With the presidential election coming up in eight months, there are bumper stickers on almost every car depicting whether they are democrat or republican. Some are about change, others are about focusing on the family (in other words, don’t let the gays get married). Being in the south, most of them have Romney or Gingrich (I’m waiting to see a Santorum one so I can rear-end them) printed in bold white ink on a blue and red background.
There is one bumper sticker that is making its rounds across the internet. It reads ‘Don’t Re-Nig in 2012’. At first I thought, that can’t mean what I think it means. There has to be some political term that I’m not familiar with because who would actually have that on their car? But then I remembered that this is America and, sadly, people are idiots.
That is disgusting. There is no other word I can think of to express how I feel. I don’t care if you think Obama is the worst president to ever exist. I don’t care if you are a republican and think democrats are the worst thing to ever happen to the world. It’s disrespectful and ignorant. End of story. The creator of the bumper sticker also claimed that it wasn’t meant to be racist. Then I wonder why she took it down once it started getting media attention?
This bumper sticker is just a part of my annoyance with how open people are becoming with their use of hateful words. I am an avid tumblr/facebook/twitter user and I can’t help but notice the ‘n’ word and the ‘f’ word (and I don’t mean f*ck) popping up more frequently. Did these words become acceptable when I wasn’t looking? Do people no longer take offense to them? Unlike some of my friends who toss those words around like it’s nothing, I never let those words leave my lips.
It is words like these that caused thirteen-year-old Asher Brown to shoot himself in the head. It is words like these that make an entire race of people feel discriminated against because of something as simple as skin color. It is words like these that make it impossible to have equality for everyone.
I know this isn’t going to change anything. When my friends read this, they will continue to say these words (which I wish they wouldn’t because they know it makes me mad), and the world will continue to go on being its discriminating self and people will still buy racist bumper stickers.
Whatever.