Struggling against the almighty tides of eventuality

I think by now it’s news to no one about President Obama’s birth certificate. Almost everyone has strong feelings about this, and I do as well. But they’re mixed.

I’m just as angry as it seems like someone should be at this sort of thing. After years of elegantly dismissing attempts to distract the agenda with moronic claims feeding off racism and paranoia, Obama appears to have caved to the shrill right. Instead of issuing a firm but polite “go fuck yourselves you god damned lunatics from hell,” the President issued his long-form birth certificate. And, y’know, it looks kind of like what any sane person figured it’d look like: a birth certificate from Hawaii.

However, part of me is a little curious at the timing. He’s been swatting at this pile of bloodsucking insects for, as I said, years. So Hairdo McBankruptcy throws his cheap rug on the stage, shrieking about the birth certificate that most Americans had already suffered ADD about, and somehow builds a campaign off that. Well, that and having a terrible show and a disgusting plastic-encased harpy of a wife. And then, just when everyone’s so distracted by the fact that he’s ineffectually sending lawyers to Hawaii to sip cocktails for weeks on end (cause they have absolutely no legal jurisdiction to get at anyone’s fucking birth certificate) that they won’t even focus on the Royal Wedding, the President drops his birth certificate.

“Look at this, bitches.”

Naturally, the people who were so stupid they were deceived this long are still in denial that a black guy had the audacity to run for President — er, I mean, that he was born in America. No, wait, I had it right at first. The birthers are quite simply racists. And Donald Trump was all too happy to play the part of the southern guy handing out the hardest American History tests to the blackest people during the reconstruction. He struts himself around and proudly proclaims what a historic douchebag he is.

And people are outraged. Baratunde Thurston posted an impassioned video response to Trump’s self-congratulatory bullshit festival. Steve Weinstein wrote an blog critical of our still-so-racist society. And these guys are right. It’s a startling thing to realize, as someone who was in his teens before he encountered the idea of racism and what it meant to other people, just how deep these veins of hatred running through our country are.  But I can’t help but wonder if  President Obama knew all this was coming as he released his birth certificate.

Think of it this way: Donald Trump has been building his campaign on jumping up and down on Barack Obama’s legitimacy for the office. Suddenly, the birth certificate’s available. He’s left sputtering about grades at Obama’s Ivy League alma mater. Not only that, but his stupid comments have incensed people who have, at times, been fairly lackadaisical since getting the President elected. I think it’s possibly simply a master stroke from a politician who’s gearing himself up for a fight to get re-elected.

And I should be angry at being manipulated, but it’s hard to be angry at being manipulated into seeing the truth. Sensible people in this country are often outnumbered, shouted down, and ignored. Americans are all too willing to throw reason and progress out the window. It’s a hard fight, but one worth winning. And you know, I hope this is the end of Donald Trump’s flickering candle in the world of real politics.

Because good God is that man a fucking racist moron.

I wrote this about a week ago, in response to a then-current news item. Fearing a tide of Charles Village people (or anyone, really) who would read into this that I just didn’t give a shit about someone dying, and come and harass me, I didn’t post it. However, I guess at this point I’m either going to have to post it or delete it, and I’m getting tired of deleting the thoughts I have. So, while no longer timely (and thoroughly unedited), here’s my thoughts:

If you’re one of the people who follows me from Baltimore, you’re probably aware of the homicide that happened in Charles Village this weekend. I definitely am; it was at the end of my street. I wasn’t made aware of it until the next morning, somehow I missed the commotion that must have been made. However, I haven’t missed, for the past three days, repeated news crews, and a press conference the Commissioner of Police himself attended. Huzzah, you might be expecting me to say, the city is responding to a violent crime in my neighborhood with a swift hand and recognizing that there’s a problem.

Except I’m not saying that.

The thing is, and I know I’ll sound callous and unfeeling for saying it, is that Stephen Pitcairn is a small number in a large statistic. Baltimore is not a safe city. There have been one hundred and twenty homicides in the city limits this year so far. And while Mr. Pitcairn was doing valuable research, every single one of those other people were flesh and blood just the same, and so few have received the attention he has. It’s partially due to who he is, and partially to do with where he was when it happened.

