It's amazing, really, that the Internet still has the power to shock me.
There I was, deep in the morass of my own troubles, and all of a sudden BOOM! My girlfriend directs me to another blog where a woman is lamenting her trials and tribulations in trying to get kids to pick up a book.
Now, why should this woman be having a problem? She's a teacher, she has kids under her control, she has to educate them...why should getting them to read be something considered a bad thing? Isn't reading the primal conduit to understanding?
According to our friends in the Bible Belt West, apparently not.
You see, parents only want their kids to read that which is "approved". by "approved", I mean that which has all the sex, violence, life and fun sucked out of it, that which has so much dust on the cover that said children will find no interest in it, that which no sane fucking teacher could EVER convince anyone under the age of fifty to find appealing.
And this teacher's particular crime? Allowing her students to pick their own books.
Oh, I can hear the snickers from here; let teenagers pick their own reading material? Where is the sense in THAT? They'll all just read Twilight and Harry Potter and other such tripe, right?
I doubt it.
*I* was allowed to pick my own reading material. And I can tell you; after reading that which was designed for my consumption, I quickly moved on to that which was NOT: First ADULT (gasp!) fiction, then Alexandre Dumas, Bram Stoker, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, William Shakespeare, and others. Why? Because this reading thing was fucking COOL, that's why, and I wanted to know what else was out there!
Literature, like any other hobby, requires some training wheels. It requires some simple material easily digested, so that the later works do not make the prospective explorer choke. Trying to start kids out on the "classics" is like trying to start a prospective skier out on the "Double Diamond" runs...no matter what the level of natural talent, the result is sure to be disastrous.
And that is why this wonderful woman's approach of allowing young readers to pick their own material is a genius approach. Sure, some will stop at the tripe, but some will not; and those that make it to the "good stuff" will actually APPRECIATE what they are reading, instead of chewing through it for the sake of a grade.
With this in mind, it's a pity she was almost fired for her efforts.
Literature is SUBJECTIVE; it's designed that way for a REASON. I'm about as well-read as any, and I DESPISE Salinger (he cannot structure a plot to save his ass) yet revere Hemingway and Shakespeare (those men KNEW how to inspire). And I also love Mercedes Lackey, Tom Clancy, Daniel Keys Moran and Anne Rice, for being the gateway to the wonderful world of literature and a great many other reasons.
Let the next generation find their own way to the classics; forcing them down their throat will only ensure that appreciation will never occur.
And the teacher I spoke of? Pure, unappreciated genius. English professors could do worse than to follow in her footsteps.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Shotgun Diplomacy
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been staying more abreast of current events lately. I didn't much mean to; it's just that the daily paper is a cost free way of alleviating the mind numbing boredom endemic to my job. But, perhaps not surprisingly, reading about what's going on in the world has given me a lot more to talk about.
Take, for example, the current fashion of toting guns to presidential speeches. No shit, when I saw the picture of some ignorant cracker with a 9mm pistol strapped to his hip, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder and a sign that said something about "watering the tree of liberty", I had to restrain the urge to laugh. I wanted to because the fucker looked so patently ridiculous. I didn't, however, because such behavior really isn't funny.
Now, long hair and radical beliefs aside, I am definitely NOT against gun ownership. Once upon a time, this country's right to exist was ensured not by a professional army but by a determined group of armed civilians. While the likelihood of such a thing being necessary twice is fairly low, I do not think that (especially in these dark times) laying down our arms is particularly prudent. Besides, I think I've made it clear that I believe an individual should have the right to defend their home, family and interests with deadly force if the need arises.
However, I ALSO feel that a citizen who chooses to arm himself is by default held to a higher standard of maturity and responsibility. A gun is not a status symbol or a source of amusement. It is a tool of deadly force and should be treated as such. Walking around with an AR-15 over your shoulder, just because you can, daring someone to "make something of it" is not the action of an adult. Such is the act of a child, a spoiled and selfish one at that.
I won't bother talking about how such antics interfere with the democratic process or create a security risk for our president. The mainstream press has already covered such ground with at least as much eloquence as I could muster. But here are another few reasons why such behavior is monumentally stupid:
-it does wonders for Gun Control, Inc. Think about it. If these people get edgy at the mere THOUGHT of private firearm ownership, imagine how they're going to feel about the sight of some asshole walking down a public street, hatted up like he's off to a Soldier of Fortune photo op. And imagine what gun-control fence sitters are going to think. Hell, I'm for gun ownership and it made ME nervous.
-it's an offense to polite society. Unless the Taliban staged some kind of invasion, there's no justifiable reason to be openly carrying guns on a public street. A firearm is a dangerous object, and accidents can and do happen.
-it makes the country look bad. Come on, we already look like a nation of ignorant, trigger-happy cowboys. Do we, as a country, truly want to make that worse? If these fuckwads really loved this nation, they'd actually give a shit about what their actions do to its reputation.
-it's a safety hazard. This one should be obvious but I'll list it anyway. A gun in an open topped holster can be stolen, and it can fall out and go off by accident. And it did not appear to me that those packing heat were paying too much mind to either concern. Yes, police carry guns in a similar fashion. But they are trained. These men, I'm going to assume from their lax behavior, weren't.
I could go on, but what's the point? Put simply, such behavior is irresponsible and stupid. Those engaging in it should cease and desist, else their right to keep and bear arms evaporate in a flurry of well meaning (and perhaps well deserved) paranoia.
