TRIGGER WARNING! Because we have to do this now. This is not a funny post. This is a rant! Probably going to be the biggest rant I have ever done. It is going to involve comments on race and alternative lifestyles. I usually shy away from subjects such as these, but I have sat by and held my tongue far too long. I will probably lose some of the little followers I have, but the time has come to speak up. If this sounds like it is going to be too much to handle, please find the nearest safe space.

I am the most evil thing to walk the face of the planet. A white, heterosexual, conservative leaning male. At least that’s what a good portion of the population, especially the Twitterverse and the woke would have you believe. One look at me and those people’s mind are made up that I am a privileged, Trump worshipping, homophobic racist without ever speaking one word to me. So, I bet it would surprise some people to know that I 100% support gay rights and marriage. You love who you love. That’s not a choice, it’s who you are. My son came out of the closet in his early 20’s and was deathly afraid of how I would react. I hugged him and told him I loved him and fully supported him, not that he needed my approval. Two of our best friends are a married male couple. We didn’t not like them because they were gay and we didn’t strive to like them because they are gay. We have common interests (mostly golden retrievers) and we became friends because of it. The fact that they are gay hardly ever even comes up. I’ve written two books with gay characters in them but I didn’t dwell on the fact that they were gay. It just happened to fit the narrative I was telling.

I already said I lean to the conservative side of things so I must be a Trump supporter, right? Wrong. I can’t stand Trump. I think he is an egomaniacal joke. I didn’t vote for him either time. I also didn’t vote for Hillary or Biden. I’m one of the minority of people in this country that believes it doesn’t have to be far right or far left. There is a place in the middle if only people would look for it. I believe in looking at a single issue and having an opinion on it regardless of party lines. That being said, I am also not obsessed with Trump like so many others, pro and con. I just dismiss him and go about my day.

Now, let’s get down to the meat of this post. I was raised in a religious environment, and while I don’t subscribe to organized religion these days, I do believe I learned some good morals from it. One of those was that everyone should be treated equal until they give you a reason not to be. In a perfect world that would be the case. We are never going to live in a perfect world but we should always be striving toward that goal. There was an incident recently on, of all things, a reality show, that set me off on this rant. I’m not a rabid reality show watcher but there are three that I like. One of those is Big Brother. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a show where several guests are sequestered in a house over the summer. They have competitions and must vote one person out of the house each week. Alliances usually form inside the house among people to strengthen their chances of making it to the end to win the big money prize (used to be $500,000 but they bumped it up to $750,000 for the last two seasons). It’s a guilty pleasure that both my wife and I enjoy. We both pick a guest after they are introduced in the first episode of each season to be “our person” and root for, seeing whose will last the longest.

Last season, I picked a guy based on his bio information and after seeing him for the first part of the premier episode. Very soon in the series an alliance formed called The Cookout and it happened to be made up of every black person in the house, which my guy was. They dominated the game and was probably the best alliance in this history of Big Brother. My guy made it down to the final three before he was evicted. With that being said, I did have some reservations about the way the game was played. We’ll get back to that later.

Fast forward to the current season of Big Brother. I selected a guy named Kyle. He is a young white male who comes across as a little naïve. He was a Mormon but split from that lifestyle even though he still lives with his mother. Anyway, Kyle was seen on camera discussing some theories with a couple other housemates. He brought up the fact that there might be another secret alliance this season that was modeled after The Cookout and that they might want to think about forming an alternate alliance. The people he suggested happen to be all white. After discussions with his two housemates they decided against it because they were already in an alliance with several of the black people in the house and things were going well with no signs of a secret alliance. The whole thing was forgotten.

Several weeks later, circumstances caused Kyle and the aforementioned two housemates to realign with opposite alliances, each one made of both white and black people. In order to strengthen their position, the two housemates that Kyle had that discussion with decided to tell the whole house what Kyle had said and paint him as a racist. Immediately, the whole house turned on him. People that had been Kyle’s best buddies turned their back on him. All the white people were so afraid of being labeled a racist that they stood up and condemned him without ever even hearing his side of the story. The worst betrayal in my opinion, was a girl that he had developed a romantic relationship with, called a showmance in the reality show world. Kyle kept this girl safe from eviction, often to the detriment of his own game, time and time again. So, when her man was accused of being a racist, what did she do? Stand by him? Oh no, you see she is white and deathly afraid of being labeled a racist herself. She flat out stated to Kyle that she could no longer be in a relationship with him and dropped him like a hot potato.

