But it hasn’t always been that way.
Once upon a time, racism was a terrible problem in this country,1 and it’s still a subject you’re supposed to handle delicately.2 Sorry, folks, that’s not my style. I’m not afraid to disturb the skeletons in America’s closet, no matter what race those skeletons are. (You can tell by measuring the eye-teeth.)
I’m not actually sorry.
I’m going to talk about race, and I’m not taking any racial prisoners.
NOT slaves
WHERE DID RACISM COME FROM?
Well, before the Civil War, skin color didn’t matter, because all black people were slaves. But then after they were freed that name “slave” didn’t really fit anymore, so former slaves started calling themselves “Black” or “Negro” or “colored.”3 In short, skin began to matter, and, folks, racism was off to the races.
Suddenly, the world was divided. White people had their drinking fountains, and Black people had their drinking fountains. White people had their schools, and Black people had their drinking fountains.4
After about a hundred years of this, a very smart man named Dr. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech and said, “I have a dream that this should end!”
And it did.5
Racism no longer exists in America.
May vary on a block-by-block basis
Don’t believe me? Down in Selma, Alabama, they recently opened up The National Civil Rights Museum. It’s all about the fight against racism. Well, folks, it stands to reason that you don’t open a museum for something that still exists. Case in point: the Air and Space museum. Once we “landed on the moon,” Air and Space was over. Scotchguard Neil Armstrong and hang him from the ceiling.
Museum gift shop sells “I have a dream” sleep mask.
But even though racism is over, for many people, sadly, race still exists. As long as any part of that word still lingers, we’re all in trouble. So, how do we erase Race?6 Let me tell you how I did it.
NEWS FLASH: I don’t see race.7
THIS JUST IN: I used to see race.
Caught your breath yet? I’ll say it again.
I. Used. To. See. Race. In fact, I used to see it everywhere. I was very good at it, if I’m to believe what people shouted at me.
But all that changed the day I read Ralph Ellison’s thought-provoking novel Invisible Man. I found myself deeply moved by his tale of a black scientist who, through no fault of his own, becomes invisible and is driven mad.
My struggle
Reading Invisible Man made me realize something very important: If you’re invisible, it means you’re the same color as air. And air has no color. Then it hit me: If race is no longer to divide us, our races all need to be invisible!
So, maybe until that great day when all humans can’t see color,8 those with darker skin should take the Invisible Man’s brave example and wrap themselves in the white bandages of unity so that we all truly look the same color.
Albinos, you’re halfway there.
You see, White people are already wrapped in bandages: the skin God gave us to protect us from racism. People of all colors deserve no less.
MY VISION OF A RACE-FREE FUTURE
Burn victim or Black guy? (It shouldn’t matter!)
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REMEMBER: While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.
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We’re all the same. Unfortunately, not everyone sees that. They get too hung up on little things like “appearance” and “history” and “cultural identity.” In fact…
I prefer to divide people by brand-loyalty.
Some People seem to think racism still exists. These people are racists. What’s their angle? I say follow the money. They have something to gain from keeping the race game afloat. What is it?
BLIGHTS! SCAM-ERA! AFFIRMATIVE ACTION!
Affirmative action is a prime example of the Leftist campaign to make ideas seem less dangerous than they are, through the strategic use of positive words. Think about it. How can something be bad if it is “affirmative”? And how can we ignore it if it is “action”?9 See, its name does nothing to describe what “affirmative action” actually is: a system that rewards Group A and punishes Group B just because long ago something bad happened to Group A that incidentally made Group B a whole lot of money.
Like “living wage”
One of my mottos is, “Never make a decision because you feel guilty.” The bleeding hearts that came up with affirmative action back in the anything-goes 1960s could have used my advice. They felt bad about the racial injustices of the past, so they decided to make it a crazy law that gave minorities preferential treatment when it came to the choicest jobs, scholarships, and roster spots on NBA teams.
Short version: “Never feel guilty.”
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GUT SPEAKING: The worst thing about affirmative action is that it encourages reverse discrimination, so-called because it goes in the opposite way of how we naturally discriminate.
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Stay strong, NHL!
