#NationalTellAJokeDay
What bird doesn’t build a nest ? A cuckoo cause it lives in a clock.
A penguin walks in to a bar and says to the barman, have you seen my brother?
Batman says I don’t know, what’s he look like?
I saw this wino; he was eating grapes. It’s like ‘Dude! You have to wait!’
What do u call a girl who lives on top of a house? RUTH
Helium walks into a bar Bartender asks, “What will you have?” Helium did not react.
A Hasidic Jew with a frog on his shoulder walks into a bar.
Bartender: “where’d you get that?” Frog: “Brooklyn. There’s hundreds of them.”
We were up all night wondering where the Sun had gone, then it dawned on us
Do you know what a pink birds favorite game is?? FlaBINGO
An upset cannibal threw up his arms….
Knock! Knock! Who’s there? Control Freak. Con—Okay, now you say, “Control Freak who?”
Why do cows wear bells? Because their horns dont work
Knock, knock, Who’s there? Spitamish Spitamish who?
*Proceeds to spit on other persons shoe*
Q: Why couldn’t the leopard play hide and seek? A: Because he was always spotted.
How many abstract artists does it take to change a lightbulb? Fish
What’s the difference between a hooker and a drug dealer?
A hooker can wash her crack and resell it
What did the baby corn say to its mom? Where’s my pop corn?
What does a panda use to fry eggs? A pan. Duh.
What did Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack? The best of thymes, the worst of thymes…
Teacher: “Kids, what does the chicken give you?” Student: “Meat!”
“What does the pig give you?” “Bacon!” “What does the fat cow give you?” “Homework!”
My ex-wife still misses me…but her aim is gettin’ better!
What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?… 1/2 a worm!
The kitten was having trouble watching her Blu-Ray. Turns out she just had the movie on paws.
There were 2 cats looking into a bird cage.
First cat: “That’s not a canary. It’s green!” Second cat: “I don’t know, maybe it’s not ripe yet”
I never wanted to believe my Dad was stealing from his job as a road worker …
But when I got home, all the signs were there
A man went into an auto parts store. “Can I get a new gas cap for a Yugo?”
The clerk thought for a second and said, “That seems like a fair trade.
Did you hear about the guy who got fired from his job at the door factory?
Yep, he just couldn’t get a handle on it.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Russia Strategy Has Backfired
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Java Monkey was destroyed by fire November 12, 2018.
Our Russia strategy has backfired Biden is more likely to be toppled BY Anusar Farooqui
No. 22-609 Detroit Families’ Experiences with COVID-19 and School Attendance
Ethan Hawke Says Filmmaker Peter Weir Retired After Johnny Depp ‘Broke Him’
Omicron BA5 is the dominant variant of SARS2 in USA at the moment …
How the Ukraine War Ends | Robert Wright & Rajan Menon
College Football Can’t Be Killed. But It Can Be Changed for the Worse.
Raymond Carver Reads “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”
Murder Mayhem CIA Acid Parties Let’s give a bunch of criminals acid, see what happens
No, Facebook doesn’t have a new rule that allows it to use people’s photos
Michael Moore Gives 5 Scary Reasons Why Trump Will Win
ALEC Takes on “Woke Capitalism,” Bodily Autonomy, and More at Its Annual Meeting
Your “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” Rights under the CA Consumer Privacy Act
Billy Porter Slams Supreme Court, Calls for New Political Messaging: ‘The Change …
Sex deniers are the new flat earthers Those who deny biological sex are dangerous …
How the ”Science-Based Medicine” blog succumbed to the pressure of trans ideology
Monkeypox Risks From Everyday Activities: Trying on Clothes, Attending a Festival …
Twitter is silencing Gay Men My appeal for freedom of speech in online gay politics
Cosmologist Katie Mack shares tips for spotting, combating physics falsehoods online
A Heat Wave Is Not The Time To Eat On the Patio. Stop it!
A new Georgia voting law reduced ballot drop box access in places that used them most
Against False Privilege .. biggest blunders of modern activism is promotion of guilt and …
More Baldwin: Whoever debases others is debasing himself
science based medicine ~ cliches ~ 90s black screenplays ~ ambient kyoto ~ dommune
AMBIENT KYOTO ~ theresa ~ kirley’s ~ repost from 2016 ~ boys in the buff
Java Monkey ~ repost from 2016 ~ spiller park coffee ~ defamation ~ fripp
parker’s back ~ mick taylor ~ herschel ~ midtown music ~ weather 30319
tc boyle ~ rap on trial ~ samantha bee ~ aita ~ taste of buckhead ~ the crow
essential church ~ gates ~ till ~ pete cossaboon ~ queerness, angles, gsv
I will glad to chat with you more and know each other better. Can you let me know your email, I will write to you more and send to you my pictures. … idanoe@gotohell.com … Thank you, I will mail to you soon. Wish you very good day! Hugs ~ @vanguardngrnews Moment US Pastor, Congregation was robbed during church service. An American pastor, Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead and members of his congregation were robbed of about $400K in jewellery during a live-streamed church service on Sunday. ~ short end of the stick ~ At 1:39 of this show, Константин Кисин taught me something. In the Soviet Union, people would say something. A state official would tell the person “That is factually correct, but politically incorrect.” ~ Cemeteries, Funerals & New Jersey Taxes The New Jersey Cemetery Act, 2003 (N.J.S.A. 45:27-1 et seq.) accords a broad range of tax exemptions in recognition of the vital public health and welfare benefits cemeteries provide. This bulletin explains the Sales Tax treatment of sales and purchases by cemetery companies; sellers/installers of gravestones, tombstones, markers, and mausoleums; and funeral director ~ @DSA_LosAngeles Red Hot Socialist Summer is officially in effect. Thank you to everybody who joined us for our Annual Local Convention on Saturday! It was incredible to come together with workers from across LA to reflect on our victories, and gameplay for the challenges that remain @FilmThePoliceLA This group doesn’t have a single Black person? No wonder Hugo and the DSA are so willing to throw Black people under the bus. ~ this poem is from a writing prompt. The prompt was to use all the words in this headline, “Unidentified man saves grandmother and her relatives as their home is nearly swallowed by Kentucky floodwaters” … grandmother saves Kentucky floodwaters, as home is nearly swallowed by their relatives, unidentified man transitions into daughters, placebo and her geebow wonder what gives ~ Dax Shtraus ~ abc aqc abc aqc abc abc aqc abc aqc abc ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Inter-city beauties, Atlantic City, 1926 ~ selah
When In Doubt Shut Up
When in doubt, shut up.
