The Meat of the Matter

Ugly Americans

While most people are watching TV, I am usually playing an online computer game. This entails blowing up other human players, who are sitting in their homes cursing the fact that I have turned them into virtual giblets. Last night I was playing Halflife2 where I play the most often, at a server called "Shred's Place." Shred was there. He had always seemed like a nice guy, and it was a fast server. But last night, some joker came into the game and started talking about "Natural evolution taking place in New Orleans" or some such. There are often guys who will make preposterous statements in games like this. If you make people mad, they don't play as well. I ignored him. But then Shred laughed and said "I agree." I said, "Shred, are you a racist???" (Multiple punctuation was added for emphasis!!!) He said, "I told my wife that they should have just dropped a bomb on the Superdome." I was shocked, and called him an asshole, and left the game saying I would never be back. Yes that's right, The Butcher was so freaked out that he resorted to name-calling. But I was so depressed that racism is still so alive on a covert level that people can think and say such ugly things. Then they are ham-fisted enough to blurt them out from behind the veil of anonymity. Shred is obviously an imbecile, but it frightens me to think of how many "Shreds" are out there. Let us pray.