3 posts tagged “irritating”

I read, a little while ago, a post from Jack Yan about the new Vogue cover featuring LeBron James and the sort of irritating (to me) Gisele Bundchen (umlaut purposefully omitted).  I have seen the cover in the supermarkets and stuff and thought it was, whatever, LeBron looks kind of hot, Gisele looks like Gisele, but whatever.

I never once thought of King Kong or the threat white women face from big, bad, burly black men.  Not once.  At least, not until I read Jack Yan's post.  And see, that is why I am a racist I guess, because I am completely oblivious to the racist stereotypes being perpetrated at my local supermarket.  The blogosphere is apparently alive! with all kinds of people being offended by the presentation of LeBron as scary and gorilla-like.  They have taken umbrage!  I had no idea until I read Jack Yan's post, and then I dismissed it as another case of people who have an ideology that they then go around seeking evidence for--as the Great Tony Mattina used to say, let the data drive the theory, not the other way around.  If you want to find evidence of racism, you'll certainly find it, but the actual data would suggest a much more complex picture--complex and nuanced like Obama's speech (a speech, by the way, that I thought was fucking excellent.  Obama, I will vote for you.  Unless you do something really stupid, like have sex with rabbits on camera with that blind guy from New York.)

Then, because my job is totally sucking tonight (grrrrr--pulmonary function tests suck ass!), I perused some of the links Jack provides and even read what my old friends at Jezebel had to say*.  And now I have to add this:

If you look at that picture of LeBron and the G-bund and see King Kong and a scary black man--maybe even a criminal!  get out the chastity belts!--that says way more about you than it does about the rest of us who just looked at it and thought, "oh, wow, rich, famous people on the cover of a magazine.  fancy that.  maybe i'll get some altoids..."

I'm not going to say I'm colorblind--I can't, since about a year after I moved to Montana (by far the whitest place I ever lived, since I divided my childhood between Hispanic-majority New Mexico and a black-majority part of Arkansas) I caught myself thinking, as I saw a black man walking down the street, "Ooh, black dude.  Damn, I'll bet he's conscious of that all the time living here.  Or maybe not.  Maybe all the white people just pretend they don't notice, like I'm pretending not to notice.  I'm way overthinking this.  He's just a dude, walking down the street.  But why is he carrying a squeegee?  Eh, what the hell?  Why not carry a squeegee?"

But, honestly, when I looked at that Vogue cover I didn't see a "black man" let alone a "scary black man" and certainly not a gorilla-like black man.  I saw LeBron James, with a basketball and a Brazilian (model).  No umbrage necessary. 

Also, offense is regularly taken at the fact that Vogue so rarely features anything but white (assuming we count the Latins as white.  Yeah, I said "the Latins.") on its covers...so...I'm not sure exactly what the offended multitudes want. 

Days like this, and especially since the speech, I really think we need Obama at this point.  We have got to start getting past this shit, people.  In general, certain segments of the population are getting way too offended all the time (I have no idea how you even live that way--what is it like to be offended all the time?  It must particularly suck since you do not, in fact, have a right not to be offended). 

Or should we just keep fighting over the actions of our ancestors?  Mine, before coming to America, were sitting around in Ireland wondering if they should try to hold out during the Great Potato Famine (fortunately, we're stout people) or get on a boat to come to the promised land to be...wage slaves and sharecroppers.  By the time they got here, slavery was near its end in this country (though wage slavery continues unabated), and anyway they were far too freakin poor to own anyone.  And the Osage ancestors were, you know, chilling on the res after walking the Trail of Tears and all that (but they weren't slaves, right?  so that makes it all OK.  except that some of them were slaves, and anyway, like 95% of them died).  So, those are my oppressive white ancestors*.  How about yours?

Also, why don't African-American people in America seem more concerned, as a whole, about slavery that is still going on in Africa?  You'd think there would be a sympathy thing.  Feh.  (moderately related side note:  The entire reason I cannot stomach Chris Rock is that I once saw him doing stand-up and he was saying that white people are always complaining about everything, "Oh, I'm lactose intolerant" but you don't see starving Africans complaining about being lactose intolerant because they're just happy to get milk.  This left me speechless.  I'm just a cracker, but even I know that most Africans are in fact lactose intolerant, and so if they are being given milk, they aren't complaining about lactose intolerance mainly because they're too sick to do so.  As Public Enemy once said, "Read a book or something.  Learn about yourself, learn your culture."  WORD.  But, hey, with a bit of luck, the people who are in charge of sending Africans relief packages are also crackers who know about the racial and geographic lines of lactose intolerance.  Hmm, but now I'm reading through this collection of quotes and finding him kind of awesome.  Maybe I gave up on him too soon.  He should have just gone with the peanut allergy instead of lactose intolerance.) 

But that's just me.  I am white, and so that per force makes me a racist in the irrefutable logic of the offended.

