i tried reading the whole thing, at the behest of Bitch PhD, but failed somewhere around the second section. the vignettes were making me inordinately angry. so i took a break and started reading again. oho, i found my favorite part.
it's a conversation with ward connerly, anti-affirmative action apologist and favorite black man of the neo-cons, and in it he waxes sympathetically for the Klan (i'm going to highlight the most awesome parts for you):
He tells me plainly about his childhood – his mother died when he was four, and he was raised by his grandparents – but he never really becomes animated until I ask him if it is true he once said, "If the KKK supports equal rights,then God bless them." He leans forward, his palms open. There are, he says, "those who condemn the Klan based on their past without seeing the human side of it, because they don't want to be in the wrong, politically correct camp, you know... Members of the Ku Klux Klan are human beings, American citizens – they go to a place to eat, nobody asks them 'Are you a Klansmember?', before we serve you here. They go to buy groceries, nobody asks, 'Are you a Klansmember?' They go to vote for Governor, nobody asks 'Do you know that that person is a Klansmember?' Only in the context of race do they ask that. And I'm supposed to instantly say, 'Oh my God, they are Klansmen? Geez, I don't want their support.'"
This empathy for Klansmen first bubbled into the public domain this year when Connerly was leading an anti-affirmative action campaign in Michigan. The KKK came out in support of him – and he didn't decline it. I ask if he really thinks it is possible the KKK made this move because they have become converted to the cause of racial equality. "I think that the reasoning that a Klan member goes through is – blacks are getting benefits that I'm not getting. It's reverse discrimination. To me it's all discrimination. But the Klansmen is going through the reasoning that this is benefiting blacks, they are getting things that I don't get... A white man doesn't have a chance in this country."
He becomes incredibly impassioned imagining how they feel, ventriloquising them with a shaking fist – "The Mexicans are getting these benefits, the coloureds or niggers, whatever they are saying, are getting these benefits, and I as a white man am losing my country."
connerly's crazy ass minstrelsy has completely broken my brain.
7 comments:
i know, i couldn't believe it! i mean i could, but it made me want to run away.
being a ucla alum i've always known connerly was batshit and pathological but this is crazy.
we're supposed to feel sorry for the KLAN?? i mean, of ALL the folks who've had a tough break, the KLAN needs my minority sympathy??
snort.
whatever drugs he has, i want.
ohohoh - this is really my favorite part:
they go to a place to eat, nobody asks them 'Are you a Klansmember?', before we serve you here. They go to buy groceries, nobody asks, 'Are you a Klansmember?' They go to vote for Governor, nobody asks 'Do you know that that person is a Klansmember?'
exactly, ward! no one denies them service or discriminates against them - because they're WHITE!!
that cracking noise you heard? that was my mind fracturing.
I can only quote the great prophet Ben Folds: "Ya'll don't know what it's like, being male, middle class and white."
hey, have you heard the Nightwatchman CD? it's cool but utterly depressing. you have to be in the right mood for union songs, you know?
(i mention this because tom morello was touring with ben folds for a bit, doing his Nightwatchman thing.)
what i also find interesting about connerly and the quote i pulled is how the POV of the story connerly is telling begins to jumble the poor oppressed Klansman and ward himself. at one point, you're unclear if connerly has dropped his ventriloquy; it sounds as if he's really the white guy he's describing:
But *the Klansmen* is going through the reasoning that this is benefiting blacks, they are getting things that *I* don't get... *A white man* doesn't have a chance in this country.
Other-ward-Other. who's who?
Nope, I've never listened to it. But having just read up on it, I'm definitely intrigued.
Speaking of depressing albums sort of about social issues, you should get Pedro the Lion's Control.
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2005/522/004/2005-522004697-0263909b-9.pdf
He makes over 200K in salary and another $950k PLUS paid to his own consulting firm
So the non profit of which he is the chairman of the board pays the consulting firm of which he is the president almost 1 million dollars of donors money.
What ethics .... What a slime
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