A halo is best worn over one ear.
If you want to be forgiven, forgive. If you want to be understood, understand.
There are few situations that cannot be made worse with anger and loud talk.
You have two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.
A douche is a hygiene appliance. The verb form refers to using this device for cleaning purposes. Neither the noun, nor the verb, is appropriate as an insult.
A sentence has one period, placed at the end. Do not place a period after every word to make a point. You should find another way to show that you really, really mean it.
Not everyone enjoys the sound of your voice as much as you do.
Ass is a noun. It refers to either a donkey, or a butt. It is not an adverb, nor an adjective. Do not place ass between an adjective and a noun.
Before you “call out” somebody for “racism”, drape a towel over your mirror.
The third commandment says to not use the word G-d “in vain”. The G word should only be used for worship, and respectful discussion. Improper uses include expressing anger, selling life insurance, and pledging “allegiance” to a symbol of nationalism. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Whitman To Ginsberg
“… I’ve slept with Neal Cassady who slept with Gavin Arthur who slept with Edward Carpenter who described sleeping with Whitman to Gavin Arthur. [The “Gay Succession”]” Allen Ginsberg was fond of his place in a line of gay succession. This is a repost.
A 1974 interview makes the same point about Whitman-Carpenter-Arthur, but does not mention Cassady-Ginsberg. Could anyone be telling stories? The Carpenter-Arthur connection happened in 1924, but is described in wonderful detail by Mr. Arthur in 1967. There are few details about the Arthur-Cassady link in the chain. As a BBC interviewer said to Mr. Ginsberg in 1994 “Both Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, I think, described you as a “con-man extraordinaire”. What did they mean?” AG: “Oh, maybe they were projecting their own goofiness on me.”
“Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was a writer and gay mystic and lived in England all his life. Although ordained an Anglican priest in 1869 he soon renounced religion and became a Fabian socialist. Among his works on social reform is Towards Democracy (1883-1902), a long, un- rhymed poem revealing the influence of his friend Walt Whitman. He edited the first gay literary collection, Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship”
Mr. Carpenter exchanged letters with Mr. Whitman. “Although Whitman was not a socialist, his writing had a profound effect on Carpenter, who made the long trip to America primarily as a pilgrimage to his literary and spiritual inspiration. He visited the poet for several weeks in 1877 and again in 1884. In 1906 he published an account of his visits to America, Days with Walt Whitman, writing a respectful, even somewhat glorified, portrait of his idol.”
“It was not until the 1966 publication of a memoir by Gavin Arthur entitled The Circle Of Sex that the intimate details of Carpenter’s visits were revealed. Arthur slept in bed with Carpenter … leaving us with our only description of Whitman’s sexual behavior, an area otherwise shrouded in mystery and controversy.” In later years, we learned that Mr. Whitman possibly spent a happy afternoon with Oscar Wilde. Mr. Whitman was also fond of cruising the Brooklyn Waterfront.
Gavin Arthur (born Chester Alan Arthur III; March 21, 1901 – April 28, 1972) is a key link in this chain. As often noted, he was the grandson of Chester Arthur. The elder Mr. Arthur was elected Vice President in 1880, and promoted after the death of James Garfield.
The younger Mr. Arthur was a piece of work. In the early 1920’s, Mr. Arthur dropped out of Columbia, got married, and moved to Ireland. Mr. Arthur somehow got to meet his idol, Edward Carpenter. At the time of this meeting, Mr. Arthur was 23, and Mr. Carpenter was 80.
THE GAY SUCCESSION “… is a document given me by Gavin Arthur in 1967.” The story goes into extravagant detail about the meeting between Mr. Arthur and Mr. Carpenter. One wonders how the elderly Mr. Arthur remembers all this 43 years later.
EC – “No, Walt was ambigenic,” he said. “His contact with women was far less than his contact with men. But he did engender several children and his greatest female contact was that Creole in New Orleans. I don’t think he ever loved any of them as much as he loved Peter Doyle.”
GA – “I suppose you slept with him?” I blurted out half scared to ask.”
EC – “Oh yes–once in a while–he regarded it as the best way to get together with another man. He thought that people should ‘know’ each other on the physical and emotional plane as well as the mental. … the best part of comrade love was that there was no limit to the number of comrades”
GA – “How did he make love?” I forced myself to ask.”
EC – “I will show you,” he smiled. “Let us go to bed.”
Mr. Arthur spares few details in what happens next.
Chester III renamed himself Gavin. After losing the financial support of his family, Mr. Arthur moved to San Francisco. For a while, he sold newspapers on the street. “And he delved deep into both astrology and sexology. Gavin took his star charts very seriously: When one self-administered reading told him he was heading to prison soon, he immediately drove to San Quentin and took a job as a teacher, the better to prevent going in as an inmate.”
“By the 1960s, Gavin Arthur had become a well-known and respected astrologer. In 1966, some Bay Area activists, cultural and political, began to plan a transformative event. They wanted to unite the cultural radicals of the Haight, and the political radicals of Berkeley. Those plans led to the Human Be-In. In order to have maximum astrological impact, its organizers asked Arthur to determine the most auspicious date. Arthur determined that January 14, 1967, would have the greatest impact.”
“I had a flashback to the time I spent with Ginsberg in Cambridge, MA, in 1982, when he told me that I was part of an erotic lineage that connected me to Whitman … a quick Google search identifies Arthur as ”a certain astrologer and San Francisco character, Gavin Arthur … gave lectures at San Quentin while Neal was a prisoner.” Another entry reports that he studied astrology with Ronald Reagan before Reagan started his political career.”
“In 1958, he (Neal Cassady) was arrested after being caught using marijuana at a San Francisco nightclub. He was sentenced for two years at San Quentin State Prison.” This was when Mr. Arthur was teaching at San Quentin. Mr. Cassady mentions him in two letters to his wife Carolyn. (For those who just got here, Neal Cassady was the model for Dean Moriarty in On The Road. Mr. Cassady also drove the bus “Further,” for the Merry Pranksters.)
