Yes, It Is Different

H/T to Zander at Balloon Juice:  There are many, many, things wrong with this article, which can be fairly summed up as "I think a black person stole my bike, absolving me of all white guilt." One point that bothered me was when Mark Judge tells us:

black pain is no different than white pain

Mark Judge is a rich white boy from a liberal area.  As am I.  As such, the closest I've come to feeling "black pain," by which I can only presume he means the pain coming from racism, is when I heard that a fellow teacher had insulted my then girlfriend (now wife) based on her race.  It took me a good two hours to calm down to the point that physical violence didn't seem like a viable response, and a good two hours longer before I could focus on anything else.

One remark, made by one person, once, made me so angry I couldn't function for the rest of the evening.  I don't presume to know what Judge's so-called "black pain" feels like, but I know this: whatever it is, it's worse and more frequent than how I felt that night, and how I felt that night is different from how I've felt every other time I've been angry in my life.  So yes, it is different, it is worse, and getting your bike stolen is a terrible excuse to pretend otherwise.