In other words, the idiotic few need to stop making the rest of us look bad.
Take, for example, the current fashion of toting guns to presidential speeches. No shit, when I saw the picture of some ignorant cracker with a 9mm pistol strapped to his hip, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder and a sign that said something about "watering the tree of liberty", I had to restrain the urge to laugh. I wanted to because the fucker looked so patently ridiculous. I didn't, however, because such behavior really isn't funny.
Now, long hair and radical beliefs aside, I am definitely NOT against gun ownership. Once upon a time, this country's right to exist was ensured not by a professional army but by a determined group of armed civilians. While the likelihood of such a thing being necessary twice is fairly low, I do not think that (especially in these dark times) laying down our arms is particularly prudent. Besides, I think I've made it clear that I believe an individual should have the right to defend their home, family and interests with deadly force if the need arises.
However, I ALSO feel that a citizen who chooses to arm himself is by default held to a higher standard of maturity and responsibility. A gun is not a status symbol or a source of amusement. It is a tool of deadly force and should be treated as such. Walking around with an AR-15 over your shoulder, just because you can, daring someone to "make something of it" is not the action of an adult. Such is the act of a child, a spoiled and selfish one at that.
I won't bother talking about how such antics interfere with the democratic process or create a security risk for our president. The mainstream press has already covered such ground with at least as much eloquence as I could muster. But here are another few reasons why such behavior is monumentally stupid:
-it does wonders for Gun Control, Inc. Think about it. If these people get edgy at the mere THOUGHT of private firearm ownership, imagine how they're going to feel about the sight of some asshole walking down a public street, hatted up like he's off to a Soldier of Fortune photo op. And imagine what gun-control fence sitters are going to think. Hell, I'm for gun ownership and it made ME nervous.
-it's an offense to polite society. Unless the Taliban staged some kind of invasion, there's no justifiable reason to be openly carrying guns on a public street. A firearm is a dangerous object, and accidents can and do happen.
-it makes the country look bad. Come on, we already look like a nation of ignorant, trigger-happy cowboys. Do we, as a country, truly want to make that worse? If these fuckwads really loved this nation, they'd actually give a shit about what their actions do to its reputation.
-it's a safety hazard. This one should be obvious but I'll list it anyway. A gun in an open topped holster can be stolen, and it can fall out and go off by accident. And it did not appear to me that those packing heat were paying too much mind to either concern. Yes, police carry guns in a similar fashion. But they are trained. These men, I'm going to assume from their lax behavior, weren't.
I could go on, but what's the point? Put simply, such behavior is irresponsible and stupid. Those engaging in it should cease and desist, else their right to keep and bear arms evaporate in a flurry of well meaning (and perhaps well deserved) paranoia.
In other words, the idiotic few need to stop making the rest of us look bad.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Is it a crime to love my country?
Hello once again, my devoted readership. It's been a good while since I last checked in with anything meaningful (financial contractions caused me to have to shut down my home Internet) so I'll do my best.
I've been reading the paper a lot these past few weeks,as well as listening to the beer-infused rants of the customers around me while at work. There's a good deal of anger going around; two unpopular wars, an explosive health care debate, and an economic situation that's less attractive than a tavern commode. People are angry, bitter and cynical. Even the sunday funnies are, well...not.
A lot of this resonates with me as well; I work two jobs in order to barely support myself, have friends risking their necks in Iraq, and tend to view our current health care system as a polite form of legalized piracy. Occasionally, I succumb to the black humors so prevalent in this modern age. And I've done my fair share of bitching about it.
But most of the time I'm happy to be here.
Seriously, I'm pleased and proud to be an American. Why? For the sunny side of the reasons I just discussed. So I have to work two low-paying jobs; so what? Those jobs keep me in food to eat, a roof over my head and the occasional bit of fun. There are many in other countries that would sell their soul to be able to make such a claim. So our health care system sucks; so what? It doesn't leave us to die in the street of diseases humanity learned to fix before WWII. Can the common inhabitant of Peshawar or Calcutta say the same? So our young men are dying in wars we aren't 100% sure about. Tragic, but at least they volunteered for the job. The child-soldiers in Burma likely wished they were so fortunate.
Another example; about a year ago I was harassed on the streets of Seattle by a young man extolling the virtues of Communism. Seriously; he attempted to press a pamphlet on me with the zeal of a street-corner evangelist and did not leave me alone until I threatened him with bodily harm (to whit, I adopted a cheesy redneck drawl and mumbled something about shooting folks like him where I was from. Stereotypes can occasionally be useful). The incident stuck in my head; it was only after I got home that I realized what bothered me about the confrontation.
In the countries that practiced the form of government he was praising, the young man with the Che Guavra t-shirt and the black birth control glasses would have likely been beaten, jailed or killed for being critical to the established powers-that-be. Only in America is the freedom to do such a thing woven into the most elemental fabric of our legal code.
The point that "things are always worse somewhere else so we should be grateful for what we DO have" is a well worn one, and I understand that. But in the dark times that currently assail us, it is also something we should remember.
Love of country is like love of anything else; it's never perfect and sometimes drives you up the wall, but it's also something you appreciate in the good times. Like all other love, it should never be blind, just accepting of imperfection. I know America is a nation with blood on its hands and skeletons in its closet, but I challenge anyone to find a country that is bereft of such things. Of all the places I could be living, I'd say I fucking well lucked out.
