Sensitivity #FAIL!

Do I look racist to you?

There's little question whether racism exists today.  Most people would have to admit that it does.  But the real argument is how much has it improved in the past few decades.  If anyone said that racism is worse now than it has ever been, I think it would immediately invalidate their opinion for pure ignorance on the issue at hand.

Unfortunately, racism is not an issue that can be resolved overnight; nor is it found every time the proverbial boy cries wolf.  Personally, I think the bigger issue today is racial sensitivity (at least in terms of "more widespread," not bigger as in more destructive).  In my opinion one of the problems is that not many people think about racial sensitivity as a concept.  Often people are so defensive against racism that they cannot see the insensitivity.

I identified this issue a few years ago when I argued with an online blogger about his proclamation about something "nobody outside of India" wanted to see.  I argued that I did want to see the situation develop "so spare me your racial comments," and he went off.  His argument was that it wasn't racist because if you replace "Germany" with "India," then it isn't offensive to Germans.  Except that comparison was invalid because the population of India is predominantly a difference race.  He also said that he was "being sarcastic," which was endlessly amusing to me because the offending statement did not embody sarcasm in any fashion.  I stopped writing on his blog for a while and when I resumed, I renamed myself Mr. Sarcasm (but never used any sarcasm) as an oblique jab at him.  Unfortunately, I was unable to articulate myself well enough to leverage the term "racial sensitivity" as a concept, but I doubt he would've agreed anyway.

Say what it is. What can go wrong?

Last year, I encountered a racial sensitivity fail so outrageous that I actually paid money to avoid it becoming a customer service issue at work (now I turn around and display it online).  There was a plush doll of a monkey being sold with outrageously large kissy lips for Valentine's Day.  While I initially wanted to dismiss it as an unfortunate coincidence, the price tag describing the product changed my mind.  It was a brown monkey with a pink belly and hands.  For reasons that can only be questioned, the tag named the product "Black."  When we rang it up, it was in our system under VAL PLSH BIG LIPS MONKY.

Brown + pink = black?

For the sake of universal harmony, you can argue that it was not designed with any intended racial implications.  That's the problem!  There are certain considerations that cannot be ignored to maintain racial sensitivity.  It may not have been a racist joke among workers when this product was created, priced, and shipped, but the fact that the overtones were not identified in itself was the issue.

The argument could be made that it was just merchandise sold exclusively for Valentine's Day.  To which I would ask, "Oh, you mean only during Black History Month?"