August 13, 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Last Saturday, “Uncle Gavin” Arthur, grandson of our twenty-first President who, Republican though he was, could hardly have been more conservative than is Gain underneath all his Occult Astrology, failed to show (again, for the third time in six weeks) to teach our class in Comparative Religion and Philosophy, about three dozen regularly in attendance, on account of a death in his group at the Global House, which he bought by selling papers on Market Street for ten years; so again it was my pleasurable duty to instruct the boys in Cayce-hood [Edgar Cayce]”
Septetmber 22 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Uncle” worry-wart [Gavin Arthur] missed showing up for the class again last week and I hear, probably unfounded, rumors that it is to be discontinued, too bad if true, because it was fun to hear the old geezer expound, without at all remembering he had, on the very same things week after week. I mean his examples, and their wording were always so alike one could not only anticipate, but, with any memory at all, give in advance the exact sentence he would be about to pronounce: it was sort of a game.” Eight years later, the “old geezer” described a 1924 tryst in clinical detail.
San Quentin broke Neal Cassady. The railroad would not take him back, and Carolyn divorced him. “He, however, felt now he had utterly failed in his mission, and he knew he could never go back. He died inside; only his body survived. This he did his best to destroy. He no longer believed in suicide, but he did all he could to be killed. … He told me he swallowed handfuls of pills anyone offered, even not knowing what they were. Is this not an obvious death-wish? He admitted it was.”
During this down and out time of his life, Neal Cassady apparently connected with Gavin Arthur. In a 1974 radio interview, Allen Ginsberg recalls “That was already the ’60’s, but there was that atmosphere back in San Francisco, around Gavin Arthur, particularly. Arthur was a great friend of Neal Cassady, slept with him all the time, or whenever Neal had nowhere to go he’d wind up in Gavin’s house, sort of falling asleep, exhausted, in his bed.”
The Neal Cassady to Allen Ginsberg connection is well documented.
“A second, serendipitous event further spurred (Joey) Cain’s interest in researching Gavin Arthur. Cain found a used copy of Carpenter’s “Towards Democracy” in a used bookstore for $3.00. It had a lot of writing in it. Cain noticed the following lament among the notes in the book, “This is one of my Bibles, please return. This volume is the third I have had to buy, people being so dishonest about books.” Then he looked below and saw Gavin Arthur’s signature and address. The writing belonged to Arthur. The book in his hand had once belonged to Gavin Arthur. He went up to the cashier who said, “It’s a shame about all this writing in it.” Cain replied, “Let me pay for it first, and then I’ll tell you about this writing.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
How Donald Trump Could Win
“Michael Moore is afraid and is convinced that Trump will win. Prove him wrong!” The comment supplied a link, Michael Moore Gives 5 Scary Reasons Why Trump Will Win. Against his better judgment, PG made a comment. There was a reply. This is a repost from 2016.
I can offer four more. A Health crisis for Hillary Clinton. Alienating white voters by screaming racist too often. Choosing an idiot as Vice President. An economic meltdown. ~ Number 2 on your list explains everything that is wrong with the US – a singular refusal by white people to admit they’re racists, especially the really racist ones. ~ You just gave me an idea for a blog post.
This post will focus on scary reasons one, three, four, and offer number five. Number two is a bunch of number two. The national obsession with OPRAH (other people’s racial attitudes hello) produces more heat than light. It is summertime. More heat is not needed.
HRC is 68 years old. She has been married, to a notoriously unfaithful man, for 41 years. If you google “Hillary Health,” you get replies from the likes of Brietbart and RedState.
There is at least one plausible story, Secretary of state faints, sustains concussion. Dec. 15, 2012 WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who skipped an overseas trip this past week because of a stomach virus, sustained a concussion after fainting, the State Department said Saturday. … The State Department said Clinton was dehydrated because of the virus, fainted and sustained a concussion. She will continue to work from home in the week ahead and looks forward to returning to the office “soon,” the statement said.
In the next few days, HRC will announce the VPOTUS candidate. This is an important decision. The past few elections have run the gamut, from safe politicians (Al Gore, Joe Biden) to blithering idiots (Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin.) (A google spell check on Quyale produced the search suggestion “dan quayle once said “i am not a potted plant.”) A third category might be secret boss in waiting, or Dick Cheney. So far, HRC has run a smart campaign. It will probably continue, at least for VPOTUS.
In September 2008, the economy went to hell. We are still recovering. When the stock market lost 800 points in one day, the election of BHO was all but assured. Hopefully, and probably, this will not happen this year. However, in an election as goofy as this one, anything is possible.
Reason five is war, terrorism, natural disaster, oil spillage, or anything else that kills a lot of people. There is no telling what the Illuminati has planned for this fall. Whatever it is, we might not know the truth until after November 8, when it is too late. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Jordan B Peterson
Dr Jordan B Peterson is a smidgin less popular now than a year ago. He chose to stay on the road, and make the mo$t out of his fifteen minutes. There was a pay-per-view smackdown with Slavoj Žižek, with Dr. displayed prominently in front of JP, in case anyone forgot about the PhD. The republic survived, a year older and a trillion dollars deeper in debt. This saturday morning features a Dr. P triple feature. The posts are Jordan Peterson, Prager University AKA PU, and Dr. McWhorter Vs Dr. Peterson. Pictures, as noted elsewhere, are from The Library of Congress.
Jordan Bernt Peterson has become quite the public nuisance recently. He performed at a theater downtown Tuesday night. I did not attend. YouTube has a video of a show he did Saturday night, in San Francisco. (The video is no longer available.) It is probably similar to the Atlanta show. The performance is loosely based on the book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
This report is starting at forty minutes in. JBP is 3 rules into his show, out of 12. JBP says that you should only be around people who support you as a human being. This does not account for instances where you have to be around jerks to keep your job, or because they are in your family. Some of these rules for living are going to be easy to pay lip service to, but tough to actually follow. But, if you are attending the JBP show because you want to make a better person out of yourself… as JBP flatters his followers by saying … then a few inconsistencies are going to be easy to explain away. If nothing else, you just make jokes about the left, which also helps make you a better person.
JBP was talking about the advantages of having a regular sleep schedule, which has never been an issue for me. Meanwhile, I was googling to see what the B stood for. When you type in Jordan Peterson to google, the first thing to come up is sophistry. This is a word a lot of people use to describe this act. Another is “the stupid person’s smart person.” JBP is an example of what Marshall McLuhan meant when he said the medium is the message. A painfully learned man, speaking to you, in polysyllabic bursts, is teaching you how to be a better person. The specific things that he says are beside the point. BTW, the B stands for Bernt, like toast. JBP was born in 1962, in Edmonton, Ontario. He is as Canadian as Hockey, and driving to Florida on I75. June 12 is his birthday.
