I can’t do it anymore. I can’t watch this trend and remain silent. I have to speak up. I’m done. I don’t understand and can’t understand why we still have to be so careful and so conscious of race at all times.

And when I say ‘we,’ yes, I mean white people.

Now, if hearing that has gotten you upset, then you know how I feel as a Caucasian male. Other cultures and ethnicities constantly group themselves together to empower themselves and celebrate their culture.

Why should I not be allowed to be proud of my heritage, too? I don’t have a Confederate flag. I don’t draw swastikas on my notebooks. I don’t wear my sheets out around town on the weekends. Hell, I even voted for Obama.

I’m not a racist or a bigot. I’m just tired of the double standards. I’m fed up with watching as my country continues to force artificial equality down everyone’s throats. I’m tired of political correctness. It’s all garbage, and I think that it distances and divides us more than petty derogatory terms. In trying to force equality we are building more walls than we could ever tear down.

A prime example is affirmative action. While a quick and convenient fix for the decade of its introduction, the concept as it works now is flawed at its core. It aims to eliminate racial bias in selection criteria, and yet it creates a system based not on merit but solely on race.

I recall an incident in 2004 where the president of the College Republican sect at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island devised a scholarship for whites only in order to prove how silly the whole system is.

Students were required to submit ‘proof of whiteness,’ a short essay on why they were proud of their white heritage and a list of accomplishments.

The funny thing is that the organization’s president and scholarship sponsor, Jason Mattera, was actually of Puerto Rican descent and on a $5,000 scholarship from the Hispanic College Fund — a scholarship that Mattera felt gave him ‘an inherent advantage over [his] white peers,’ according to the CNN.com story.

Of course, there was a national uproar at how insensitive this was, despite the existence of scholarships (such as the one provided by Mattera’s own sponsor, the Hispanic College Fund) for practically every other racial and ethnic group in the country.

Are we really ‘leveling the playing field,’ or is it all artificial? If what we’re pushing for is equality, then why do we need these leg-up programs for everyone else? Mattera, a scholarship recipient himself, pointed out the inherent hypocrisy of such an idea, and he’s right: there’s really nothing fair about creating a ‘fair’ playing field based solely on race.

An even better example is the current controversy surrounding the ‘racist’ cartoon in the New York Post. The cartoon depicted a monkey being shot by police with the comment, ‘They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.’ The cartoon was referencing an event in Connecticut where a chimp mauled a woman and was subsequently shot by police, yet certain groups instantly drew the conclusion that this was a racist cartoon.

Leading the charge is the ever-timely Al Sharpton who, along with a host of other racial organizations, maintains that the cartoon is, in fact, aimed at Obama. These people say the ‘toon implies that he is the monkey, a once common racial slur for black people. These folks are encouraging people to rally and boycott the paper and discouraging the paper being sold in their neighborhoods.

That is ludicrous. For people like Sharpton, Jackson and the rest of their ilk who insist on looking at everything through a racist viewpoint, the cartoon will, of course, appear racist. Why does the idea of the ethnic slur ‘monkey’ have to be the first thing to jump to their minds, and why must it mean Obama instantly?

These fools exemplify the very barrier-creators I talked about earlier, and insist on crying ‘foul’ and keeping racial issues brimming so they can maintain their publicity. How can they even have any credibility left as ‘progressive’ racial leaders? For crying out loud, Jesse Jackson himself once referred to New York City as ‘himey town,’ using a slur for Jews!

Way to set an example, Jesse.

I applaud those in the Post that took a stand and called these ‘leaders’ out for what they really are: publicity opportunists. Cheers to those who held their ground! We cannot continue acknowledging and caving to every single ‘racist’ accusation, especially unwarranted and ridiculous ones from attention mongers like Sharpton and Jackson.

I know it’s impossible to erase hundreds of years of mistreatment and abuse, but it becomes especially difficult to leave it behind and build new appreciation for other cultures when I keep having the misdeeds of my ancestors and earlier generations flung in my face while anything I say could be interpreted as racist.

Sadly, there will still probably be many who will call me a racist for writing this article or twist my words to make me sound like some kind of Klan-crazy fascist.

Grow up, America.

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