During the election, I heard people, black mostly but also a few white folks, speculate or state their “worry” that Barack Obama as presidential candidate, president-elect or president, would be assassinated like Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Even in the ridiculous cheeriness post-election, I still heard and hear partly joking but largely serious speculations about how long Obama can be president-elect or president without being killed. I never understood if it was about fear in general, fear of disappointment, fear of chaos, or a realistic appraisal of the racial climate in some parts of the US. Is this a lack of faith in our progress as a nation? In the Secret Service? In our selection of a president? What does it say when you openly wonder whether the guy whose t-shirt you’re wearing and whose bumper stickers are all over your car and wallet and windows and gear shift and whose sign you’ve proudly placed in your yard will be gunned down? Was your vote an act of faith or an act of stupidity?
Then there’s the Osama Obama Shotgun Pool sign that appeared in a store in Standish, ME, right after the election. The assertion of some defenders of the store owner, who denied he knew anything about the sign (really?), was that the sign was a tasteless joke gone wrong. I disagree. There’s no joke in “Osama Obama” after the fearmongering of the McCain-Palin campaign and its allies. The only reason to include “Osama” is to link Obama with Osama bin Laden, to imply that Obama is Other and therefore dangerous and probably allied with anyone who “hates our freedoms.” (That noise you heard was my frontal lobe exploding.) There’s also the allegation that at the bottom of the pool sign was a sentence “Let’s hope someone wins.” Oh, the punch line.
A rabid dog let out of its pen is hard to pen in again. The campaign tapped into deep fears, hates and received ideology on race that some in the US were able to apparently unpack, examine, shout and cry and argue over, regardless of who they ultimately voted for. When Obama is sworn in as president January 20, that unpacking is not over. The internal and external struggles will continue. Questions need to be asked and answers debated. Who is your neighbor? Where do you shop? Who’s your boss? When you have to hire, who will you hire and why? What does your doctor look like? Are saggy, show-your-underwear pants “culture” to be defended or a fashion that can be condemned, sneered at, discarded? Do you like your beans with a sauce or dry? Will you eat collard greens and blackeyed peas with me on New Year’s Day? Do I have to straighten my hair to get a corporate job? Should you drive alone at night through a neighborhood that isn’t your own? Can I trust that police officer over there regardless of his or her race? Will I still be asked “What do black people think about ___”? Will I be told I must eat/drink/wear/say/enjoy/reject x, y, or z because my skin is brown? And if I do not snap to, will I be considered not a member of the club? A traitor? Ignorant of “your/our History”? Will I ever have to hear again “But you must be mixed with something?” meant not as a yes/no, provide-missing-information question but as a compliment? And will folks like Mayor Nagin and Veronica White continue to cry racism whenever they hear a question or answer they do not like? (Disclosure: this bitch is no fan of Stacy Head but using “racism” to deflect attention from your own shit is lame. And undermines racial progress.) And if President Obama fails at something or doesn’t fulfill someone’s utopian dream, am I going to have to worry about a backlash? Can I continue to believe that The Girl will live in a different world than I, who lived in a different world than her parents? Or will we thinking, analytical adults continue to believe the lie that we can draw thick categorical lines between “races”? Will racial purity finally become the joke some of us already know it is?
What will you be thankful for this coming Thursday?
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COMING SOON TO A BROWSER NEAR YOU…The return of The G Bitch Spot! Stay tuned for additional updates, squeals, rants and wild projections.
G Bitch
still NOLA
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I always was a fan of Bad Santa….
The point I am making is that even the liberal artistic chic elitist are capable of being able to perform acts of cruelty. You are not immune, you are not absolved from having feelings of frustration and animosity toward others. You show this through your hatred of George W. Bush. Terrible President no doubt, rotten human being….? No. The man felt he was right and at least he stepped into the arena and fought for his ( or Cheney’s) beliefs. It is not good for the timid to sit on the sidelines of history and criticize those who are on the field. No one person can say they are above the feelings of competition and extinction. Manet’s “Olympia” (a most incredible and daring artistic creation) was rejected by the Paris Salon in 1863. Manet was angry. He should of been. When we see things around us that are wrong we must be realistic. Well, I still have a painting of Czar Nicholas II on my wall…the last of a great era of world history. Too bad we cannot go back to its glory.