At 57 minutes, JBP is talking about sleeping, and eating. “What stupid things am I doing that is making my life wretched?” I am tempted to say it is listening to this video, and to motivational speakers in general. However, if I did this, I could not complete this report. I would have to talk about how DJT is screwing up the world, with the profitable assistance of the Democratic party. I could blather about racism. I could look at facebook, and see why my neighbor’s knickers are in a twist. Maybe JBP isn’t so bad after all.
@ggreenwald “Beyond the fact that she treats her audience like 8-year-olds – repeating the same banal points 5 times in increasingly dramatic fashion to make sure they retain it & believe it’s earth-shattering – she’s now the most militaristic, and the most conspiratorial, commentator on TV:” Does it really matter which blow dried talking head this is? The medium is the message. One rule of public speaking is to treat children as though they were adults, and adults as though they were children. It doesn’t matter what the suit on the stage is saying. He is talking, you are sitting quietly in your chair, hopefully your phone is in your pocket, maybe having naughty fun with the vibrate mode, and this is all going to make you a better person.
The next rule is to not let your children do anything that will make other people not like them. This is very, very important, and must be done by the age of four. JBP does not offer many specific tactics for this battle, but spends a lot of time talking about the overall strategy. It should be noted at this point that some people will say that I don’t understand what JBP is saying. This may be true. Or, it could be that I understand it too well. This is true of all criticism. If you say something negative about a leader, to a follower, the follower will say that you don’t understand the message. Maybe the medium is the problem. If the medium were well done, things would taste better.
Rule six is to put your house in order before you criticize the world. Physician heal thyself. On the surface, this is a good rule. Hypocrisy is always a handy argument when someone is generous with their opinions. In a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do world, rule six will get a lot of praise. What blather will JBP illustrate this point with? One might be to save your document, before going back to listening. The redo post is never as good as the one that was lost because you forgot to save your work.
Save is a curious word to use at this point. As you quickly learn, JBP gives you a rule, and then says *stuff*… lots and lots of it … that has little to do with that rule. When the message was paused at 1:22, JBP was talking about creating heaven, and avoiding hell. If you don’t believe hell is real, then you are not paying attention. This is very different from the Christian message about hell, and how Jesus died on the cross… Maybe, hell is sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in a crowded tabernacle, listening to a well paid performer make a better person out of you. At least with YouTube you can pause whenever you need more coffee, or to excrete the coffee already consumed.
Rule eight is not to lie. This is similar to the ninth commandment, and just as liberally interpreted. When the wonder box was paused in self defense at 1:34:01, JBP was railing about the arrogance of using the language to deceive people. There are lots of pithy sentences strewn throughout this monologue, which, as we speak, are already appearing in facebook memes.
At 1:40, JBP says “thats all I have to say about that,” and leaves the stage. The emcee, possibly Dave Rubin, comes on, and tells people to think about what they have heard for the last TWO HOURS. This is after 100 minutes, the first ten minutes being the introduction. Maybe the truth telling rule does not apply here. “And think about what was on CNN for the last two hours… aplause and laughter … Wolf Blitzer talking about porn stars. We’re winning. ” The Atlanta show was less than a quarter mile away from CNN headquarters.
The next part of the show is Q&A. @RubinReport sits in one comfy chair, @jordanbpeterson sits in the other. We interrupt our regularly scheduled snark to bring you a pro JBP comment David Joshua Rubin, the sidekick of the Atlanta and San Francisco shows, tweeted this today: @RubinReport Hi, I’m Dave. I’m married to a dude and I eat chicken sandwiches whenever I want.” DJR is a gay Jew, and is matter of fact about both. We are into another level of gay assimilation, where an Intellectual Dark Web® member can be casually queer. The JBP show, whatever its shortcomings, seems to be free of anti-gay nonsense. Some radicals will not approve of the CFA eating assimilation. We now return to your regularly scheduled snark.
During the Q&A, JBP got onto Bill Maher, and the gratuitous, over the top, Trump bashing that went on back stage. JBP thought it was boring and stupid, and, for once, I agree. People are getting tired of the non-stop Trump hating, and it is creating a backlash. Actually, a lot of what JBP says is worthwhile, but you have to wonder how many of his followers actually do tell the truth. Maybe, with 10 minutes to go in the video, this is a good time to wrap up this report. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee was the photographer. The location was Texas, in February 1939. The spell check suggestions for JBP are JAP and BP.
It was a peaceful sunday morning. Being home churched has advantages. PG made the choice to listen to a video by Uncle Hotep. The video was about an article at the root, 10 Things I Already Know About You if You’re Listening to Nas’ New Album Nasir. Item 3: “You believe that interracial relationships produce a better grade of black hair.” PG had never heard of Nas’, and asked Mr. Google to direct him to a video. After 16 seconds, the artist used the n-word. Good times.
Dangerous People Are Teaching Your Kids is a video by Prager University, starring Jordan B. Peterson. The pregame video for UH promotes this product. PG called on Mr. Google to direct him to the PU site. One of the results was an article, Free speech champion Jordan Peterson threatens to sue professor over Twitter name calling. This is not satire. While the offending tweet is deleted, the apology is up. @THEWRENCHLEFT AS PER THREAT TO SUE FOR LIBEL, I HEREBY APOLOGIZE TO JORDAN PETERSON FOR REFERRING TO HIM AS AN INVOLUNTARY CELIBATE (INCEL), A MISOGYNIST, A COMMITTED WHITE NATIONALIST, AND SOMEONE WHO HAS DESCENDED INTO RANK BIGOTRY. The Daily Caller presents the other side of the story, Pro-Flag-Burning Prof Calls Child-Having Jordan Peterson A ‘White Nationalist’ ‘Incel’.
Incel (a portmanteau of “involuntary celibates”) is a word that has become popular recently. Popular is not a word frequently associated with incels. The Urban Dictionary defines incel as “A sexist sack of shit who thinks all women owe him sex.” The spell check suggestion for incel is Celine.
Whatever his other shortcomings, JBP has 2 grown children. He had sex twenty something years ago, so he is not an incel. Unfortunately, JBP made a video for PU. Since this show has a transcript, it will be easy to criticize. The lecture style of JBP involves throwing lots of big words at you in rapid fire succession, so you don’t have time to think. With a tranny transcript, you have the luxury of hitting pause, and spreading snark.
