Change, yes we can!

Now that we've had 24 hours with our new president and everything is all better we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Of course the retractions have already started, "This problem is bigger than we thought." "It's going to take some time." Not quite what we were promised during the campaign with "I will fix these problems." We'll have to give it some time and see what happens.

One thing that hasn't changed are the racist views of some Americans. I've seen the emails and some of them are funny. It's alright to laugh at the presidential limo shown as a jacked up caddy with spinners and even the celebratory dinner of ribs, chicken and watermelon. These are some of the stereotypes that people use to describe another race in a comic light. Unfortunately it's not allowed to be funny when these stereotypes are raised on black people. Yes, I said black people, not African-Americans, not all black people are African-American. If we are sticking with that description, then there should be a box on my application for German-Irish-Norwegian-American. But I'm okay with white or caucasian, even honky will do. After all, since I was born here I just consider myself American.

I'm hoping that with our new leader will come a new era where it can be funny to make a watermelon joke. Blondes can be stupid, the poles can be dumb, germans strict and Hitlerish but black people can't be made fun of without it becoming a racial issue. There are things that are off limits due to years of slavery and opression but if we're going for equality it has to be in all areas.

With that said, the one joke I heard that made me uncomfotable came on Tuesday morning when I was asked if I was going to watch the iniggeration. With all the progress we've made, this one seemed a bit out of line. At least give the guy a chance to do something before we go straight back to the Civil War. Besides, can things get worse than the way they were on left Monday?