Despite the flaws, I love my country.
I've been reading the paper a lot these past few weeks,as well as listening to the beer-infused rants of the customers around me while at work. There's a good deal of anger going around; two unpopular wars, an explosive health care debate, and an economic situation that's less attractive than a tavern commode. People are angry, bitter and cynical. Even the sunday funnies are, well...not.
A lot of this resonates with me as well; I work two jobs in order to barely support myself, have friends risking their necks in Iraq, and tend to view our current health care system as a polite form of legalized piracy. Occasionally, I succumb to the black humors so prevalent in this modern age. And I've done my fair share of bitching about it.
But most of the time I'm happy to be here.
Seriously, I'm pleased and proud to be an American. Why? For the sunny side of the reasons I just discussed. So I have to work two low-paying jobs; so what? Those jobs keep me in food to eat, a roof over my head and the occasional bit of fun. There are many in other countries that would sell their soul to be able to make such a claim. So our health care system sucks; so what? It doesn't leave us to die in the street of diseases humanity learned to fix before WWII. Can the common inhabitant of Peshawar or Calcutta say the same? So our young men are dying in wars we aren't 100% sure about. Tragic, but at least they volunteered for the job. The child-soldiers in Burma likely wished they were so fortunate.
Another example; about a year ago I was harassed on the streets of Seattle by a young man extolling the virtues of Communism. Seriously; he attempted to press a pamphlet on me with the zeal of a street-corner evangelist and did not leave me alone until I threatened him with bodily harm (to whit, I adopted a cheesy redneck drawl and mumbled something about shooting folks like him where I was from. Stereotypes can occasionally be useful). The incident stuck in my head; it was only after I got home that I realized what bothered me about the confrontation.
In the countries that practiced the form of government he was praising, the young man with the Che Guavra t-shirt and the black birth control glasses would have likely been beaten, jailed or killed for being critical to the established powers-that-be. Only in America is the freedom to do such a thing woven into the most elemental fabric of our legal code.
The point that "things are always worse somewhere else so we should be grateful for what we DO have" is a well worn one, and I understand that. But in the dark times that currently assail us, it is also something we should remember.
Love of country is like love of anything else; it's never perfect and sometimes drives you up the wall, but it's also something you appreciate in the good times. Like all other love, it should never be blind, just accepting of imperfection. I know America is a nation with blood on its hands and skeletons in its closet, but I challenge anyone to find a country that is bereft of such things. Of all the places I could be living, I'd say I fucking well lucked out.
Despite the flaws, I love my country.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Technology is cool!
>Well, this will be a short entry, as I am speaking to you via my phone. I just wanted to make a brief comment about how technology certainly has come a long fucking way since I was born. I mean, really, some days it really boggles my mind. When I was 16, cell phones were enormous bricks that you couldn't fit in your pocket. Now, they are semi-intelligent postage stamps that allow
a person to write entries in an electronic journal that can potentially be read by millions.
Oh, and they'll correct your spelling while you do it.
Seriously, I love this little gadget. If I can find the oral sex and cooking applications, I may give up girls entirely.
a person to write entries in an electronic journal that can potentially be read by millions.
Oh, and they'll correct your spelling while you do it.
Seriously, I love this little gadget. If I can find the oral sex and cooking applications, I may give up girls entirely.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Gay Marriage: Let it Be
Recently, the perennial topic of gay marriage hit the news again, with President Obama's new bill (and the negative reactions it drew). As always, I was torn between the desire to laugh and to tear my hair out. Watching this issue unfold has always baffled me: Haven't we learned from history?
Let me explain. For years, it was illegal for members of different races to intermarry. Blacks couldn't marry whites. Yes, there were actual LAWS on the books that prevented it (the last ones being finally struck down in the early eighties). During the 50s and 60s, the argument against interracial marriage was that it would be a socially destructive force, that it would lead to irrepressible moral turpitude and society would crumble.
Flash forward forty years or so. Interracial couples happen with regularity (my own sister, in fact, is married to a black man) and the social destruction prophesied by the conservative racists hasn't come to pass. Personally, I think my black brother-in-law makes a damn fine father.
But, to raise another point, do the arguments against sound the least bit familiar?
There is no argument against homosexual marriage that makes the least bit of sense. None at all. Like it or lump it, marriage is a LEGAL CONTRACT between two people. and the law is supposed to be blind to matters of race, color, creed, or personal belief in this country.
If a Catholic priest does not wish to perform a homosexual wedding, that is certainly his right. This country supports freedom of religion. But marriages can be performed by court commissioners (mine was) and there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER for them to be able to refuse. And there is ALSO no reason why the leaders of this country should take this freedom away from the tax-paying homosexual citizens who live here.
In disallowing the right of marriage to a certain segment of the population, we create in that segment a second-class citizen. He or she does not have the same rights and freedoms as another, for an arbitrary, unchangeable reason. Speaking as an American, I find this totally unacceptable, and morally reprehensible.
To all those who speak against the right of homosexuals to marry, I say this; you are betraying your country. You are eroding the principals of liberty and equality upon which this nation was founded, and you are doing it for no good reason.
Grow up.
Let me explain. For years, it was illegal for members of different races to intermarry. Blacks couldn't marry whites. Yes, there were actual LAWS on the books that prevented it (the last ones being finally struck down in the early eighties). During the 50s and 60s, the argument against interracial marriage was that it would be a socially destructive force, that it would lead to irrepressible moral turpitude and society would crumble.
