No, YOU wear it to town
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “you couldn’t wear that here.” I know that’s what you’re thinking, because we’re all thinking it, because you couldn’t safely wear this anywhere, not even here in the heart of all things historically Anglo Saxon. Especially not here.
I bought this at Sissinghurst on Sunday, at a booth for an organization called the Steadfast Trust, a group with the perfectly uncontroversial aim of preserving English history and passing it on to English children.
Ha ha! Just kidding! It’s incredibly controversial!
Last year when we walked up to this booth, someone was chewing out the nice blonde lady behind the counter. Because I think how it works is, one minute you teach childrens how to thatch a roof and the next thing you know, coloreds have separate drinking fountains. Word.
I’m surprised the show organizers have allowed these people in for a second year (whether they were here before that, I don’t recall). The Smallholder’s Fair is very aspirational, not to say a bit twee, and this sort of thing…isn’t a good fit.
Oh, here’s the thing…the folks we chatted with at the booth were very nice, very earnest people. But the Left has made the very idea of an identity group based on Englishness (for which read: whiteness) so off limits that most decent people are afraid to come within miles. So, over time, organizations like this one will genuinely skew to the weird.
It’s a damn shame, but you know what? I don’t have the courage to push back, beyond buying a lapel pin I don’t have the balls to wear.
August 21, 2013 — 9:49 pm
Comments: 32
Oh. That was, ummm…Huh.
So I finished playing Bioshock Infinite. A few remarks on style, which I think I can make without absolute spoilers.
It’s set in the year 1912, alternate universe version. This is an interesting choice. Not too many shoot-’em-up video games are played to the tune of a barbershop quartet singing ragtime (“God Only Knows” – Columbia’s Gayest Quartet!). Fun Fact: I once collected 78 records; I own at least two of the tunes they played for ambient music.
And then there’s…well, the picture. I was floored by the game’s casual use of this kind of racist imagery. Lots of it. I thought there were some ideas society couldn’t revisit even in jest.
And the thing is, while racism is a running theme and it’s certainly not portrayed as a good thing, it’s also not the shown as the worst thing ever in the whole history of the world. Which, I dunno…I thought we’d collectively decided racism is the worst thing ever in the whole history of the world. It wasn’t the most important aspect of the whole game, either, which I assumed it would have to be the moment I hit the first Racially Ugly Incident.
I was so sure of this, in fact, I paused the game, scooted off to a gaming forum and asked “is the whole damn game like this?” I got answers like, “oh, it was so over the top, I didn’t take it seriously.” Hm. I thought over the top racism was the worst kind.
The game developer clearly knew this story element wasn’t going to be a big deal, and it wasn’t. Tectonic plates must have shifted somewhere.
August 7, 2013 — 10:38 pm
Comments: 28
Sure, I’ll stick a fork in that socket
Awww, look at the adorable baby chickens! Now let’s talk about Paula Deen. I thought I’d share my specialist knowledge of the use of the n-word in the 1960s South. Because that would be a real dumb thing to do, and I’m kind of stupid.
When I was a kid, you would never, ever, EVER use That Word to a black person’s face. Just not something a respectable person would do. Talking to a white person, you might use The Word, but it would be regarded as pretty strong language. One never used The Word lightly in describing an actual person.
But as a general descriptor, The Word was ubiquitous. It was attached to black neighborhoods, soul food, loud colors and dogs of indeterminate breed. It still hung around in songs and rhymes. There was a hill in the town I grew up that had been called That Word Hill (by persons of all colors) for so long, it’s probably on the maps like that. I was in my teens before I heard a brazil nut called a brazil nut.
So Paula Deen, who is ten years and more older than I am, may have thought it was pointless to deny she had ever used The Word, without realizing how far the earth had shifted since she learned the rules. So, a pity post. I dread the day I look down at the earth under my feet and don’t recognize the terrain.
