Recently, the Colored Man had to go to Chicago for job training along with two of my co-workers, one White, and one African-American. My white co-worker drove, which meant that he had a certain control over how fast we got there, as well as what music we listened to while on the trip. It was a beautiful day to travel, so I got in the back seat and enjoyed the ride. I knew that my younger colleagues musical tastes were not exactly the same as the Colored Man's, but hey, I like all types of music and figured that the entertainment would not be that bad.
One of the modern miracles in today's cars is satellite radio. Satellite radio allows you the opportunity to listen to whatever genre or news program that you find enlightening during your travels. I feel in deep-like with satellite when I had a rental car after some lady back into my vehicle and tore the door and side-mirror off. I was able to begin watching my favorite morning show while getting dressed and then get into the car and continue to listen to it while driving to work.
As I stated earlier, my co-workers are younger than me and probably don't have the life experiences that I do, so it was no surprise that they chose to listen to gangsta' rap while riding along. I listened for quite some time, until finally I had had enough of the bitches, ho's, and nigga's, and told me that it was time to change the station to something else. They changed it, but only to more rap, but this time to old-school rap which the Colored Man can handle a little bit better.
It wasn't so much the rap music that did it in for me, it was really the fact that I just could not bear to be in a situation with a white person, and listening to words that denegrate me, my family, my friends and my neighbors. It just didn't sit right with me, and I had to say something. You could say that I was somewhat between a rock and a hard place, because my co-worker could have very easily have told me that it was his car and that he could listen to any type of music that he chose to.
Rick Perry, the delusional governor of Texas has found himself between a rock and a hard place as well. His situation concerns an actual rock that announced the name of his family's hunting lodge at the entrance to the compound. The name of the compound is Niggerhead.
Now at first thought the Colored Man was surprised that anyone would have this type of language so blatantly visible for all of the world to see. But then, I began to do some research and found that there are over 750 names on geographical locations across America that use some variation of the word negro. Some are based on the Spanish word for black, and not necessarily racist, while the majority are a derivation of Mr. Perry's rock.
In 1963 the Federal Government mandated that the offensive term be replaced with "Negro" which was the term used to identify African-Americans at that time. The only other time that the government has stepped in was to mandate that the word "Jap" be removed and replaced with "Japanese."
America's love-affair with derogatory names and images is long-standing. Just picture Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, The Washington Redskins, The Cleveland Browns.
Now why would Mr. Perry associate himself with someplace that brazenly flaunts its' racist intentions? Probably because he is an unabashed fool. He proclaims his foolery from the hallowed halls of academia, telling students at Yale, that he was proud of the dismal grades that he received while in college. He further let them in on his foolishness by telling them he even got a D in a physical education class.
Secondly, and probably most important in this examination of Perry's actions, is that he is a racist. He attempts to portray himself as the enlightened tough-love governor, who is able to present himself as a home-spun local-yocal, but deep-down Mr. Perry holds the sentiments of his many tea bag followers. The only real difference between the two is that Mr. Perry attended college, and they barely made it out of high school. Deep down inside, Perry secretly claps and jumps for joy, whenever his friends hoist signs with deragatory images of President Obama. He talks a good game about immigration, but he really views Hispanics only as maids and lawn company employees, and not as equals.
Unlike the Colored Man who was able to extract himself from between the rock and hard place that he found himself in, Mr. Perry has chosen to ignore his situation as if it doesn't matter. He thinks that he is the slickest guy on the podium, and will be able to easily slide from between these two hard spots. But that is not the case, particularly when you aspire to the most powerful position in the world, President of The United States.
The position of President takes forethought, vision, emphathy, negotiation skills, scholarship, leadership. Mr. Perry lacks all of these necessary skills, for if he had them he would have used them all, the moment he arrive at the hunting lodge and saw that despicable rock. What was he thinking? What messages has he taught his children? Only a fool ignores the obvious, and repeats the same mistake year after year, drive-by and drive-by.
Something tells the Colored Man that this stone is gathering a lot of moss as it begins its' roll down the hill. Don't be surprised to see pictures of Perry smiling proudly beside the rock. As we well know from watching previous fools, they always seem to have a penchant for documenting their foolery, and Perry is a first-rate, top-draw fool.
No comments:
Post a Comment