Growing up, I was raised to know that, “People are different, but they’re still people.” I knew from an early age that my view of people should be based on their behavior, not on some external factors like clothes or skin color.
My first clue that not everyone thought as did came in high school. I briefly dated an African-American girl. She was pretty, sweet and a cheerleader. Her father was a nice man, but he told me once that our relationship was a “problem” for his daughter, and his family. At the time I didn’t understand.
I saw my first overt racism in the Army. I met white AND black racists. I was subjected to verbal and physical abuse by a group of black soldiers, because I was white. The racists were, thankfully, in the vast minority.
Through it all, the idea that “people are different, but they’re still people” was reinforced and cemented. Philosophically, I came to understand natural rights, and its practical application to our body politic. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I learned that ‘men’ referred to human kind, not actual men.
To me, racists of any color were not only non-American, but irrational. Tying any type of superiority to the color of one’s skin has no basis in rationality or science. It’s senseless.
Critical Race Theory, “equity”. All terms from the other side of the race coin. Does it make one group better than another, for any reason? Anti-American clap-trap. If you set yourself up as being better than another for an irrational reason, then you’re being a jerk. A sociopathic, anti-American jerk.
People are different, but they’re still people, but do you have to be a jerk about it?
Meditations of a Bald, Fat Guy 