I am of mixed race. My grandmother is the color of coal. My other grandmother is brown. My grandfather was white. The races are so mixed, I have no clue what to call myself. I just say Hispanic to make it easy. The sight of a president that was mixed race did not fill me with joy, it just showed me that America is living up to its own standards. My confusion as to my own race makes me colorblind when it comes to dealing with people… I can’t be racist because I would end up hating myself somehow. Which makes questions about what is racist that much harder for me. For example, let’s say I wanted to make a point about Obama’s health care reform by comparing his health system to the practices of a witch doctor. So if I had to superimpose Obama’s face on any of these pictures below, which one would I choose?

Well, if you chose #3 then you are apparently a racist. On Sunday, St. Petersburg neurosurgeon David McKalip, who is also a founder of the anti-tax group Cut Taxes Now, forwarded an email containing this image with the words “Funny Stuff” to members of a Google listserv. Here’s the image:

Now people are saying that Dr. McKalip is a racist. In my opinion, it is pretty funny, then again I, as a “colored” person, am not so bothered by stereotypes. Neither is my “white guilt” on full blast (was that racist?).

So the question I pose is this: did the author have to choose a witch doctor that was not black or black-ish (might be aboriginal) in order to be politically correct? So, if my own face was superimposed, the author could not use the witch doctor #2, otherwise its racist? If this offends anyone I am sorry, but I never picked up the Malcolm X 3-D glasses that casts everything as a racist offense or not. Was it racist of me to talk about Malcolm X? How about we get a little less sensitive about the racism thing unless, of course, the “offense” is clearly and overtly racist. I don’t think this image was… then again, I could be wrong. Remember everyone, the Democratic primary included an African-American, a Hispanic, a woman, and a metrosexual (John Edwards who spends way too much time on his hair, not that there’s anything wrong with that, is this parentheses homophobic?). We elected the African-American by a large margin. It’s time we got a little less sensitive about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference.

-AG