White Appreciation Day at Rubbin Butz BBQ in Milliken CO

A friend of mine actually posted about this in one of our FB groups a day or two ago, and it's apparently caught national attention. And bomb threats. Seriously? Bomb threats? WTF is wrong with people?

Here are all of the Facebook pages that have shared this story on their pages, and if you are so inclined to read the comments (yee gawd), more power to you: www.facebook.com/topic/Milliken-Colorado/112718795409165

This was their response to the backlash they've been receiving.

We're sure many of you have heard about our event coming up on June 11th. (You can find it online)

Although we've had overwhelming support for it, there are a few who are filled with hate and/or misunderstanding. People full of hate and negativity want your attention, don't give it to them. Stay happy!

CNN interviewed the owner:
Barbecue restaurant owner says 'White Appreciation Day' misunderstood
By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
Updated 7:20 PM ET, Sat May 9, 2015

(CNN)The owner of a Colorado barbecue restaurant who drew criticism for offering a "White Appreciation Day" discount says he wants to celebrate Americans of all races, not just one.

What started off as a joke about how there's no holiday that celebrates "the white community" has been misinterpreted as a racially charged promotion, said Edgar Antillon, co-owner of Rubbin' Buttz BBQ and Country Cafe in Milliken.

"We are an amazing culture here in the U.S. We're a melting pot," Antillon told CNN. "But we should include white people in that, too."

A sign posted in the restaurant's window announcing "White Appreciation Day" on June 11 reads, "Because all Americans should be celebrated."

Your thoughts? Are people getting themselves too worked up/outraged over this, or do they have a point that white people still have most of the power and influence so they shouldn't receive any benefits or recognition like this?

Here's their business Facebook page, if you want to keep up with what happens: www.facebook.com/RubbinButtzBBQ

It said in the CNN story that they are planning on giving the discount to anyone who is "an American", regardless of skin color, so they won't be violating any laws.

Rick, I really like the point you made. He didn't do this to be discriminatory, but to point out an absurdity in honoring every ethnicity but Caucasians. This was the point he made in the story that I really liked:

Antillon said he understands the need for heritage months to celebrate groups overlooked in history. As a Mexican-American, he said he has experienced racism firsthand.

But, that doesn't mean any race deserves to "segregated" to a monthlong celebration, he said.

"I should be celebrated every day of the year, but so should white people and so should black people," he said. "We should all be celebrated all year long."

I agree wholeheartedly that everyone needs to be celebrated every day. We are all unique, yet in the big picture the differences between us are miniscule. As I posted on another discussion of racism recently, and edited a bit to add to it:

Speaking from a genetic point of view, there are no such things as "races". It's a classification artifact from a time before we had the human genome sequenced from multiple individuals from supposedly different races. The number of base pair differences in the entire 3 billion base pair genome between a black woman from Africa, a white woman from Europe, an Asian woman, and a Polynesian woman for example are so few as to be statistically insignificant.

What there is and always has been is social classification, and that is what has caused all the problems. Assuming that others who look different will act different or have different abilities, personalities, behaviors, dreams, goals, fears, and desires. It's all bullsh*t. We're all human, we all have the same experiences, we all deal with them in the same range of psychological manners, we all have the same biological programming. We f**k ourselves up creating false expectations and judgements of others, and people consciously and unconsciously respond and conform to those expectations.

We need to get past the social boxes we put people in based on physical appearance and stop focusing on those physical dividers - I think they've gotten to the point where they are causing more harm than good. If we celebrate Black History Month, doesn't that imply that we can ignore black history the other 11 months? Why not just integrate it, teach it all together, and make it all equal? Wasn't that point of ending segregation in the first place?