PG has been out of the classroom for a while, so there may be trends in higher education that he missed out on. However, is it really true that “It’s now possible to complete an English degree and never encounter Shakespeare—one of those dead white males whose works underlie our “society of oppression.””? JBP does not say which institution offers such a degree. A google search turns this up, Yale ‘decolonizes’ English dept. “Previous requirements for the major included two courses in “Major English Poets,” including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton and Eliot, among others. But that two-course series petitioners had deemed actively harmful due to its focus on white male poets. The series is no longer a graduation requirement for Yale’s English majors.” No longer a graduation requirement” is not the same as “never encounter.
“You’re underwriting this gang of nihilists. You’re supporting ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective …” There is a difference between not requiring a course in a subject, and saying that a graduate will “never encounter” that subject. JBP was lying when he made that statement. This is an example of truth being relative.
“Their world is instead a Hobbesian nightmare of identity groups warring for power.” You should give JBP (or his ghostwriter) credit for knowing how to turn a phrase. It should be noted that JBP is not completely wrong. “They don’t see ideas that run contrary to their ideology as simply incorrect. They see them as integral to the oppressive system they wish to supplant, and consider it a moral obligation to stifle and constrain their expression.” Social Justice Jihad does have a collateral damage problem. It is a handy target for strawman jousting jerkoffs.
“Second is rejection of the free market … Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Venezuela—until recently the poster-child of the campus radicals—the middle class lines up for toilet paper.” Holy strawman, Batman. While some “campus radicals” may be Marxist, that is far from a requirement for Social Justice Jihad. This *free market* rhetoric will play well with the conservatives who make up the bulk of PU listeners. Also, has anyone seen any posters praising the revolution in Venezuela? Maybe they are kept in the same library as the Shakespeare shredders.
“Post-modernists don’t believe in individuals. You’re an exemplar of your race, sex, or sexual preference. You’re also either a victim or an oppressor. No wrong can be done by anyone in the former group, and no good by the latter.” Here again, identity politics can be yucky, but good grief, does anyone really believe this?
The video only lasts 5:02. Staying within the attention span of your target audience is a good idea. In the last part of the message, the naughty professors are labeled as communists. The evils of this tacky ideology are fervently denounced. Does anyone notice what has happened in the Soviet Union? The former KGB dudes changed their colors. Russia is a post-Marxist kleptocracy today. Their leadership is buddy buddy with Donald J. Trump. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. .
“Jordan Peterson Questioned By Linguist John McWhorter on Pronoun Stance” is the video that started it all. Dr. Jordan Bernt Peterson, aka “The stupid person’s smart person,” was appearing at the Aspen Ideas Festival. During the Q&A, he was queried by Dr. John Hamilton McWhorter V, who is one of “the Black guys on Bloggingheads TV”. The moderator was Bari Weiss, the namer of the Intellectual Dark Web. PG posted the video link to a *radical community* facebook page, with the note “This is a thoughtful conversation about gender and pronouns.” Some were not amused.
In the video, JHM asks JBP “I teach trans students. And I’m asked often to call people singularly they. It started probably about four years ago. It struck me as very odd. I’m 52. And some of them you can tell that it’s coming from a very deep place. That’s how they feel, and they deeply need to be called they. Some of them, my horse sense says, that they’re kind of enjoying giving me a certain shock, and there’s a certain theatrical element. That’s my horse sense … my general feeling has been that whatever they ask I just go with it, and let’s change the usage of the pronouns because we have a lot to do. … You said that how you make the difference in deciding these cases is that you have psychological training, and you can tell. What I want to know is, for my own elucidation and also because many of us wondered but then it kind of went by: How do you know?”
JBP replied. “Well, first of all I wouldn’t know … I would be willing to do that despite the fact that I might be wrong. Having said that, in any reasonable situation I would err on the side of addressing the person in the manner in which they want to be addressed. But that’s not the issue for me. The issue is that now I’m compelled by law to do so. It’s like: No, not doing it. Not now, because it’s compelled by law, so that’s the end of the game so far as I’m concerned. There’s no excuse for compelling it by law. I don’t think it was an isolated legislative move. I think it was part and parcel of a whole series of legislative moves that have been made. I think it’s an attempt by a certain radical ideology to get the linguistic upper hand, which I think is a terrible thing to do…. ”
Bill C-16 was a proposal in the Canadien Parliament. It would, essentially, extend Civil Rights protection to Gender Identity issues. The bill was passed by Parliament, and is now law. JBP gained some fame, and notoriety, with his opposition to C16.
One issue in this video is whether, or not, the use of non-preferred pronouns is against the law. According to Brenda Cossman, a professor of law at the University of Toronto, Peterson is “fundamentally mischaracterizing” Bill C-16. “I don’t know if he’s misunderstanding it, but he’s mischaracterizing it,” Cossman says. … Cossman says it seems Peterson is trying to argue that the misuse of pronouns could constitute hate speech. “I don’t think there’s any legal expert that would say that [this] would meet the threshold for hate speech in Canada,” she says. Our courts have a very high threshold for what kind of comments actually constitutes hate speech, and the nature of speech would have to be much more extreme than simply pronoun misuse, according to Cossman.”
During the Facebook conversation, PG made this comment: ” I agree with Dr. McWhorter that, as a matter of respect, you should call someone by their preferred pronoun. I may have doubts about their sincerity, but I will call them what they want to be called. … I am not familiar with the C-16 struggle. Apparently, there was some Canadien legislation regarding these issues. While I don’t have a problem calling someone they, I really don’t see this as an appropriate issue for legal action. That may not be what the proposed law said, and I don’t want to research it now. However, if C-16 mandated singular they, then I would agree with Dr. Peterson…. which might be the only time I ever agree with him.” Now it appears that this notion … that the law requires the use of singular they … is a creation of JBP’s overheated imagination.
The video linked above does not include a section of the discussion preceding the question by JHM. This exchange changes the character of the conversation between JBP and JHM. PG did not know about this previous exchange when he posted his ill fated comment on facebook. Here is the exchange, between BW and JBP.
BW: “You are often characterized, at least in the mainstream press, as being transphobic. If you had a student come to you and say, I was born female, I now identify as male, I want you to call me by male pronouns. Would you say yes to that?” JBP: “Well, it would depend on the student and the context and why I thought they were asking me and what I believe their demand actually characterized, and all of that. Because that can be done in a way that is genuine and acceptable, and a way that is manipulative and unacceptable. And if it was genuine and acceptable then I would have no problem with it. And if it was manipulative and unacceptable then not a chance.”
