Law and Disorder

Last night, I watched the most disturbing episode of Law and Order: SUV, I think I'll ever see. I normally don't watch the show  cause some times it's too much for me. But my girlfriend loves it, so I  keep an ear to the screen. This particular episode  though, man I couldn't tear myself away. The entire episode was pretty much a spew of racism.  Literally, EVERY three minutes  there was a slur of some sort "Porch monkey", "Kike", "Spic". There were insults we hadn't even heard of, but they were spoken with such hatred they still stung. The interesting thing about this is the fact that  Law and Order: SUV  is based in modern day New York. Not New York in the 1950's  or Mississippi  in the 1930's. So to see that bigoted behavior, so apparent in this day in age was a blantant eye-opener. The issue of race in today's society is ever relevant. People love to believe that we are an Era so built on "rising above"  and "being evolved" and that is an admirable notion. However,  racism, bigotry and open disrespect  of that nature is still very much alive in mainstream America. And I can appreciate the writer's of Law and Order making that a focal point of one of their episodes. No matter how disturbing the episode may be. Sometimes shock value is what we need to get a controversial message like that across. Even if one gets offended the way I did, it's important to remember that the lovely people on Law and Order: SUV are just actors, in no way shape or form adjacent to the personalities of their characters. They play these heart wrenching roles because they know offending someone is one of the best ways to get them talking. And talking and aknowledging  terrible things like racism and bigotry  is the first step towards the goal of complete racial harmony and not the facade of such.