I was talking to Kevin Jackson on the phone trying to convince him to do a show on my internet talk radio station. Kevin had pretty much agreed to do the show, and we were talking for maybe another half hour about various conservative issues. I was telling him how tired I was of being labeled racist by the liberals.

If you don’t know who Kevin Jackson is, he’s a very active young black conservative blogger, author and speaker. And he’s a really nice guy. I asked him how I, a white guy, could respond when someone started throwing around the word “racist”. Kevin asked me how I would respond if someone called me a child molester and I said, “I’d probably tell them to screw off”. He said that was my answer.

Politically, I lean more towards the conservative libertarian end of the spectrum. During and after the 2008 Presidential election, a liberal calling a conservative a racist was a pretty common thing. I guess a lot of liberals figured that not voting for the black candidate could only be a symptom of racism. So pretty much any criticism was instantly labeled as racism.

There was a time in this country, a very long time, when blacks were horribly mistreated. There was slavery, segregation and prejudice. When I was a kid I didn’t really know any black people, but the black students from the college who came to my church sometimes seemed really nice. The teachers aide we had in elementary school one year was really nice too. I didn’t see why they were any different than me.

So I knew about the concept of racism, but it didn’t really make much sense. I sure didn’t understand it.

Then after high school I joined the Army. It was the first time I was really around black people my own age.

In basic training almost every minute of our day was accounted for, and we didn’t really have time to get to know the other guys very well. After basic training, I went to Ft. Lee for more training and we had quite a bit of free time, which meant friendships and cliques started to form.

What I learned at Ft. Lee, other than the official Army stuff, is that most people, regardless of their skin color, are good and decent people. I also learned that some people, regardless of their skin color, are racist assholes.

One day I was coming into the barracks and a group four or five black guys decided I needed to be harassed. I don’t remember exactly what they said, but they didn’t seem to like me or my “white ass”. I was just a dumbass kid from a Missouri farm town and I didn’t know why hell they were bothering me. I hadn’t said anything to them or done anything to them.

A couple of days before we were all leaving Ft. Lee, those same guys kicked the shit out of my white ass. Showing great bravery, they threw a blanket over my head while I was sleeping and pummeled me with boots. That was my first and worst, but not only, experience with racism.

What those guys did to me was racially motivated violence plain and simple, and I hated them. Not for being black, just for being evil pricks. As much as that experience sucked, it also gave me firsthand knowledge of what racism really is.

It clearly could have been worse

Another time, while I was stationed in Hawaii, there was a black kid named Jones who worked in the warehouse where I sometimes worked. He was one of those guys who listened to N.W.A. all the time and really bought into the black anger thing. One evening when he and I were alone in the barracks laundry room he decided he should take a swing at me. I guess he thought I was an easy target or something. I’d never had a problem with him before that and I didn’t want to fight him, but I still kicked his ass.

During my time in the Army, I was friends with anyone who was wasn’t a jerk and that was pretty much everyone. To hate someone because of their skin color is just stupid regardless of what color you are. If I’d done that throughout my life I would have missed out on some truly great friendships.

I’ve been on the receiving end of racism enough times to know that it sucks and I don’t want any part of it. That’s why I used to get so irritated when liberals would say that conservatives were racist.

I don’t get mad any more, I just tell them to screw off. And then I stop listening to them because they’re idiots.

Thanks for that, Kevin.

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