Now, I feel pretty silly having written this whole post without ever using the word in question. My mother taught me not to invest more power in the plain syllables of particular words than in the ideas they represent. But, hey, when the world has gone a little crazy on a topic, best don’t poke it with a stick.
The chickens? They play outside in the sunshine all day, and at night I bring them in to sleep in a cat carrier on my desk (and occasionally flutter around, strut about the desktop and perch on my shoulder). They’re so little, and it’s been so cold. Today, I thought it was warm enough and they were old enough to sleep in their box in an enclosure for the first time, so they could run around at first light.
Then, as it got darker, a sad, frightened peeping came from the run. So, ummm…one more night won’t hurt anything.
July 1, 2013 — 10:38 pm
Comments: 41
I will put you some forbidden knowledge
The Appleby Horse Fair was held today, as it has been for three hundred something years. King James II granted a Royal Charter in 1685 allowing the fair to be held ‘near the River Eden’. So they do. They wash the horses in the river, gallop them down the ‘mad mile’ and then have a big horse sale.
It’s pretty much just a Gypsy affair now. Um, and that’s where it gets complicated.
There are the Gypsies of Romany descent, who have lived in England for many hundreds of years. There are Gypsies from Romania, the kind Adolph had a thing for. There is a traditionally nomadic people of Irish ethnicity who are also called Gypsies. And there are a number of crusties, essentially rag-tag old hippies and acid casualties who have dropped off the grid and live out of vans. And they are all, confusingly for a foreigner, called “Travellers” now. And protected by the government so hard, bald eagles think to themselves “geez, that’s a little over the top, isn’t it?”
I asked Uncle B a question about this a second ago, and he was like, “oh, god, you’re not going there, are you?” No. I’m not. This is one of those giant sore nerve-ending societal issues that the wise foreigner keeps her nose out of. I just had to explain it enough to talk about the article.
The Appleby Horse Fair is Romany Gypsies, of the kind that have been here since forever. The old farmers around here traditionally rubbed along with them pretty well. They’d let them park their wagons in the fields and hire them as seasonal labor.
So anyway, go to the article at the link and look at the horses. Notice anything?
The horses are almost all paints — that is, black with white splotches. Or white with black splotches, if you prefer. We recently watched an ancient program about the country — a relic from those long, long ago days before political correctness — that explained that Gypsies and American Indians love paints above all other horses. Because they’re both horse-stealing cultures and paints are each so individually unique and easily identifiable, it’s as good as a serial number.
So now you know.
Remember, Dead Pool tomorrow. Six sharp!
June 6, 2013 — 11:10 pm
Comments: 30
About that AP survey…?
Did y’all see the brouhaha last week about an AP poll that supposedly found 51% of Americans are prejudiced against black people? That really weirded me out, because…well, among other things, they’re not counting black people as Americans?
So I tracked down the actual survey (.pdf file). It’s a joint product of the University of Michigan, Stanford University and the University of Chicago. Here’s the first question:
“Irish, Italians, Jews, and other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without special favors.”
If you agree with that, you’re scored as a racist.
Let that sink in a minute.
If you think black people are just as smart and capable as Irish, Italians and Jews, you’re a racist. Phwaw. Ready? Question two:
“Generations of slavery have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class.”
Disagree with that, and you’re a racist. So if you think someone’s prospects are not blighted by something horrible that happened to his great-great-great grandparents, there’s just no other explanation for it: you’re a racist, sugar! The next three questions are pretty much variations on the “hard work = get ahead” theme from the first question. Here’s question six:
“Some people say that Black leaders have been trying to push too fast. Others feel that they haven’t pushed fast enough. What do you think?”
Yup. If you think the likes of Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan aren’t doing black people any favors — racist! The next two questions are how much racism is there in the US, and how much of that is the fault of black people. Then they move onto complete voodoo.
On a computer screen, they show a quick flash of a black man’s face or a white man’s face, followed by a Chinese character. Then you’re asked if the Chinese character is pleasant or unpleasant. They do this 24 times. If you don’t like the squiggle you see after a glimpse of a dusky gob, you’re Bull Connor, baby!
