Racism Vs. Sexism

Are you racist or sexist?

In the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I’m choosing sides. It’s a pretty simple decision, because I am not racist, but I am sexist.

I swear, I am not a racist. I have some black friends and some Latino friends. I even have one friend who’s such a conglomeration of races he’s like a mixtape of samples for P. Diddy. You might describe his skin tone as “sunset orange.” I suppose I don’t have any real Asian friends, but I’ll let you decide. My friends and I hung out with an Asian exchange student, and here’s an example of how one of our conversations might have gone:

Me: Hey, Chuck, are you really happy or really mad or what?

My Buddy Greg: Hey, Chuck, you look like you’re trying to take a shit!

My Buddy Rick: Hey, Chuck, I enjoyed your sister last night!

Chuck: (Smiling broadly) Thank you, thank you! I no understand.

Okay, that sounds pretty racist. But it was really something that could be contributed more to simple adolescent cruelty than out and out racism, not much different than how we referred to our buddy Dexter as “Dumpster” because of his incessant body odor. Besides, it’s not really racist unless you heard if first from your dad, who heard it from your granddad, who heard if from Robert E. Lee. Well, that’s probably not true, but you get the point. I’m not racist, but maybe I’ve shown a history of racially charged rhetoric.

Vinny Testaverde

The problem with race is that no matter how you approach the subject, there will be disagreements. It’s like boarding an airplane for a trans-Atlantic flight and discovering that John Denver and JFK Jr. are your flight crew. Something’s bound to go wrong. That’s why it’s so surprising that the Clinton campaign has decided to start talking about the race issue. This move is akin to bringing Vinny Testaverde out of retirement to quarterback your football team. It might have worked a few years ago, but the game has passed him by. So why take the chance?

Hillary is the most viable female presidential candidate in the history of our country. Do you think she isn’t furious about Barack Obama, the most viable black candidate in the history of our country, choosing to run in this election? You think she hasn’t been itching to play the race card since last summer, knowing that a significant portion of the population still secretly harbors racial bias? If she’s smart, though, she’ll let the issue die quietly. Obama may be black (much like, say, Halle Berry), but Hillary is a woman, and you’re much more likely to find sexism amongst voters than racism. Put it to the test. Take a picture of Obama, show it to someone, and ask for the first African-American celebrity that comes to mind. Smart money would go on the answer being Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman. Now do the same experiment with a picture of Hillary Clinton. Care to wager whether the first female celebrity that comes to mind would be Britney Spears? Would you rather have a president that evokes images of Denzel or Britney?

But back to my opening statement that I am not a racist, which I stand by. It would be much closer to the truth to describe me as sexist than racist, and I am not ashamed to admit as much, since I already have a girlfriend who knows this and isn’t too bothered by it. The reason I brought up Hillary Clinton is to illustrate why sexism is the lesser evil of the two -isms. This has nothing to do with the fact that women are prone to emotional outbursts like crying and, well, crying. I’m sure Bill Clinton cried, or pretended to cry, when he finally admitted certain things about the whole Lewinsky deal, and President Bush probably cried at the end of Bambi. What bothers me about Hillary is that she wears makeup. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the average woman spending time applying her “face,” but do we really need the leader of the free world taking an hour each morning doing this?

Here’s the point: the office of the president requires a 24 hour a day commitment. Minus five hours of sleep a night and another two hours for showers, toilet breaks, brushing, flossing, etc., and that leaves the average male president with about 17 hours a day for good, solid work, assuming all meals are working type affairs. But for Hillary we have to subtract an additional hour for hair and makeup, not to mention the extra shaving, which leaves her with only 16 hours of work each day. It may not sound like much, but for the average 40 hour a week worker, all those missed working hours adds up to about nine weeks of vacation a year. She might as well become a talk-show host, or President Bush.

In the end, it probably won’t matter. If Hillary is elected, she will probably hire her own tax payer supported hair and makeup crew and conduct business during her morning applications. I’m probably making something out of nothing. I just hope she doesn’t end up wasting any precious time driving slowly past a darkened house in a seedy neighborhood at three in the morning trying to catch Bill doing cigar tricks.