Friday, May 20, 2005

Political correction


Life as a tire

I was talking to an instructor at my school today and mentioned a guy from my class, Lieutenant Smith. The instructor said, "There's a lot of Smiths. Which one?" I blanked on his first name so it became necessary to describe him. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything better to say than--

"Big guy. Black."

I immediately blushed. I'm gun-shy about saying black these days, but I can't stand African-American since it sounds artificial and sterilized. Contrived. I don't want to sound artificial but I don't want to sound racist either, so what's that leave me?

I'm going to start referring to black people as VTIs (Very Tan Individuals); anyone who's white I'll call NTIs (Non-Tan Individuals); and anyone in-between I'll call LTIs (Less Tan Individuals).

It's the perfect system. It still describes a person (which, believe it or not, really is necessary) without carrying any sort of stigma. Move over, Noah Webster.

1 comments:

Jared said...

I gave Chrissa a certificate for a massage last Christmas and she went to the salon to redeem it the other day. While she was sitting in the salon, waiting, a number of women walked past her to go to the tanning booths. They glanced at her askance. Chrissa's an LTI, so they must have been wondering what the heck she was doing outside of the tanning salon. They were all really jealous and somewhat annoyed that she could be sitting there, tanner than any of them will be after 20 hours and $500.