Sometimes I hesitate to write about something because I don’t want to incite a comment war on here. Then I realized I hardly ever have comments anyway and there’s probably about 5 people who read this. Therefore, let’s talk about race (not the running kind).

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a white chick. I grew up in Detroit (and I mean Detroit, not Bloomfield Hills– I saw my first coke deal at age 7), so I have a little bit of street cred. I feel like I have a pretty decent handle on a lot of aspects of black culture (except for Tyler Perry movies. I will never understand them). I have been told by many of my black friends that I’m the blackest white girl they know, and I think that’s only minimally based on my redonkulous booty. I’m not going to ever say I know what it’s like to be black. There is something about living experiences for yourself that you can’t replicate. I am a chick, so I do get to have some experience with sexism, but still.

I think the most disturbing thing about racism is that there are still people who don’t think it exists. When I joke that I can drive faster and more erratically than a black man, there is truth in the jest. It’s disturbing how much racism is underlying some people’s criticism of the President. I won’t name names or groups, but there seems to be an attempt to paint the President as an angry black man- someone to fear. Underlying the declarations of socialism is some subliminal fear that slavery is going to come back to bite us in the butt and the President is going to orchestrate it. People refuse to believe that he can hold loyalty to the American people, regardless of their race, sex, or socio-economic status. People try to create anger that isn’t there. They try to create ulterior motives that aren’t there.

Racism is alive and well in America, and it’s even more dangerous because it’s simmering under the surface. When it’s overt, you have to address it. As it stands, it is easy to ignore. Guerilla tactics tend to be the most effective, and the men who create wars know that.