Sometimes I get so upset with people when they make stupid statements I have to respond to their stupidity directly. I read an article about the housing issue in Arizona. Prices are going up, speculators are in the market and it has become a huge sellers’ market. In a ten paragraph article, two mentioned President Obama. One paragraph talked about how he was in Phoenix in 2009 and introduced the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and the other paragraph mentioned how he was returning to the region this week. It wasn’t a political article but because the President was mentioned the first person who made a post to the article focused only on Obama and made the following comment –

It took me a few moments to get into my ‘girl, you didn’ jus’ do dat’ attitude and write back what I consider a precise and playful knife attack to the comment.

I could have left well enough alone and clicked away, but I had to react to what he said. Maybe because of the people who troll the news websites in Arizona but in an article that had nothing to do with the President or race, one person was able to bring them ignorantly into the picture. I’m sure by the end of tomorrow other people will add their two racist cents to the conversation. It shouldn’t matter but there are times when it’s tough to turn the other cheek, to just ignore the rants of ignorant people. It’s a Billy Jack thing. When you look at the ‘little ray of sunshine’ and realize that the flour put in her hair by a bunch of racist punks will affect her the rest of her life, you have to go berserk.

The anger builds up and you get too tired to keep pushing the anger down, to pretend you aren’t affected by it. The past few weeks of listening to the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O’Reillys and Fox News got a little much. Hearing people deflecting and throwing out statistics they thought supported their racists notions without digging into the data got me angry. Worse to me was listening to people who have heard this stuff time and time again who are too tired to fight back. They know the drill, know what will be said and they are too tired to fight that systemic bigoted thinking.

Every once in a while, even if I’m tired, even if I’m burned out, I have to fight back against bigoted and racist comments.