The Privilege Of Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates recently appeared on Bookworm. She was promoting The Sacrifice: A Novel. TSAN is a work of fiction, based on the Tawana Brawley rape allegations. Here is what the show says:
“In The Sacrifice (Ecco), a novel drawn from a notorious racially-steeped case of the late eighties, Joyce Carol Oates speaks of the domino-effect that started with one sacrifice and led to another and another, eventually eviscerating an entire town. By inhabiting her characters from the marginal to the central, Joyce Carol Oates asks herself “what would I do?” In this way she brings emotional clarity to the chaos of public experience.”
As you might recall, Tawana Brawly accused men of raping her. This created a firestorm of controversy. As the book sales pitch says, ” domino-effect … eventually eviscerating an entire town.” When the authorities investigated, the story by Miss Brawley was seen to be a lie.
At the 7:30 mark in the show, JCO said “The tremendous impact of Ferguson MO and the aftermath of the Eric Garner case in New York City are relatively recent and this has a snowballing or avalanche effect on the protests across the nation have been very exhilarating and very wonderful and I’m completely on the side of the protesters”
There are things you can say about the protests over Eric Garner and Michael Brown. There is a lot of turmoil. People saying hateful things about their neighbor. Relations between black people and white people have suffered. This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful.
Many people feel caught in the middle. Yes, there probably is a problem with the way some policemen treat black people. There is also a lot of heated misinformation being generously distributed. If you don’t believe everything you are told, you might be called a racist. This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful. JCO clearly has a certain amount of privilege.
Typical of the Ferguson rhetoric is a piece in PuffHo, The 10 Kinds of Trolls You Will Encounter When Talking About Mike Brown. Number two, after “The Full-Blown Racist Troll,” is “The “Wait for Evidence” Troll.” No matter how many times you are lied to, if you don’t believe what you hear, you are a troll and a racist.
This blog posted a poem in November, when the Missouri grand jury released a decision. This decision was recently confirmed by the Department of Justice, albeit accompanied by stories of police misconduct. The poem said that justice should not be a popularity contest. The men Tawana Brawly accused might agree. O.J. Simpson probably has a few thoughts on the subject as well.
The next day, there was an anonymous comment at chamblee54. “Thanks Luthor, your racism never disappoints.” This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful. This repost has pictures from from The Library of Congress. These are Confederate soldiers from the War Between the States.
Blonde Stories
A blond and her boyfriend are out in the woods hunting when the boyfriend collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The blond takes out her phone and calls 911.
She gasps: “My boyfriend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the blond says: “OK, now what?”
A Blonde is watching the news with her husband when the newscaster says “Two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident. The blonde starts crying to her husband, sobbing “That’s horrible!!! So many men dying that way!! Confused, he says, “Yes dear, it is sad, but they were skydiving, and there is always that risk involved.”
After a few minutes, the blonde, still sobbing, says, “How many is a Brazilian?”
A blonde had just totaled her car in a horrific accident. Miraculously, she managed to pry herself from the wreckage without a scratch and was applying fresh lipstick when the state trooper arrived.
“My goodness!” the trooper gasped. “Your car looks like an accordion that was stomped on by an elephant. Are you OK ma’am?” “Yes, officer, I’m just fine” the blonde chirped. “Well, how in the world did this happen?” the officer asked as he surveyed the wrecked car.
“Officer, it was the strangest thing!” the blonde began. I was driving along this road when from out of nowhere this TREE pops up in front of me. So I swerved to the right, and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was ANOTHER tree! I served to the right and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was ….”
“Uh, ma’am”, the officer said, cutting her off, “There isn’t a tree on this road for 30 miles. That was your air freshener swinging back and forth.
One morning a blonde’s husband was watching the traffic report on TV. They were talking about some maniac who was driving along the highway in the wrong direction and disrupting traffic. He knew his wife would be on that highway on her way to work and he didn’t want her to get hurt, so he called her to let her know.
“Honey, watch out this morning, there’s a lunatic driving the wrong way up the highway” he said.
Sounding terrified, she replied “It’s not just one!”
On a plane flight from Seattle to Chicago, a blonde was sitting in economy class. About half way through the flight, she got up and moved to an empty seat in first class. A flight attendant who observed this, went over to her and politely explained that she had to move back to economy class because that was what her ticket was for. The blonde replied, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Chicago and I’m staying right here.”
After several attempts to explain to the blonde why she had to return to economy class, the flight attendant gave up. She went to the cockpit and explained the situation to the pilot and co-pilot. The co-pilot said, “Let me try.” He went up to the blonde and politely tried to explain to her why she needed to return to her seat in economy class.
But the blonde only replied, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Chicago and I’m staying right here.” Frustrated, the co-pilot returned to the cockpit. He suggested that perhaps they should have the airline call the police and have her arrested when they land.
“Wait a minute,” said the pilot. “Did you say she’s blonde? I can handle this. My wife is a blonde. I speak Blonde.” So he went up to the woman sitting in first class and whispered something in her ear.
“I’m sorry,” said the blonde, and she promptly got up and returned to her seat in economy class.
“What did you say to her?” ask the astonished flight attendant and co-pilot.
To which the pilot replied, “I just told her that first class isn’t going to Chicago.”
Two sisters, one blonde and one brunette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble, and are down to their very last $600.00. In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to purchase a bull so that they can breed their own stock.
Upon leaving, the brunette tells her sister, ‘When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I’ll contact you to bring the trailer with the truck to me so we can haul it home.’
The brunette arrives at the man’s ranch, inspects the bull, and decides she wants to buy it. The man tells her that he will sell it for $599, no less. After paying him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news. She walks into the telegraph office, and says, ‘I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.’
