We’re All A Little Bit Racist

Do you know what I discovered?   Can we all agree that it is time for us to stop pretending, that since electing a black president, we are living in a post-racial era?  We’ve come a long way as a nation (hallelujah!), but between the virulent racist attacks against Cheerios recently for producing a commercial featuring an interracial family and the Paula Deen debacle, it is painfully clear that we’ve still got a long way to go because this shit is centuries old and layers deep.

Little girl from Cheerios’ interracial family commercial

Personally, I would like to recommend a country-wide field trip to see the musical: Avenue Q.  We need only stay for the one song sung by the Asian character and then go immediately to our churches, synagogues, mosques, or therapists to repent of the fact that no one amongst us can afford to throw stones because we all live in glass houses which cover a history of saying racist things at one time or another about each other (either cluelessly or with full-blown hatred—yeah, I’m talking to you my ex-friend with your Tea Party bias who claims you don’t have a racist bone in your body, but who called a certain race “diaper heads” that you regularly work with and expected me to chuckle over it as if doing so gave us a common bond of disdain as your one black friend with your Tea Party bias).

“Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes.

Doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes.

Look around and you will find no one’s really color blind.

Maybe it’s a fact we all should face

Everyone makes judgments based on race.”

By Lyricists: Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx from Avenue Q

You see, even though I despise what Paula Deen has been accused of, I’ve been wrestling with my own racist demons just this past few months.   Without making matters worse by naming the people group I’m currently having issues with, let’s just say that I have managed to rid myself of most of my prejudices (knocked out my bigotry toward white people by marrying one thirty-four years ago—nothing solves racial ignorance like getting to know, love, and understand the people you were stupid about in the first place).  But there is one race that drives me nuts and partially because I know they have horrid prejudices towards African-Americans of which I’m constantly running into.  Unfortunately, I’m very much in love with my white man so I can’t divorce him and marry one of them just to get over my budding racial ugliness.

“Can’t we all just get along” from shelversanon.blogspot.com

The stereotype of the people group that I’m struggling with think I’m stupid, that my skin color is a curse from God, and that I’m going to rob their businesses on any given Sunday.  My stereotype of them is that they’re cheap; they hate black people, and many of them have bought up all the dry cleaners in America giving me no other tetrachloroethylene (dry-cleaning fluid) alternatives but theirs.  My stereotypes are trying to take anchor because I’ve had to change dry cleaners three times in the last ten years and I’m pissed.  The first dry cleaners lost my designer jacket and refused to pay up until I threatened to call the po-po, the second one shrank my silk blouse down to the size of a Barbie doll and refused to be accountable, telling me “it because you get fat—that why garment no fit” (oh, no she didn’t!), and the third one overcharged me four times the amount for a hemming job and hoped I wouldn’t notice (as if!).

I’m now on my fourth dry cleaner and in my effort to not let these ugly stereotype take up residence in my head and heart, I’ve gone out of my way to befriend the owners (a young couple) and their seamstress mother when I pick up WW’s shirts every week. It is working.  We engage in delightful chit-chat and the service they provide is excellent.  I’ve got no complaints.  In fact everything was great for 18 months until a new relative came to America and started working in the store.   I could tell by the way she greeted me, that she did not like black people.  She wouldn’t even look me in the eyes or speak to me even after my many effusive greetings.  I know that she can make eye-contact, smile, and speak English because she does so to the white customers who come in behind me. (I’ve tested my theory several times by sending WW in my place and she has been quite pleasant with him.)

After putting up with this ‘tude for three months, I confronted the new dry-cleaner assistant:  “What is your problem?  You are refusing to understand and follow my instructions, and you’re costing me time and money!  I keep getting my dry cleaning back with stains on them because you don’t mark them as per my instructions in the beginning. You skimp on the laundry marking tape.  Stop being so cheap with the god-damn laundry tape!”  At that point, she looked and me and rolled her eyes and said:  “No, you no understand; this is process—you get one tiny piece of sticky tape (about an eighth of an inch) for entire garment—no more for you!”  Then she said something in her language that could not have been good given the intensity, walked back to her station, and angrily sorted through clothes.

(Jesus, please help my sorry-ass.  I’m getting ready to declare war over sticky laundry-marking tape.)

There you have it—my own laundry soup-Nazi.  I suffer the same angst as Jerry Seinfeld and Elaine did in their soup-Nazi episodes every time I enter that dry cleaning establishment, and I’ve tried to solve the situation by still being nice as possible—plus I only go to the dry cleaners at the times of the day I know the owners will be there to wait on me.  They still treat me with great respect and give me plenty of laundry marking tape.  I’m making a choice to see my nemesis as a “one-off” rude person—no more representative of her race as a black person robbing her store is of mine.

