Next Time I'll Keep Quiet

Cliffs: This is why people warn you not to discuss politics.

I try to stay out of facebook fights. Honest, I do. I ignore the myriads of politically inflammatory updates, groups, notes, and links posted by my fellow Texans every week.

Go ahead. Post that video letting everyone know that you believe Obama is trying to cede U.S. sovereignty. Voice your cynical opinions about how he’s changing everything this country stands for. And then complain about how he has simultaneously changed nothing.

I won’t say a word. Promise.

But yesterday a childhood friend/classmate posted this:

When are they going to send in the COON HUNTING DOGS to take care of that problem in the white house?

(capitalization and lack of taken straight from the original post)

And that’s the kind of crap I can’t stand. When I called him on it by asking him if he was serious and telling him that his update made me want to vomit, he provided me with the following explanation:

The President should at least cover his heart for the national anthem because people have died for this country and he should show some respect. And he can’t go taking the words “under god” out of the pledge of allegiance because they’re in their for a reason. And everyone in this country should be able to worship how they want. Just because he has some middle eastern ties doesn’t mean we want him bringing that stuff into America. You got change all right, just the wrong kind.

Now this is some seriously ignorant s#!t, but if he would have posted this instead of the whole coon dog bit, I would have stayed in my quiet, and increasingly despondent, corner.

I love Texas, but it's taking a lot of internal reasoning on my part to keep me from following in my classmate's footsteps and making some nasty generalizations about some of the people there. I know that there are plenty of ignorant and racist Brazilians (every country has them), but at least I don’t speak the language well enough to enter into big political debates with them. And even if I did, I somehow have much lower expectations for new acquaintances than I do for (former) friends.

(I admit, I had to write out my classmate's response to my comment from memory. I tried to go back to his page to copy and paste the original, but discovered that he has since deleted me from his friends.)

I knew at the time that I shouldn't have started anything. And what have I changed? The number of friends on my page. I'm sure that's about it. Oh drama.