Totally not making that up. It’s called Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). Because — science, you inbred hillbilly!
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. That’s how they come to the conclusion a whopping 51% of Americans are racists.
Is this the new, official, mainstream (Associated Press) definition of racism? Thinking black people are as smart as anybody else? And only 51% agree that they are? And those 51% are the bad guys? I really am having trouble processing this.
And, after all that, I still don’t know if the AP is only counting white people as Americans.
October 30, 2012 — 10:26 pm
Comments: 43
Silent but deadly
I love this picture, which probably is not accurately depicted by the caption. Probably.
I nicked it off this National Review article. He says Oprah started her long decline after choosing to endorse Obama over Hillary, shocking her (mostly white, mostly female) fans by choosing the black thing over the girl thing. Hilarious if true.
Identity politics is hard.
Early in our relationship, Uncle B treated me to a lecture on The Problem With Americans: we sit around watching opera all day and take our marching orders from opera and only think what opera tells us to.
And I was, like, “that’s just so weird and wrong and unfair. I mean, my dad quite likes Verdi, but he’s the only American I know who’s really into opera.”
I have, of course, stepped on my own punchline here: he meant Oprah, he just can’t talk right. He’s English.
Which is really weird because, here again, my dad is the only American I know who’s really into Oprah.
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PSYCH! Good weekend, everyone!
May 18, 2012 — 10:30 pm
Comments: 28
It’s not easy being pink
To be perfectly honest, I kind of hate myself for ragging on this woman. I mean, yeah, sure, she called me a pink honkey cracker pig (and something that got bleeped – anyone know what that was?) and sort of implied violence heading my way and stuff. On the other hand — have you looked at the New Black Panther Party’s website? — I get the feeling Michelle Williams and the rest of the NBBP are all…well…mildly retarded and everyone is just embarrassed to say it. Why else would the authorities utterly ignore blatant incitement?
I feel like I’m reading a Nancy Drew novel right now, because of all the twists and turns.
I mean, I think it’s awesome this lady reads. And I just loved the Nancy Drew books myself, so we have that in common.
I think I was eight when I read them.
April 11, 2012 — 11:11 pm
Comments: 25
I got The Talk. Didn’t you get The Talk?
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, I’ve read several articles about The Talk. Apparently, The Talk is the uniquely black experience of sitting your kids down (particularly your boys) and instructing them to be unfailingly polite to policemen even when you are ever so cross and the officer is ever so vexatious.
This one from the New York Post is typical (it’s a tragic tale of a young man who didn’t get The Talk and had to learn a tough lesson the hard way):
My moment — that is, my first moment — happened on Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue in Brooklyn when I got into a dollar cab with my mother and brother. The cop who pulled the car over wasn’t after the driver. He was after me. I was a tall, skinny black kid with a baseball cap, and I fit the description of someone who was robbing people on the subway.
Right. With you so far.
It didn’t matter that I was wearing a baseball cap because I had been to a baseball game. I fit the description, and no one was going anywhere.
Okay, right. And….?
Wait…that’s it? You fit the description of a crime suspect and you were pulled over? And then questioned and released? Holy shit, dude, that’s supposed to be emblematic of the racial divide in America?
Seriously, if a middle-aged white woman in a denim jacket had just shop-lifted a hundred bucks worth of meat from a nearby Safeway, I would totally expect to be pulled over and felt up for sirloin. And I’d be nice as pie while they did it.
Wait! You did what?
I was uncooperative. I was angry. My mother, the churchgoing teacher, didn’t help. She was indignant, and she spewed words she would never use in the classroom. Only when the cop threatened to haul her to the precinct did I come around.
Holy god. You both did that, really?
Wheeooo.
My mother, who was sort of a proto-hippie and not fond of the authorities, gave me The Talk regularly.
You get stopped or pulled over, be relentlessly bland. No matter what. The cop is armed. He may be bored. He may be an officious prick. He may be spoiling for trouble. He may try to rattle you to see how you react.