Here’s a typical story: A well-qualified young White man doesn’t get into the College of His Choice, but has a strong suspicion that a lot of Black guys might have. It gets worse: A hard-working White employee is passed over for a promotion in favor of a coworker who seems like he could be gay. What’s next? Should there be affirmative action in my bedroom? Should Chinese guys get a shot at my wife just because the conditions on the Transcontinental Railroad weren’t ideal?
Like friendship, discrimination is a two-way street.
But the worst thing about affirmative action is that it’s Big Government intruding into the world of business. I don’t need some bureaucrat telling me to be an equal opportunity employer. When it comes to job applicants at the Report, race is irrelevant. All they have to do is answer a skill-testing questionnaire:
Sample Question:
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Question 43: We’re shooting an episode of The Colbert Report at the beach. It’s a very sunny day. What number SPF sunblock do you use? Support your answer:
_____________
_____________
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When it comes to affirmative action, I quote myself: “Hogwash!” However, most people quote noted beagle-abuser President Lyndon Johnson, who summed up his stance on the issue with the following analogy: “Imagine a hundred yard dash in which one of the two runners had his legs shackled together. He has progressed ten yards, while the unshackled runner has gone fifty yards. How do they rectify the situation? Do they merely remove the shackles and allow the race to proceed?…Would it not be the better part of justice to allow the previously shackled runner to make up the forty-yard gap, or to start the race all over again?”10
The press was a lot easier to entertain in 1964.
Johnson was right on one point: Racial issues in this country deserve the same amount of attention we give track and field events.
While Johnson’s idea was terrible for public policy, he stumbled upon what I think would be a great improvement for track and field: shackles! How exciting would it be to give each runner a unique, massive obstacle to overcome!
Here’s how I see the 100 yard dash of tomorrow: Just a reminder: None of these are metaphors. I want to see this actually happen.
“Your grandmother is on fire.”
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PROOF I’M NOT A RACIST: George Washington Carver had some pretty good ideas, like corrective lenses for peanuts.
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If you suffer from peanut allergies, turn the page quickly.
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STEPHEN SPEAKS FOR ME
A CHANCE FOR AVERAGE AMERICANS TO AGREE WITH WHAT I THINK
Rev. George A. Lewis, Ex-Civil Rights Leader
Shout it from the loftiest mountaintops and through the deepest valleys: Racism is no more! Bigotry, that grim hydra, which once reared its heads in every corner of our proud society, infecting all Americans with i
ts venomous bite, has been vanquished. And I have done my part to slay it.
I marched on Washington shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr. King. I labored alongside Reverend Jackson in Chicago. I was instrumental in bringing integration to the University of Alabama, and thanks in part to my actions, racism gave way to equality, oppression to justice, and segregation to brotherhood.
But as justice rose like a mighty tide from the Mississippi delta to the highest corridors of power, my own sense of purpose receded. What is a Civil Rights leader to do once Civil Rights have been permanently achieved?
For a while, I returned to full-time Reverending. But being a preacher is hard work, and let’s face it, without racism to rail against, my sermons didn’t have the same zazz.
So I left my church and sought new causes to champion.
I tried marching alongside another oppressed group, the homosexuals. But then I found out what they did when they weren’t marching.
Other protests proved no better fit. I couldn’t in good conscience join the No-Nukes movement, because I’m a firm believer in America’s nuclear first strike capabilities. And I’d rather not recount the lack of appetite for political change at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
After that, I flailed around a bit. I remained committed to the principles of non-violence, but I adapted it to the injustices I encountered in the new post-racist world. I organized a sit-in to protest the unfair practices of a local restaurant. ($13.00 for a spicy tuna roll? Come on!) But it failed to achieve change.
I grew isolated and disconsolate. And as painful as it is to admit, in the depths of my despair I once tried to reintroduce racism, but those Korean grocers would not rise to my bait.
As of this writing, I am unemployed, and let me tell you, the pension benefits offered by the Civil Rights Movement are meager at best. I am currently available to fight for the downtrodden, freelance mass-rallying, and light roof repair.
In the immortal words of Dr. King, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.” If only he had known the cost.
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SLUR FIND
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CHAPTER POSTSCRIPT
When I say I don’t see race, I mean I don’t see Black people.