The telegraph operator explains that he’ll be glad to help her, and then adds, it will cost 99 cents a word.’ Well, after paying for the bull, the brunette realizes that she’ll only be able to send her sister one word. After a few minutes of thinking, she says, ‘I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’
The operator shakes his head ‘How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word ‘comfortable?’
The brunette explains, ‘My sister’s blonde. She’ll read it very slowly… ‘com-for-da-bul.’
A blond was sitting at the local bar after work one evening watching the television. There was a news story on the tube about a man jumping off the roof of a ten story building. The bartender says “I bet $20 he will jump”. The blond says “you are on, I bet he won’t jump”. A few minutes later the man jumps and the blond starts to hand the bartender the $20 she just lost. The bartender confesses that the story was not live and he had seen it earlier in the day so he could not in good conscience take her money. The blond replies that he should take the money anyway as she had seen the story earlier in the day too and really didn’t think the guy would do it twice.
This is a repost. These whimsical tales were originally published at Rapture Ready. Pictures, from “Inter city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1925,” are from The Library of Congress.
Who Invented The Word Racism?
Writers tackle was rampaging through Brookhaven. PG looked in a list of old product, and found a feature built on the output of Teju Cole. He has a dandy article, at the New Yorker, about what is antiseptically called drone warfare. It is the twitter feed that gets attention. This is a repost.
@tejucole George Carlin’s original seven dirty words can all be said freely now. The one word you can’t say, and must never print, is “racist.”
The quote marks lend mystery to the tweet. Does he mean the dreaded “n word”? Or does he mean that other six letter slur? There is no shortage of people screaming racist in Georgia, often at the slightest provocation. There is an attitude that racism is the worst thing you can be accused of, and that, once accused, you are guilty until proven innocent. If you do a bit of research into racism, the word, you will see some interesting things.
The concept of groups of people not liking each other is as old as mankind. The word racism apparently did not exist before 1933 (merriam webster), or 1936 (dictionary dot com).
Something called the Vanguard News Network had a forum once, What is the true origin of the term racism? This forum is problematic, as VNN seems to be a white supremacist affair. One of the reputed coiners of the R word was Leon Trotsky, also referred to as Jew Communist. Another Non English speaker who is given “credit” for originating the phrase is Magnus Hirschfeld. As for English, the word here is: “American author Lawrence Dennis was the first to use the word, in English, in his 1936 book “The coming American fascism”.”
The terms racist and racism seem to be used interchangeably in these discussions. This is in keeping with the modern discussion. As Jesus worshipers like to say, hate the sin, love the sinner.
The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to add: “racist 1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from French racisme, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, racialism (1871) and racialist (1917), both often used early 20c. in a British or South African context. In the U.S., race hatred, race prejudice had been used, and, especially in 19c. political contexts, negrophobia.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Stupor Tuesday
It is March 1, 2016. A hundred years ago, the Germans were trying to kill all the French so they could win. That didn’t work, so they tried again twenty five years later. Now Germany has a woman President, or whatever they call their showcase government official, and is trying to take over Europe economically. They might succeed.
Here in Georgia, it is the Presidential primary. This is the only time we get to make a choice. In the November election, Georgia’s electoral votes are all but conceded to the Republicans. There will be local races, and constitutional amendments, but POTUS will be out of our hands. If you are going to make a choice, you need to do it today.
Officially, there are seven choices. Nominally, they are in two races, and there will be two winners. Each voter gets to choose one person. …. We interrupt this election day commentary to answer the phone. It is a robo call from Ted Cruz. This is the second such call from this person, in addition to an automated survey, and a live interviewer survey. All of these home invasions were in support of Ted Cruz. This is a good reason not to vote for the goofy bastard, as if that were an option to begin with. … Ok, now there are only six candidates to choose from. Making robo calls automatically disqualifies anyone from serious consideration.
You probably know who the six candidates are. None of the sorry six are worth voting for. Ben Carson and John Kasich should have dropped out a while back, but that donations accepted candidate lifestyle is tough to give up. Marco Rubio has personality control issues, and is from Florida.
Americans love to elect dynamic cartoon characters. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are two term examples. The showman in this election is Donald Trump. Nothing Mr. Trump says should be taken seriously. America would survive a Trump presidency, but do we want to?
The other charismatic dynamo is Bernie Sanders. Here again, the man has personality out the wazoo, but you can’t believe a word coming out of his New York mouth. He is also butt ugly. The concept of BS in the oval orifice is illegal, immoral, and bad for digestion. If eight years of national halitosis is your idea of morning in america, feel the bern.
Which leaves us with Hillary Clinton. She is well known because she is married to Slick Willie, the most unfaithful husband this side of Donald Trump. Hitlery is much loved by the financial elite, and will probably make them a lot of money. Her public personality sucks. In all fairness, it should be noted that former employee Heather Hurlburt says that Hillary Clinton is not an asshole.
Which brings us to our next point. If you go on facebook today, lots of people are sharing their wonderful opinions with you. At some point, you need to tune out all this noise, and think for yourself. You can do it. It might make your head hurt for a little while, but you will be just fine. And while you are at it, never forget that racism is between rabbit and radical in the dictionary.
If you have read this far, you might have notice that there are no endorsements. All seven candidates would be a disgrace to a third world country, much less the vainglorious United States. Unless you are going to write in Willie B, or Alfred E. Nueman, you have to choose one of the stupid seven. There is one way to make this choice. You can choose the best looking person in the race. This would be Marco Rubio. A vote for Mr. Rubio is also a vote against Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
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