We have witnessed a public lynching. How does it feel? Nothing surprises me, anymore, about the knee-jerk reactions by the average village idiots, but I wanted to believe that someone in the upper echelons of power might still have their pinky finger wrapped around the reins of this stagecoach called America, which is heading toward the mother of all chasms.
It's a bumpy ride to civilization
The horses are spooked and slathered with a fevered sweat, which stings their eyes as they run blindly for a deep, unforgiving abyss that holds no stream of cool sanity at the rugged bottom to absorb their ugly impact. Calm logic is no longer riding shotgun on this careening coach, having leapt from the seat of a wild runaway where the driver, common sense, fell off long ago or fell asleep at the handbrake. Hell, maybe Injuns got him, or is that not PC, these days?
Don Imus was hauled out, castigated and publically castrated in one of the most blatant, offensive and intolerant acts of pseudo-justice that ever butt-fucked a scapegoat. The I-Man has become the whipping boy for all the resentment pent up over the years by blacks because — as a race — they apparently don’t know how to control their own emotions, rise to their own exalted heights, or empower, protect and guide their own children, properly, anymore than any other color.
I am speaking, now, directly to black people and those who supported this travesty of media fairness. This isn’t about one racist, sexist or misogynistic comment. This was a tsunami of bile, hatred and vilification for all you feel has wronged black people for centuries, yet you unleash this torrent upon one man, drowning him, and threatening to obliterate the pier from which he was pissing. Whether it is black resentment, white guilt or Big Business’ bottom line concerns that cannot find compassion or a win-win situation for everyone, your mob rule mentality is alarming.
And you’re wrong to do it. So wrong. Your intolerance is as despicable as the harsh words Imus uttered barely a week ago. I do not support Imus’ Free Speech rights so he may be hateful, hurtful and humorless, but I equally do not support your mob mentality, which has just ripped him from his microphone, dragged him into the streets, excoriated him publicly, and strung him up as quickly and nastily as any KKK lynching. You should be ashamed. Your hypocrisy and intolerance is appalling and I have no respect for it.
That you are led by the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who have either fanned the flames of racial hatred, themselves, or — in Jackson’s case — said equally as damning epithets against Jews, only proves that you have a long way to go before you will get the respect you deserve as a people and as a part of America, not apart from America.
Both of these men are reverends? Which good book do they believe in? My good book says “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord” and “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” yet you have ripped Imus’ tongue out by the roots. “He without sin may cast the first stone.” I had not realized your perfection. Please forgive me, lest you find me, too, a heathen. Kiss my ass! Go back to Sunday School and re-read your Good Book. Then practice it.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are no Martin Luther King, Jr. His dream has devolved into a nightmare and you esteemed arbitrators of “justice” need to wake up. While your equality is not questioned, your childish behavior in this matter is most certainly suspect. Stringing up white boys because they belittle black girls is as schoolyard as it gets. Are you proud, now? Feel vindicated? Does stoning the evil old white man make you feel good about yourselves? What will you teach your children, now, about standing up to the man?
Every child is different and all need love and hugs, often. Some require special care. However, all things being equal, supposedly, if my daughter comes to me and says that some cranky old black man called her a “towheaded two-bit cracker,” I’d first check to see if she’d been physically harmed or there was the threat of physical violence. If not, I’d determine the potential of continued verbal abuse in a face-to-face setting.
Discovering that it was some jerk-off on the radio, I’d say, “Punkin, what is said about others says far more about the speaker than the ones they speak about. Now, turn off your radio, turn on your charm, turn up your light and go kick some ass.” Figuratively, of course. She would smile and get it.
When you step onto the court, you better have your game face on. The court is life. When you step into life, you better not let every little social slight hurt you, or you’re not going to survive. So, while I applaud your outrage and protection of your children, in which I wholeheartedly support your intentions, I am very disappointed in the religious zeal with which you fought this public fight. That is scary. If you don’t want to frighten the other woodland creatures, then you need to tone it down.
My daughter and I are white. A certain amount of disproportionate reality is to be expected, perhaps, due to the perceived privileges of being born white. However, every time you feed into this belief and pass it along to your children by the things you say and do, then they learn it, too. So, when will the cycle be broken?
All white people are not enslaving you. In fact, I believe you cannot be enslaved by anyone unless you allow it. But how you fight your fight and stand up for what’s right is very critical, if you want to be taken seriously and respected for it. We are from Appalachia, which is a ghetto in its own right. We got out and without bitterness or blame.
Where is your outrage over the Iraq War? Where is your unity against the Bush Administration? Why are your cries of injustice not as loud or proud about Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, missing White House emails, no WMD’s, 9-11 deception, saber-rattling with Iran, or O.J.’s egomaniacal, sexist, racist and misogynistic blight on your blackness? Why are the Duke lacrosse players not being given the same headlines and public outcry of support? If you don’t attempt to level the playing field, then the playing field will level you and you and me.
It is highly inappropriate to use inflammatory invective to rally the mob, incite to riot and try to prove your point while winning your war – when you’re a hypocrite. Bush & Company have tried to do this since the beginning of the Iraq debacle and many of you bought into it. It’s pandering to fear and ignorance. Fearmongers are as bad as whoremongers and many innocent people are going to get screwed. I see many hos wearing an amazing array of technicolor dreamcoats.
How many black men and women have been killed or horribly maimed in Bush’s War? Yet, where is your rallying cry for justice? Why do you not publicly fight so hard and loud to stop your children from going to Iraq? Why do you tolerate such vile hatred from the lips of your sons and daughters about each other in the hip-hop shit the younger kids seem to crave? You are breeding these imbeciles faster than society can build prisons for their pain, yet your misplaced anger lynches one old white guy, instead.
Damn, we need to get you on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With this display of strategic and tactical brilliance, the Iraq War would be won in a week. You’re ignorant fucktards and you need to grow up, wake up and shut up until you clean up your own acts. You stop all the gang bangers, potty-mouthed rappers, wife-beaters, and sniveling pimps and playground pushers, and I’ll help you stop all the old white guys on the radio who are trying to be funny, if it makes you feel better about yourselves.
Wake up and fly right. Flying coach sucks, sometimes, but you don’t get to first class until you stop acting like third-graders. In first class, we take responsibility for our actions, light a candle instead of cursing the darkness and recognize the transparency of the human soul, which is colorless.
We should forgive and forget, and not hold the sins of the fathers over the heads of their sons and daughters. Do not expect me to apologize for something my grandpappy may or may not have done. Get over it. Whether you’re black, Jewish, Latino, hillbilly or just stuck in a perpetual self-pity party, it isn’t prudent and it only holds you back. Yes, there was a Holocaust and it was horrible. We should remember it enough to not allow it to ever happen, again, but we should let it go enough so we can move forward, move upward and move on.
I forgive Imus and I believe he deserves a second chance. I forgive the mob’s mentality, but suggest better dialogue among all people so that years of resentment on both sides and poor communicaton does not explode in one focused point of uncontrollable rage. Cooler heads should have prevailed. Yet, actions will always speak louder than words. What will you do, today, to make amends?
The Kat
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