DomAviator
Posts: 1253
Joined: 4/22/2008
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Bita, thanks for your reasonable and well thought out response. The reason I said the questions were unfair was that I made it amply clear in prior responses that the invitations to join the Klan were made via Masonic functions. Thus, his asking a female if she had been recruited is analagous to asking me if I have been asked to join the Daughters of the Alamo or the Fire Dept Ladies Aux. recently. Of course it will elicit a negative response, which is a meaningless negative as the person polled to respond in the negative will obviously do so as she is ineligible for membership and would not be at the functions in question. I was however unaware that the Klan had a women's aux, I obviously was not asked to join that...
In response to your direct question of why I would date a racist I will be brutally candid. It beats jerking off! LOL I am 40 years old, average looking etc.... When you are dating a beautiful little blonde Texan who isn't even old enough to buy a beer, the little head makes allowances for the "trophy factor". I am no longer dating her, as to be honest the novelty wore off and she was painfully dumb. (This is the one who looked at a lobster and called it "the biggest mudbug she ever saw" and who asked a sommelier if he had any Boone. To be honest as stunningly beautiful as she was I couldnt find any common ground with her and she was often a public embarassment - as in the case where she tipped an airline captain, oblivious to the fact that he makes over $200K a year.) However, she is not the only racist I have dated... When dealing with conservative Southern Baptists, who form the bulk of the people, in the Houston Bay Area, I find racism to be the rule rather than the exception. So, it is essentially a matter of tolerate it or develop carpal tunnel syndrome and callouses on my palm... As you noted by explaining your heritage, imagine a herd of people who, unlike you, have not turned from your Grandfathers views and who chose to remain confederate, conservative, Southern Baptists.
While I disagree with the treehugging humanist approach personally, I applaud your courage in changing views from what you were raised with and following your own path. However, I would also like to point out that you have removed yourself from the sphere of influence where the racist behavior is not merely tolerated but is in fact "the norm". In my case, taking a stand can and will lead to social ostracization, financial ruination, or worse. To be blunt, I need to earn a living and I earn that living largely from powerful and well to do Texans who are hard core old style Southerners. We are talking guys here who have half a million dollar plus toys that cost upwards of $1500 an hour to operate. If I e-mail back a client and tell him that I found the racist joke he forwarded me offensive, that just might cost me $10,000.... If I walk away in disgust from a bunch of guys at a function who refer to the waiter as "Sambo" that just might cost me a $150,000 contract. If a guy sends me an e-mail requesting that I find him "a (n word) with a Lear 35 type rating so he can have a token (n word) on the books", I cant e-mail him back and deliver a tirade on how offensive that is because he will take his pilot staffing and recurrency training elsewhere - to someone who isn't in his view a "n word lover". So, by keeping my mouth shut and delivering him a black pilot qualified in the Lear 35 I keep the client, keep my business, and give the black pilot a job. Not only do I have my own lifestyle to maintain and bills to pay, but I have employees who rely on me as well and I am not in a position to forego my business and to work as a bagger at HEB in an effort to stamp out deeply held views that Im not going to change anyway. It hasnt changed since the civil war, and I dont see it changing if I sacrifice myself on the altar of equality.
Im not going to get into precise details, but with margins being what they are and the cost of simulator time ($300 - $700 per hour), insurance, lawyers, instructors, content development / graphic arts people, advertising, printing, travel, motels, event venues, caterers, etc I need to gross eight figures a year to keep the doors open, keep everyone paid, and keep my six figure salary and the lifestyle that goes with it. Thats why Im online all the time, and sleep maybe 4 hours a day sometimes in two increments of 2 hours each, because I have 130+ e-mails a day to answer while burning up 3000+ minutes a month on my cell half of them from fucking asswipes that I cant stand! Im not in a position to start pissing off powerful members of the Texas Good Ol Boys network who can stick it up my ass and break it off... Im being straight with you here, sometimes I miss the days when I was a fucking crop duster flying for $20 an hour or when I was driving Lears on salary for 58K, and I sure as shit miss the days when I didn't have a care in the world except checking the board to see when I was scheduled to fly and had a ship I called home... However, those days are past and I chose my own course and now that Im on it I have to play by their rules. Their ballpark, their rules, and I cant change it.
So, to be as honest and direct as possible - I associate with racists because thats the way it is in the Bay Area and Im in too deep, and can't change it because Ive got too much invested in terms of blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights and am too fucking old to start over. Ive got 25 years left to fly, and even if I wanted to I cant go to a 737 right seat job at Continental for $31 an hour because just I dont have the time left to claw my way to becoming a $186 an hour 777 Captain who gets to live where he wants to. The senority list would have me living in Gnome Alaska and moving 10 times in the next 5 years, I would spend three quarters of the month living in a motel, would wake up wondering what continent I am on, and the chances are that sooner rather than later the Captain would look over at me and say "Hey, there are these three ________ sharing an apartment and they all have a bf named Leroy..." So what do I gain? I get to throw my life away and to listen to the same racist jokes, except this time from a superior officer instead of a client and for less money...
I realize you, and everyone else probably thinks thats a pussy excuse and the cowards way out etc, but thats the way it is. About the only thing I can do to fight it, without destroying myself, is to tell you that they are out there and they arent all toothless bastards in a Catterpillar baseball cap. They arent all the idiots you see on the Springer show in red robes screaming the N Word and making fools of themselves. Some of them are very rich, some of them are very powerful, some of them own corporate jets and half a million dollar helicopters and they cant be dismissed or underestimated, They arent gone, the "smart ones" just stay under the radar and like the man behind the curtain pull the strings to make ugly things like Jasper, and Vidor, and Spring happen. They are just smart enough not to get their own hands bloody, and to wind up the impressionable and terminally stupid to do the dirty work for them. Some of them raise kids too, even gorgeous girls who grow up to be women who parrot what daddy always said and sometimes I date those women. It doesnt mean I approve...
< Message edited by DomAviator -- 6/9/2008 3:43:32 AM >
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RE: James Byrd Jr - 
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