So, you and your family are involved in a horrible disaster and lose your home and all of your possessions. You're a single parent with multiple children and life is looking pretty bleak.
I invite you and your children to come stay with me while you put your life together. Turns out, your life isn't exactly squeaky clean. You hang out with a rough crowd, you're involved with narctoics and parenting your children doesn't seem to be your top priority.
You and I clash about how to raise your children. You decided to leave the kids with me while you find a way to get back to your hometown. When you return to pick up your children, I let you know that you are no longer welcome in their lives. Of course you protest, you even call the police.
I just take your kids and run.
Did I mention that you're black and I'm white?...
(Side note: I really, REALLY want to write so much more on this topic but I'm refraining from giving any opinions because it's an issue that is in the news here in my hometown. Because of my job, I do not feel comfortable giving my opinion on local issues since I may have to cover those issues at some point in the future. But, I wanted y'all to know that I had a lot more than this to say. Use your imaginations.)
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Thursday, August 7, 2008
Hey Stupid, There is a Big Difference
I read a post a while back on The Field Negro about Toby Keith's new song that celebrates the glory of stringing up gangstas.
I digested the new info, shook my head at the stupidity and then decided to move on with my life. It's my standard response to garden variety racism.
Unfortunately, this act of racial stupidity involved nooses. In recent months I've been slapped in the face with the fact that issues involving nooses bring out a special type of stupid in many white people. That means that when I saw the topic discussed at other venues, I also saw a lot of comments that really pissed me off.
Objective studies have shown that white people in America are actually not as dumb as many black people think. In fact, they have the highest levels of education on average of any non-immigrant group in the country. (Certain immigrants have higher education levels because we only let the smart ones in legally.)
Sadly, despite their education, many white people suffer from a disorder that causes them to compare horrible acts of violence committed against minorities to vaguely similar, less horrific acts committed against white people. This typically occurs during discussions about the present day impact of historical racism.
This disorder is called Compulsive Comparison Dementia.
CCD is like an involuntarily spasm of the sphincter that causes feces to fly from your butt. Only it's your mouth that's plagued with the spasms even if you are still spewing shit.
People are often struck by the disorder without warning and they tend to spout ridiculous comparisons that have no basis in reality:
"Asians immigrants succeed; why can't blacks?"
"Italian and Irish immigrants were discriminated against too, you don't see them still complaining like black people."
"Africans held slaves too, and slavery used to exist in Eastern Europe as well."
"White people got lynched in the West just like black people got lynched in the South, so why is talking about lynching somebody such a big deal?"
That last hypothetical comment brings me back to the initial thrust of this blog post, Mr. Toby Keith.
Keith's new song advocates vigilante violence and is accompanied by a video showing a black youth dressed in typical urban fashion as a potential target for that violence. In a shocker, Keith's video is becoming quite popular among conservatives, and has garnered the singer lots of media attention. He's been cheered for setting the record straight and giving Americans some advice they can finally use.
Shockingly, his song has made some black people unhappy. We tend to view songs about nooses and death by hanging as warnings, not good dancing music. In fact, we don't call it death by hanging, we call it lynching. As black people have made their unhappiness known, many white people have found themselves struck by Compulsive Comparison Dementia, which has forced them to say things like the aforementioned comments about lynching.
The lynching comment is both idiotic and inaccurate. White people in the West did not get lynched. They were hanged. There is a difference between those two things, a massive, enormous, colossal difference.
Getting hanged means a jury of your peers found you guilty of a crime and decided to hang you for it.
Getting lynched means somebody pulled you from bed for an impromptu, midnight picnic where the main thing going on the grill is you.
Big difference.
Now, I understand that white people sometimes organized themselves into a posse and hunted down particularly bad criminals to hang them. I know that frontier justice could be brutal and capricious.
I also know that the cats getting strung up in the West weren't getting their testicles and ears cut off before they met the rope. I know their crimes were more egregious than looking at a white woman. I know the people getting killed typically were not children.
I know they weren't getting lynched.
So, like many black people, I tend to bristle when I hear someone complain that all the fuss about lynching and nooses is unnecessary. Then I realize that person probably suffers from CCD and they can't help being an idiot.