***

But how am I to solve the problem I have with Paula Deen whom I really liked and was so proud of her accomplishments as a woman.  Oh Paula, Paula, Paula . . .

PAULA DEEN’S ALLEGED‎ SINS: “For instance: admitting that she has used ‘the N word’ (in her and the lawyer’s  words)–‘of course,’ and probably on more than one occasion.   Defending telling racial and ethnic jokes: ‘it’s just what they are—they’re jokes.’  And wishing she could plan a “Southern plantation wedding” for her brother, with African American servers in the part of antebellum slaves. (Deen reportedly didn’t go through with that idea because, you know, ‘the media’ would have twisted it into something. Those media!  Always turning folks’ innocent plantation-slave parties into something racist!*)”—By James Poniewozik||Less Than Accidental Racist: Why Paula Deen’s Comments Insult Her Fans Too||Times Entertainment

*PAULA DEEN’S ALLEGED COMMENT ABOUT THE PLANTATION WEDDING: “Well what I would really like is a bunch of little n!**ers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around,” the lawsuit claims Deen said. “Now that would be a true southern wedding, wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”—by breakingbrown.com

…then again sometimes it is not!

I am discovering (surprisingly so) that I think The Food Network jumped the gun by firing Paula Deen without letting the court case play out until the end.  My husband, who is white, thinks they didn’t fire her fast enough.  WW says:

“In this day and age, whether you’re twenty or ninety, you should have gotten the memo, and you should know the answer as to whether to use the ‘N’ word or not.  (And don’t get me started on Hollywood, comics, rappers/hip-hoppers—because they don’t get a pass for artistic license in my book.)  Given the disdain, contempt, and degradation associated with that word, I think it should be eradicated from our vocabulary—period!)  If I were on the board of directors of The Food Network, I’d have no choice but to fire her butter-laden ass.  Anyway, she has already used up two strikes with me by hiding the fact that her recipes allegedly caused her Type II Diabetes while still peddling her recipes of butter on butter topped off by butter.”—by “WW” Tomczyk

Cartoonist: Mike Luckovich

***

I am also discovering that I think we should forgive Paula Deen because she has repented (albeit, extremely clumsily) and “to err is human, to forgive, divine.”  And even though I don’t consider myself to be a racist, I know that I fall short of the glory of God to love my neighbors as myself on a consistent basis, and I’m really, really trying!  Can you imagine how many trip-wires this old woman, who still thinks the Civil War was the “war of Northern aggression,” must be stumbling over?  I don’t mean that Paula shouldn’t suffer the consequences.  We all have to take responsibility for our actions.  I suggest that the Food Network and other corporations suspend Paula for a season until she understands that she was supposed to be representing the “new South” and part of her charm was to comfort us with her fatty-ass foods while letting go of the shitty hatred cloaked in cluelessness and racial stupidity (Don’t you just love Paula’s alleged answer as to the reasoning for using the ‘N’ word throughout the years:  “. . . it was sometimes used with affection”—please Paula, don’t love me so much, you’re killing me!”).

Next, I’d make Paula go on Oprah and let Oprah act as our national conscience and walk her over spiritual “hot coals” like she did to James Frey for lying to her.  (By the way, this is how I know that Paula knows that her use of the ‘N’ word is wrong:  she never used it publicly about Oprah and to Oprah and Oprah’s best friend, Gail, when they visited Paula at her home and helped make Paula and her enterprise a household word.  I know this because Oprah and Gail would have bitch-slapped Paula into the 7^th level of Dante’s Inferno and we’d all be saying—“Paula?  Paula who?” right now.)  Finally, after due season, I’d let her return to her TV show(s) with new low-calorie recipes and a new serving up of southern charm and grace without hidden ugliness.  We all have a God-given destiny, Paula, and part of it is to spread the true love of God around like thick butter on homemade biscuits but not spread the sins of our fathers.   This is your wake-up call, girlfriend.

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”—John Stuart Mill

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”—Bell Hooks

“He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.”—Thomas Fuller

REFERENCES:

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/06/20/less-than-accidental-racist-why-paula-deens-comments-insult-her-fans-too/

http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/nyt-food-network-wont-renew-paula-deens-contract-after-racial-slur-dilemma/

http://breakingbrown.com/2013/06/remember-when-oprah-visited-paula-deen-and-deen-put-her-in-the-guest-house-out-back-video/

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

A Different Set of Rules

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   If I spent every day visiting all the places that I couldn’t enter before the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (I was born in 1948), except through the back door as a maid or a slave, I’d probably never die—at least not anytime soon.  That is why I engage in a project surrounding Martin Luther King Holiday weekend that brings me great joy.