*But on one of their many sister sites, Guanabee, I found this interesting tidbit:  "There’s been a long tradition of a “fight for white,” meaning that various ethnic groups over the years have had to struggle for the chance to be seen as normal and neutral. Irish-Americans, for example, who are today almost synonymous with the concept of what it means to be white (fevered dancing without the use of hips or shoulders, the consumption of potatoes), were very much “the other” for a very, very long time in America. Jewish and Italian Americans were also not always considered white folks here in the old U.S. of A. " 

**I also have Quapaw Indian ancestry.  And no, you cannot tell by just looking at me.  I pretty much look like a potato-eatin honky.

First and foremost:  TO THE PEOPLE OF BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (except electric firefly):  YOU ARE IRREDEEMABLE ASSHOLES.  Also, do you really think the Marine Corps is going to be intimidated by a mass public breastfeeding?  THIS IS WHY PEOPLE MOCK LIBERAL ELITES, YOU IDIOTS.  YOU COMPLETE, UNMITIGATED IDIOTS.  Semper Fi, Rob Riggle!

Second, and making reference to the very same episode of The Daily Show:  My husband (ex-military, sort of--I don't feel entirely sure the Jieitai [Japan Self-Defense Force] constitutes military, but they pretend they do) and I were watching Jon Stewart interview that dude, Lt. Gen. Whatever, and we couldn't help but notice that these two men are from entirely different planets.  They were both apparently speaking English, American vernacular, yet they were not having the same conversation at all.  It was awesome.

Next:  WTFF?  Yeah!  Fabulous!  Teenagers have no fucking idea about anything at all in history, but they are so great at using Facebook!  They are choosing (that word is used many times, because the fact that something is chosen is enough to give it validity and force, at least in the world this lady inhabits) to spend hours and hours not doing homework or bothering about who this Hitler dude is but reading and writing about themselves and reading and writing in order to socialize!  So, see?  Teenagers can read and write!  They can completely comprehend LOLcats and txt msgs that involve complex code-substitutions of numbers for syllables (like Prince didn't totally already do that shit back in the 80s), so they're totally smart.  So just get off their backs, old people!  You crazy old people who want, like, coherent thoughts and maybe writing about something other than myself.  You suck with your whole "knowing about history" deal.  Because it's not the same as what teenagers used to do, just writing in a diary or something, because this is totally, like, online, and teenagers today spend upwards of 2 hours a day doing this newfangled diary-writing, whereas you oldsters had to do, like, chores or some shit and learn about boring stuff like wars.  Yes, I see this logic so clearly.  Srsly, this is one of the lamest fucking articles I've encountered in a while.  FEH.

And finally, my old friend Linda Hirshman has an article in Slate again.  Ah, how nice, how refreshing.  She uses the example of Silda Spitzer to make the case that women should keep their paying jobs instead of staying home with kids (for those of you who don't know, Hirshman hates women who stay home with their kids).  First off, hasn't poor Silda been used enough?  Fucking leave her alone.  I don't know why she stood on those podiums (podia?) with her slimy husband, but that isn't my business.  But for fuck's sake, Linda--the woman has enough to deal with without being made an "example" of by some vicious little "feminist." 

Second, OK, go read the piece.  Her case for not quitting your day job consists primarily of:  1.  You just never know when your husband is going to get caught paying $4300 for a night with a ho and your whole world is going to come crashing down on you!  2.  When that world comes crashing down, your social standing is likely to come down a notch.  I mean, you know, you're probably still going to be quite well off--especially after the alimony!--but you will now be only the divorcee Spitzer instead of the governor's wife.  OMG!  Like, OMG!  How humiliating, this precipitous decline in standing among the elite philanthropist types.  It's almost as unbearable as finding out your husband goes to hookers. 

Nevermind that Hirshman's "opt-out revolution" doesn't really exist (does a revolution really exist if it only marginally exists among the richest classes and not at all among the rest of us?  I hardly think so), she again bases her entire argument for keeping your day job on wealth, power, and social status.  The problem with doing this is the same problem Kant identified with moral judgments and arguments of this type.  To someone who cares little about validation from outside, whether that validation is derived from money or a certain social position, the argument becomes meaningless.  Most of us like to make money and no one likes to be really impoverished, sure, but not all of us derive our ethical compass and sense of self-worth from whatever pays the most, Linda.  Nah, Linda, if you want to be convincing, you need to convince me why I should give a fuck about the old man's game of corporate rat-racing and expensive toy accumulation and the jibber-jabbering of the caviar-eaters.  So far all I've heard is because that's what will make other people, especially those old white men we all love to hate, think I'm worthwhile.  But the secret here is, Linda:  I already know I'm worthwhile.  I have no need of their validation. 

Now, anyone who knows us very well knows that my husband and I don't have normal conversations.  For one thing, they are randomly bilingual.  For another thing, much of what he says to me is nonverbal, and I just know what he means because I've lived with the laconic bastard for so long.  Finally, we have a tendency to start a conversation, drop it, both silently ponder it for a while (hours, days, weeks) and then just pick it up again exactly where we left off as if no time had elapsed. 

