Pulling Out the Race Card

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm pretty easy going when it comes to race. I am of Chinese descent but I make fun of my own people, other Asian people and heck, just about everyone else. I like to think that I am an equal-opportunity offender. I have some friends that joke about Chinese people or Asian people (lumping the races as a whole) and I laugh with them. And I have other friends that try to make comments in a delicate way but can't help but possibly offend - which I'm usually not offended by. I think a lot has to do with the fact that I don't really relate to Chinese people - I was born in New Jersey - I am an American. However, if I am personally threatened by something or someone due to my race, then I will speak up and defend myself - but that has rarely happened.

I can't think of one incident where I needed to pull out my race card. For those of you that may not be familiar with the race card, it can work two ways - as an offensive maneuver, pulling out the race card usually means that you're giving yourself an advantage (most times unfair) in order to make the outcome more beneficial to you; as a defensive maneuver, a person can pull out a race card if they have been accused of something unsavory (this will hopefully get you out of any trouble that you're in).

Most recently, Naomi Campbell was all over the news due to her unruly behavior in London's Heathrow -Terminal 5. Not only was there a disturbance on her flight, she supposedly became irate when one of her bags came up missing. Hello? Has she not been reading the news and all the baggage troubles that have been going on with Terminal 5?
Sidebar: My Dad actually just went through Terminal 5 on his way to Greece and he said the design is so flawed - it's more like a mall than a terminal. I'm thinking, 'Why mess with a good thing? Duty Free World in the United terminal was good enough for me!'
Okay - so she's a model - she's not supposed to read and know current events. But when she became unruly on her flight and she found out that her baggage was lost, the biatch went ballistic! She yelled, spat, maybe even flipped the bird - and eventually, she was hauled off to jail. (good call!) But then in her defense, she said that authorities singled her out because of her race. Sorry, Naomi - I think you've used that line before. AND your history of tirades and violence kind of makes us side with "good."

The race card is not something to be taken or used lightly. If you keep pulling it out, then you're eventually going to be like the boy who cried wolf. In this case, because I want to say that she has used the race card in the past, she is no better than that boy. I don't doubt that she has faced racial discourse in the past, but when she is the one that is doing the disrupting, yelling, spitting and serving up racial slurs, then I think it's time to pack it in, go with the police (with your tail between your legs) and shut the hell up!

And while we're talking about Naomi anyway, what the heck is up with her Gatorade (G2) commercial? Who was the genius that thought having her dance 'Thriller' with lizards/geckos would be cool? I certainly don't think it's cool - she wasn't even in that Michael Jackson video - she was in another one with him - so I don't get it. If the marketing people wanted to go with a model, there are a TON of other non-violent models out there that would've given off the same effect (WTF) or they could've paid those Filipino prisoners to do their 'Thriller' dance in the jail yard and had them cap it off with a nice refreshing G2.