Not only do I sashay my black ass (dripping with bling) through the front door of a former slave-owning or white’s only establishment at least once a year, but I stay in the best room they have to offer, order room service for breakfast, and get an 80-minute massage if they offer it.  Since MLK weekend coincides with my husband’s (WW—“White and Wonderful”) birthday, I walk through the front door of those former plantations with my arm wrapped around my white husband’s arm, a big smile on my face, and give a silent middle finger to the racists ghosts who surely must roam the halls of said establishments.  Because there is no way any god worth his salt would ever allow those unrepentant slave owners entrance into Heaven (are you hearing me Thomas Jefferson?), I am convinced their Hell must be tailor-made to watch an African-American making herself at home with sheer abandonment in their “whites only” environment.

I call this bitch slap to the haunted the FYRS-LWITBR Project, which stands for “FUCK YOU RACIST SPECTERS—LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE!”  My “in your face” rebel cry has nothing to do with the current owners (I do not visit the sins of their ancestors upon them so long as they treat me with dignity and respect), but I do take on the racist ghosts of their lineage.

***

In the interest of full disclosure, my children think I’m crazy.  That’s because I’ve raised them to be color blind, and to my knowledge they have never suffered at the hands of racists, which makes me very happy.   Their friends are color blind (black, white, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Straight, Gay), as well, and have formed little urban families around each other to unite against the hardships and vagaries of life.   I am very proud of them, and I consider them all “my children.”

But my children and their friends have not seen what I’ve seen or experienced the hatred I’ve embodied.  They have never heard of The Negro Motorist Green Book which was in full swing the year I was born and lasted until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and they have never had to plan their travel around such a book just to keep from having their asses kicked (or killed) by men in white robes and pointy hats carrying burning crosses.

The Green Book was started by Victor Hugo Green (a Harlem mail carrier) in the 1930s and it would eventually cover lodging, eateries, and stores in every state in the USA as well as Bermuda, Mexico, and Canada that would do business with Negroes.    If there were no hotels that would cater to African-Americans (often the case), the book would list “tourist homes” that would rent the traveler a room or two for their journey.  The Green Book spoke volumes by “omission,” as the writer Justin Hyde has noted.   In 1949, no restaurant was listed in Alabama that would serve black people.  Justin Hyde in his article on The Green Book in Jalopnik underscored the fact that “Black motorists in those eras frequently kept extra fuel, food and portable toilets on hand to avoid stopping in unfriendly locations. Even outside the South, roadside motels and diners often wouldn’t serve black customers.”  In 1963 (one year before The Green Book was taken out of circulation), I was kicked out of a New Jersey hotel in the middle of the night along with a family (a lawyer and school teacher and their two young children) that I was the babysitter for, and we were forced to drive through the night to our approved “Negro cabin” in Maine.

***

INTRODUCTION PAGE OF THE NEGRO TOURIST GUIDE:   “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.”

The fact that President Obama’s 2^nd inauguration (talk about “living well is the best revenge!”) fell on the same day as the MLK holiday weekend and coincided with my husband’s b-day gave me the perfect excuse to engage in my “project” (not at the plantation above used only as an example, but at another glorious location in the South and situated on the Gulf of Mexico).

***

As I stretched out on the beautiful “sugar sand” of a site where there once stood a private mansion that I could have only entered the back door of to make the beds and empty the slop pans, I meditated for hours on how far we had come as a Nation since the publication of The Green Book.   I watched the inauguration of our  magnificent 44^th president from my waterfront suite as I lifted a glass of champagne to the triumph of a man that we are lucky to have as a leader.  As I contemplated my own American journey, I joined President Obama in spirit to pray for the further emancipation of our Hispanic brothers and sisters, our Gay and Lesbian brothers and sisters, and the disenfranchised jobless families in our midst who need a helping hand.

***

I am discovering, however, that even though we are in more “tolerant times,” one must be ever vigilant against the spirit of bigotry—especially amongst the religious—or we will be doomed to repeat our history.  Martin Luther King often preached about the complacency of white Christians toward the suffering of those who did not fit their cultural narrow-minded viewpoint (specifically the Southern Baptists).    I have read many of the multitudinous sermons preached by well-intentioned pastors in favor of slavery in the 1800s and then again against desegregation in the 60s and their arrogance and cold-heartedness grip my heart with horror.  Where would we be as a country if righteousness had not won the day?

