Racists Aren't Just Monkeys from the KKK

There was an incident recently in which a fellow on a Delta flight got upset when a young kid was crying during the descent of an aircraft.  He said and I quote, "shut that nigger baby up," and then he slapped the kid, scratching it under one eye.  (I use the word deliberately as use of it will never stop so long as people keep up the current trend of making a euphemism out of it with expressions like the N-word)  He called the baby a nigger and then he hit it.  That's a fact.  (CNN:  Man accused of slapping crying boy on Delta flight loses his job)

Probably most know the blazing annoyance of a crying child on an aircraft and it gets to the point at which you would cheerfully open a door to throw the child out but you stay cool and wait out the ride.  Experienced parents know that it is relatively easy to help the child to get the ears to pop during the descent of an aircraft but that advice doesn't come in the Handbook for Newborn Children.  Oh, you didn't get that?  Yah, neither did anyone else.  I don't know the trick but maybe Lotho could comment it as you may be surprised how easy it is and it's something you might offer to a new parent the next time you are flying with one.

So the fellow who did this is not some microcephalic dolt who wears dresses and burns crosses.  He was an executive for AGC Aerospace & Defense and they have now fired him.  While I appreciate what the company did, I'm not sure if it's legal and we shall see as to whether he sues them.  I suspect anyone who is that much of a pig will almost certainly sue them.  The man's name is Joe Rickey Hundley of Hayden, Idaho, and Idaho has been a center for racists for quite a long time as it was the headquarters for the Aryan Nation.  It may still be, I don't know.

The purpose of this article is to show that racism in the U.S. is not the exclusive province of people too stupid to think any other way.  It is rampant in the corporate world despite quite loud and highly disingenuous denial.  The corporate sops to diversity are ineffectual, trivial, and meaningless.  If you look about the corporate world, the vast majority are white males.  There are some notable exceptions but not very many.

This is not simply a slam of the U.S. as the same is true just about anywhere.  As Redd Foxx said, "If there were blue people then some asshole would hate them," and the U.S. has no monopoly on that.  The point is that doing something about racism isn't just about talking but rather it is in living it.  How you do that is your choice to make and hopefully you will make the right one.