I am America (and so can you!) (112 page)

A C H A N C E F O R AV E R AG E A M E R I C A N S TO A G R E E W I T H W H AT I T H I N K

I am living roof that the American Dream is ossible! U ward mobility exists in this land of o ortunity!

Ex

lanatory note: I a ologize, but my ty ewriter keyboard

is missing the lowercase letter “ .” As my job is to make

ty ewritten co ies of all of Mr. Colbert’s ersonal corres

ondence, you might think this would rove challenging.

Fortunately, Mr. Colbert rarely uses lowercase letter “ ’s,”

and when he does, I sim ly remove the sheet of a er from

Thomas Bindlestaff,

the ty ewriter, reinsert the sheet of a er u side-down, ty e a
Executive Assistant

lowercase “d,” remove it again, reinsert it rightside u and then
to Mr. Stephen Colbert

roceed as I had been roceeding reviously, des ite my ainful

and ersistent enman’s Gout.

As I was saying, I’m movin’ u ! Already I make nearly $18,000 a year! And sooner or later (sooner, I dearly ho e), I shall be the family’s first self-made twenty-thousandaire! In “Colbert Bucks,” that is. Like all Mr. Colbert’s em loyees, my salary is aid in company Scri . Mr. Colbert has thoughtfully rovided a com any store with a variety of fine dry goods. It has all the essentials: flour, salt, corn meal, rendered beef tallow, ticking and burla . My wife has her eye on a tin of baking owder. The ladies do love to dream!

Oh! There’s the whistle! Is it dawn already? I must get started on Mr. Colbert’s corres ondence. His re resentative may be in today. I need to make a good im ression. I’m ho ing to get my youngest a osition with the firm removing debris from the hydraulic ram shaft.

Only the wee ones will fit. Note to self: cut back on his ration of suet. Mark my words! I swear by the curvature of my s ine, someday I shall be rich!

Your Humble Servant,

Thomas Bindlestaff

FUN

How many differences can you find in these pictures?

d enough.

orking har

amily isn’t w

he bottom f

s: One. T

er

w

Ans

fig 14.
S T E P H E N C O L B E R T

C H A P T E R 1 2

“Ebony and Ivory, live together in perfect harmony,

Side by side on my piano keyboard.”

–Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, the surviving Beatles

IS SOMETHING INTERESTING

THERE
ABOUT WHAT MISTERS WONDER

AND MCCARTNEY STUMBLED UPON

HERE IN THEIR JAUNTY TRIBUTE

TO THE PIANO. WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION, THE LYRICS

CAN ALSO ACT AS A METAPHOR FOR RACE. THE WHITE

KEYS COULD REPRESENT WHITE PEOPLE, AND THE BLACK

keys could represent non-white people. Because in America, people of all
Asians represented
by “Chopsticks”

colors live in perfect harmony.

But it hasn’t always been that way.

Once upon a time, racism was a terrible problem in this country,1 and it’s still a subject you’re supposed to handle delicately.2 Sorry, folks, that’s not my style.
I’m not actually sorry.
I’m not afraid to disturb the skeletons in America’s closet, no matter what race those skeletons are. (You can tell by measuring the eye-teeth.) I’m going to talk about race, and I’m not taking any racial prisoners.
NOT slaves

WHERE DID RACISM COME FROM?

Well, before the Civil War, skin color didn’t matter, because all black people were slaves. But then after they were freed that name “slave” didn’t really fit anymore, so former slaves started calling themselves “Black” or “Negro” or 1
Approximately from 1864 to the recording of “Ebony and Ivory.”

171

2
If race were a sweater, it would be made of cashmere, and you could only wash it by hand.
I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

“colored.” 3 In short, skin began to matter, and, folks, racism was off to the races. Suddenly, the world was divided. White people had their drinking fountains, and Black people had their drinking fountains. White people had their schools, and Black people had their drinking fountains.4

After about a hundred years of this, a very smart man named Dr. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech and said, “I have a dream that this should end!”

And it did.5

May vary on a

Racism no longer exists in America.

block-by-block basis

Don’t believe me?
Down in Selma, Alabama, they recently opened up The National Civil Rights Museum. It’s all about the fight against racism. Well,
Museum gift shop

folks, it stands to reason that you don’t open a museum for something that
sells “I have a dream”

sleep mask.

still exists. Case in point: the Air and Space museum. Once we “landed on the moon,” Air and Space was over. Scotchguard Neil Armstrong and hang him from the ceiling.

But even though racism is over, for many people, sadly, race still exists. As long as any part of that word still lingers, we’re all in trouble. So, how do we erase Race? 6 Let me tell you how I did it.

NEWS FLASH:
I don’t see race.7

THIS JUST IN:
I used to see race.

Caught your breath yet? I’ll say it again.

I. Used. To. See. Race. In fact, I used to see it everywhere. I was very good at it, if I’m to believe what people shouted at me.

My struggle

But all that changed the day I read Ralph Ellison’s thought-provoking novel
Invisible Man
. I found myself deeply moved by his tale of a black scientist who, through no fault of his own, becomes invisible and is driven mad.
172
3
I’m pretty sure there are other terms, but my publicist insists that there aren’t.
4
The stereotype ends
now
. Black people DO NOT drink more water than other races.
5
With the help of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

6
eRace is a registered trademark of Stephen Colbert’s web-based diversity program.
7
In the same way I assume that everybody is White, I assume that every traffic light is green.
This sort of positive thinking gets me home 15 minutes sooner.

Reading
Invisible Man
made me realize something very important: If you’re invisible, it means you’re the same color as air. And air has no color. Then it hit me: If race is no longer to divide us, our races all need to be invisible!

So, maybe until that great day when all humans can’t see color,8 those with darker skin should take the Invisible Man’s brave example and wrap themselves in the white bandages of unity so that we all truly look the same color.
Albinos, you’re
halfway there.

You see, White people are already wrapped in bandages: the skin God gave us to protect us from racism. People of all colors deserve no less.
MY VISION OF A RACE-FREE FUTURE

Burn victim or Black guy?

(It shouldn’t matter!)

REMEMBER:
While skin and race are often synonymous,
skin
cleansing is good,
race
cleansing is bad.

8
I don’t see color, but I do see luster, and people with a semi-gloss finish are lazy.
173

I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

We’re all the same.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees that. They get too hung up on little things like “appearance” and “history” and “cultural identity.”

In fact…

I prefer to

Some People
seem to think racism still exists. These people are racists.
divide people by

brand-loyalty.

What’s their angle? I say follow the money. They have something to gain from keeping the race game afloat. What is it?

BLIGHTS! SCAM-ERA! AFFIRMATIVE ACTION!

Affirmative action is a prime example of the Leftist campaign to make ideas
Like “ living wage”