Today it boggles my mind that Christians who say they love Jesus are part of the Tea Party, but they don’t speak out against the racism that is so visible on their websites and from the mouths of their leaders.  I know that not all Tea Party members are racist but their silence is killing me.  The language of the Tea Partier is slightly different from the overt racist (normally doesn’t include the “n” word), but it is deceiving to the perpetrator because they see themselves as righteous:  “I respect the office of the presidency but I don’t respect this president because he is a Socialist, a Muslim, a spawn of Satan or Hitler (I’m searching for his hidden horns and drawing on his Hitler mustache even as we speak)” or “I don’t have a racist bone in my body, I just worship Sarah Palin, Fox News, and the Drudge Report who do”—said with such vehemence and so many times that it prompts the person of color to scream to the heavens:  “me thinks thou doth protest too much, Tea-bagger!”

Racist Tea Party Cartoon|image from politiskink.com

DEAR TEA PARTY:
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than
sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Even though we’ve come a long way, whenever I do a Google search with our President’s name, I almost vomit from the visceral racial hatred and disrespect that lashes out at me from the Internet because it seems that some of us are playing by a different set of rules, requiring others of us to reinstate “The Green Book” in order to survive.  This causes me great despair until I read the blogs of people like Frank Angle who wrote “On MLK 2013” (http://afrankangle.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/on-mlk-2013/ ) about the repentance of Elwin Wilson in 2009, a former Klansman, who attacked and beat a black college student in 1961 when he was one of the Freedom Riders trying to win the ability for African-Americans to travel across country via Greyhound and Trailway buses.  The black freedom rider grew up to be Congressman Joe Lewis.   Frank Angle included a YouTube video in his blog post of Wilson and Lewis’ exchange of repentance and forgiveness after 50 years, and it makes the viewer understand that there is a God, and one day we will all overcome our bigotry, our stupidity, our short-sightedness, our lack of grace, and our arrogance!

***

For years, Elwin, an admitted former member of the Ku Klux Klan, says he prayed that he would meet the man he attacked at the bus station. –Oprah.com

***

QUOTES BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

      “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” – Martin Luther King, Jr

 

Angry Birds, Randy Men, and Dog Whistles

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   I’m still exhausted from the election and have to get an eyeball operation (don’t ask—it’s too gross for words), and I’m looking forward to some much needed rest this Thanksgiving holiday.  Because my brain is so fried, I couldn’t think of a thread for a full humorous story to save my life.   But as I read the major headlines this week, I suddenly found myself wishing I were God so that I could chime in with some type of supernatural act of retribution regarding some of the news events that made me chuckle, caused me to be horrified, or made me really, really sad.

If I were a goddess, I’d tell turkeys to form a labor union, go on strike, and hide out in caves somewhere—never to return—until their consumers repent. I have become convinced this week that we Americans aren’t holding up our end of the bargain that would make it worth the turkey putting his head on the chopping block for us.  If I were a goddess, “The Petraeus Affair” would prompt me to initiate a recall of all the men who lived in America from ages two to ninety-two (that includes you too WW, just to be safe) to redo my initial design and implant in each and every one of them an automatic shut-off valve for their thingies when they start lookin’ to make a booty call on any other woman besides their wives.  If I were a goddess, the multitudinous racists acts that have flooded the news cycle since our President was reelected (i.e., “Kids Hate-tweet Obama, Echoing What They Hear at Home”), would make me want to open up such a can of whup-ass that the world would have to come to an end so that I could start all over with a new batch of people.  (Aren’t you glad I’ll never be endowed with any supernatural powers—I’d be an absolute terror?)

Image from boysrockbr.blogspot.com

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT:  Turkeys Revolt in Reaction to Black Friday Creep!

This would be my first agenda item as a goddess:  solidarity with the turkeys!   Target, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us, Best Buy, and Sears are starting the “Black Friday Creep” at 8:00/9:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day!  People already started lining up at Best Buy a week ahead of schedule (camping out in tents), and Kmart plans to open at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day!    At this rate, why do the turkeys need to lose their heads for a dinner that will probably take place while standing in line in front of a retail store?  It is one thing for turkeys to sacrifice their lives for family bonding and communication (even if most of the time it is an illusion, at least people are trying), but if Black Friday gets to creep all over T-Day, then if I were a goddess, I’d snatch up all the turkeys and redistribute them to places like Africa, Haiti, and all the starving places beyond the realm of all the discount stores.  (I’d keep the turkeys in New York and New Jersey because somehow I think the victims of Hurricane Sandy could care less who is selling what this T-Day, and they’d give anything to sit around a bountiful table with their families and houses intact, while thanking God for their blessings and tripping all over each other to tell the world what they are thankful for:  survival.)

