an associate editor for OpEdNews.
Bonanno is a political progressive, not a Democratic Party apologist. He believes it's government's job to help the needy and that leaving the people's well being to the so called "private sector" is social suicide.His CDs may be purchased at CD Baby.