That helps most of the time.
(Sidenote: Since creating his ode to lynching Toby Keith also had this to say:
"I think the black people would say he [Obama] don't talk, act or carry himself as a black person."
"What does that even mean?" the audibly shocked Beck replied.
"Well, I don't know what that means," Keith drawled, "but I think that that's what they would say. Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason he is in [the general election] is because he talks, acts and carries himself as a Caucasian."
Toby Keith is a dumbass. Yes he is.)
I digested the new info, shook my head at the stupidity and then decided to move on with my life. It's my standard response to garden variety racism.
Unfortunately, this act of racial stupidity involved nooses. In recent months I've been slapped in the face with the fact that issues involving nooses bring out a special type of stupid in many white people. That means that when I saw the topic discussed at other venues, I also saw a lot of comments that really pissed me off.
Objective studies have shown that white people in America are actually not as dumb as many black people think. In fact, they have the highest levels of education on average of any non-immigrant group in the country. (Certain immigrants have higher education levels because we only let the smart ones in legally.)
Sadly, despite their education, many white people suffer from a disorder that causes them to compare horrible acts of violence committed against minorities to vaguely similar, less horrific acts committed against white people. This typically occurs during discussions about the present day impact of historical racism.
This disorder is called Compulsive Comparison Dementia.
CCD is like an involuntarily spasm of the sphincter that causes feces to fly from your butt. Only it's your mouth that's plagued with the spasms even if you are still spewing shit.
People are often struck by the disorder without warning and they tend to spout ridiculous comparisons that have no basis in reality:
"Asians immigrants succeed; why can't blacks?"
"Italian and Irish immigrants were discriminated against too, you don't see them still complaining like black people."
"Africans held slaves too, and slavery used to exist in Eastern Europe as well."
"White people got lynched in the West just like black people got lynched in the South, so why is talking about lynching somebody such a big deal?"
That last hypothetical comment brings me back to the initial thrust of this blog post, Mr. Toby Keith.
Keith's new song advocates vigilante violence and is accompanied by a video showing a black youth dressed in typical urban fashion as a potential target for that violence. In a shocker, Keith's video is becoming quite popular among conservatives, and has garnered the singer lots of media attention. He's been cheered for setting the record straight and giving Americans some advice they can finally use.
Shockingly, his song has made some black people unhappy. We tend to view songs about nooses and death by hanging as warnings, not good dancing music. In fact, we don't call it death by hanging, we call it lynching. As black people have made their unhappiness known, many white people have found themselves struck by Compulsive Comparison Dementia, which has forced them to say things like the aforementioned comments about lynching.
The lynching comment is both idiotic and inaccurate. White people in the West did not get lynched. They were hanged. There is a difference between those two things, a massive, enormous, colossal difference.
Getting hanged means a jury of your peers found you guilty of a crime and decided to hang you for it.
Getting lynched means somebody pulled you from bed for an impromptu, midnight picnic where the main thing going on the grill is you.
Big difference.
Now, I understand that white people sometimes organized themselves into a posse and hunted down particularly bad criminals to hang them. I know that frontier justice could be brutal and capricious.
I also know that the cats getting strung up in the West weren't getting their testicles and ears cut off before they met the rope. I know their crimes were more egregious than looking at a white woman. I know the people getting killed typically were not children.
I know they weren't getting lynched.
So, like many black people, I tend to bristle when I hear someone complain that all the fuss about lynching and nooses is unnecessary. Then I realize that person probably suffers from CCD and they can't help being an idiot.
That helps most of the time.
(Sidenote: Since creating his ode to lynching Toby Keith also had this to say:
"I think the black people would say he [Obama] don't talk, act or carry himself as a black person."
"What does that even mean?" the audibly shocked Beck replied.
"Well, I don't know what that means," Keith drawled, "but I think that that's what they would say. Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason he is in [the general election] is because he talks, acts and carries himself as a Caucasian."
Toby Keith is a dumbass. Yes he is.)
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
We Need to Talk
Hey Big Guy, how is it going?