Summers Cartoon|Image from Orlando Sentinel

BREAKING NEWS:  Sound Judgment No Longer a Function of the Male Brain—Has Moved South

Let’s see now:  With the “Petraeus Affair” we’ve got two disgraced four-star horny generals, two possible femme fatales, one shirtless FBI idiot who doesn’t know when to cease and desist (start with keeping your clothes on, bucko), and a scorned and publicly humiliated wife who should attach an umbilical cord to the likes of Gloria Allred, because if I were counseling her as a goddess, there would be no forgiveness for little horny General-man, and he’d be gifting me bling until the day Jesus returned!

(Now do you see why I don’t deserve to have supernatural powers, and why I should remain a mere mortal all my life, even in storyland?  How can a world exist without forgiveness?)

If I were a goddess, I would be ripping right now because everybody is mostly blaming the femme fatale and not the man who was thinking with his one-eyed monster instead of his head (you know, General, you can always “just say no”).  In the meantime, America has lost strategic talent at a time when we most need it because brilliant men let their brains travel south to permanently take up residence below the belt, and sound judgment on multiple counts got flushed down the toilet.

A Mori Cartoon|Image from The Miami Herald

NEWS FLASH:  Black President Reelected—Racial Dog Whistles Still Selling Like Hot Cakes

If I were a goddess I wouldn’t be able to contain myself against the “haters” and I would fricassee each and every one of their asses.  Can I go on record here and state how absolutely fucking pissed I am as an African-American Christian that so-called “good Christian people—in the name of Jesus” (yeah, I’m talking about you Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and Franklin Graham) are blaring racist dog whistles with words that the Stop Dog Whistle Racism blog helped me list as “welfare queen,” “uppity,” “lazy,” “illegal alien,” “doesn’t think like an American—secretly prays to Allah,” “Kenyan,” “Communist,” “Socialist,” “takers” (the list is endless), as if the words were rabid dogs and those dogs informed their political choices.

***

“Who can forget the Sarah Palin rally in 2008 when a woman clearly shouted, ‘Kill the n——!’ (speaking about Barack Obama) while the vice-presidential candidate blithely went on; not only did Ms. Palin go on with her speech, but she also wink-wink courted this kind of ‘passion’ in subsequent rallies.”—By Marie Myung-Ok Lee “Kids Hate-tweet Obama, Echoing What They Hear at Home”|salon.com

***

Who can forget when I pointed out the debacle at the Sarah Palin rally to a white Christian friend and what her response was?  At first, adamant denial that something like this had ever happened (as if I were lying or exaggerating the event), and then a glib dismissal:  “Oh, well so what—she blew it!  There’s nothing she can do about it now.”  Actually, Sarah did do something about it almost immediately—she let the race-baiting dog whistle blow and blow and blow, and then she passed it on to other members in the Republican party, because she knew exactly what type of dogs she wanted to respond to its pitch.

Google Image

“All too often, images, symbols and language are used intentionally and unintentionally in our political elections and policy debates. These trigger unconscious racial stereotypes. The viewer or reader isn’t even aware that he or she is responding to unfounded judgments based on stereotypes rather than facts.”—stopdogwhistleracism.wordpress.com

DeRosier Cartoon|image from Time Union

I am discovering that no one is immune to the racist’s dog whistles of our culture.  We must be ever
vigilant or our ears will tune into their whistle’s pitch while we adamantly insist that we, ourselves, are not racist.  Sometime ago, an African-American woman who was a friend of a friend, whose home I was visiting began to blow a dog whistle which played the tune:  “the Holocaust is a myth which was made up by the Jews to manipulate others in their quest to take over the world.”  I was horrified, I knew better, I pushed back (gently and with a sense of humor so as not to offend the hostess), but at the end of the day, I laughed it off and let it slide because I didn’t want to create a scene.  Shortly after that scenario, I went to live in Israel and for three years, stood with the entire country to annually memorialize the Holocaust with a moment of silence, I toured Yad Vashem in Jerusalem (the Holocaust museum)—uncontrollably sobbing from beginning to end—and I encountered several survivors from afar who still had the concentration camp number tattooed on their forearms from the Holocaust that “never existed.”  No one will ever get away with blowing a racist dog whistle against the Jews in my presence again, because I was given the privilege of touching their horror—if ever so distantly and momentarily—and it sensitized me to the racist whistles they hear that call out the dogs of destruction against them as a people.   I want that same sensitivity for every people group who is unlike me but suffers from similar contempt and disdain (we all suffer).  And the next time someone—a person who boasts of being a believer in Jesus, no less—refers to a group of Muslims as “diaper heads (true story),” he better be prepared for the tongue-lashing of a lifetime, because I’m not putting up with that racist shit anymore from Christians.  We of all people should know better, because it is not “what Jesus would do.”

