Ready?

These days, “racist” is the favorite smear word for the ideologically intolerant. When people ask me if I’m a “racist” I always ask them for their personal definition of that eternally shape-shifting and ever-expanding social construct. I then explain either why I am or am not a racist based solely on their definition. I also explain that I think the term itself is silly and ultimately meaningless, but it’s not a word that scares me like it appears to cause testicles to leap out of nutsacks and hit the floor running nationwide. But my interrogators—or, just as often, my accusers—hardly ever seem to be looking for explanations. They don’t even seem to know the difference between scientific inquiry and the Spanish Inquisition. Rather, they seem hell-bent on using a rusty knife to pry open my cold heart like a stubborn oyster shell to discover the boundlessly irrational primal HATE they are certain throbs inside. True believers that they are, they take it as an article of faith that evil lurks within the hearts of those who don’t think like they do, and goddamnit, they’re going to find it whether it’s there or not.