Yeah, I know it's been a long time since we talked. I had a little confusion back when I was deciding whether I wanted to use the Methodist or Episcopalian hotline. But, I found the right number.
I thought we needed to talk. I heard You might have been a little perturbed by that joke ad I made recently about the other guy. You know the one using the old Jew movie with the gun guy. Some rumors reached my ear that You weren't pleased with me making fun of anointing, or the whole Ten Commandments ordeal, the whole shebang.
My bad, Big Guy.
Things are getting tight down here. This kid is really giving me all I can handle, and well sometimes in the heat of battle things happen. You've been in battle, the Old Testament is full of them, so I know You understand where I'm coming from. When you're fighting gooks, niggers and commies, sometimes it's just easier to let emotion take over and worry about what's right later.
It really is easier.
I know it was little disrespectful to cast him in the light we used. Not just disrespectful to him, but also to You and the folks who really believe that God can raise up leaders for certain times.
But, come on, most evangelical Christians were perfectly okay with me poking fun at miracles and all that jazz. That didn't seem to care at all that I had turn their belief that God inspires leaders into one big punchline. It's almost as if their religious outrage was dampened by the fact that I was making fun of that kid with the big britches.
So what's the big deal?
I'm tired of losing to this twerp. With a few funny and mean attack ads I've eliminated his lead and now I'm right back into this thing. You know I'm the best person for this job, who else understands the plans You have for America's conquest, I mean, coexistence with the rest of the world. I deserve this job, and I don't expect one little slip up to make You forget just what I've sacrificed to get it.
Look, I just wanted to talk to You for a little bit. I heard You were unhappy and I wanted to let You know that things would be all right. That I understood what really needed to happen even if You might have been a little confused.
Just leave it up to me.
Yeah, I know it's been a long time since we talked. I had a little confusion back when I was deciding whether I wanted to use the Methodist or Episcopalian hotline. But, I found the right number.
I thought we needed to talk. I heard You might have been a little perturbed by that joke ad I made recently about the other guy. You know the one using the old Jew movie with the gun guy. Some rumors reached my ear that You weren't pleased with me making fun of anointing, or the whole Ten Commandments ordeal, the whole shebang.
My bad, Big Guy.
Things are getting tight down here. This kid is really giving me all I can handle, and well sometimes in the heat of battle things happen. You've been in battle, the Old Testament is full of them, so I know You understand where I'm coming from. When you're fighting gooks, niggers and commies, sometimes it's just easier to let emotion take over and worry about what's right later.
It really is easier.
I know it was little disrespectful to cast him in the light we used. Not just disrespectful to him, but also to You and the folks who really believe that God can raise up leaders for certain times.
But, come on, most evangelical Christians were perfectly okay with me poking fun at miracles and all that jazz. That didn't seem to care at all that I had turn their belief that God inspires leaders into one big punchline. It's almost as if their religious outrage was dampened by the fact that I was making fun of that kid with the big britches.
So what's the big deal?
I'm tired of losing to this twerp. With a few funny and mean attack ads I've eliminated his lead and now I'm right back into this thing. You know I'm the best person for this job, who else understands the plans You have for America's conquest, I mean, coexistence with the rest of the world. I deserve this job, and I don't expect one little slip up to make You forget just what I've sacrificed to get it.
Look, I just wanted to talk to You for a little bit. I heard You were unhappy and I wanted to let You know that things would be all right. That I understood what really needed to happen even if You might have been a little confused.
Just leave it up to me.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
My First Time
I'm ready to lose my virginity.
Not my real virginity; I'm a married father, that ship sailed a while ago. Nah, I'm popping my cherry when it comes to criticizing Barack Obama on the blog.
I do not like this flip-flop on off-shore drilling.
That wasn't as painful as a I thought it would be.
Now, I don't want y'all to get the wrong idea and label me a shameless Obama shill, who has been wasted on the Kool-Aid. I've criticized the brother plenty in conversations with my family and friends. Particularly during the primary campaign when I felt he was letting certain stuff slide from the media and Hillary that I thought needed to be addressed.