******

“I still smart a little at the slight.  When you’ve suffered a great deal in life each
additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.”—Life of Pi by Yan Martel   

“I have strong doubts that the first Thanksgiving even remotely resembled the ‘history’ I was told in second grade. But considering that (when it comes to holidays) mainstream America’s traditions tend to be over-eating, shopping, or getting drunk, I suppose it’s a miracle that the concept of giving thanks even surfaces at all.”—Ellen Orleans

“When Romney thinks he’s behind closed doors and he’s just telling other people like him how politics really work, the picture he paints is so ugly as to be bordering on dystopic.  It’s not just about class, but about worth, and legitimacy . . . Romney doesn’t voice these opinions in public.  He knows better.  But so did the voters.  That’s what you see in the overwhelming rejection Romney suffered among African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and young voters.  They sensed that Romney fundamentally didn’t respect them and their role in the economy, and they were right.”—Ezra Klein, rom the 47% to “gifts”: Mitt Romney’s ugly vision of politics|The Washington Post

Don’t take any plug nickels and don’t respond to any dog whistles—except to render them ineffective!

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Don’t Quote Me—But I Think Jesus Is Pissed!

(This story is a continuation of C-‘48’s Odyssey from blog post: “It’s Sure Gonna Suck for You.”)

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  My sorry-ass was supposed to be “out of here” last week—Oct. 21^st (a.k.a. the Rapture).  I haven’t always believed in the Rapture, but I figured why not give it a try.  Earth was becoming a place that was really beginning to suck for a various number of reasons (wars upon wars and rumors of wars, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, uptick in racism, child abuse, murders, mayhem, and rape—just to name a few nightmares).  I was looking forward to the great escape and going to a place where there would be no more tears, and I could eat great food without gaining weight.  I could stand to trade in all the stress from the chaos and mayhem, and just “hang ten” with Jesus (in heaven I’m going to have a killer surfer bod and be able to surf like a female Kelly Slater).  I’d gotten all my affairs in order, paid all my bills, called in sick to work, kissed WW and the kids good-bye, and prepared myself for a long trip “up.”  But nothing happened!

I’m typing this blog post several days AFTER I was supposed to take flight with my wig and clothes left behind on the seat in front of the steering wheel of my car while my chubby naked ass floated heavenward.  My vehicle would have barreled on down the highway without a driver, terrorizing the “left behind drivers” and the “po-po,” which made me sad at first, but it was just the way the cookie had to crumble if I was going to be part of the “big snatch.”  But. . . I’m still here!   What the fuck?

Google Image/Rapture Billboard

Actually, according to that old dude (Harold Camping) who prophesied the big snatch for Oct. 21st, he promised that I was supposed to be originally raptured on May 21^st.

Well, Rev. Camping, you’ve sure got some explaining to do.  It’s like you cried “fire” in a dark theater twice in one year, causing tons of people to panic, but there was no fire.  I’m still here on this planet that I never wanted to come to in the first place (see “It’s Sure Gonna Suck for You”), and your second “snatch day” has come and gone.

So, I’ve had it, Campy baby, and I’m not taking this lying down.  I’d open up a can of whup-ass on you if I could find you (apparently, you’re in hiding), but since I can’t find you, I’m going to do what every little kid on the playground knows to do when they are pissed at one of the other kids:  I’m tellin’ on your ass.

I’m going straight to the person who you claim to be “your boss” and I’m going to tell him how you’re messin’ with people’s minds, causing all sorts of chaos, and making a mockery of your boss’ life and death.  You see, I have discovered the Jesus you talk about is a real stand-up guy, and I’m registering a letter of complaint to him against you.  And while I’m at it, I’m telling on all the other ne’er-do-wells that are saying “God told me this or God told me that” just for their own political or financial gain!  YOUR ASS IS GRASS, MOFO!

COPY OF LETTER TO JESUS

Dear Jesus:

Hope all is well with you and the universe(s) and the hundreds of billions of galaxies you traverse.  I am one of your peeps and I’ve tried to follow you with all my heart for over forty years.  Let me say, first and foremost:  I love you because you first loved me and I remain secure in that love.  However, in the interest of full disclosure, I no longer attend church, but I’m sure you knew that.   I left about a year before the writer Anne Rice left and for the same reasons:  so many of your peeps have lost their ever lovin’, freakin’ minds, and they have become part of the problem and not the solution down here on your third rock from the sun.  They’ve become Fox News worshipers, Glenn Beck idolizers, and Palin-Bachmann sympathizers, as if you, personally, had come down from heaven and knighted these people with a special dispensation from on high.

