Archie Kobain

Funny, several people seemed to have had the same reaction to my money rant from last week.  At the begining they were thinking, “wow… he used to owe a huge pile of money and now he owes a lot less, he must be rolling in the dough”.  But then, as they read on to understand how, quite often, it cost a lot of money to make money, and then repaying your debts can absolutely kill you on taxes, instead of thinking that I was rolling in any kind of dough, they sent me sympathy cards…  Thank you very much.  😉

In either case, the sentiment was, “but if you ever do get paid-off to zero, then you’ll be rolling in the dough, right?”   Well…maybe.  You see my goal was never to roll in dough, my goal was to build a great company…and yes, it’s easier to do that if you have a lot of dough.  So getting to the “lots of dough” stage is important.  But the reality is that, if all our debts were paid to zero, I’d make sure that all of our people made more money.  So I’d still end up with less.  My goal has always been to have the best people, making the most money possible for the job that they do.  For example, if we hire a janitor, I want him to be the best janitor, and I want him to make more money than any other janitor around.  Keeping in mind that, with great pay comes great responsibility.  This isn’t charity or corporate socialism, each employee would be making top dollar, because we’d have the very best employees …and, theoretically, we could command a premium price for our services.  Yes, we’d be that good.  And then, maybe, we’d all be making so much money that we’d have to consider ourselves, “rolling in it”…but, again, not just me… everyone who got us here/there.

Anyway…enough about money.  This week, I’ve sent Barnsley to South Central Los Angeles to see if he could drum up a bottle of Ripple. Now, you can’t just say Ripple.  You need to pronounce it like Fred Sandford pronounced it…  Ripple!

I hope it’s a strong wine.  We’re going to need it.
Because this week, we’re gonna talk about…

Racism
One word, and I bet I already made some people nervous about whatever it is that I am going to say.  You know who you are.  Do you know why you’re nervous?  Because you are probably an overly politically correct Democrat who would prefer to not mention racism and hope it goes away.

Well, let me set my stage…  I have a problem with racist people, but  I also have a problem with political correctness.  You see, to me, whether or not you are a racist has less to do with what you say and do, and a lot more to do with what you believe and what you feel.  Anyone can adjust what they say, in order to be politically correct.  That doesn’t change what they actually believe and feel.  I could innundate you with examples, but I will try and limit it to just a few “annecdotes”.

In planning to discuss this topic, I first went on a search for an official definiton of racism.  Here’s what I came up with…   “Racism is the belief that inherent differences among human racial groups, justifies discrimination against one group or another.”

That’s perfect.  That definition agrees with me that it’s about belief.

But today, someone could easily be tagged as a racist, not by what they believe, but simply by what they might say, do, not do, or even find humorous.  No one is better at pointing this out than black comedians.  Black comedians tell a lot of black jokes.  The basis of their comedy is quite often a giant verbal yellow highlighter on the differences between races.  Their audiences laugh because a) it’s usually very funny; and b) it’s a black comedian telling the jokes.  And as Chris Rock (an excellent entertainer, performer, and one of my favorite comedians) has pointed out in the past, sometimes the white people need to look around and see if it’s OK for them to laugh.  By all rights, they and their jokes should be labelled as racist.  Yes/No?

Speaking of black comedians, I saw a guy not too long ago, who was very funny, and I must apolgize for not remembering his name but, at one point, he started talking about his parents and said, “my parents are old school, which means they are… uh… racist”.   This got a big laugh from his audience, including me, because we all know what that means.  This means that his parents grew up in a time before the intense need existed for everyone to be politically correct.  So, they say what they are thinking, instead of thinking one thing and saying another in order to avoid the possibility of being thought of as racist.

I know a thing or two about this.  By today’s standards, no one could be considered more racist than my father.  My father is an “old school” Cuban.  By today’s standards, the Cubans are a racist bunch.  They like to make fun of, just about everyone…  Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Jews, Arabs, Asians…  They really do not discrimate when it comes to making fun of others.

By the way, if you’re reading this and saying, “hey…  I’m Cuban.  I’m not that way.”   Then it’s because you are one of those rare, most likely Democrat, Cubans, who has been Americanized and you’ve adopted the era of political correctness.  But even then, you know exactly what I’m taking about.  Don’t you?

…but in spite of my dad’s lack of political correctness, is he’s a racist?  Not a chance.   Most of my dad’s closest friends, personally and in business, were black Americans.  I grew up in South Florida visiting neighborhoods who hadn’t seen a white guy, other than my dad, in years.  If you came to a party at my house, there were always a handful of black Americans who were like familiy to me.  I think I once asked my dad, “hey, <Archie’s dad>,  have you noticed that most of your friends are black?”  I honestly think that he’d never given it a second thought.  Instead he just looked around, possibly ackowledging that I was onto something, and he said, “all I know is that my friends are loyal, honest and trustworthy”.

