MINORITY OPINION

Time must be speeding up. Can someone tell me where the heck January went? I don't think I like this new century. Actually, it doesn't seem that different so far, but I do miss the 90's just because there's no snazzy name for the new decade. One of my tag lines used to be, "That's very 90's of you!" Now what can I say? "That's very Double-Ought of you!?" The new year is missing something, don't you think?

Maybe Clinton is right-- it's because the Union is in the best state it's ever been and our problems are reduced to pretty trivial levels. Think about it. So far the biggest controversy in the new year/decade/century blah-blah is about aliens getting citizenship. Sorry, spelled that wrong. Elian's getting citizenship. You know, that flap about Congress considering giving one particular alien, Elian Gonzalez, citizenship. A real heavy hitter of a controversy. Me? I think we should send him back to Cuba; let the INS do its job. It amazes me to hear all those Family Values Republicans falling over themselves trying to keep this kid from living with his dad.

I'm not trying to put him down; my heart goes out to him. He lost his mom getting here and that's tough enough for an adult, let alone when you're six. But if he landed on the West Coast, there'd be no question about sending him back because he'd be just another illegal immigrant like from Mexico, El Salvador or increasingly, China. It would make no difference, heck, the East Coast would send him back too if he were HAITIAN. There are legal ways to get into this country, what's really so different about Cuban boat people anyway?

Oh right, I almost forgot, this is all because of communism. Fidel Castro may be a lot of things, but as communist rulers go, he's pretty benign. Whatever folks may have lost in his Cuban Revolution forty years ago and barring those Russian Nukes that were pointed at us for a few weeks back in 1962, at least with Castro there's no record of pogroms or other mass terror that he's responsible for. I'm sure there are more than a few people jailed for speaking up in favor of capitalism and such, but then we have plenty of people in jail here for political reasons too. And on the plus side, there's state medical care under Castro's regime and the literacy rate may be even a little higher there than it is here.

So what drove Elian's mom to make the trip? Grinding poverty. Caused by a decades old US trade embargo and more recently the lack of a Russian market for Cuban sugar. Now, we trade billions with China, which is still officially communist, why can't we just normalize relations with Cuba? Then Elian could get a passport to visit relatives in BOTH countries. End of problem.

Sorry to get off on that. I really wanted to write about race relations since it's Black History Month. The perfect topic for an average white guy like me, right? But it's kind of parallel to Elian's ethnicity problem, isn't it? I wish race wasn't such a big deal though. Race is such emotionally charged word, but it's on pretty flimsy grounds as a concept. Certainly it's not scientific. Would we call a white cat and a black cat two different species? Of course not. Any truisms you make regarding race have so many exceptions that when applied to a particular person, the whole idea of race is useless. It's a generality trap. But we are terribly hung up on it and it persists in our culture.

Every time a black actor plays a thug or an ignorant fool, some stereotypes about black people in general get reinforced among people who are receptive to it. But it doesn't seem to go the other way. Homer Simpson could easily be a negative racial stereotype, and maybe Mr. Burns too. I'd loathe being grouped with an drunken ignoramus like Homer or a mendacious skinflint like Burns, but somehow extrapolation of the stereotype doesn't happen with them. They stand for only themselves, not Whites as a whole. A whole what though? White comes in lots of shades. And what does "Black" mean in America anyway? The races in this country are a lot more mixed than people think. Just ask the Jefferson/Hemmings clan in Virginia. Even Malcolm X was at least one quarter white. Who knows what White or Black is? Who cares about stereotypes? Remember that Beauty and Stupidity both come in all colors. Just let people be people on their own merits.

Actually we've made a fair amount of progress on that during the 20th Century. At least racism isn't OFFICIALLY sanctioned anymore. And there have been lots of individual efforts that have chipped away at racist attitudes. Maybe it's time to recognize some of the people who made great strides for equality.

Welcome to the Twentieth Century Awards! (Glitzy brass fanfare, the camera dollies past rows of formally-dressed famous people clapping and smiling. Cut to a toothy, clean-cut MC flanked by incredible babes.)

MC: And now, for the man and woman who did more for racial and ethnic harmony than anyone else in the last 50 years by presenting positive stereotypes in the media--the envelope, please--this is sooo exciting---

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz!

(Wild clapping from a few in the audience, rapidly fading into a dumbstruck silence. Cut to a closeup of Jesse Jackson retrieving his jaw from the floor.)

Yes, that's right. A righteous All-American honey, paraded across American prime time TV year after year with her Cubano husband, and ethnically NO ONE CARED ABOUT IT. Fred & Ethel came over just like they would've to anyone else. America embraced them both for what they were, an incredibly funny team. Moreover, the team was fronted by a woman! (Gasp!) It's little things like that that help fight negative stereotypes.

There are plenty of others I could have mentioned, like Gene Roddenberry for Star Trek, which had the mixed crew and the first interracial kiss on TV and certainly The Cosby Show, but Lucy and Desi cleared the path for them. In a way, their subtle, almost subliminal contribution was almost as important as the bigger civil rights fight waged by Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, X and thousands of others. They helped people accept ethnic differences, especially in kids like me who grew up watching the show.

Maybe that's one reason why I didn't think too much about going from Ohio to the University of Hawaii, where I instantly became a "haole," a minority. But then again there wasn't a majority there either. In Hawaii people are aware of ethnicity but they don't make a big deal of it. Interracial families are everywhere and lots of people are five or six ethnicities rolled into one. I was comfortable with that. It mattered a lot to some in my family back in Ohio though. Before I left I remember my grandmother taking me aside and telling me very seriously, "The Hawaiian girls are beautiful, but DON'T MARRY ANY OF THEM." Well, Nana, I didn't. My wife's from Tokyo; I only met her in Hawaii.

This year there will be the census and I don't know what our hapa-haole kids should put under "race" on the forms. Maybe everyone should check "other" and gum up the government's figures on race, because it really doesn't mean a whole lot. We're all minorities of one and yet we're an awful lot like each other, like Lucy and Desi proved. Nobody wants racial labels tying us down; we all really want to be "Strictly Genteel," as Frank Zappa put it, to have a good life free of that grinding poverty that drives people to desperate boat trips. One day I hope race and ethnicity will cease to be used as a yardstick. Something we double-ought to work on, don't you think?

Right now I think I double-ought to get back into the Closet before February evaporates. After all, I've got a run for the Presidency to prepare for. But that's a future column. Thanks for reading and until next month, the Closet is closed.


(C) 2000 Rusty Pipes

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OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: The opinions of Rusty Pipes are not necessarily the opinions of the editors and publisher of Cosmik Debris Magazine. Indeed, some of us aren't even remotely capable of H.D. Thoreau-like thoughts no matter how isolated we get. Some of us, in fact... what? That was LAST month's column? Oh, well then... OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: We deny everything. Thank you and Dog bless.