Flash forward forty years or so. Interracial couples happen with regularity (my own sister, in fact, is married to a black man) and the social destruction prophesied by the conservative racists hasn't come to pass. Personally, I think my black brother-in-law makes a damn fine father.
But, to raise another point, do the arguments against sound the least bit familiar?
There is no argument against homosexual marriage that makes the least bit of sense. None at all. Like it or lump it, marriage is a LEGAL CONTRACT between two people. and the law is supposed to be blind to matters of race, color, creed, or personal belief in this country.
If a Catholic priest does not wish to perform a homosexual wedding, that is certainly his right. This country supports freedom of religion. But marriages can be performed by court commissioners (mine was) and there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER for them to be able to refuse. And there is ALSO no reason why the leaders of this country should take this freedom away from the tax-paying homosexual citizens who live here.
In disallowing the right of marriage to a certain segment of the population, we create in that segment a second-class citizen. He or she does not have the same rights and freedoms as another, for an arbitrary, unchangeable reason. Speaking as an American, I find this totally unacceptable, and morally reprehensible.
To all those who speak against the right of homosexuals to marry, I say this; you are betraying your country. You are eroding the principals of liberty and equality upon which this nation was founded, and you are doing it for no good reason.
Grow up.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Slow Death of Rock
Has anyone else noticed a trend in music lately?
No band sticks around longer than a few months. This month's cock-of-the-walk is next month's feather duster; no musical act seems to be able to acquire the dependable longevity of their ancestors. I asked myself; where is this generation's Bruce Springsteen? Who's going to take up the "we're gonna do this forever" banner once the Rolling Stones finally kick the bucket? Nobody, if the music industry continues as it has been. Especially with the rise of the Internet.
Now, I am the first person to champion living in a more connected world. Heck, I'm communicating to my readership with it. But being able to send a message to every computer-equipped person in the human sphere has caused one problem; it no longer takes any time at all for a musical group to get discovered.
Think about this for a minute. Back in rock's early days, bands had to suffer the painful vetting process of the live club circut. To get discovered they had to get out and play, in front of rude drunks; if they sucked, people knew it, and they either got better or got the hell out of music.
To put this in perspective, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi's response as to what was the biggest factor in his band's success: "We had a job as the house band in this little blues club in Switzerland...we played five and six hour sets, three nights a week. That really tightened us up."
Now, with the advent of the Internet all that isn't necessary, and in skipping that step bands skip the vital maturation process of playing live on the road for small stakes. Now, the first catchy ditty that any group churns out is flung out into the world market, without regard for things like artistic merit. As soon as a band fails to make another one, they are shed from a label's roster without regard to artistic growth. If they manage to make several good songs (never mind albums, a single's good enough), but their career starts to show any kind of irregularity, the artist releases a "Greatest Hits" album and fades into obscurity.
And people wonder why dependable hitmakers are no longer showing up.
In another perspective-making example, consider Aerosmith. These days everyone knows who they are, but when they began their musical careers, their first single failed to chart. Instead of being dropped, the band toured live for a few months and kept on the label's roster. The song was released again, whereupon it became a hit.
The song in question? The ballad "Dream On". Interesting that a staple of classic rock radio tanked its first time around.
The music industry has caused its own troubles by turning the entire music scene into a production line; make the hit, that's all that counts. Artistic merit and maturity has gone by the wayside, and labels no longer nurture artists who just need a little seasoning. (Another interesting note: Bruce Springsteen took three albums to attain anything like the mega-fame he possesses now.) The industry also doesn't want to take a chance on anything that doesn't sell well, no matter how interesting or potentially influencing it might be. The prog-metal group Queensryche is a good example; their album sales hardly cracked the million-mark until late in their career, but their album Operation: Mindcrime is cited as an important influence by many current bands. In today's music industry, they simply wouldn't have been given a chance.
What's the solution? I'm not really sure. We can't take music off the internet, we can't make the record labels sign bands that don't sell many albums but make damn good music. But I wanted to call attention to the seriousness of the situation before rock-n-roll simply collapses under its own bloated weight. Don't laugh, without some kind of change, it'll happen in our lifetime.
And a world without meaningful music is not a world I want to live in.
No band sticks around longer than a few months. This month's cock-of-the-walk is next month's feather duster; no musical act seems to be able to acquire the dependable longevity of their ancestors. I asked myself; where is this generation's Bruce Springsteen? Who's going to take up the "we're gonna do this forever" banner once the Rolling Stones finally kick the bucket? Nobody, if the music industry continues as it has been. Especially with the rise of the Internet.
Now, I am the first person to champion living in a more connected world. Heck, I'm communicating to my readership with it. But being able to send a message to every computer-equipped person in the human sphere has caused one problem; it no longer takes any time at all for a musical group to get discovered.
Think about this for a minute. Back in rock's early days, bands had to suffer the painful vetting process of the live club circut. To get discovered they had to get out and play, in front of rude drunks; if they sucked, people knew it, and they either got better or got the hell out of music.
To put this in perspective, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi's response as to what was the biggest factor in his band's success: "We had a job as the house band in this little blues club in Switzerland...we played five and six hour sets, three nights a week. That really tightened us up."
