People Aren’t Racists, They’re Assholes

If I was black, I’m pretty sure I would think a huge section of our society was racist. If I was flamboyantly gay, I’m pretty sure I would think a huge section of our society was homophobic. If I was Indian or Chinese or South American, I’m pretty sure I would think a huge section of our society was xenophobic. But I don’t think a huge section of our society is any of those things. Instead, a large section of society are assholes, and all of our society is self absorbed.

Looking essentially like a white male, when the guy behind the counter gives me a dirty look for no reason, or the 30 people working in the Apple store seem to systematically ignore my presence, or the hostess tells me she can’t seat me even though I can see the restaurant is empty, or I can’t seem to catch a cab to save my life, I don’t have the opportunity to label people’s actions as racist or homophobic or xenophobic or anything else. But the things I most often hear characterized as examples of persistent, daily racism or homophobia or xenophobia or whatever-ism/bia, are really just people being self-absorbed, incompetent, or at worst, assholes.

It’s important to realize that people spend the vast majority of their time thinking about themselves. How to feed/clothe/shelter themselves, their wants and dreams, their desires, their failures and shortcomings, and their ideas and plans and possibilities take up the majority of that time. How to interact with those around them, what those people think about them, what those people are saying about them, how their relationships affect their lives, and why they’re pissed at their wife or girlfriend or boss or kids takes up almost all the rest of their thought process. The tiny percentage left over, maybe 5 or 10 percent, can be allocated to empathizing with other people, to putting yourself in their position and thinking about their wants and dreams and desires and hardships. But remember, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other individuals any given person cares deeply about. There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of people any given person comes into contact with on a daily basis. The amount of empathy the average person has to dole out to a stranger is tiny.

This is why it’s silly to take things personally. If someone’s a dick to you, it almost certainly has nothing to do with you. If someone ignores you it’s almost certainly not because they hate your kind. He’s just having a bad day, or a bad minute. His boss just yelled at him, or his girlfriend just broke up with him, and all he cares about at that moment is himself. Or he’s an asshole. In either case, it has nothing to do with you. This is also why it’s silly to get embarrassed. People simply don’t have the mental capacity to process and remember your flaws and mistakes because they’re too busy worrying about themselves.

Obviously racism and homophobia and xenophobia and a slew of other ridiculous mindsets still exist in the United States, and people still do horrific things in service of these retarded ideas. The point here is to recognize that the daily indignities that all of us suffer are not the result of an association with some victimized class, unless you consider humanity such a class. We do a disservice to the victims of actual racism/homophobia/etc. when we paint so many of our daily indignities with those brushes. We do a disservice to ourselves by reinforcing this victim mentality.