You Can't Take The Funk Off A Skunk!

     I recall a saying from back in my youth that was, "if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's a duck."  That's basically saying not to doubt what you are seeing or disregard it for something else.

     The reason I bring this up is because these last couple of terms at my college I've been deluged with a bunch of material that has racist, derogatory writings and images.  I was offended, which is an issue I'm working on because I'm not supposed to be easily offended if I truly call myself a follower of Christ.

     Anyways, I called into question the reasoning behind my instructors choices for materials that we must disseminate for learning purposes.  One of my instructors informed me that we are going to watch the movie Crash for a study in characterization.  Now that could be a plausible reason for watching that movie but I'm certain there are hundreds of better movies that we could watch for the same exercise that don't have racist overtones.  We've also been reading literature that has racist overtones and again I must point out that there are thousands upon thousands of well written stories by award winning authors that we could read yet we are having to read these things.

     Now this is where I was having trouble figuring out if this is a duck or something else.  At first I wanted to dismiss the whole thing as required reading for class projects but the same instructor was giving us more material with racist overtones and that's what caused me to reconsider his motives.  I've made it known that I was uncomfortable with certain aspects of the material we're studying.  My instructor took a defensive stance but did offer to allow students who may be offended by said material to substitute it with something not offensive.  But why does my instructor choose a majority of racist material?

     I like the color blue.  I wear a lot of blue clothing.  I consciously and subconsciously pick blue over other colors because that's what I like.  I submit that formula to be applied to the above situation.  My instructors haven't admitted to being predisposed toward racist attitudes but their duck prints say differently!