What would you choose? Boxers or Briefs?

Can you be a subtle racist? Short answer is: Maybe. I’ll go ahead and explain. Bonilla-Silva makes a point that I find intriguing.

“Subscribing to an ideology is like wearing a piece of clothing. When you wear it, you also wear a certain style, a certain fashion, a certain way of presenting yourself to the world.”

If we were to tie Bonilla-Silva’s concept with a concept mentioned by a character in my favorite movie Van Wilder. It’s about a guy who has attended college for 7 years, without graduating because he loves the college experience so much. I know what you’re thinking: “Where are you going with this?”

Let me explain: In the movie, Van Wilder does an interview with someone who would like to know about him for a paper. He only did this after losing a bet on the ice rink. He stated that people can be compared to kinds of underwear. He specifically meant boxers or briefs. Boxers are the more fun and outgoing underwear, and briefs being the more restrictive, and “all business” underwear. It’s weird, but he had a point. The kind of underwear can or could (depending on whether or not you actually believe that concept) dictate what kind of person you are.  I think that can also be tied with the type of racist you are. You can wear what’s comfortable, or you can wear a certain style.

Now It’s going to get weird, and I apologize.

I would like to explain a bit more about myself. I personally like wearing boxer briefs. It’s comfortable, but it also isn’t too baggy. In that respect, then my ideology on racism would be better. I don’t have a problem with other races. However, I will be honest and say that are certain aspects of races I don’t understand such as the evolution of rap. I also don’t understand certain fashion trends or haircuts. Twerking (however amusing) is also something I don’t understand either. There are also some things that would take way too long to list. I also have many friends of different races. This is what I can consider to be an example of Color-Blind Racism (which the entire point of the book).

The paragraph above is a prime example of post-Civil Rights racial discourse (Bonilla-Silva, 57). Such examples of phrases range from “I’m not racist, but…” or “I am not black, so I don’t know”, and things of that nature. Lack of speech can also be something that can be considered. Not being able to say something grammatically correct, or not saying anything at all can lead to one thing: whether or not one can be subtle in their racism.

So why do we say them, or why do we not say anything? It’s because our ideologies are like underwear. We can be harmful and restrictive in telling our opinions to others, like briefs. Or we can be open for anything to other races but still have boundaries, such as boxers. Or we can choose to be all open to anything. We can go commando.



If I were to follow my mantra: I would wear boxers.

http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-36-fall-2009/feature/colorblindness-new-racism

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/17/the-accidentally-color-blind-racist/