But, I haven't had too many real criticisms for his viewpoints. And, when I did disagree with his choices, I typically accepted them as political realities. I didn't like his vote on FISA, I didn't like everything about his speech on Father's Day, and I didn't like parts of his response to the those black hecklers he faced recently. Yet, none of those issues really made me want to criticize him on my blog.
This drilling thing does it for me.
It's not because I'm some sort of green freak. I'm not at all. I'm much more concerned with saving money than the planet. Whenever I've had a choice between being eco-friendly and saving some money, well as old as Mother Earth is she should be able to handle herself.
The reason why this drilling flip-flop bothers me, even with all of Obama's caveats, is because Obama did the exact opposite during the primary when he was confronted with a similar choice. When Clinton and McCain jumped on the gas tax holiday like it was a cheap whore, Obama demurely refused to take the bait. He gambled on the intelligence of the voters in Indiana. He assumed that once the facts were laid out, people would see that the gas tax holiday would not help them at the pump.
This time, it's Obama whose asking for a half and half.
What I've liked about Obama from the beginning, even when it pissed me off, was that he seemed to be following his own drummer in many ways. I don't mean he didn't understand polls and focus groups, but I felt like he ultimately made strategic decisions based on an overarching plan, not some piecemeal strategy built on public opinion. I'm wondering if he's lost that sense of direction now as he sees his lead in the polls shrink and he watches McCain using lies and racism to gain ground.
I'm not political strategist, but I do spend a lot of time studying human nature. And while I'm sure that Obama expected things to be bad during this campaign, I'm wondering if he wasn't a little surprised with how quickly McCain went to the filth well. Or maybe he's starting to lose confidence in the American people because he's watched them cling to lies and stupidity instead of truly giving his campaign a chance.
I'm not sure what's going on in the Obama camp, but I don't like it. I don't like it at all.
Not my real virginity; I'm a married father, that ship sailed a while ago. Nah, I'm popping my cherry when it comes to criticizing Barack Obama on the blog.
I do not like this flip-flop on off-shore drilling.
That wasn't as painful as a I thought it would be.
Now, I don't want y'all to get the wrong idea and label me a shameless Obama shill, who has been wasted on the Kool-Aid. I've criticized the brother plenty in conversations with my family and friends. Particularly during the primary campaign when I felt he was letting certain stuff slide from the media and Hillary that I thought needed to be addressed.
But, I haven't had too many real criticisms for his viewpoints. And, when I did disagree with his choices, I typically accepted them as political realities. I didn't like his vote on FISA, I didn't like everything about his speech on Father's Day, and I didn't like parts of his response to the those black hecklers he faced recently. Yet, none of those issues really made me want to criticize him on my blog.
This drilling thing does it for me.
It's not because I'm some sort of green freak. I'm not at all. I'm much more concerned with saving money than the planet. Whenever I've had a choice between being eco-friendly and saving some money, well as old as Mother Earth is she should be able to handle herself.
The reason why this drilling flip-flop bothers me, even with all of Obama's caveats, is because Obama did the exact opposite during the primary when he was confronted with a similar choice. When Clinton and McCain jumped on the gas tax holiday like it was a cheap whore, Obama demurely refused to take the bait. He gambled on the intelligence of the voters in Indiana. He assumed that once the facts were laid out, people would see that the gas tax holiday would not help them at the pump.
This time, it's Obama whose asking for a half and half.
What I've liked about Obama from the beginning, even when it pissed me off, was that he seemed to be following his own drummer in many ways. I don't mean he didn't understand polls and focus groups, but I felt like he ultimately made strategic decisions based on an overarching plan, not some piecemeal strategy built on public opinion. I'm wondering if he's lost that sense of direction now as he sees his lead in the polls shrink and he watches McCain using lies and racism to gain ground.
I'm not political strategist, but I do spend a lot of time studying human nature. And while I'm sure that Obama expected things to be bad during this campaign, I'm wondering if he wasn't a little surprised with how quickly McCain went to the filth well. Or maybe he's starting to lose confidence in the American people because he's watched them cling to lies and stupidity instead of truly giving his campaign a chance.
I'm not sure what's going on in the Obama camp, but I don't like it. I don't like it at all.
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