Fair is Fair

Why the hell am I posting at 1:00 in the morning? Because my inner monologue that carried on while I was washing dishes lead me to an interesting thought, and I want to capture that thought before it's forever lost in my inability to commit things to memory.

Cameron had mention "reverse racism" in one of our conversations the other day, and Adrienne pointed out that there's no such thing. Racism is racism, regardless of who's doing the discriminating. I was thinking about that and it occurred to me that there is "reverse racism". It is effectively the opposite of racism, otherwise known as "preferential treatment". It is the "secret family discount", and the "buddy pricing" that we're talking about.

In this day, you wouldn't think of denying service to someone who is black. But I'm sure many of you have experienced the indifferent sales clerk who barely notice your presence, but jump up and greet a customer who happens to have a common skin tone as the clerk. And no, I'm not talking about a white clerk since that would somehow make him/her a racist. I'm talking about a clerk generally of a foreign decent which I won't name (hint: it starts with "Philippine" and ends with "O", but just as often starts with "Chin" and ends with "ese").

And to extend that logic to other "isms" - There's no way you can get away with charging more for the same goods if the customer happens to be a twenty something, yet senior discounts are everywhere.

Racism is defined as the discrimination or prejudice based on race, but isn't the reverse just the same thing? Instead of preferential treatment to a particular group, aren't you just discriminating against everyone else?

So what's fair, and good, and just, and all of those things? My guess is that it boils down to the majority rule. So how does that end? It's not OK to discriminate against the 45%, but it is OK to give preferential treatment to the other 55%? What about 30/70? How about 10/90? Damn, now my head hurts.

I suppose that's what lawyers are for. Let them sort out the ethical issues. Oh how ironic. Lawyers sorting out ethical issues. What do you call 20,000 lawyers on the bottom... Oh never mind.

First Words

There's an episode of The Simpsons where the clueless Homer Simpson exclaim that baby Maggie's first word was "burlap" when Maggie innocently belched.

The boys have those first words. In the same vein, Cameron's first word was "elbow", and Declan's first word was "Iowa". I don't remember if Una had a first word-like sound. However, both Cameron and Una's actual first word was "balloon". And in Cameron's case, it was contained in a full sentence.

Now it looks like Declan is breaking tradition. His first word that he uses regularly now has been "Mum mum mum", synonymously meaning food and Mom. Adrienne says that doesn't count as his first word since it not an actual word.

Maybe I should bring home a few balloons.