@ Dave Youfuckingmoron;
1) Again your discussion is with an imaginary group of poeple who you paint with a large and tainted brush. “The liberal artistic chic elitist ” that is addressed as “you” in your next sentence, provides insight into the fact that you think there is some organized group that disagrees with you. On the contrary, you are just haplessly not very bright, and it’s obvious to all.
2) While everyone is due their serving of frustrations, at times (here we go again, in that nobody ever said otherwise), I would point out the George W. is, indeed, a rotten human being, gloating over his power and position for eight long years while the wolrd around him went to hell, largely on the greased wheels of his incompetence and refusal to pay attention to any but his insular cronies. His very first day in office he activated the ‘gag order’ which prevents US Anti-Aids groups from suggesting the use of condoms to prevent the spread of this horrible disease, instead implementing a plan of Global Abstinence to feed his morally corrupt administarion on the blood of the poor, while support from right-wing funadmentalists poured in.
3) If you’re such a big fan of Czarist Russia, go try living in a gulag for 20 fucking years. Idiots like yourself are always looking back to ‘the Great Days of The Past’ because they imagine themselves one of the bloodthirsty hiearchy, never as one of the millions and millions upon whose broken backs those few monsters built their Empires.
Please, Dave Youfuckingmoron, go back to the glory. Spend the rest of your life in a western Russian salt mine, mumbling about the Greatness you’ve embraced. I’m sure you’ll find others who embrace your racism and hatred of free thought, there on the Gulag Chain Gang. Not.
Finally, “It is not good for the timid to sit on the sidelines of history and criticize those who are on the field.” Isn’t this exactly what YOU are doing?
Don’t you have some brown shirt meeting to attend, rather then coming here and calling everybody names?
Yeah, thats the humidcity crew…timid.
Right.
BTW, this is not a message from some organized group.
We all think you’re selfish and stupid independently from each other.
Probaly because it’s so obvious one could see it from space.
You really want to demonstrate how very powerful you are, Dave?
Go work at a soup kitchen over the holidays.
They probably won’t like you either, but at least you’ll be having a positive effect.
You ctiticize the Age of Empires, yet go on a rant about AIDS. During the era of European world dominance things like could AIDS could be kept in check. Look at the world now. Africa as a continent is completely helpless to run its own affairs. War, famine, and disease rack the continent. These things never happend during the days of European rule. South Africa was a law and order state, but now has the highest crime rate on the planet. India and Pakistan are on the brink of war today, but not so during the days of the Raj. As for me working in gulag that would never happen. I would die fighting the communist like Stalin (or Obama) that would try to put me there. Finally, I would not waste my time working in a soup kitchen feeding people that deserve to die. The homeless serve no function in our society. Let life run its Darwinian course.
PS: as for me painting with a broad brush…I will now paint in detail…liberal=pussy.
I never criticized any age, nor did I ‘rant’ about aids.
Your insanity speaks again.
Your belief that poor people should die is all that needs to be said here.
I’m just wondering, but I’m gussing you’re about 16, and live in your mom’s basement, somewhere out of town, like Deridder? Did you torture animals in your youth or do you still?
I’m also hoping that your your asseretion that a certain class of Americans deserve to die, simply because they are poor & homeless, is enough to get you banished from humid city permanently.
Random thoughts on Dave’s recent posts:
1. “even the liberal artistic chic elitist are capable of being able to perform acts of cruelty.” Well Dave, I thank you for recognizing my talent as an artist. I thought it would go unnoticed until my time had passed in this mortal coil. As for liberal, you should probably get to know me better before using the big brush. If you peer closely, I’m made up of little spots and shadows each containing different digits and represented by a myriad of hues. This is why paint-by-number sets come with teeny-tiny brushes. If I seem elitist, it’s because I know I actually am better than some people.
2. Incurious George actually is a rotten human being, and for the very reason that you attribute to him. He “stepped into the arena and fought for his (or Cheney’s) beliefs” is incredibly accurate and exactly why he’s rotten. The second he took the Oath of Office, he forgot that he was supposed to be fighting for The Nation’s beliefs, not just his own agenda. As a student of history, surely you see the problem here. Look at all the great empires of history and you will notice that the downfall of each was a clear result of the myopic tunnel-vision of the ruler in power. From the pharoahs to the tsars to the kings and the emperors, each great empire was reduced to dust when it’s ruler pursued his own agenda and ignored the will of the people which he claimed to serve.
