Not as predictable as the Juneteenth Day itself

It's hard being Eujean. I have to defend Mike McGee, and I have to write garbage like this. I don't believe a word of it, of course. I know that if whities were allowed to wager on whether or not there would be violence at the Juneteenth Day celebration that they would all be richer than they already are. I know that.

But what can I do? This is my market. I have to stick up for these knuckleheads. By the way, when I write "knuckleheads" that's code for "gangbanging murderers." I can't take the chance of offending the knuckleheads though, so I had to come up with a different term.

Now there are problems at other Milwaukee festivals. Normally I would point that out in my column. Unfortunately, it's not worth it here, as it's the same knuckleheads that cause problems on Juneteenth day. It's why they had to get rid of the V-ball court at Summerfest. And the midway too. Can't give Sykes and Belling any more info than they have.

I suppose that this is how Tony Snow feels, defending the indefensible. Some day I hope to go to an ethnic festival that reflects my ethnicity, but has no violence. Or, at the most, the minor, drunks getting in fights violence that they have at Summerfest. That we can deal with. People usually don't die in those fights. It never turns into a mob.

The mob mentality is the weirdest part. Sykes will probably compare it to voting 90% Democratic.

I'm going to turn in. I was going to go to a movie, but some kid will probably talk through the whole thing, and I'll be recognized, and some white person will ask me why my kind always does that, and I can't deal with that right now.

Plus I have to write an indefensible column.

Not as predictable as the Juneteenth Day itself

It's hard being Eujean. I have to defend Mike McGee, and I have to write garbage like this. I don't believe a word of it, of course. I know that if whities were allowed to wager on whether or not there would be violence at the Juneteenth Day celebration that they would all be richer than they already are. I know that.

But what can I do? This is my market. I have to stick up for these knuckleheads. By the way, when I write "knuckleheads" that's code for "gangbanging murderers." I can't take the chance of offending the knuckleheads though, so I had to come up with a different term.

Now there are problems at other Milwaukee festivals. Normally I would point that out in my column. Unfortunately, it's not worth it here, as it's the same knuckleheads that cause problems on Juneteenth day. It's why they had to get rid of the V-ball court at Summerfest. And the midway too. Can't give Sykes and Belling any more info than they have.

I suppose that this is how Tony Snow feels, defending the indefensible. Some day I hope to go to an ethnic festival that reflects my ethnicity, but has no violence. Or, at the most, the minor, drunks getting in fights violence that they have at Summerfest. That we can deal with. People usually don't die in those fights. It never turns into a mob.

The mob mentality is the weirdest part. Sykes will probably compare it to voting 90% Democratic.

I'm going to turn in. I was going to go to a movie, but some kid will probably talk through the whole thing, and I'll be recognized, and some white person will ask me why my kind always does that, and I can't deal with that right now.

Plus I have to write an indefensible column.

Why are blacks loyal to the Democratic party?

I laid out the reasons here, but I thought that I would add a few more.

1. The Democrats have promised to make our wildest dreams come true. And then this nerdy white kid did some badass dancing.

2. Democrats give us free money.

3. Democrats say nice things about us, and they know that racism is to blame for everything.

4. If we can't blame rich white Republicans for our problems, who can we blame?

5. The Democratic Party is truly the party of diversity. In fact, senator Robert Byrd even knows some "white niggers."

6. I wrote this:

The Democratic Party isn't the home of people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly,
Pat Robertson and others.

and I stand by it. I can't think of a single Republican who ever did anything for black people. It's not like they freed the slaves or something.

7. The Republicans hypocritically oppose affirmative action while promoting Colin Powell and Condi Rice to positions of power.

8. Everyone else is doing it.

9. Republicans think that you can get rich without making someone else poor. Democrats know this to be untrue, and try to transfer some wealth over this way.

10. Republicans just ignore slavery even though it only ended 140 years ago.

And to all of you out there who have attempted to label me a hypocrite and a racist for simultaneously holding the belief that race has nothing to do with intelligence or ideology, and that it's ok that 90%+ of blacks vote as a block, you are beyond the pale.

I keep telling you, black people cannot be racists.

But I Have Black Friends...

Whenever some prominent white man (it's always a man, isn't it?) is accused of racism he will almost always trot out this line. In my last Raising Kane entry I basically used this trick in defense of Hillary. You see, Newt Gingrich used the word "plantation" in a sentence too:

"I clearly fascinate them," Gingrich said of the Democrats. "I'm much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I'm actually willing to lead the slave rebellion." [Washington Post, 10/20/94]

Of course, it is unlikely that Gingrich uttered his words at an MLK event, as the story is from October, and I suppose that some of the racial implications that were obvious in Hillary's statement are simply not there in Gingrich's due to their audiences, but he still said it.

And that makes what Hillary said OK.

Down on the plantation we can say things like that.

One of my favorite tricks is equating any Republican action with slavery. Hillary Clinton did an admirable job the other day when she compared the House of Representatives to a plantation. Unfortunately, Hillary is a white girl, so she needs people like Eujean to lend her some cred.

My first trick is to downplay the racial angle while still mentioning it. I did this by adding an additional point; the idea that Republicans are simply mad at her for dissing Republicans:

She also described the Bush administration as one of the worst in history.

Predictably, Republicans are crying foul.

You see? It's not the plantation idea that they're upset about, it's the direct personal attack.