JBP said one thing first…. that he would call a student *they* if it was “genuine and acceptable.” After the questions by JHM, the focus became whether, or not, the law was requiring the usage of non-binary pronouns. This is not the first time that JBP has been too slick for his own good.
Was the question by JHM sincere, or was he trolling JBP? JHM was clearly playing with JBP. “Are you saying that psychological theory has nothing to teach us about this? Because you’re talking around my question. You’re gorgeously articulate. You’re smarter than me. Does psychology have anything to teach us or not? Yes or no?
It is tough to say. It may have been a combination of sincerity and rhetoric. Whatever the motivation there, the question struck a nerve with PG. It is easier to just be careful, use the preferred pronouns, and keep your concerns to yourself. Trans issues are a part of modern life. You don’t have to understand everything.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The quotes are from a transcript published in this artice, Jordan Peterson Comes to Aspen.
Never Doubt
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” This chestnut appeared in an email, promoting an event. PG heard a podcast last year, about another Margaret Mead story. Readers of this blog know where this is going.
@anthroreviewed “Did Margaret Mead really say that thing about broken femurs and civilization that is (once again) making the rounds online? Also, are healed femurs a marker of civilization? No. And no. As explore in the second half of this episode… “ A blog post, That Margaret Mead quote, goes into more detail about both stories.
“It’s interesting the quotes that are attributed to Margaret Mead – another is “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world – indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” … Both are things she could have said, given her personality, but neither is fully attributed – the first instance of the story above is in Dr. Ira Byock’s 2012 book on palliative care, and the above quote only attributed to her, four years after her death, by the author of a fairly hippie-ish book on paths to world peace.”
“This quote (about the femur) has been going around Facebook since mid-March, probably encouraged by this Twitter thread, this FB post, and this article in Forbes, none of which are by archaeologists/anthropologists.”
When the bs detector started dinging, results are just a few clicks away. Highlight the suspicious quote. Right click, choose “Search Google for …,” and wait 0.51 seconds. When one of the results is a story at Quote Investigator®, you have a winner.
When people get caught peddling bogus quotes, they often say that even if the attribution is false, the words are true. What about the featured quote today? It sounds good, and is great for promoting attendance at an event. But is it the truth?
Look at the 9/11 attacks. They did change the world. While it is true that nineteen men pulled off the caper, they had a lot of help. Somebody financed the operation. Other people built the airliners, and the airports where they took off. Somebody dug an oil well, pumped the crude oil, shipped the crude oil to a refinery, and produced the explosive jet fuel that propelled the attacks. In fact, it was the profits from pumping that oil that financed the attacks. “A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” flew a plane, that someone else built, into the World Trade Center. They were not “the only thing that ever has.” This is a repost. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Beneduck Arnold
What did one flag say to the other flag? Nothing. It just waved!
What’s red, white, black and blue? Uncle Sam falling down the steps!
What would you get if you crossed Washington’s home with nasty insects? Mt. Vermin!
What did a patriot put on his dry skin? Revo-lotion!
Which colonists told the most jokes? Punsylvanians!
What was General Washington’s favorite tree? The infantry!
Where did George Washington buy his hatchet? At the chopping mall!
What quacks, has webbed feet, and betrays his country? Beneduck Arnold!
Did you hear the one about the Liberty Bell? Yeah, it cracked me up!
What would you get if you crossed a patriot with a small curly-haired dog? Yankee Poodle!
Why did Paul Revere ride his horse from Boston to Lexington? The horse was too heavy to carry!
What happened as a result of the Stamp Act? The Americans licked the British!
This is a repost. Picture are from The Library of Congress.
The B-52s
There used to be a chinese restaurant, on the Atlanta Highway, called Hunan House. One night, a few people shared a flaming volcano, and formed a band. The b52s played their first show at a valentines day party in 1977. They were named for a bouffant hairstyle.
The b52’s were Ricky Wilson, his sister Cindy, Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider III, and Keith Strickland. The Wilsons and Mr. Strickland were from Athens. Miss Pierson and Mr. Schneider were from New Jersey. Planet Claire was the ancestral home.
Fred had lived in Atlanta before he moved to Athens. He stayed in an apartment on Monroe Drive, across from S&M clutch and brake company. PG knew some of his neighbors, and once rested his feet on a rug, formerly owned by Fred Schneider.
Somebody had connections, and The b52’s were playing shows in New York before long. They released a 45 on db records, “Rock Lobster” and “52 girls”. The first of the girls mentioned…there are only 23 named…is Effie. There was a famous whorehouse in Athens named Effies.
One night, they played a show at the Big Dipper, on Ponce de Leon Avenue. The Big Dipper was a former Maryland Fried Chicken, and is now something else. After the show, either Kate or Cindy was in the parking lot, talking to a local character named Beulah. As was his way, Beulah was talking about Mick Jagger this, Mick Jagger that. Finally, Kate had enough. “Fuck Mick Jagger. One day Mick Jagger will come see me, me, me.”
The b52’s were a fun band. Ricky had an unusual style on guitar, and Kate played a farfisa organ. The girls always wore big hair wigs. Fred was somewhere up front singing.
On Labor Day, 1978, PG saw the b52’s in Piedmont Park. There was a third girl that day, Wendy, who wore an inflatable beach float, and danced. The only songs PG is sure they did were “Downtown” and “Rock Lobster”. A few months later, PG saw the b52’s at the Agora ballroom. The Brains opened.
Sometime in late 1979, the eponymous first album came out. It became a hit, with dance clubs all over playing “Planet Claire”, “Dance this mess around”, and “6060-842”. In the summer of 1980, PG talked with a former Athenian in a hostel in Cannon Beach, Oregon. He mentioned that Cindy was the only heterosexual in the band.
The years went by, and more albums were released. On October 12, 1985, Ricky Wilson died of AIDS. He is buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery, behind Sanford Stadium in Athens. He sold bus tickets at the Greyhound station in downtown Athens before he hit the bigtime.
The band continues to this day. At some point, “Love Shack” was released, and became a hit. It is probably the best known b52’s song today. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Rachel Maddow Strikes Again
As you may have heard, President Trump had a press conference yesterday. He said some things that have people upset. This has been going on for a while, and will continue. In a predictable development, Rachel Maddow took to the airwaves with a barrage of Russia-did-it details. If you listen to the video, you can hear it all. The story of post-Soviet dirty deeds is well documented, with some amusing court cases on the horizon. This is a repost.
