Discrimination

 

So, I’ve decided that, from this moment on, I’m going to discriminate against people with blue eyes. I don’t care what color your skin is, if you’ve got blue eyes, you’re getting the cold shoulder from me. Drink from your own water fountain, use your own toilets, and whatever you do, don’t eat at the same table as me. From time to time, I might allow one or two of you to be near me, if you’ve got something I want, but as soon as I’ve got what I’m after, it’s straight to the back of the bus with you, so don’t get all offended when I suddenly get up and point. You knew what time it was before you sat down with me. And as far as “why” I’ve chosen to discriminate against people with blue eyes, the real question is “why not?” The way I look at it, I live in a society that’s chosen to discriminate against people based on the color of their skin, and those people had just as much to say about the color of their skin as you do over the color of your eyes. Was it right? Of course not, yet here we are, hundreds of years later, and we’re not only continuing to discriminate based on the color of people’s skin, we’re doing it live. People are running around with their little cell phones, capturing every racist moment, especially when it’s committed by one of the boys in blue, and nothing is being done about it, implying that we’re doing nothing more than paying lip service to our claims that racism is wrong. So, I figure, why not discriminate on something else, like the color of someone’s eyes?

Wait a second, my associate just informed me that my eyes are, in fact, blue. Having been in prison for so long, and not having access to a proper mirror, I kind of forgot about that little fact. Did I say “blue” eyes? I meant to say “green” eyes. Yeah, that’s it. We’ll all discriminate against people with green eyes, or better yet, maybe we could discriminate against people who no doubt deserve our contempt, people like the politicians who were elected to represent us, and who somehow can’t seem to be able to do the simplest of tasks, like passing a stimulus bill that actually helps their constituents in a way that makes a difference in our lives. Instead of expressing our hatred to them, however, we choose instead to express it to each other, for reasons far more frivolous. Why? Our politicians have a choice over how poorly they choose to represent us, but your neighbor had no more choice in the color of his skin then you did over the color of your eyes, so why have you chosen to hate someone whose presence has no impact over your life, someone who didn’t even know you existed until you started hurling racial epitaphs his way. Your elected official, on the other hand, goes out of his way to bend you over and give you a royal screwing, and doesn’t even have the decency to offer you a reach-around. Maybe, instead of being mad at someone based on the color of their skin, you can instead choose to be upset over someone who’s actually hurt you. Or we could just all hate each other because of the color of our eyes.

Shawn L. Perrot

826 4th St.

Eureka, CA 95501