Why is it that some don't want to hear anything about race? Do those people who scream RACECARD really feel race has no place in any conversation? Or is it just that they wished it didn't?

I pretty much shrugged it off when I would hear the right wing haters using the dumbass phrase, one that really means "I don't know how to have discussions about race" or "I refuse to consider your experience because I haven't lived it and don't (want to) understand it!" But it is very dissapointing when you hear this nonsense from those you imagine are your allies. Now even some "left wing" bloggers have taken it up, as they see it as some sort of defense against Obama's progression toward the Presidency. I don't know whether to laugh or spit. Or both. What is it about the discussion of race that turns some people into idiots? Do these people think the phrase "Race Card" actually means anything? Have they sat down and thought it out? And do they feel proud for furthering moronic Right-Wing racist memes? Is opposing Obama really worth such a transformation on their own part?

Or—says the cynical commentator within—perhaps it is not much of a transformation at all.

Really, what is it exactly that has these people so agitated? That Obama mentioned his blackness? That he pretends this has implications in America? That he pretends there is a history that haunts our nation? Or that his words imply that there are parts of the human experience that may elude some? (Huge crime, coming from a non-white.)

Whatsamatta? Did Obama just stick his brown finger in the pool and fuck up your nice colorblind patina? Did he go and dispel the illusion of a man who would never talk about race? Shatter the dream that maybe he didn't even know he was black?

Guess what? Obama pulled nada. Obama was dealt the race card the day he was born. And that's that. You don't pull it another or any other day. If you are black or Asian or Latino or Indian or otherwise of The Brown™ and living in the USA, you were dealt that card on the day of your birth. (Or the day the dominant culture decides your "race" is less-than.) It's not a big hand that unfairly scoops the kitty. It's a hand, sadly, that you are taught to keep hidden. Some want you to play a game which pretends you were never dealt that hand. Which is why when you dare allude to it, some idiot—like a pod person snapping back their maw and bellowing to the rest of the clan—will undoubtedly scream RACECARRRRRD!!! in an attempt to make you hide it from the light of day. But this is not something you get to smack away because you don't know how to play.

Hey. It's okay to fear the Royal Flush. But don't be a Drunken Dealer and think you can beat it with a joker!

NOTE: this post references the use of the phrase "Race Card." It is not directed solely against those who don't support Obama, nor is it meant to draw a divide in experiences or alliance except where others' experience is ignored or dismissed by the use of this phrase. I have friends who are "white" and friends who do not support Obama, and that is fine. But I do not and will not keep friends who think bandying about a phrase like "Race Card" as a way of dismissing the black/brown/golden experience is a valid move. In this sense, the use of the phrase is, indeed, one "litmus test" as to whether or not I want to hear your thoughts on anything at all.