Don’t react. Follow instructions. Be angry later.
My interactions with law enforcement have been few, thank goodness, but the advice has stood me well. It also works for judges, city code enforcers, irate bosses, large angry neighbors. Any situation where you are seriously outgunned and cannot possibly win a confrontation.
I wonder how much putative racism is because black people don’t realize how rudely white people often treat each other.
March 30, 2012 — 10:18 pm
Comments: 46
aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAHAHAHA…!
You thought yesterday’s film was dumb? Have you watched Derrick Bell’s movie, Cosmic Slop – Space Traders? Ohhhh, my sweet Aunt Fanny!
Here’s why Derek Bell is in the news today (hello, posterity!). Two things to remember: he was a Harvard Law professor who believed America was so utterly, foundationally racist that it could not be saved. And he wrote the sci-fi short story that HBO made into a cheezball movie, linked above.
Okay, so here’s the premise: dozens of alien ships appear on earth, hover over Plymouth Rock and offer a deal. An alien presence that’s the spitting image of Ronnie Reagan offers to give America — and I quote — “nearly unlimited quantities of gold and precious metals that will erase your deficit; machines that will renew your rivers and your air; cold fusion technology for a safe, cheap and inexhaustible source of energy.”
The catch — we have to give them all our black people. Don’t know what they want them for, they just want them.
Long story short, white people are so utterly, irredeemably racist, we take them up on it.
ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING ME?!?
Unlimited wealth, unlimited energy and a complete renewal of our natural resources?
You know what would be racist? If the aliens showed up and offered to take all the black people off our hands for free. Or for a small fee. And we took that deal. THAT would be racist of us.
But unlimited wealth, unlimited energy and a complete renewal of our natural resources? Shee-it. That’s some kind of offer.
Forget race. Race doesn’t come into it. If they wanted everybody from upstate New York in return for that, we’d have to think about it. If they wanted all our left-handed people. If they wanted the whole Libertarian Party, or stamp collectors, or people who bowl or watch romantic comedies. We’d at least have to ask if they’d mind, given the stakes.
Hell, if aliens demanded a demographic that included me, I’d seriously have to think about it. Unlimited wealth, unlimited energy and a complete renewal of the country’s natural resources is a pretty sweet legacy to leave behind. I think — I hope — I’d be willing to sacrifice myself voluntarily to leave y’all all of that.
You’re welcome.
Promise to hold a hell of a party in my honor though. Plus, a statue would be nice.
March 8, 2012 — 11:48 pm
Comments: 43
…as I was saying…
For some years, my dad made some extra scratch as an after-dinner speaker on the topic the History of the Banjo.
The way I remember it, he took banjo from Joel Sweeney — the first white man known to play banjo on-stage, circa 1830 — through the army camps of the Civil War and then right into the 20th Century and bluegrass.
I didn’t know until years later what a gigantic chunk of banjo history got left out (and I didn’t know until this month it extended to Britain). For almost a hundred years, banjos of various kinds were THE parlor instrument, a staple of vaudeville and the centerpiece of many bands, amateur and professional. Minstrel style, finger style, classical and tenor, four string, five string, six string, eight string. The banjo was HUGE.
Funny we don’t remember that today. Maybe because nearly all the styles of music played on the banjo fell out of favor, with the exception of bluegrass. Maybe because the banjo era ended just as recording was coming on the scene, so little of it is preserved. Maybe because banjo sounded crap in early recordings.
I’m guessing, though, it’s because the banjo is so tightly bound up with minstrelsy. Spend five minutes poking around Google for early banjo and you’ll be up to your knees in burnt cork and n-bombs. No, of course you can’t impose a 21st Century racial attitude on the 19th Century, but it’s awfully hard to look back at blackface performance without thinking, “sweet Jesus — WTF?”
New Dead Pool tomorrow, 6pm WBT. Be there, or be somewhere else!
June 23, 2011 — 10:30 pm
Comments: 23