Don’t Use Kids to Sell Your Propaganda (A response to “So Sorry”)

There is something that I despise more than other things.  I’ve seen the right do it a lot, but to be fair, the left does it just as much.  The difference is that the mainstream media usually rips the right to pieces when they do it.  When the left does it, it’s all progressive and shit.  Hypocrisy in the media?  What’s that?!  Anyway, it just bugs me when I see people who have some political agenda to sell using children to sell their point.  Using people who are not at the age to consent to being used, so you can play to people’s emotions.  Using children to make your point is never a tactic done by a person who’s argument depends on them being taken seriously.  It is used by people who want to mine that pathos goodness for all it’s worth.  Because it works.  The same way that guilt-tripping commercial for adopting pets with that Sarah MacLaughlin music playing over it.

Case and point, let’s look at a group called “So Sorry.”  It’s a group who has decided to use children in their utterly-emotional arguments made to make people feel guilty about the fact that black people were slaves…once upon a time.  For real, aside from the illegal practices, slavery does not exist in this world anymore.  This entire campaign basically hinges on – you white people are so awful!  And they got a bunch of white people and their children to play along!  Let’s take a look at some of these people who are filled with guilt about something that they themselves have never, ever participated in.

Wow.  Just look at that.  This person really wants their child to feel like shit.  Why?  Well, because he is the same skin color as people who did something hundreds of years before he was even a glimmer in his old man’s sack.  I wonder if that is his old man next to him.  It would be fitting.  His old man is a piece of shit who uses his child this way.

You know, if this wasn’t something that was so blatantly pandering to emotions, I would wonder if this was maybe a tongue-in-cheek jab at the fact that black people were part of the slave trade too.  Something that people who don’t study history don’t want to talk about is the fact that there were plenty of black people involved in the slave trade as well.  In fact, most of the African slaves that were caught were done with the help of other black people, eager to sell out their enemy tribes and help their own tribe grow in power.  Don’t see people like this talking about that much.  Of course not.

Look at all these people, so eager to show how bad they feel for something that they were never a part of.  Ever.  I’m not one of these “white guilt” crowd.  I hate that term.  Typically because those who say that people have it are racist.  But in this case, it’s kind of hard to avoid that corollary.  After all, their shirts are all apologizing.  For something that not one person here has ever participated in.  That’s a fact.  Oh, and look at that kid in the back.  I wonder which person there is his parent.

Oh look, they’re using peoples toddlers in this one!  Kid barely has object permanence, and he’s being made to feel like shit for something he has never, ever been involved with.  Nice work, parents.

But that’s not the thing that gets me about that picture.  Look to the far left.  You see the woman there, dressed in green?  She has never, ever been a slave.  Ever.  Neither she, or her parents, or her children has had to live like this.  Yet she wants these white people to feel bad about something that they were never involved in.  Instead of talking about “white guilt,” let’s instead talk about what this actually is – original sin.  That’s what this entire campaign is about.  Because us honkys have the same skin color as the people who enslaved black people, hundreds of years ago, what they did is on our hands.  Um…how about no!  How about I am responsible for my own actions, and not those of my ancestors.  Was slavery wrong?  Absolutely.  That’s why it’s illegal now.  I am not going to feel bad about the fact that I share a skin color with the people who did bad things hundreds of years ago.  I have a lot of Germ in my blood.  Does that mean that I am tangentially responsible for the Nazis?  Nope!  I don’t feel bad about that, either.  The Holocaust was awful, but I wasn’t involved.  No one in my family was.

The thing about this is – it never ends.  You could make this comparison about anyone.  You white?  Then you’re responsible for the deaths of the Native Americans!  You of Russian descent?  Then you’re responsible for the actions of Stalin!  Wait, that was him killing other white people.  That doesn’t count.  At least not to these people.  You English?  Well then you are responsible for the mistreatment of the Irish, way back in the day!  Oh, wait, more white people.  I don’t believe in the concept of original sin.  I’m not about to feel guilty about being who I am.  If you don’t like me being white, then you are welcome to not be in my company.  What happened back then was bad.  But it’s over now. I don’t have faith in God, why would I believe in original sin?

And don’t fucking use kids to sell your schtick!  Assholes.

Until next time, a quote,

“I do respect people’s faith, but I don’t respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.”  -Javier Bardem

Peace out,

Maverick