Now, with the advent of the Internet all that isn't necessary, and in skipping that step bands skip the vital maturation process of playing live on the road for small stakes. Now, the first catchy ditty that any group churns out is flung out into the world market, without regard for things like artistic merit. As soon as a band fails to make another one, they are shed from a label's roster without regard to artistic growth. If they manage to make several good songs (never mind albums, a single's good enough), but their career starts to show any kind of irregularity, the artist releases a "Greatest Hits" album and fades into obscurity.
And people wonder why dependable hitmakers are no longer showing up.
In another perspective-making example, consider Aerosmith. These days everyone knows who they are, but when they began their musical careers, their first single failed to chart. Instead of being dropped, the band toured live for a few months and kept on the label's roster. The song was released again, whereupon it became a hit.
The song in question? The ballad "Dream On". Interesting that a staple of classic rock radio tanked its first time around.
The music industry has caused its own troubles by turning the entire music scene into a production line; make the hit, that's all that counts. Artistic merit and maturity has gone by the wayside, and labels no longer nurture artists who just need a little seasoning. (Another interesting note: Bruce Springsteen took three albums to attain anything like the mega-fame he possesses now.) The industry also doesn't want to take a chance on anything that doesn't sell well, no matter how interesting or potentially influencing it might be. The prog-metal group Queensryche is a good example; their album sales hardly cracked the million-mark until late in their career, but their album Operation: Mindcrime is cited as an important influence by many current bands. In today's music industry, they simply wouldn't have been given a chance.
What's the solution? I'm not really sure. We can't take music off the internet, we can't make the record labels sign bands that don't sell many albums but make damn good music. But I wanted to call attention to the seriousness of the situation before rock-n-roll simply collapses under its own bloated weight. Don't laugh, without some kind of change, it'll happen in our lifetime.
And a world without meaningful music is not a world I want to live in.
Not Your Father's Anti-Racist Rant
I hate niggers. Faggots and beaners also piss me off real good.
Wow, I can smell the outrage from here at that line. I can hear the indrawn breath of a million indignant social activists as they prepare to verbally eviscerate me for uttering it. “How dare you” they all want to scream. How dare I, indeed? A middle class Anglo-boy (blond and blue-eyed, no less) shouting racial slurs? For the liberal shark, blood has most definitely hit the water. Well, hold your mud for a few and let me finish. If after I’m through you still think I deserved to be crucified, I will, like Jesus before me, willingly raise my hands to the cross. But now that I have your attention, let me begin.
I am not a racist. I want to make that clear right now. I judge all individuals as people; I let superficial concerns like the presence or absence of pigment have as little say in who I like and dislike as I’m able to. I dislike being judged almost as much as eating Brussels sprouts or drinking Canadian whisky, so I do it as little as possible. I hate racism, it makes me coldly furious. Over the next few paragraphs you’ll see just how much.
More to the point, I am related to a black man (I personally don’t like the term “African-American”; it sounds like they just got off a boat from Kenya or wherever). The relation is by marriage, to be sure, but in my family once you’re in you’re in. My ”brother from another mother” is one of my favorite people. He’s a charming, relaxed dude who is awesome to hang out with; getting drunk with him is especially enjoyable. He’s a loving husband to his wife, an attentive father to my infant nephew. He’s a hardworking, productive member of society and in all ways a pretty fine example of humanity. And I’d fucking well black-bag anyone who tried to say anything nasty about his marriage to my Caucasian sister.
I also voted for Barack Obama. I know, that’s not a radical display of racial tolerance, but I really respect his intelligence, his willpower, and his message. For the first time ever, I saw a politician who gave a speech that could stir me. I liked the fact that he owned up to having once been a cokehead without a blink. I applauded his refusal to play dirty political games when Sarah Palin’s teenaged daughter became pregnant. And I laughed myself silly when he said “of course I smoked pot. And I inhaled, frequently; that was the point” at a press conference. When was the last time a politician said something like that to his constituents? Truly, I wish they were all so goddamned witty. C-SPAN might actually be worth watching.
Oh, and I didn’t vote for him because he was black, or biracial, or whatever. I voted for him because I liked what came out of his mouth. In other words, I judged him not on the color of his skin but by the content of his character.
Most importantly, I recognize that the black American toils under a small mountain of inequities that he does not deserve to shoulder. His antecedents were owned like cattle; his parents were beaten and lynched by bedsheet-wearing hillbillies (and sadly, this hasn’t stopped happening). And in this time, there are still people who view him as inferior and untrustworthy. Which is why I have a good deal of respect for people like Obama and my brother; they have risen above the unjust bullshit and found success, wealth and happiness.
This is also why I want to put a bullet between the eyes of the thugged-out, gun-toting, crack dealing tar baby who thinks putting spinners on his ’95 Corolla makes him cool like Tupac. I want to take a truncheon and hit him in his trash-talking pie hole so he spews blood and broken teeth like a miniature Mount Saint Helens. I want to strangle him with his cheap-ass 14 karat chain (taking a moment to stick the stupid little Kalashnikov replica dangling from it through his eyeball like the swizzle stick in an olive; you know…for flavor). Bad enough that he and others like him are helping to cause the violence and social distortion that have turned our cities into dangerous jungles. White people, of course, also do their fair share in this department. But he’s also setting the clock on Afro-Caucasian race relations back ten years with every admission to the local lockup for theft, rape and murder. People like that are a reason why my brother has been maligned for the color of his skin. And I despise them for it.
