If You Think This Is Offensive, Then You're Still Whining

"Beyond Checkboxes: Intersections of Mixed-Race Identities" was a roundtable group discussion on how people in general think and behave when interacting with someone of a different race. Almost every student shared almost the same story involving a person making an ignorant comment or "back handed compliment" by someone who did not understand everything about their race.

I was the only white male in the group until the last five minutes. Most of the stories involved a white person making an ignorant racial comment. I have not made any of the mistakes the other white people in the stories made. Almost everyone in the group had a complaint about a "back handed compliment" they received in the past from an ignorant white person. For these reasons, I did not speak at all. If I did, I would have been maligned a racist because I would have told everyone to stop whining. Since 6th grade up until today, people blatantly tell me I do not have a soul, ask me if I have a soul or if I think I have a soul, and make fun of the color of my pubic hair because I am a "ginger," someone with red hair, light skin and freckles. I never thought this was funny, but I also never complained because the people that say those things are not worth thinking about. The people in the mixed race discussion used an hour of their day to share a complaint about someone with good intentions saying to them that they look exotic or are pretty for resembling some ethnicity. Obviously it is still a compliment, and obviously it is a little racist, but subtle unintentional racism will go away in time and complaining to a group of people that are trying to agree with you is not fixing this so called "problem." I believe being totally color blind means not paying attention to race at all and giving things like this attention will only expose a horrible concept of differences among people to our youth.

SOME TUNES

Ghosts Are Bad For Real Estate

This story is creepy regardless of whether or not you believe in ghosts. When I moved into my new house at the age of five, I was scared of being in my room because I thought someone or something was in there. I would sleep in my older sister's bed most nights. She also believed there was someone in her closet. Sleeping together in the same room would calm us down. There was never any actual proof of a ghost like blood on the walls; we both just had "gut" feelings about it. Therefore, as we grew up, we grew out of these fears.

Over a decade after I started sleeping by myself, I jokingly talked to my mom about the ghost in my room. Her eyebrows rose, and she started telling me a story I never heard before. My dad made her keep it a secret until I told her about my ghost story. Around the time when we moved in, my parents both woke up in the middle of the night to "scampering" down the upstairs hall outside of their room.   They checked every room assuming it was one of the three kids up past their bedtime, but we were all "sound asleep." Her eyebrows rose because the scampering came from my room, where I said I believed there was a ghost. My parents thought it was a burglar after they made sure my siblings and I were asleep, but the house was empty. My dad strictly forbids everyone in the family from telling this story because when houses are rumored to be haunted, they do not sell well. I put this story on the Internet because I do not want my parents to sell the house.

Word Count: 289

Point: If you have a ghost in your house, do not tell anyone because houses are more difficult to sell when people know they are haunted and your home loses financial value.

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