Commercialist: I'm not a racist - in fact, some of my best friends are something-American (February 15, 2009)

Associating this with Commercialist might seem like a stretch, but whenever you hear those twelve words, someone is about to try to sell you on an idea regarding a particular racial origin, and wants to preface it by saying that they have no personal bias against the group (excepting whatever it is they're annoyed by that they feel the need to preface with a statement of their bona fides.)

I don't buy it. I get the concept of racial identity, and frankly, I believe that in many cases it's only truly embraced as a marketing gimmick. Again, just something to sell you on an idea. If a stereotype can be established, then you can market to people by playing off of the assumptions of that stereotype. For an example, let's look at the 'Geico Caveman'. The concept, presented over a series of commercials, is that cavemen are stupid, but that signing up for car insurance is easy even for them. Most of the actual marketing of the product takes the stance that Neanderthal-Americans take offense to this advertising tactic, in a variety of ways, seemingly failing to acknowledge that they themselves are playing into the marketing ploy.

In fact, most forms of personal identity seem to only be truly encouraged once someone has figured out how to turn a profit on them, and usually more for the sake of profit than equality. Commercials tell us what cultural stereotypes are acceptable. Marketing and advertising play off of our stereotypes to make their products seem more appealing. Television shows reinforce these stereotypes to maintain our focus on a particular mindset. If you don't believe me, check out a supermarket and see how many individual products are dedicated to cultural identity. We have beverages specifically designed for gamers based on their longstanding cultural tradition of consuming vast amounts of caffeine, after all.

Realistically, the human being has a tendency to make decisions based, in part, on appearances, including (but not limited to) apparent racial background. Nowhere is this more evident than when applying for a job. It's a given that in order to be considered, you have to dress a certain way, act a certain way, and conform to a particular predetermined ideal to be considered valid for consideration in practically any work environment. Once you're an employee, a strict level of conformity is maintained, whether by providing a uniform or simply proscribing what colors of pants and shirts you can wear. In some (rare) instances, you can convince a place of employment that your particular source of cultural identity (usually, relgiion) requires a certain style of dress, and thus receive an exemption, but in most cases your cultural identity is forbidden as much as possible.

Even I have my personal biases - I dislike stubborn, stupid people. Not necessarily the 'I really don't know better' sorts, though they can be stubbornly obnoxious, too, but the sort of people who want to have you excommunicated from their church because you don't agree with them personally on political matters. I'm talking about the sort of person who would earnestly argue for the entitlement of corporate executives and makes a living as a stocker at Wal-Mart. I'm referring to the sort of person who believes that the simplest way to find North is to hold a random pedestrian at gunpoint, pick a random direction, and order them to start walking in that direction until they find Santa's workshop. Somehow, I don't think anyone would think it more acceptable if I said, 'well, some of my best friends are Idiotic-Americans...' before complaining.

Anyhow, back to the point. Racism is an emotionally-charged topic, and one that isn't likely to disappear anytime soon - but seriously, can we stop trying to justify it with 'some of my best friends are...'? It doesn't change whether or nor you are a racist, and for that matter, 'some of my best friends are something-American' throws in a splash of jingoism for flavor. If you really want to focus on a cultural stereotype, then by all means, go ahead, but stop trying to add preconditions to your argument.

(And while we're on the subject, 'bless their heart' or 'God bless them' does not make a series of venomous invectives less poisonous. "I think she ought to kill herself and relieve her family of the burden of inviting her to these occasions, bless her heart" is still not a nice thing to say, and no matter how many times you call upon a deity to bless (or damn) something, it doesn't improve the overall intent.)

Alright, I think that's quite enough rambling.