And that’s really the problem. I don’t want people to marginalize his death, but I don’t want people to marginalize the 119 other people who’ve died this year, either. But they are marginalized, because so many of them occurred in poor, black neighborhoods where that’s just part of the deal. We just finally caught some of the spillover in our little hamlet between multiple sections of town people colloquially call “ghetto.”

I’ve seen a number of extra police in the days since it happened, typically buzzing around the exact location, as though there’s a mystical significance to that specific spot and any future murders would only take place there. I do not feel safer for the over-the-top show. I don’t feel any less safe than I did last week, as a matter of fact.

Because this is Baltimore, this is one of the murder capitals of the world, and if you felt invincible cause your house had some cute paint and you can walk to a farmer’s market in a parking lot, even though you can hear the semi-automatic fire that periodically rings out from Waverly, then you’re a fool. You’re not any less safe than you were before, your eyes have just been opened to the reality of where you live and you’re hysterical. And it’s disrespectful to the people who, when murders happen around the corner from them, are ignored.

It’s a major tragedy that Stephen Pitcairn died. It’s an outrage that the people who did it were released repeatedly into the world after apparently committing other robberies. But it shouldn’t be so much more than when someone else dies senselessly. The city is dying all around us, and we can’t just draw a line in the sand and say “Not HERE. You can kill them THERE but we will HAVE our painted ladies, damn it!” Cause the problem with a line in the sand is that when the wave comes crashing down it gets washed away.

So, Baratunde suggests we need a #NewHate – Race, gender, sexuality, etc. are all “played out.”  Of course, I can see where he’s coming from; we’ve got plenty of high-profile people of various demographics now, and only the lunatic fringe (less fringe-y in some parts of the world/country than others) really has a huge problem with it.  I take it that the fires of irrational hate take energy to keep stoking and with Americans’ attentions being distracted by such activities as getting fatter by the second, we just don’t have the vitality for our old hatreds.

Of course, his solution is to hate people who wear their scarves differently.  That’s silly.  No, I don’t mean it’s not a valid reason to hate someone, I’ve seen some atrocious scarf-mountings in my day and I was this close ( |—| ) to calling Pat Robertson up to spew a vitriolic stream of moronic faith-based hate on them.  Rather, I think he’s missing one of the following two key points of irrational hatred: that it be something people have little choice in being part of, and that it be completely and utterly a stupid reason to hate someone (points for the latter, Baratunde).

My theory is this: let’s hate people based on the number of vowels in their names.  Personally, every one of my names has two vowels in it (even my nickname does, since “y” is only sometimes a vowel), and I think that’s the way it should be.  It keeps things simple, and that’s the way God intended it (he gets off the hook cause he’s God and all).  So join me, my two-vowelled brethren, as we take the world back for the righteous and the proud!

On the other side of the cloth wall of my cubicle sits a black guy.  So far, he hasn’t shown up for work yet today.  That’s unfortunate for me, cause I needed some information that only he has the skills to provide.  A few minutes ago, I heard discussion from his space, space he shares with another coworker who is in today.  Awesome!  I get my information at long last!

So I wheel myself out from behind the wall with great vigor, only to find that my coworker has not arrived, but rather a FedEx guy, who happens to be black.  “Oh no,” I think to myself, “I’ve just made a terribly racist assumption.”  You see, I recognized the voice as belonging to my coworker.  Being as they’re both black, naturally this meant it was that sole trait which registered in my brain.

Or is it really?  I know there’s a terrifically stupid assumption that “all [race] people look alike” that most racists make.  Naturally, it follows that “all [race] people sound alike” is a similarly racist statement.  Of course, I’ve never been good with identifying unseen voices.  When I first spoke with Eric and Matt on the phone, I couldn’t tell them apart, and as a white person that should be easy as pie for me, right?  They’re even from different areas of the country and have (supposedly) different accents.

So, after thinking so ashamedly of myself for a few minutes, I’ve finally figured out that maybe I’m not the worst human being ever for being voice-identification challenged.  But that leads me to wonder, how many times is it that we assume some sort of racial profiling is in effect because the person involved is of a specific race, when nothing could be further from the truth?  I realize there are plenty of instances where people do profile; but, sometimes maybe jumping the gun and assuming something is racist, i.e. taking special note of someone’s race to make that judgement, is actually the more racist part.