It Never Occurred to Me

Wow. I feel like such an utter idiot, some kind of parodied, stereotyped, racist white bitch. The thing is, I really don't consider (or rather didn't consider) myself racist. I tend to treat skin color as one more physical feature (like blonde, brunette, brown-eyed, tall, black...) and I have done everything in my power to teach my children that skin color alone means nothing about a person. For the most part, I think I have succeeded in this. (I have a funny anecdote about this, an "out of the mouths of babes" moment.

But I am really wondering now, how deep my professed non-prejudiced attitude goes. I get irritated when decisions are made based on race, whether for or against any specific ethnicity. But maybe I have this view only because I am white and don't face the bias every single day. Maybe I am not color-blind but rather just plain blind.

I read this article today. An Open Letter to Eric Kripke The author makes the point that there are almost no black characters (is "black" the currently acceptable terminology?) in Supernatural. All of the black women have been in one episode only and there have only been 4 of them. All of the black men have turned out to be tragically evil and killed off accordingly.

Wow. She's right. And I never even saw it!!! It never once occurred to me. How fucking blind am I?! Could Kripke be as naively unaware as I was? He's a small-town Ohio guy - similar upbring as my own. Maybe it never occurred to him. I can't fathom that he would have done it intentionally - it just doesn't seem to fit with the image he presents.

So, if he reads that article... what will he do?