Ms. Madcow Maddow says that she was talking about the collusion story for some time. Since PG does not watch cable TV, he does not know whether this is true, or not. What PG does remember is what he heard on facebook, twitter, and word of mouth. The 2016 word of the day was racist. Donald J. Trump is a racist. If you vote for Mr. Trump, then you are a racist. It is as if someone thought that the best way to elect Hillary Clinton was to call Mr. Trump a racist. This was to be said as often, and as loudly, as possible. The Democratic Brain Trust assumed that everyone was just as horrified by racism as they were. This DBT thought that people would be terrified of people thinking they were racist, and would vote for Hillary, to prove that they were not racist. Unfortunately for the DBT, and the USA, this strategy did not work. Mr. Trump got more electoral votes than Mrs. Clinton.
One obnoxious canard was the notion that the KKK endorsed Donald J.Trump. A tiny Arkansas newspaper, connected to a klan community, printed an article favorable to Mr. Trump. The Washington Post said KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president. Ms. Maddow repeated this story. It is not known whether WAPO or MSNBC ever said, in so many words, that the KKK endorsed Mr. Trump. However, when the story got out into the public, that is the way it was reported. People said, often and loudly, that the KKK endorsed Mr. Trump. This was supposed to help Mrs. Clinton get elected. It did not work.
Even if the KKK did endorse Mr. Trump, why should the talking heads mention it? The KKK is an obsolete clown show. While the three digital stooges of anonymous/facebook/twitter are focused on bedsheets, more dangerous white (and other color) hate groups are operating in darkness. With people fascinated with who is under the bedsheets, people that can do damage are buying ammunition, and buying elections.
PG got into a related twitterspat yesterday. Since other tweeter has blocked PG, their name will not be mentioned. They will be known as @045. Their reaction is another example of how your words can be twisted. If you want to skip ahead, and look at the pictures, you will not miss anything. The pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
@chamblee54 I have done research on this, and the key was the people voting for Johnson and Stein. HRC spent 3% in Michigan that she spent in Ohio. HRC lost michigan by >1%, lost ohio by 8%. Maybe the more of HRC voters saw, the less they liked her.
@045 Or maybe Russia tampered with the vote totals or Russian assets Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders siphoned off votes from the left, which they were paid to do?
@chamblee54 This is why you need to avoid insulting voters that you need. An election is not a teaching moment. It is about electing a flawed person instead of a much more flawed person. Call out racism AFTER you elect your candidate.
@045 So you’re saying Hillary/Democratic Party need racist voters to win?
@chamblee54 yes This is politics. You need the support of people you think are horrible. Could the democrats win without prejudiced black people?
@045 So you believe black people are prejudiced?
@chamblee54 duh There is a semantic game here. People say black people can’t be racist, but can be prejudiced. tomayto tomahto Until we pay the same attention to black prejudice that we pay to white racism, we will never get anywhere.
You are blocked from following @045 and viewing @045‘s Tweets. Learn more
@045 We ain’t got no more to say. You and Bernie want politics centered on white people. Hillary hurt your fee fees You believe black people not voting for Bernie means they are racist. You brought us Trump. Live it, love it and you’re BLOCKED!
@045 More If you come running up in my mentions defending racism and saying Democrats NEED to pander to racists in order to win, you’ve let me know you’ll sell my black ass off to the highest bidder for your comforts and YOU GETS BLOCKED!
Worst Vice Presidents Of The United States
PG wrote a post yesterday. One of the topics was the “Siamese Twins”, James Buchanan and William Rufus King. (The article is reposted below.) While researching the feature, PG googled his way to a Time magazine article about the Worst Vice Presidents in American History. PG is well known for his negative attitude, and writing about the worst things in life always appeals to him. This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress
The first name on the list is Aaron Burr. He had a problem with Alexander Hamilton, and shot him dead in a duel. Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of Gerrymandering) served under James Madison for twenty months, and died. John C. Calhoun served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and managed to get Mr. Jackson so upset that Mr. Calhoun was fired.
Richard M. Johnson served under Martin Van Buren, and was bad at PR. “Johnson scandalized his colleagues by taking one of his slaves as his common-law wife; as a result, he barely garnered enough support to serve in Martin van Buren’s administration. While in office, he proposed an expedition to the North Pole so Americans could drill to the center of the Earth, believing the planet was hollow (his resolution was defeated). Evidently van Buren’s experience with Johnson soured him on vice presidents altogether — when he ran for re-election he dropped Johnson from his ticket and didn’t bother replacing him. Instead, he ran alone.”
William Rufus King was VP under Franklin Pierce a mere six weeks before he died. There is no word on the status of his relationship with James Buchanan at the time. The Time magazine article has a picture of Fernando Wood , which was mistakenly thought to be of Mr. King. (Wikipedia uses the same picture to illustrate an article about Mr. King.)
The VP under James Buchanan (there is no word on who was top or bottom in the Buchanan-King household) was John Breckinridge. During the War Between the States, he left the Union to fight for the Confederacy. Mr. Breckinridge was charged with treason after the war. “The town of Breckenridge, Colorado is named in his honor — although it altered the spelling of its name after the Civil War, so as not to be associated with a traitor.”
Andrew Johnson did not make the list, but maybe should have. He was drunk at his inauguration, and made a fool of himself. Mr. Lincoln had nothing to do with him, until a meeting on April 14. This was Good Friday. Mr. Lincoln went to the theater that night.
Johnson had been marked for death by the conspiracy, but Wilkes Booth had little confidence in the man assigned to kill Mr. Johnson. The afternoon of the assassination, Mr. Booth was at the Kirkwood House, where Mr. Johnson stayed. Mr. Booth left a note for Mr. Johnson at the desk of the hotel… “Don’t wish to disturb you. Are you at home. J. Wilkes Booth”. The idea was for the police to find the note, and implicate Mr. Johnson in the killing of Mr. Lincoln. This mini plot was spoiled by the secretary for the Vice President, who collected the mail that afternoon. He took the card with him. The secretary had met Mr. Booth a few years earlier, and thought the note was for him.
The other three Vice Presidents who took office after the boss was murdered… Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson… were not mentioned in the Time article. All three are mentioned in conspiracy theories about the killings that promoted them into office.
