Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Monkey Wretching
This is a historical election this year: as is obvious by now, this is the first time we've had a serious African-American candidate for president (because no one honestly thought Alan Keyes would take the White House in anything less than an armed coup). Of course, this means that we're going to see some nasty, ugly, racist shit boiling up to the top of our national discourse.
Like, say, even more comparisons between Barack Obama and a monkey. And, in an extra special bout of sensitivity, these shirts were sent to black civil rights groups. What say you, fuckstick?
His name is Kelly Newcom of Ash Flat, Ark., who insists, "It's not a racial thing."
"I was extremely vexed over the fact that individuals who have no idea who I am and no idea what my motives were to sit and accuse me of being a racist," Newcom said in an e-mail, adding, "I am far from it and I care not what race, sex, or religion a person is."
Except for when you want to make a funny joke by comparing them to a monkey, huh? But he swears, he's not the one engaging in racial antagonism:
Newcom made the shirts, he says, to protest what he sees as a disparity between minority organizations and white groups. "Why are the minority groups allowed to have these organizations? Just let a white organization be formed and it causes an uproar. Just try finding a white one on the net, listen to the crickets chirp."
I'm going to explain this very slowly: because white people, as a racial group, have not been uniformly fucked over by the people in charge of this nation. White people, as a whole, were not dragged here for forced labor, kept from voting, owning property, and literacy, or targeted for execution when they tried to attain any of these things. White people, as a whole, were not moved off of their lands en masse in a forced march for convenience's sake. White people, as a whole, were not barred entirely from immigrating or thrown in internment camps due to racial paranoia while their neighbors picked through their belongings. These little kinks in their family histories have put some of them at a position that may be considered, well, unprivileged, and these organizations work to make sure that their is some sense of parity. Yes, it does suck that there aren't more organizations that cater to the disadvantaged of all racial stripes, but white people, on the whole, have had a shitload more opportunities in the grand history of these United States.
Like I said, this election season is going to dig up a lot of racial enmity and ignorance. Hopefully, we can take steps to either drag it out into the light or to correct people's misconceptions.