Which is why I’m writing:  I would like to register a complaint against your Church.  I’m not registering the complaint against all of your Church, just  the crazy parts.  I know that there has always been a remnant of Christians who have been sane and have done the  right thing by your Earth and the people in it, but right now, the crazies are  over-shadowing your “normal” peeps who are just trying to model your example of integrity, love, and grace.

So I’m writing to ask:  what is up with these people and would you please put a stop to them?  You’re such an intelligent God and so outrageously loving and great—with a fabulous sense of humor, I might add—but it’s hard to see that because of what people, who “claim” to be your peeps, are saying and doing in your name.  In case you haven’t been able to catch the news lately, here are a few examples of the freak show:

Google Image/Rev. Harold Camping (False Prophet)

Rev. Camping’s Predictions

“Thus, we must realize that October 21, 2011 will be the final day of this earth’s existence.”

“And now, we have no option. We can’t say ‘maybe’ ‘it’s possible’ ‘it
looks very probable…’ No way! We have to say this is what the Bible teaches!
This is fact! May 21, 2011 is the
day of the Rapture, it is the day that Judgment Day begins…”

“When September 6, 1994,
arrives, no one else can become saved. The end has come.”

Really, Jesus?  I’ve read that in the 90’s, Rev. Camping had approximately eight false Rapture predictions.  And yet I hear today he’s worth 7 million dollars, while the people who took him seriously sold all their worldly goods to help him “spread the word.”  Obviously, he didn’t think he was going very far if he held onto his own millions.  Last time I checked, our money was no good in Heaven.  But here’s the real kick in the balls:  Rev. Camping refused to reimburse the people who sold their homes, crisscrossed the country screaming “the end is near,” and used all their life savings to advertise Rev. Campings false predictions (some foolish guy invested $144,000 of his retirement—all he had).

Google Image/Anita Perry (Wife of Rick Perry)

“God was already speaking to me,” she [Anita Perry] said, “but he [Rick] didn’t want to hear it” (on hearing the distinct voice of God tell her that her husband should run for president and “take back our nation”). . . .  “We’ve been brutalized. Beaten up, chewed up in the press … We’ve been brutalized by our opponents and our own party. So much that is I think they look at him [Rick] because of his faith.”

Jesus, what Anita is saying, just isn’t true.  Ricky is being chewed up in the press because he’s saying idiotic and “anti-you” things but claiming to be called by you to be our next president.  On one hand, he’s presenting himself as a “good, upstanding Christian” (your knight in shining armor), and on the other hand, he’s pathetically defending the existence of a damn rock that bore the name “Niggerhead” at a hunting camp he and his family owned for years in a place that was once considered a “sundown town.”  (Translation:  “Don’t let the sun go down, Nigger, while you are still in our town.”)   Ricky says he painted over that rock in 1983, but at least seven other hunters claim to have seen the sign “unpainted” as late as 2008, and others have said that even with the sign currently painted, discernable letters are still visible.

Google Image/Throckmorton (Rick Perry’s Hunting Camp)

So, Jesus, here is the $64,000 question:  If this man loves you and is called by you to govern people of all races and colors, why didn’t that sign break his heart?  I know plenty of righteous white folks (some of them live in Texas, too) who wouldn’t have slept until that rock was ground into dust, scattered to the four corners of the Earth, and an exorcist brought into the camp to cleanse it of its racist past.

Now your “man of God,” is resurfacing the insulting Birther lie about our president.  When asked why, this “good Christian man” is doing such a mean-spirited thing, he said:  “It’s fun to poke at him (Obama) a little bit and say, ‘Hey, how about it.  Let’s see your grades and your birth certificate’” (keeping alive the lie the Tea Party spread that our President may have lied about his schooling).  Seriously, Jesus?  Does Rick Perry really want to “go there” having graduated as a cheerleader from Texas A&M with mediocre to failing grades in his core subjects?  Does he really want to bear the shame of the world comparing his grades against Barack Obama’s who was the president of the Harvard Law Review?   Rick Perry held a prayer meeting in your name to kick off his presidential campaign, so why is he “poking” fun at his president and mine?  Is Rick jealous or just flat out mean?  Somehow the “love your brother as yourself” just isn’t cutting it with him, and it’s making that prayer meeting of his seem like a total sham.