In the same vein, I’d like to storm a trailer park and whack out the gap-toothed, meth-addled cracker bitch who feeds her eight berjillion kids on the government dole, so that upright Southerners like my aunt and uncle could wave the Confederate flag with pride. I’d choke the Oxy-snorting Lummi wastrel in my casino to death with his own greasy ponytail, thus allowing the Native American success stories I know to get the respect they deserve. And if I still hadn’t gotten arrested, I’d roll up on my block and blow away all the vatos who spend their time smoking mota and listening to their polka music instead of getting a job and keeping their fucking kids out of the road. That would be for the benefit of the hard working, family-oriented Hispanic carpenters my father feels blessed to employ.
Oh, and while I’m on the subject, the piece of airy-fairy queer bait that pinches my ass and expects to get away with it in the name of “tolerance” is in for a rude surprise. If a girl has the right to kick me in the man-bits if I try to cop a feel, then you will get a taste of my pimp hand, sweetie. Suck all the cock you want, with my blessing; I for one love blow jobs and wouldn’t stand in the way of anyone’s chance to receive (or provide) one. If some homophobic frat boy throws a punch at you because you “dared” kiss your boyfriend in public, I’ll be there to stop him (with a stiff left hook if necessary). Just do me a favor; go home, wash off the mascara, stiffen up that wrist and keep your hands off the straights, please. The rest of the homosexual population (including my gay friends, who have complained to me of this very thing) would appreciate it if you didn’t shove your proclivities up the world’s collective bunghole. Who knows, it might even make your life a little easier. Ignore me at your peril; make a grab for any part of my anatomy without permission and it’ll be my fist rebounding off your well-coiffed skull.
Ok, maybe it’s not such a good idea for me to own a gun.
Seriously, though; I hope my point is plain. Every stereotype-generating fuckhead in this world causes problems not only for themselves but those of his group that don’t do so. The fact that stereotypes exist is a dark, sad chapter in the book of human nature. But in time, they will become less prevalent and damning if a certain segment of the populace would stop perpetuating them by example. Though he never speaks of it, I can see in my brother’s eyes the occasional flash of bitter anger that comes of being thought inferior for an arbitrary reason, and I get pissed off all over again at those who perpetuate this infamy against him. He should not have to suffer for their sins, but he does. It makes me sad. It makes me angry. And it makes me want to reach for a baseball bat.
To be sure, people who use stereotypes to define their human relationships must shoulder a share of the blame. Fundamentalist Christians who think every gay male is a depraved, sex-crazed man-whore deserve a bonking with a Bible (preferably an unabridged one, they might learn something). Police officers who automatically assume the black they see driving a Mercedes jacked it from a white man should get terminated and incarcerated on the grounds of simple stupidity (hopefully they’ll get buggered a bit and also learn something).
But they, and others of their ilk, in all their arrogance and ignorance, are not the whole story.
Enough ink has been put to paper about the evils of the “Anglo-Saxon majority” to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Taking a poke at the white man’s insensitivity to the minority condition is one of the easiest intellectual sports one can engage in; it is sure to find an audience, and no one (not even me) can say we don’t somewhat deserve the verbal drubbing. But still, nothing changes and the Anglo majority just gets tired of being pilloried. And as a member of that majority, I am fucking sick of taking all the blame.
With this essay, I take a good hard swing at the face of human prejudice. I make no apologies for the language it uses or the tone it takes. I accept full responsibility for the results. Racism and intolerance have crushed the dreams, spilled the blood and raped the human spirit of countless millions; in choosing to tackle the subject, I will not glaze over the ugliness with sugary prose. A straight-up double shot of from-the-heart street preaching honors the victims and their sacrifices with far more honesty than any amount of kid-gloved euphemistic bullshit. In the passion I feel and the eloquence I possess lie the power to change the world; I cannot in good conscience ignore the social responsibility inherent in deciding to employ them.
If the stream of gory vitriol you read in the opening paragraphs made you wince, good. If you are outraged, indignant and a little nauseated by my descriptions of bloodshed and my casual use of racial slurs, that is wonderful. I intended it so. That sick feeling in the pit of your stomach means that you have not forfeited your essential humanity to a cruel and unjust world. It means you still care about your fellow humans, though they may be imperfect, and that warms my heart more than words can convey. I would shake your hand and congratulate you on emerging from life’s fiery crucible with your idealism intact.
On the other hand, if you were amused by all the evocative violence and are thinking, “Yeah, shoot the niggers, what a great idea, that’ll fix things” then here’s what you should do. Come find me. No, really. We’ll have a drink together and you can tell me exactly why you think we should go a-hunting. And then I’ll chain your stupid ass to the tree in my backyard, cut myself a good stiff switch and whip you soundly about the derriere until you learn humility, maturity and respect for the agony of the oppressed. It would be no less than you deserve.
But enough with the cheap-seats posturing. Without further ado, I shall come to the point.
Ending intolerance in this world will take time, patience, temperance and empathy on the part of all. It will take peaceful discourse and a strong desire for change. But it will also take a hefty measure of good sense, and most importantly cooperation. The Anglo and the Negro must both take a long honest look at their souls, shed the undesirable elements of their respective cultures and lay down the grudges of the past. If the ebony and the ivory really mean to coexist, then they must both make some sacrifices and grow the hell up. The time has come for the narrow minded, judgmental WASP to leave us be, but so too the selfish shortsighted Negro in whose mind the inequities of the past give him cart blanche to behave as he pleases in the present. The alcoholic redskin, the gangbanging vato and the flouncing fairy need to take a hike as well. After such a session of painful social housecleaning, we would have peace instead of armistice, and acceptance in place of mere tolerance.