Last night while I was damn drunk (proof:  I was chatting to Zack, and I kept typing stuff like "yer cuuuuuute"--real articulate), I got angry at the "debate" going on over at this post.  The point of the post and the ensuing "debate" (I'm putting debate in quotation marks because that is not a debate; it's a farce.) is that white people (that's me!) are privileged in America and we're racists and we're all white and all the same and so forth.  She wants to end racism by, uh, apparently by starting a war with whites (which, dude, we outnumber you...bad idea) or, in lieu of that, getting whites to admit that, yes, we are bad people, incapable of distinguishing a Kenyan from a Senegalese (one of them is Anglophone, one is Francophone--see how I did that?  I defined them in terms of their colonial history.  I am the oppressor!) or a Korean from a Filipino.  Because, see, when you're a "person of color" (her term, not mine), your cultural background and your past matter; when you're white, they don't.  She even, much to my glee (sorry, Shmuel), lumps the Jews in with us whiteys and asserts that they, too, can't understand the experience of racial discrimination in America.  Hee heeeeee.  That's funny.  Jews don't understand being oppressed?  HA!  Alright, rockin'. 

[Just for the record, the above is an extremely flippant characterization of the post and the ensuing "debate."]

So, anyway, I got angry.  My husband, a POC himself as y'all know, came home about 1:30 am by which time I was giddily sloshed and angry and depressed and laughing my ass off all at the same time (the latter, of course, was due to the characterization of the Jews as privileged and also to my extremely articulate ["yer niiiiiiice"] discussion with Zack).  I said, "Hey, honey, you think I'm a rashist?"

T:  giving me WTF? look.  How much beer did you drink?

Me:  Dunno.  You want one?  I think there's some left.  I'm drinking your beer now.

T:  Maybe you should come to bed. 

Me:  Can't.  Busy.  Talkin bout ninjas.

T:  ...giving me that put-upon look that says, "why did I marry this freaky gaijin?  what did I do to deserve this?"

Me:  So, imma rashist?

T:  Huh? 

Me:  This lady says you're a "person of color."

T:  I'm tired.

Me:  You like that?  "Person of color"?

T:  looking dubiously at his arms.  Color? 

Me:  Yah, yer brown.  And now you're the gaijin, too.  I have color, though!  I'm pinkish.

T:  White, like rice.  That's why I like you.  It isn't a meal without rice.

Me:  So, what does that make [our son]?  Crosshatching?

T:  OK, I'm going to bed.

...

T:  You know, since we've been here (in the States), it doesn't seem like white people care about my skin color.  It is irritating though, because around here all the brown people are Mexican, so they think I am too, and they start speaking Spanish to me, and I don't understand.  If they figure out I'm not Mexican, they think (American) Indian or maybe Chinese.

Me:  Ni hao! 

T:  telling me to shutup with his eyes

Me:  Oh, and you know, Mexicans are counted as "white" in most of the data.  You can't be Mexican, as you are clearly brown, not white. 

T:  They're the same color I am. 

Me:  Yeh, but they speak Spanish, while you speak one of those crazy "Asian" languages.  See?

T:  ....?

Me:  Yeh, yeh.  So, you think I'm a racist? 

T:  I don't even know why you worry about it.  This isn't worth thinking about.

Me:  Ah, because this kind of shit bugs me.  The past counts for this group, but not for this one.  Because she thinks I'm X, Y, and Z because of the color of my skin which is exactly what racism is and what she's theoretically railing against.  Because I have no idea what this great "privilege" is that I'm supposed to have from my lovely skin tone--we were really fuckin poor, I worked my ass off at two or three jobs a semester to put myself through college...I don't care that the President has roughly the same color skin as I do--it doesn't mean anything at all, as we have nothing else in common, and anyway...

T:  I think I've heard this before.  (Actually, what he said, with a deep sigh, is "mata ka?" which just means "Again?")

Me:  Yah, sorry.  I know.  So, my handsome person of color...

T:  You should call me "Chinese" or something.  "Hey, Korean!"

Me:  laughing   Well, that would explain your fucked-up Japanese* AND the love of kimchi.  You can call me cracker.  Oh, and also, she keeps saying "Asians."

T:  laughing.  Yeah, we're all the same.

Me:  Well, you do all have the shiny black hair.

T:  Mine's falling out.

Me:  Damn.  I need a younger man then.  A younger person of color man.

T:  You said Zack's only 20.

Me:  He white.  White men bad.

T:  Too bad then.  What about that 17-year-old [Mister Lokii]?

Me:  He is an oppressed person of color. And I believe he has a thick head of shiny black hair.

T:  There you go then.

Me:  So, what about this little man (our son).  White or person of color?

T:  Color.

Me:  You think so?  I don't think it matters because he's too handsome for a category.

Son:  White!  He's white!

T & Me:  laughing.  That settles it then.  White you are, boy.  With all its attendant privileges.  Off to Harvard with ye.

*About his fucked-up Japanese.  Seriously, it's messed up.  This isn't going to mean much to you people who don't speak Japanese, but, ah, I guess it might mean something to Kimura.  He says "sukiku nai" instead of "suki ja nai" and "kireku nai" instead of "kirei ja nai."  Drives me insane.  My son is going to think that's proper Nihongo.  Grrr.