Kyle, now utterly alone and hurting did what so many people labeled racist these days did. Instead of defending himself, he fell on his sword and admitted that he was a horrible person who should have never uttered those vile words and begged for forgiveness. Did he get forgiveness? Oh, there was some lip service to that but it didn’t stop the house from unanimously voting him out and forever labeling him a racist in the eyes of America. My question to you is what did Kyle do that he would even have to beg for forgiveness? Before we answer that question, let’s jump back to the previous season.

Like I said before, The Cookout was the strongest alliance in the history of Big Brother and my “guy” was in it, which helped me beat my wife out that season. However, there were things about The Cookout that rubbed me the wrong way. Your admittance into that alliance was based solely on the condition that you were at least partially black. They even set one prospective alliance member down and asked her point blank about her ancestry because her skin was light complexion. After assuring them she had a black parent, they let her in the alliance. Another sketchy thing was that each alliance member in The Cookout were told by the ring leader to befriend one white person and pretend to be their best friend and act like they were going to the end with them. In the case that one of The Cookout members got in trouble and found themselves on the chopping block, they would most likely be there with their pretend white friend that they called shields. This person could be sacrificed to save The Cookout member. For game play, it was a brilliant strategy. Socially, I am not so sure. Could you imagine the outcry we would hear if there was an all white alliance that used black people as shields?

So, again, what exactly did Kyle do wrong? He dared to question whether there might be a Cookout style alliance in the house that might threaten his game and make a suggestion that an alliance be formed to combat it. That’s what the game is about. Now, because the race card has been played, it transcends the game. This guy will before known at that “racist guy” from Big Brother and the stigma will follow him around forever. Was racism a big problem in this country? Hell yeah! Is there still racism in this country? There is for sure. Is it better than it was? I tend to think it is. Is there still work to be done? You betcha! Does that mean people who have been discriminated against before have the right to be racist back? No. There lies the crux of the whole issue as far as I’m concerned. Below is the Merriam-Webster definition of racism.

1: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

2: the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

To me that is pretty simple. In laymen’s term, racism is when one race (any race) oppresses another in believe that their race is superior. Bringing it back to the Big Brother scenario, it is OK to have an all black alliance but not an all white alliance? Black people were horrifically oppressed in the past and still are to an extent. But is that justification for racism toward white people? That sounds more like payback, not equality, which I think we should all be striving to obtain. If it were up to me, the words black and white wouldn’t even be a factor. Treat anyone on an equal basis until they give you a reason by their actions not to do so. I don’t care about the skin color of a thief that breaks into my house. He is going to get treated like a thief regardless. I don’t care about the skin color of the tennis player in the Wimbledon Championship. I will be rooting for whoever represents our country.

Kyle’s life is almost certainly ruined now because he was convinced that even if he wasn’t an out and out racist, he certainly had an unconscious bias. I don’t get this term. Are you telling me even though I strive not to be a racist with my actions that I am unconsciously racist anyway? That’s BS to me. You are what your actions make you. And how come only white people have this unconscious bias? Seems to me if this was a real thing, which I don’t believe it is, any race could have it.

In the end I just think the world would be a better place if we treated each other like we want to be treated. I think that is called the Golden Rule and it is probably a fantasy, but it should be quested after nonetheless. OK, I have said my peace and I know there will be people that won’t agree with me and will think I am a racist. I don’t care. I know who I am. I’m not a perfect person but I strive to be a better one. I would hope that others do the same.

P.S. I wrote this a week ago and was afraid to post it. The social stigma of being labeled a racist for speaking truth still effects me.

P.P.S I’ve decided to back up my words with action. I believe (no proof) that CBS producers pushed this narrative because they didn’t get their “cookout” alliance this season. I’ll no longer be watching Big Brother.

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