I hope the wastrels and losers I’ve placed in my imagined crosshairs (and you know who you are) will change their ways peaceably and of their own will. I hope that those who share their skin color or belief structure will help them, for their own sake as much as everyone else’s. And I hope those who judge with a single look will see the error of their ways and learn better. My barometer for success will be when racist jokes stop amusing us.
Because at that point, they’ll no longer even be occasionally true.
In closing, I love people. But I have no respect for niggers. And I think I’ve done a good job in explaining why. If you still believe I deserve to be crucified for my ideals, I bow my head and peacefully await your nails and thorny crown. To keep the integrity of my position demands nothing less.
Wow, I can smell the outrage from here at that line. I can hear the indrawn breath of a million indignant social activists as they prepare to verbally eviscerate me for uttering it. “How dare you” they all want to scream. How dare I, indeed? A middle class Anglo-boy (blond and blue-eyed, no less) shouting racial slurs? For the liberal shark, blood has most definitely hit the water. Well, hold your mud for a few and let me finish. If after I’m through you still think I deserved to be crucified, I will, like Jesus before me, willingly raise my hands to the cross. But now that I have your attention, let me begin.
I am not a racist. I want to make that clear right now. I judge all individuals as people; I let superficial concerns like the presence or absence of pigment have as little say in who I like and dislike as I’m able to. I dislike being judged almost as much as eating Brussels sprouts or drinking Canadian whisky, so I do it as little as possible. I hate racism, it makes me coldly furious. Over the next few paragraphs you’ll see just how much.
More to the point, I am related to a black man (I personally don’t like the term “African-American”; it sounds like they just got off a boat from Kenya or wherever). The relation is by marriage, to be sure, but in my family once you’re in you’re in. My ”brother from another mother” is one of my favorite people. He’s a charming, relaxed dude who is awesome to hang out with; getting drunk with him is especially enjoyable. He’s a loving husband to his wife, an attentive father to my infant nephew. He’s a hardworking, productive member of society and in all ways a pretty fine example of humanity. And I’d fucking well black-bag anyone who tried to say anything nasty about his marriage to my Caucasian sister.
I also voted for Barack Obama. I know, that’s not a radical display of racial tolerance, but I really respect his intelligence, his willpower, and his message. For the first time ever, I saw a politician who gave a speech that could stir me. I liked the fact that he owned up to having once been a cokehead without a blink. I applauded his refusal to play dirty political games when Sarah Palin’s teenaged daughter became pregnant. And I laughed myself silly when he said “of course I smoked pot. And I inhaled, frequently; that was the point” at a press conference. When was the last time a politician said something like that to his constituents? Truly, I wish they were all so goddamned witty. C-SPAN might actually be worth watching.
Oh, and I didn’t vote for him because he was black, or biracial, or whatever. I voted for him because I liked what came out of his mouth. In other words, I judged him not on the color of his skin but by the content of his character.
Most importantly, I recognize that the black American toils under a small mountain of inequities that he does not deserve to shoulder. His antecedents were owned like cattle; his parents were beaten and lynched by bedsheet-wearing hillbillies (and sadly, this hasn’t stopped happening). And in this time, there are still people who view him as inferior and untrustworthy. Which is why I have a good deal of respect for people like Obama and my brother; they have risen above the unjust bullshit and found success, wealth and happiness.
This is also why I want to put a bullet between the eyes of the thugged-out, gun-toting, crack dealing tar baby who thinks putting spinners on his ’95 Corolla makes him cool like Tupac. I want to take a truncheon and hit him in his trash-talking pie hole so he spews blood and broken teeth like a miniature Mount Saint Helens. I want to strangle him with his cheap-ass 14 karat chain (taking a moment to stick the stupid little Kalashnikov replica dangling from it through his eyeball like the swizzle stick in an olive; you know…for flavor). Bad enough that he and others like him are helping to cause the violence and social distortion that have turned our cities into dangerous jungles. White people, of course, also do their fair share in this department. But he’s also setting the clock on Afro-Caucasian race relations back ten years with every admission to the local lockup for theft, rape and murder. People like that are a reason why my brother has been maligned for the color of his skin. And I despise them for it.
In the same vein, I’d like to storm a trailer park and whack out the gap-toothed, meth-addled cracker bitch who feeds her eight berjillion kids on the government dole, so that upright Southerners like my aunt and uncle could wave the Confederate flag with pride. I’d choke the Oxy-snorting Lummi wastrel in my casino to death with his own greasy ponytail, thus allowing the Native American success stories I know to get the respect they deserve. And if I still hadn’t gotten arrested, I’d roll up on my block and blow away all the vatos who spend their time smoking mota and listening to their polka music instead of getting a job and keeping their fucking kids out of the road. That would be for the benefit of the hard working, family-oriented Hispanic carpenters my father feels blessed to employ.
