Lone Wolf

I don't think of myself as a racist, but I don't think most people do. Well, some people do. Racists, for example. But the rest of us, if given a moment to reflect, would probably come to the conclusion that, while imperfect, we tend to give everyone a fair chance to impress or disappoint us based strictly on the content of their character as exhibited by their actions. Or the things they say. Or their clothes. Or how they stand, like upright and normal, not all slouchy and weird. Or how much money they have. Or how much money their parents have. Or their religion. Or sexual orientation. Or skin color.

OK, there might be some prejudices. Like most people my age, I was raised by my television mostly, with all that that implies. My perception of white people was shaped far less by my own experience as a white person and more in how I perceived them in 30-minute increments, punctuated by a laugh track. Well, 22 minutes if you take out for commercials. Commercials featuring more white people with excellent teeth and clothes that smelled so much like flowers, little cartoon petals wafted gently off them.

The programs themselves told me what I should think of white people: they lived in oversized houses with walls on three sides, looked nothing like their family members and peppered their conversations with weisenheimer punchlines every second or third line. They were cartoonish, petty, indiscriminately harsh with the feeling of their fellow man in pursuit of an easy joke and burdened with hair and skin unnaturally impervious to the ravages of weather or sun. Creepy, in a word. But somehow... safe. Models of stability and role-consistency no matter what the circumstance. Marcia meets Davy Jones, Richie comes back from the Army and punches Fonzie, the baby from Growing Pains ages seven years over the course of one summer... it didn't matter. At the end of the episode, Dad would sum it all up with a life lesson about responsibility, human dignity, a sex shaming or expounding on the wonders of the American heteronormative hegemony and we'd all assume our starting places again just in time for the next episode to begin.

As a child, of course, this was terrifying. What no one in charge of these programs considered was that I didn't actually know any white people outside of my family. This was my only base of comparison. I can't remember a time when I wasn't absolutely convinced that I wasn't being raised correctly. I didn't know how the universe had been wronged by myself or those in charge of my upbringing, but I was being denied the fruits of my patrimony. Thirteen years of public school and not one sock-hop. Not one super-witty, ultra-flexible, maximally relaxed teacher giving me three chances to pass the big test (using the power of song!) just in time so I would be able to play in the Big Game. Nobody on Family Ties was stirring a jug of powdered milk using their arm. Maybe that shit went down on Sanford and Son, but that was before my time.

Right then I probably could have become a racist, but then The Cosby Show happened and it turned out it wasn't only white people living like that. Blew up my whole theory of ethnic entitlement. That in conjunction with my core-soul desire to see Lisa Bonet naked put to rest any hope I had to life of happy reflex judgment of a large portion of the world I cohabit. If you want to know how far I've fallen, I voted for Obama. And God help me, I'm going to do it again.

There's no going back. The racists out there today--the really committed ones--they wouldn't take me if I offered now. I don't fit the most basic criteria. I've read things. I've seen things. I can tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim. There's no hope for me.