Belated MLK-Day Observation - Racism is Stupid

I really ought to have posted something on Martin Luther King Day, being that he has always been one of my heroes for his tireless pursuit of a more enlightened world (along with Lincoln, Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau, plus a couple of dorks that went and founded religions or some dumb move like that, but were pretty righteous themselves at the time). Since I was busy at the time, here's something vaguely appropriate to the topic which I dug out of my old notes, so it's even more belated.

*******

Racism is stupid in the real world, because in the real world we don't know anything; you can't say for sure that all Chinese people are bad drivers, for example, because you haven't personally spoken to every Chinese person with a car in the world, let alone found out what all other Chinese people would be like if they suddenly gained a car. So you're judging on the basis of ignorance, and that's just dumb.

Now, in a created universe such as a fiction, you have the option of creating valid racial profiles, such as "all elves love the forest", and since you decreed it as a fact, it's true. But I'm of the opinion that this is lazy writing.

An open letter to those incensed by the Arizona shooting spree.

Everyone who is advocating capital punishment and/or vigilantism against this criminal, I have news for you.

Someone else in this world thinks, rightly or wrongly, that you deserve to suffer and die.

Yes, you.

No matter how good you are, you're never going to be good enough not to have at least one person who wants to torture you slowly to death because of something you've done that they think is wrong.

Think about that the next time you advocate removing bureaucratic impediments to acts of retribution.