But it’s not like he’s blind to race.  Believe me, it’s not unusual to go into any Cuban coffee shop in Miami with my dad and have him address a dark skinned woman behind the counter with, “Con permisso, Negra…”, …which means, “Excuse me, black woman”.   …but he’s not being racist.  I think, he thinks he’s being complementary.  He’s saying, I looked at you close enough to notice that you’re dark skinned.  I think, in his mind, he’s flirting with her, and doesn’t see a difference between saying that or saying, “hey you, with the blue shirt”.

I believe, that my dad believes, as do I, that all people, from all races, deserve equal opportunities and deserve to be treated as equals.  But that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the fact that we’re all very different.   Let’s face it, everything that has ever happened to you, and in your family’s past, since the begining of time, has played a part in making you who you are today and in making you different from everyone else… and we (you) should celebrate that.  It’s good that we’re all different and it’s great that people notice. Noticing doesn’t make us racist.

So am I racist?  I don’t think so.  Although, I did notice that most of my dad’s friends were black.  Did that make me a racist or is it possible that this observation only served to verify that I wasn’t blind?  I guess it would bother me if anyone considered me a racist…  It would bother me because, I used to have a black business partner.  Now that I’m thinking about it, I have a number of black friends, who I never think of as any diffrent from any other friend.  I also miss Willie James, my dad’s best friend, who passed away a few years ago.  I never thought of him as black, instead I called him “Uncle Willie”, because he and my dad were like brothers…and I say all this realizing that, having a few black friends or relatives is still no litmus test for racism but then, what really is?

Funny.  I saw something the other day that said…

If you voted for Obama to prove you weren’t a racist, now
you’ll have to vote for someone else to prove you’re not an idiot.

I love that.  In case you’re wondering, by the way, I voted for Obama.  I voted for Obama knowing that I wouldn’t agree with his politics and knowing that immediately after he took over, I’d be looking forward to a different President.  But I didn’t vote for Obama to prove that I wasn’t a racist, I felt compelled to vote for the candidate who was least like the previous President.  The country needed that.  Now we need a President who will stop worrying about re-election, and/or his party platform, and do what’s right for the country.  Of course, neither political party seems to have anyone like that  …but that’s another story.

In conclusion, I do not believe that inherent differences among human racial groups,  justifies any kind of discrimination against anyone.  But I also don’t want to pretend that by forcing everyone to be politically correct, we’re fixing the problem.  Instead, I think political correctness only serves to mask the ongoing, underlying issues that continue to exist in a country with a history of great racial inequalities, and we have a long way to go before we outgrow that history.  That said, it should be pretty impressive that, no so long ago, white people imported Africans into this country and sold them as slaves but today it’s possible for a black man to be elected President, arguably the most powerful political positon on the planet.

And THAT is just a small part of what still makes America, in spite of all of our nation’s problems, the greatest country on Earth.  But every single one of us needs to understand that being the greatest country on Earth doesn’t allow us to be on cruise control.  There’s no auto-pilot here.  Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility and…  I think that’s the perfect lead in to today’s guests…

Before listening to any music, I have a video for you….
In case you don’t know him, Felonious Munk is a “comedian” and the founder of Stop It B!
FM finds topics that need addressing, he makes videos that are somewhat funny but very on point, and he puts them on You Tube.  I must warn you that, FM’s video contain language which some people may consider offensive, yet others would argue that they should be required viewing.  I agree.  In fact, I think that if I ever get my new political party going, we might need FM to be our spokesperson.

So, I give you Felonious Munk, the new “America’s Party” Leader…

Yeah.  Stop It B!

OK, so…  Maybe he’s only about 80% on point.  (Remember: He’s a comedian.)
That’s still better than most of our politicians …at least this guy is entertaining. 🙂

And do you still want a musical guest?
OK…but, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m in a mood.

You want music?
I give you, singer / songwriter, Doug Kwartler…

Hmm…
Maybe after Felonious Munk, we needed something a little more upbeat?
Oh, well.  I guess someone from the Musical Guest Department will have to face the firing squad.

And so, the end is near…
Although I’ve probably said more than enough for one day, I would be remiss if I were not to acknowledge the crazed, lunatic, slave driver, genius who passed on Wednesday, and/or if we failed to thank him for the technological future that he helped to expedite into our present…

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know,
to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

– Steve Jobs

We’ll miss you , brother.

– Arch