The race card

“Do you feel superior?” asked my European-American-Chamorro friend from
Guam.

“What?” I replied, rather confused.

“So do you feel superior?” he asked me again, this time more resolutely than before.

“What the heck are you talking about?” I replied, this time rather vexed.

“That blonde Russian woman I saw you with the other day–your date. Did she make you feel superior?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I replied, this time a bit more than vexed, offended by the randy implications.

“Well, I mean because she’s white. Did the fact that here you are, a brown Chamorro guy, taking out a white, blonde Russian woman somehow make you feel superior in some indefinable way?”

“Good grief, man! What the hell kind of question is that? The thought didn’t even cross my mind. What a question to ask: ‘Do I feel superior?’ What’s the matter with you, anyway? You haven’t been smoking any doobies lately, have you?”

“No, no,” replied my rather unbalanced friend, “It’s just that I’ve noticed some of these little Asian guys take some of these women out and I just naturally presume that it probably makes them feel superior in some vague, indefinable way. You know, like they have arrived, now that they can be seen with beautiful trophy-like
Caucasian women. And I was just sort of wondering whether you felt that way too, if that’s part of your motivation, that’s all.”

“Why, that’s one of the most lowly, condescending and blatantly racist statements I have ever heard,” I told my friend. “I can’t believe you just said that. That’s pretty darn awful, partner.”

“That may be so,” countered my friend, “but it still doesn’t mean that it’s not true.”

“Look,” I said, “I have never thought of myself primarily, if at all, as a member of any particular race. I have always regarded myself first and foremost as an individual. When I dated a few American women in college, it never dawned on me that I had arrived–that, ‘boy, I have sure come a long way from my ancestor’s grass huts and tribal roots.’

“Come to think of it, it is actually the liberal mentality that is the most race conscious and racist. It is the American Left that is the most discriminatory, with its endless affirmative action programs, racial quotas and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

The next time I saw my friend he was with a charming young Southeast Asian girl. “So do you feel superior?” I asked him. “Here you are, a white American guy, exploiting a poor young Asian gal hoping for a green card. You great white colonial exploiter and natural scoundrel, you.”

“No,” he replied, “that would be the US Department of Interior, trying to deprive OIA Field Rep. Jeff Schorr of his tropical island paradise through a federal takeover.”