When Theodore Roosevelt was elected to a full term as President, his VP was Charles Fairbanks. “Teddy once ordered a noisy and distracting crystal chandelier removed from his office because it disturbed him. He ordered it to be installed in the office of the Vice President to keep him awake.”
Getting back to Time’s honor roll, Hannibal Hamlin was Lincoln’s first VP. Thomas A. Hendricks survived nine months under Grover Cleveland, before passing away. Thomas Marshall served two terms with Woodrow Wilson, and refused to take over the office when Mr. Wilson had a stroke. Calvin Coolidge did little while waiting for Warren Harding to die. Henry Wallace was, and will be, the only third term VP in our history. He acquired a few enemies, and was replaced by Harry Truman.
Richard Nixon was ok once he got elected, but almost managed to blow that. There were charges of financial shenanigans, and some thought he should be kicked off the ticket. After the Checkers Speech he was on his way to stardom. (After Mr. Nixon died, PG saw a large flag flying at half staff. The flag belonged to a hamburger chain called Checkers.) When Mr. Nixon became President, his VP was Spiro Agnew. Once again, there were charges of financial shenanigans, and much, much more. While the nation wallowed in Watergate, Mr. Nixon needed a diversion. It was suddenly discovered that Mr. Agnew had taken bribes. He was pressured into resigning.
Dan Quayle was VP for George H.W. Bush. He was widely regarded as an idiot, although his damage as VP was minimal. The last VPOTUS on the list is Dick Chaney. For some reason, he was regarded as having more power than the President, George W. Bush. Mr. Chaney was said to be one of the major promoters of the wars which have damaged America so much during the last ten years.
2020 UPDATE: Joe Biden said the F word at a press conference. He is currently running for President. The jury is still out on Mike Pence. 2022 UPDATE: Sleepy Joe is reported to have won the 2020 election. In the post-election confusion, Mike Pence asked Dan Quayle for advice. Current VPOTUS Kamala Harris looks good when she wears a mask.
Fun loving Dick Yarbrough is up to his old tricks. The neighbor newspaper nabbler penned a post about California education. It seems there is a new law, in the falling into the ocean state, “that will require schools to teach at all grade levels about the historical contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.” Our buddy does not think this is a good idea.
The story goes on to say “Our children will find out that President James Buchanan and Vice President William R. King were more than, shall we say, good friends,” she said coyly. I didn’t want to tell Gay that the first thing the teachers need to do is tell the students who James Buchanan is before they talk about what he did. Not many people have ever heard of him. That is because he didn’t do anything while president.” Holy historic revisionism.
To start off, The Vice Prez under Mr. Buchanan was John C. Breckinridge. Mr. King was elected to back up Franklin Pierce. Mr. King died after six weeks in office. If a President has ever bumped gooberheads with his Vice President, the walls of the White House have kept quiet about it. Those rumors about John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson are too gruesome to contemplate.
Mr. King and Mr. Buchanan lived together for a number of years. Neither was married to a female, although Mr. Buchanan had been engaged. (There is speculation that his fiance’, Ann Caroline Coleman, died of an overdose of laudanum.) There are numerous indications that Mr. King and Mr. Buchanan were *good buddies*.
Mr. Buchanan was the last President before the War Between the States. It is possible that he could not have done much to prevent that unpleasantness. Historians are not kind when talking about the man, and rank him as one of the worst Presidents. Perhaps Mr. King could have helped.
The newspaper that Mr. Yarbrough opines for is delivered, free of charge, on Wednesday. (This weeks edition has not arrived. Any connection between this late delivery and the opinions of Mr. Yarbrough, is uncertain.) Some of these free papers are not taken inside by the resident. Often, a driveway will have several weeks of free adrags left behind. Soon, the rain soaks these newsprint droppings. Some are washed into the street and run over. The result is an ugly mess.
Chamblee54 had a previous discussion with Dick Yarbrough. Mr. Yarbrough is still publishing columns in 2020. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
James Baldwin And The Word
In the spring of 1963, KQED filmed a show, “Take this hammer”, about James Baldwin. The snippet in the video above seems to have been the last three minutes of the show. Here is a transcript. Mr. Baldwin discusses a six letter insult. The n-word is more about the speaker, than the spoken of. A 2010 blogger had this to say.
“I’ve often felt that people’s projections of me are oftentimes just that – their projections. However, Baldwin’s ending sums up a solution to this perfectly: “But you still think, I gather, that the n****r is necessary. Well he’s unnecessary to me – he must be necessary to you. Well, I’m going to give your problem back to you…you’re the n****r, baby…not me.”
It is now 2022. (All discussions of race must mention the year.) The TV show was fifty nine years ago. A few things have changed. To many white people, overt expressions of racism are seen as bad manners. The n-word is taboo in polite company. The overall attitudes may not have changed, but most white people are careful how they say things.
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States.
A few weeks ago, this blog published a feature, James Baldwin And The Six Letter Word. At the center was selection of James Baldwin talking about the n word. There was a transcript available, which makes today’s exercise a lot easier.
Mr. Baldwin was discussing this nasty word, and offered an insight into who the user of this nasty word was really talking about. Now, there is another nasty word being casually tossed about these days. This other nasty word is racist. What would happen if you took Mr. Baldwin’s talk, and substituted racist for nasty? It is an interesting way to look at things. What follows is not a perfect fit, and may be offensive to some. A few times, it is very close to the truth.
Who is the racist? Well i know this…and anybody who has tried to live knows this. What you say about somebody else (you know) anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own uhm fears…and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you…I’m describing me.
Now, here in this country we got somebody called a racist. It doesn’t in such terms, I beg you to remark, exist in any other country in the world. We have invented the racist. I didn’t invent him, white people invented him. I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was seventeen years old, what you were describing was not me and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it so it had to be something you were afraid of and you invested me with it.
Now if that’s so, no matter what you’ve done to me I can say to you this, and I mean it…I know you can’t do any more and I’ve got nothing to lose…and I know and I have always known you know and really always..…I have always known that I am not a racist…but if I am not the racist…and if it is true that your invention reveals you…then who is the racist?
I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know that I was born, am gonna suffer and gonna die. And the only way that you can get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else. Anything else.
I’ve learned this because I’ve had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the racist is necessary. Well he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. So I give you your problem back. You’re the racist baby, it isn’t me.
Chamblee54 
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