(no subject)

If we weren't both already married, I would so marry this guy.

Oh, there's some crude humor in this one... which, I will admit, had me laughing and then feeling bad about it. Hehe.

(no subject)

So you know what annoys me almost as much as people voting or not voting for someone simply because of their skin color? This. Not the whole thing, mind you; their intentions were probably noble, and they defeat some prevailing stereotypes, which is to be commended.

I am, of course, annoyed by the line by the gay couple saying that everyone deserves wedding gifts. But that's not what stands out to me after the Obama inauguration circus yesterday. What stands out to me is this: "I pledge because there is no black, or white, or yellow."

Um, what?

There is black and white and yellow and brown and red and people who are two or more of those colors combined, and to say there isn't is ignoring the differences that make us human and make us American. Tolerance isn't being the same, it's treating the same.

Y'all know that I am planning to have a colorful family. Isaac and I are blindingly pale white. Our first kid will likely be Ethiopian - so, dark black. If a South American country opens up a not-too-expensive and not-too-slow adoption program (we're still praying that it's El Salvador!), we will get at least one kid from there. I'd love an Asian kid, or Indian, or Ukrainian, or Arabic, or whatever! And I will love them all the same, but I look forward to incorporating their birth cultures into our family. I'm not going to tell them they're not different from each other - they'll be able to tell by looking at each other that they are very different - but I will tell that God and their parents love them each the same.

I don't think the answer to racism is getting rid of our differences. I think that campaign would have been far more effective if the black woman saying that line would have just said, "I'm an American." The white guy pictured when she said "or white" could have just said, "I'm an American." The Asian woman pictured when she said "or yellow" could have just said, "I'm an American." They really missed the mark there.