I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m a racist.

Emily likes to call me a racist sometimes. Like I’ll say something in an absurd Asian accent and she’ll have a go at me for being racist. Personally I think I’m just celebrating the accents of the world. But you can side with her if you want.

On the other hand, I do catch myself having racist thoughts. Not like “I hate the Japanese”. I don’t. I like the Japanese.

My racism is more like this: I’ll find myself enjoying some music by a person “of colour” and I’ll think to myself “Ahh, Tom, you are enjoying music from some black people. You are so obviously not racist.” Which of course is racist. Were I not a racist, I wouldn’t need to congratulate myself for being so open minded.

Or I’ll see some bad driving, notice the driver is Asian, (Are they also of colour? That doesn’t work because everyone who is not white is of colour, which seems racist to me) and I’ll think to myself “Their driving is terrible, they are also Asian, but it’s probably not because they’re Asian that their driving is terrible, I bet there are Asians who drive well also.” Racist!

I have noticed bad driving from non-Asians before and I haven’t thought to myself “Their driving is terrible, they’re also white…” I just think “What did you do that for, idiot?!”

I’m so racist that I even congratulate myself for not discriminating against myself for my Jewish heritage. Many people over the years have hated on the Jews, but I don’t. I’m so open minded and loving of all people that I even love the quarter of myself that is Jewish.

I haven’t quite figured out how to stop being a racist. Because I want to keep loving races. Running races, and political races, but mainly human races, who are, you know, part of the human race. It’d be silly to pretend that all races are the same, and that Pacific Islanders aren’t generally built to play rugby better than say, me. Or that Asian babies aren’t often very cute, or that Latinos can’t dance better than me and it may be because of their DNA (I’m sure that’s science).

I don’t want to be so politically correct that I don’t care about what colour people are. I do care what colour a person is, because colours are good. I would rather a person’s race, or colour, or background, or gender, or sexual orientation were not seen as an opportunity for me to congratulate myself on how I treat people who appear to be different to me. I would prefer to just enjoy all the ways their differences make the world richer, because their differences are not about me.

But I may never learn how to do that, because I’m a racist.