The Sad Tale of Mr. Racist and The Well
a modern Negro fable…
There was once was a wonderful town named Uniqloville. It was an up-and-coming town, filled with vim, vigor and prosperity. The population was young, ethnoculturally diverse, and everybody loved one another and got along splendid. Well everybody except one individual: an older white man named Mr. Racist.
Now Mr. Racist was a foul-mouthed, contemptible human being. A mosquito-roach pest of a person who, most assuredly, neither You nor I would get along with. Whenever he spotted someone in town he would raise his crotchety voice, swearing and flinging the most despicable epithets in their direction. He was filled with hate, and over the years it became his only mode of communication. At a certain age he resigned to keep to himself on his farm, raising animals for food, and drawing water from his well. The townspeople of Uniqloville were a kind and tolerant group, but they learned to stay out of his way and ignore him.
And so things went for years and years.
Until one summer the kind and tolerant town of Uniqloville decided to adopt a young black orphan boy. Like the celebrities! And they would raise him with kindness and tolerance, mostly shielded from the prejudices of the world.
After a while it happened that one day the young black boy stopped at Mr. Racist’s farm. Upon his first encounter with the young black boy, of course Mr. Racist immediately showered him with a most withering storm of invective. But as a young orphan boy knowing nothing other than kindness and tolerance for others, the boy didn’t know how to be offended by these racist remarks. He found Mr. Racist and his scornful screeds to be a quirky amusement; almost refreshing in contrast to the humdrum routines of the rest of the town. And so he began to come by Mr. Racist’s farm regularly.
And every time the boy visited, Mr. Racist would denigrate him with hate-speech. Until one day Mr. Racist asked the boy,
“Hey, you lazy piece of dark dog doo-doo. Why do you come here so much?”
“I like you, Mr. Racist. You make me laugh.”
While Mr. Racist’s hate-addled brain could never express anything besides contempt, he was actually growing fond of the boy. After all, the boy was the only one who enjoyed his company. Everyone else in the town ignored or reviled him.
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