3. “Africa as a continent is completely helpless to run its own affairs.” I cannot tell you how this one gave me the giggles! History lesson time Dave: Continents do not have centralized governments. The word comes from the Latin, ‘terra continens,’ meaning ‘continuous land.’ Now NAFTA and the European Union are trying to change this, but currently the African continent is made up of 60 separate countries and dependencies, each with it’s own particular favorite form of government. At times, these governments will clash due to the irreconcilable differences inherent in their philosophies, much like the North and South of America during they Civil War, or for a more shallow but contemporary example, the Blue and Red states during an election year. While it’s true that the fledgling African Union Government and Pan African Parliament are indeed trying to accomplish a continental cohesion of countries, they were both formed in 2004 and it’s going to take some time. It’s been over 200 years and the United States is still trying to overcome greed, racism and stupidity, so don’t be so quick to judge Africa. I ask you, Dave, what earth-shattering accomplishments did you have under your belt at the age of four?
4. “War, famine, and disease rack the continent. These things never happend during the days of European rule.” Yes, they did. As a matter of fact, the European rule you’re so fond of was the main cause of war, famine and disease. People didn’t hear much about it though, because the colonialists viewed the Africans as sub-human, fit only for slavery. Hmmm, sounds rather elitist, wouldn’t you say? With the exceptions of Liberia and Abyssinia, the colonial powers imposed their rule on African countries and what’s more, it was the colonialists who delineated the strict borders in Africa in order to isolate themselves from other colonialist territories. This bit of border stupidity created divisions between entire tribes which had no choice in the matter. Colonial rule lasted in most African countries until World War II and it is the single main cause of the problems the African continent faces today. (Crack a fucking book that doesn’t have Harry Potter in it once in awhile!)
5. “South Africa was a law and order state, but now has the highest crime rate on the planet.” I haven’t checked the numbers on this, but I thought New Orleans had the planet’s highest crime rate. (See, that’s a little diversion of humour to settle everyone’s nerves back down. Spoon fulla sugar, eh?)
6. “would not waste my time working in a soup kitchen feeding people that deserve to die.” Brother, that’s well over the line. Offal like this is exactly why people are calling for you to be tossed off HC. However this is exactly why I want you to stick around. This way, when homeless people start getting mysteriously murdered, we’ll have a nice little ISP route for the police to trace to your door. If you’re a religious sort of fellow, Dave, I’d start praying now for good weather. Otherwise during the next hurricane, you may find yourself “serving no function” when the storm flattens you home. I wonder, if you found yourself homeless, would you kill yourself to prove your convictions? Or would you be first in line at the soup kitchen?
Dave, I will be deleting any further comments you make. You can take your faux intellectualism and wide range of rationales for your blatantly ugly worldview.
It is only due to my standing non censorship policy that you have lasted this long. You see the bottom line here is that I provide and promote HumidCity as a platform for voices that I think deserve wider exposure. Yours is not one of those.
In addition, when you get down to brass tacks, I am in charge and I make the rules here. You want to share your lovely opinions? Do it in Limbaugh’s comment stream.
Go back to reading the consistently discredited Bell Curve and spare us your commentary. One common trait of HumidCity contributors is a tendency towards a humanitarian outlook, something it is obvious you do not share.
You get the honor of being the first person to receive the “Fuck Off Award.”
Bye.
@ Loki;
While I applaud your Censor Free Zone appraoch, this was more than necessary. Encouraging this sort of mentality can be construed as empowerment to a twisted mind. I would have hated to read about a bomb at a homeless shelter, or some other horrible attack, only to find out Dave had posted his encoded and demented warnings here, thinking that made them thereby acceptable actions.
We, as a free society, are responsiblw for what we allow to pass under our noses, often while we simply ignore the ugly for far too long. Our last 8 years of administration and economic woes are a prime example.
Thanks for stepping up to what had to be done. Let’s hope Dave learns something from it, too. Even if it’s only that he should keep his rampant prejudice, racism and violent fantasies confined to his own thoughts.
PS: Rush Limbaugh was once one of those hapless welfare recipients that the current wave of Neo-Cons find so unworthy, as well as one of those drug abusers that folks like Dave would see imprisoned for life.
Awwww.
I know, M, I know. Your responses to ‘little buddy’ were the ONLY thing of any value to come of it, though.
Well, for all you Trekkies: (And consider the “I” as a collective “We”)
But I was winning! I wooda! I wooda!
Only the second time I have banned anyone here in 3.5 years.
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