But I can spot a Mexican a hundred paces.
Read on!
fig 15. STEPHEN COLBERT
CHAPTER 13
IMMIGRANTS
“You don’t have to live like a refugee.”
–Tom Petty, who doesn’t because he’s an American
RED ALERT! WE ARE BEING COLONIZED BY AN INVADING FORCE! DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE MORE ILLEGAL MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA TODAY THAN THERE WERE AMERICAN TROOPS IN OCCUPIED GERMANY AFTER WORLD WAR II? UNLIKE MOST OF MY FACTS, I CAN BACK THAT ONE UP WITH REALITY.
Experts say there are 12 to 14 million illegal immigrants in the United States. To put that into perspective, if you took all the foreigners who have no business living in America and put them into Dodge Caravans (remember, those seat six) and drove them out of the country taking up all three lanes of a highway, the line of minivans would stretch for I don’t care how long, because the more important question is: How can we get them into those vans?
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GOOD NEWS: You won’t need any documentation to get into my opinions on immigration, because through the very act of buying this book your identity has been electronically entered into a secret government registry.
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We still need a urine sample, however.
DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ILLEGALS?
I’ll say!
We have a problem with illegals.
Now a lot of people, including my spellcheck, have a problem with the term “illegals.” They say it’s not a word, and even if it were it would be insensitive to the feelings of the people who are breaking our nation’s laws. Fine. Let’s call them “immorals” because what could be more immoral than a Guatemalan crossing into this country to pick our American fruit just because her kids are poor?
I can hear the cries now: “How can you suggest that we slam the door?! America is a nation of immigrants!! We all have ancestors who left their crowded, impoverished homelands behind for America!!!! Even Andrew Carnegie was an immigrant!!!!!!!!”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all, cool it with the exclamation marks.1 The cost of this ink comes out of my advance. Second, it’s interesting you should bring up Andrew Carnegie—one of our nation’s most esteemed robber barons. Yes, he was born in Scotland. So what makes him different from the type of “immorals” we’re experiencing today?
Uncover your ears and listen.
Once upon a Time, there was the right kind of foreigner.
Yes, Virginia, there is a right kind of foreigner. The kind who comes to America, loses his brogue and creates U.S. Steel. When he dies, he leaves the legacy of breaking the Homestead Strike of 1892, paving the road for non-union workers everywhere! If he admits to any foreign ties, it’s to having a hunting estate at Skilbo Castle in Scotland. And that’s it. No parades. No crazy hat dances. His only clubs are ones like “The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club” whose manmade, trout-stuffed lake burst through its dam leaving 2,200 dead in one of the greatest floods in American history, the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Sad event, great social club. Over 60 millionaires, and that was back when trolley rides cost a penny.
I wonder what they cost today.
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GUT SPEAKING: Of course, we can’t all be Andrew Carnegies, but we can honor the struggles and ambitions of our immigrant ancestors by doing as they did: leaving the past behind for the sake of a brighter future.
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MY STRUGGLE: I am a member of a mixed-race marriage. While I am the proud product of hardy Irish Catholic stock, my wife is Scots Presbyterian. In the Old Country, our love could never have been. In fact, a glance at my wife’s family records shows that her ancestors moved onto the very land my family was forced to abandon when that Roundhead son-of-a-bitch Oliver Cromwell forced the Irish west of the river Shannon to farm rocks. But when the Colbert clan set sail for America, they harbored two shining hopes: that they could survive a three-month steerage passage on coal-and-onion-peel soup; and that one day their children could forget the enmity of the past and live a life of freedom. I’ve done them one better. Seven generations on, I’ve “planted my Irish flag” on the very family that stole our land.
More like Crom-bad
See, the great thing about my marriage is that it symbolizes the hope America once offered its immigrants. Here, immigrants received a gift never given before in world history: They could leave the past behind. (Another less exciting gift was cholera.) How lucky they were to get to erase all remnants of their previous lives, languages and cultures and go about the business of becoming an American Christian.
Arrivederci, “Arrivederci”
So let’s take that beautiful idea to its logical conclusion and not only leave the past behind but deny the past ever happened.2 Like this:
America is not a land of immigrants.
I am America (and so can You!) Page 16