Next, I use some wishy-washy language while still mentioning the plantation idea. I'll emphasize the qualifying language that immunizes me from criticism:

But what did Hillary really say that's so offensive to those who see a grain of truth in her comments?

Of course it isn't offensive if you agree with it. See how clever I can be.

For African-Americans, the "plantation" analogy is a loaded reference, but she explained she meant the House was a place were dissenting voices were not tolerated and everyone was expected to follow orders from leadership even if they didn't agree.

And here we have the reason for the set-up. You see, there are a lot of bad things in the world. Charlie Sykes, for instance. But not all of these things can accurately be compared to a plantation. It's my job to dull your senses, so that when someone who I agree with tries to compare a plantation to a "lack of toleration of dissenting voices" you don't notice how offensive that statement actually is.

To be true, it would mean that one of the worst offenses of slavery was a lack of dialogue between slaves and masters, and while I'm sure that this was the case, it's really a symptom more than a cause. It's certainly not as serious as the forced labor, poor diet, rapes, murders, destruction of families, etc.

The cause was that rich, white people owned black people. The cause of the phenomenon mentioned by H.C., on the other hand, is the Democratic party's inability to win an election. In other words, democracy.

Basically, Hillary compared slavery to democracy. Some might consider that to be pretty offensive.

But she's on my side, and she's a liberal, so we should cut her a little slack.

MLK

Martin Luther King advised us all to judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

This is a noble sentiment, and one that I am often accused of flouting. The fact of the matter is that other people still judge us by the color of our skin, and these other people are mostly white. Until they stop paying attention to the color of our skin, can we really avoid paying attention to their skin?

I pay attention to the content of your skin.

Think about that.

Expressing an opinion without expressing an opinion.

This column is a good example of a tactic I use when I might express an opinion that my base does not approve of. Instead of offering my opinion, I simply quote someone else while adding nothing.

I should also mention that I think that Sam Alito probably is a racist, but I'm not 100% sure. That is why I didn't hyperlink to any stories about his Princeton alumni group that I mentioned here:

It was an attempt by elected representatives to determine if the guy's touting of his membership in a racist Princeton alumni group represented his true attitudes on diversity.

I mean, I've clearly read about the group, and obviously there are two sides to the story, and I know how to hyperlink. I hyperlinked earlier in the post:

I'll admit, you have to have a heart of stone not to react to shots of Samuel Alito's wife crying at his confirmation hearing.

But you see, it's better that you get your news through the filter of a mainstream media outlet. Why research it yourself when old Eujean can just lay out the good parts for you?

The sorry state of rap.

You know, between this travesty and this white boy poseur material, rap is really in the dumps lately.

Where's the expression of black culture?

What has happened to the time honored tradition of muscled black men telling us how cool they are and how much bling they have acquired, while hanging out with prostitutes.

It saddens me. I blame Eminem.

The Racist Magazine Industry

You people are relentless. Some people think that I may not know that many people in the magazine business compared to the newspaper and television business simply because I work for a large newspaper and television company.

Others have suggested that while TV and newspapers are meant to play to a wide audience, most magazines are specialized to a specific topic, often appealing to a specific racial demographic. Some have even had the nerve to point out that their probably are not many white folks at Vibe, as it specifically caters to African-American hip-hop lovers.

Perhaps an analogy. I also don't personally know many minorities in the National Hockey League, and few would argue that Hockey lacks racial diversity. Understand?

My instincts are quite good on this subject, and if I don't know them, they probably are not there.

The New York Observer article makes it clear. The problem with the magazine industry is segregation. There should be white people at Vibe and Ebony, and there should be Black people at Martha Stewart Living and Sport Fishing Magazine, and all of the other lily-white magazines out there.

We should not cater to an audience simply because they are interested in a topic.

Equality is more important. Always.

Lynching

I just wrote this at Raising Kane, and I thought I would post the unedited version over here. The material that was edited out will be in italics.

Mob beating in South Carolina called lynching

This is an interesting story that has some relevance to Milwaukee's history of mob-beatings.

Although I'm using it primarily to show that occasionally, white people engage in "lynchings" too, in case we have forgotten.

According to this story five white teens who beat a black man were charged with lynching due to a South Carolina law that defines lynching as a mob attack against an individual where the victim survives.

What an odd choice of language for South Carolina. It's like they are attempting to soften the image of lynchings. But that is the kind of thinking that you get in the racist south.

Although the convicted teens were white and the victim was black, apparently the "lynching" designation doesn't require victims and assailants to be of different races.

Everyone knows that this is silly. Only white people can lynch black people. Just as only white people can be racists.

It's interesting because in Milwaukee, the beatings of Frank Jude Jr and Samuel McClain and other victims who survived a mob attack were never described as lynchings.

Correctly, of course. Lynchings require some racial motivation. These were likely troubled youths lashing out against extreme poverty and utter hopelessness.

Neither was the word "lynching" used when the victim died, like Charles Young Jr. and David Rutledge, black men who were beat by all-black mobs.

These are more serious, of course, but they are still not lynchings. We need a different word for crimes like this. Maybe something like "povercides." Something that conveys the underlying social causes.

It's a curious use of language for the South Carolina legal system to adopt. Particularly because, decades ago in the Deep South, when a black man was lynched he usually didn't survive.

South Carolina is clearly creating an incentive for hicks to murder black people, because if they do so, they will avoid the emotionally charged "lynching" accusation.

Racists, all of them.