Google Image/AFP||Getty Image

Westboro Baptist Church “Screaming hatred in the name of Jesus”

Now about that sick Westboro Baptist Church:  This picture speaks a thousand words.  Are these people really going to Heaven?  I seriously might have to reconsider your offer about heaven if I have the slightest potential of living with these racist, homophobic, misanthropic people for an eternity.  Please, say it isn’t so!

You see what I’m sayin’, Jesus; it’s all so perverse!   To Hell with this creepy Rapture stuff!  I know it’s a lie made up by some dude named John Darby in the 1800’s, but you’d be stunned to know how many people actually believe in it and “sell it” like their lives depended on it while their actions are the antithesis of you and what you stand for.

•  “You’ll be riding along in an automobile. You’ll be the driver perhaps. You’re a Christian. There’ll be several people in the automobile with you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds you and the other born-again believers in that automobile will be instantly caught away — you will disappear, leaving behind only your clothes and physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find the car suddenly somewhere crashes…. Other cars on the highway driven by believers will suddenly be out of control and stark pandemonium will occur on … every highway in the world where Christians are caught away from the driver’s wheel.” Jerry Falwell’s pamphlet:  Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Christ

Remember Jerry Falwell’s multitudinous hurtful and racist statements committed in your name when he was alive?  So, if Jerry was correct about the Rapture, that would make you the God of Chaos!  Sheesh!  (Important reminder, Lord Jesus:  Jerry Falwell also died very rich and politically powerful while preaching we all needed to prepare to be “snatched up” and leave everything behind.)

No disrespect, my Lord, but why do you let these jokers get away with this?  Why don’t you say something or, better yet, do something?

Unless…unless you have already raptured everyone a long time ago, and I’ve been left behind with the likes of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Herman Cain, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Perry, and the Westboro Baptist Church, just to name a few of the wingnuts!  Oh, my God, what if Fox News is the official news channel for Hell?  I never thought of that!  Oy vez mir. 

Please, please return soon.

Trying to be one of your servants, C-‘48

Google Image of Jesus (not really—just his human skin-casing)

COPY OF RESPONSE FROM JESUS

Dear Cleve-’48:

I am Jesus’ executive assistant and I wanted to get back to you as soon as possible with a letter that he specifically dictated to you.  He sends his apologies that he couldn’t personally speak to you himself (he does far less of that than people claim), but he is dealing with all the mayhem throughout the world that is being caused by the choices of humans who refuse to do right by each other and the Earth. 

Jesus asked me to let you know that he feels your pain.  He also wants to assure you that he never said anything crazy people have maintained he said throughout the centuries—from the murderous crusaders to Rick Perry’s wife saying God told her, “Rick should run for president and take our country back.”  Jesus’ exact response to all of this, to put it in a nutshell, is:  “They are ‘mashugana’”!

As to the Westboro Baptist Church, Jesus has nothing to say about them because he doesn’t know them—you might try Satan’s website for those who have signed up for early registration to Hell.

My boss said to remind you that what he did say to those people, who claim to be acting on his behalf, is a matter of public record:

•  “Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. . . .Knowing the correct password — saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance — isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. . . I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat.  All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’” (Matt. 7:21-23 The Message Bible—bold and underline emphasis = mine)

Jesus also asked me to tell you that as to this blatant worship of capitalism that is running amok through so many Christians who think he’s an American and a Republican, and who are so against social justice, he’s just “not down” with that.  It is a “cancer” enhanced by the discipleship to people like Glenn Beck (not a spokesman of his, by the way) to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism which she laid out so poorly in Atlas Shrugged. My boss is still puzzled that Christians can read the ninety pages of John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged which is a manifesto to greed, hubris, self-centeredness, disdain and contempt for the poor, and cold-heartedness to the disenfranchised, and his peeps don’t walk away feeling sick to their stomach when they measure it against his Sermon on the Mount.  Finally, what he actually said to all of them, and they are purposely ignoring, is still a matter of public record:

•  “Then he (Jesus) will turn to the ‘goats’ (heartless, self-centered, mean-spirited, self-righteous Christians) the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats!  You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
  • I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
  • I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
  • I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
  • I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
  • Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

“Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’ He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’” Matt: 25:41-43 (The Message Bible – parentheses, bold, and underlining emphasis = mine)

One last point, C-‘48:  Jesus asked me to tell you not to believe everything you hear.  I believe he said:  “If it walks like a fool, and talks like a fool, then it is a fool and has nothing to do with me or what I am about.”

Hope this helps and brings you peace.  Keep on believin’, keep on representin’, and keep on lovin’ regardless of the haters!

All the Best.

Jesus’ EA, Heavenly Dimension, Inc.

I am a Christian, BUT not one of those Christians!

“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi

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