Oh, and while I’m on the subject, the piece of airy-fairy queer bait that pinches my ass and expects to get away with it in the name of “tolerance” is in for a rude surprise. If a girl has the right to kick me in the man-bits if I try to cop a feel, then you will get a taste of my pimp hand, sweetie. Suck all the cock you want, with my blessing; I for one love blow jobs and wouldn’t stand in the way of anyone’s chance to receive (or provide) one. If some homophobic frat boy throws a punch at you because you “dared” kiss your boyfriend in public, I’ll be there to stop him (with a stiff left hook if necessary). Just do me a favor; go home, wash off the mascara, stiffen up that wrist and keep your hands off the straights, please. The rest of the homosexual population (including my gay friends, who have complained to me of this very thing) would appreciate it if you didn’t shove your proclivities up the world’s collective bunghole. Who knows, it might even make your life a little easier. Ignore me at your peril; make a grab for any part of my anatomy without permission and it’ll be my fist rebounding off your well-coiffed skull.
Ok, maybe it’s not such a good idea for me to own a gun.
Seriously, though; I hope my point is plain. Every stereotype-generating fuckhead in this world causes problems not only for themselves but those of his group that don’t do so. The fact that stereotypes exist is a dark, sad chapter in the book of human nature. But in time, they will become less prevalent and damning if a certain segment of the populace would stop perpetuating them by example. Though he never speaks of it, I can see in my brother’s eyes the occasional flash of bitter anger that comes of being thought inferior for an arbitrary reason, and I get pissed off all over again at those who perpetuate this infamy against him. He should not have to suffer for their sins, but he does. It makes me sad. It makes me angry. And it makes me want to reach for a baseball bat.
To be sure, people who use stereotypes to define their human relationships must shoulder a share of the blame. Fundamentalist Christians who think every gay male is a depraved, sex-crazed man-whore deserve a bonking with a Bible (preferably an unabridged one, they might learn something). Police officers who automatically assume the black they see driving a Mercedes jacked it from a white man should get terminated and incarcerated on the grounds of simple stupidity (hopefully they’ll get buggered a bit and also learn something).
But they, and others of their ilk, in all their arrogance and ignorance, are not the whole story.
Enough ink has been put to paper about the evils of the “Anglo-Saxon majority” to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Taking a poke at the white man’s insensitivity to the minority condition is one of the easiest intellectual sports one can engage in; it is sure to find an audience, and no one (not even me) can say we don’t somewhat deserve the verbal drubbing. But still, nothing changes and the Anglo majority just gets tired of being pilloried. And as a member of that majority, I am fucking sick of taking all the blame.
With this essay, I take a good hard swing at the face of human prejudice. I make no apologies for the language it uses or the tone it takes. I accept full responsibility for the results. Racism and intolerance have crushed the dreams, spilled the blood and raped the human spirit of countless millions; in choosing to tackle the subject, I will not glaze over the ugliness with sugary prose. A straight-up double shot of from-the-heart street preaching honors the victims and their sacrifices with far more honesty than any amount of kid-gloved euphemistic bullshit. In the passion I feel and the eloquence I possess lie the power to change the world; I cannot in good conscience ignore the social responsibility inherent in deciding to employ them.
If the stream of gory vitriol you read in the opening paragraphs made you wince, good. If you are outraged, indignant and a little nauseated by my descriptions of bloodshed and my casual use of racial slurs, that is wonderful. I intended it so. That sick feeling in the pit of your stomach means that you have not forfeited your essential humanity to a cruel and unjust world. It means you still care about your fellow humans, though they may be imperfect, and that warms my heart more than words can convey. I would shake your hand and congratulate you on emerging from life’s fiery crucible with your idealism intact.
On the other hand, if you were amused by all the evocative violence and are thinking, “Yeah, shoot the niggers, what a great idea, that’ll fix things” then here’s what you should do. Come find me. No, really. We’ll have a drink together and you can tell me exactly why you think we should go a-hunting. And then I’ll chain your stupid ass to the tree in my backyard, cut myself a good stiff switch and whip you soundly about the derriere until you learn humility, maturity and respect for the agony of the oppressed. It would be no less than you deserve.
But enough with the cheap-seats posturing. Without further ado, I shall come to the point.
Ending intolerance in this world will take time, patience, temperance and empathy on the part of all. It will take peaceful discourse and a strong desire for change. But it will also take a hefty measure of good sense, and most importantly cooperation. The Anglo and the Negro must both take a long honest look at their souls, shed the undesirable elements of their respective cultures and lay down the grudges of the past. If the ebony and the ivory really mean to coexist, then they must both make some sacrifices and grow the hell up. The time has come for the narrow minded, judgmental WASP to leave us be, but so too the selfish shortsighted Negro in whose mind the inequities of the past give him cart blanche to behave as he pleases in the present. The alcoholic redskin, the gangbanging vato and the flouncing fairy need to take a hike as well. After such a session of painful social housecleaning, we would have peace instead of armistice, and acceptance in place of mere tolerance.
I hope the wastrels and losers I’ve placed in my imagined crosshairs (and you know who you are) will change their ways peaceably and of their own will. I hope that those who share their skin color or belief structure will help them, for their own sake as much as everyone else’s. And I hope those who judge with a single look will see the error of their ways and learn better. My barometer for success will be when racist jokes stop amusing us.
Because at that point, they’ll no longer even be occasionally true.
In closing, I love people. But I have no respect for niggers. And I think I’ve done a good job in explaining why. If you still believe I deserve to be crucified for my ideals, I bow my head and peacefully await your nails and thorny crown. To keep the integrity of my position demands nothing less.
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