Thursday, April 26, 2012

Facebook, my Door to WTF

--by Mike Adams

Alright now, this post might upset someone, but sometimes, you gotta scramble a few egg heads if you're gonna promote reasonable-thought.

I just read an entertaining and ...hmmm, scathing blog post by Erin Gloria Ryan on Jezebel called, "Banning Confederate Flag Dress-Wearing Teen From Prom Was Totally Unfair, Y'all". I have never read Jezebel before today, but I'll be back.

I found this article, because a Facebook friend posted a link to another great Jezabel post, "A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism'" by Lindy West.

After reading West's post, I followed a link at the bottom to Ryan's and if Erin Ryan and Lindy West are indicative of the kind of writing that is normal on Jezebel, I'll be checking in more often. I am left to wonder where has my Jezebel been for all these years?

Anyway, back to the topic of race and Confederate flags. I am half Native American, a term that growing numbers of Caucasians dislike, because from their perspective, we aren't native, we walked here and settled the land...you know across the ice bridge 20,000 years ago. So anyway, the argument goes that the term Native American isn't accurate and should be changed.

Well I suppose I have to concede the point that Native American lacks total accuracy, but hey this is America...Is Football an accurate term? What about white people...are they really white? Seriously, and in all honesty, are we actually preoccupied with concise communication as a country?

Anyway, I don't want to get too far off topic with that tangent. I don't actually write or talk about race very often, in fact it isn't a big topic in my life at all. I am half NATIVE AMERICAN, but I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Which is the home of the Atomic Bomb (I'm not making this up). My parents bought me a $2000 LASER when I was in High School and let me setup a holographic lab setup in my garage. (Seriously, I'm not making this up). What I'm getting at is that I kind of grew up as a white kid...a nerdy white kid, with brown skin.

So while someone in my life has probably been prejudiced against me based on race, it never occurred to me that I might have been discriminated against, rather I've had the experience, on many occasions, of dealing with complete idiots. The bottom line is that I go through life asserting white male privilege and I get away with it.

I promise, this does eventually tie in with wearing a prom dress made out of a confederate flag...just bear with me, I'll get there.

But first, I feel it is important to remind everyone that the confederate flag was the rallying point, the symbolic inspiration for an army of US citizens who rose up and waged open war against the United States of America. It is true that confederate troops received full pardons after the war, but that does not take away from the fact that they were pardoned ...for TREASON.

Beyond even that, however, it is important to remember that the Confederacy was not only a group of people engaged in open treason. The Confederacy and the confederate flag represent the legalized tyranny of slavery. The systematic oppression of a whole group of people, based on their skin color.

The Confederacy and it's flag represent hooded terrorists arriving in the dead of night to lynch a man for daring to demand his rights.

The confederate flag represents one of the worst forms of slavery that human kind has ever seen. A form of slavery that institutionalized racism and legally defined a human being as less than human.

So yes, like the Nazi Swastika, the Confederate flag is offensive. So for those who want to, you can wear it on your clothing or put it on your car. In the United States of America, you have that right and I support your right. However, your freedom to display or wear symbols of tyranny do not protect you from being pointed out and ridiculed as an idiot and an ass-hole. So if you are going to assert your right to freedom of speech, you might want to check and see if what you have to say is worthy of speaking, because if you're just being a moron, my freedom of speech allows me to laugh at you and call you a moron, which I will do as best I can.

18 comments:

  1. I knew there was something I liked about you the moment I read your comment on my blog!!

    I'm a descendant of those damned conquerors who married into a Mexican-American family (who have been here since before their land became part of the US). My mother-in-law was born in northern New Mexico. My father-in-law's family was also from New Spain/New Mexico Territory and, although I am divorced for almost 23 years, I bristle at those who dare to tell all Hispanics to go back home. Really? They ARE home, you moron!! WE'RE the intruders!!

    I just read the "Hipster Racism" article yesterday. I haven't read the Confederate dress one yet, but am inclined to agree that she shouldn't have been banned from the prom. Love how you explained the use of the flag!

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    1. Thanks SJerZGirl, for your thoughts. I love New Mexico. It is culturally diverse and the only state in the union which is officially bi-lingual.

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  3. I forgot you are native american aren't you? Funny you don't look it... ;P
    Something struck a chord with me in this, as though was born and raised in the U.S. as a Jew, I still bristle inwardly when I see a swastika. Go figure.


    Love your essays Mike!
    Got my daughter reading them too.
    -B

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    1. yeah...I know what you mean about that. The Swastika pisses me off too! But the thing that has really been pissing me of recently has been the tendency of political bugger heads in this country to invoke Nazis or Hitler to score cheap political points about things like health care or trying to stop a recount of the votes. It cheapens and dishonors the real horror of what millions of people were subjected to at the hands of real Nazis last century!

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    1. Thanks Maria! I appreciate the comment and I really liked your blog...that post about the purple hearts is thoroughly inspiring! For anyone who reads this, you should read Maria's post about training for some ultra endurance...with screws in her ankle... totally awesome!
      http://mertywrites.blogspot.com/2012/04/whose-idea-was-this-anyway.html

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  5. Here, here, excellent post Michael. BTW, Rob and his babysitter burned down the family fence, I shudder to think what he'd have done with a laser.

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    1. LOL! Luckily, my LASER didn't burn things...it was very bright and would have instantly burned out someone's eye, but it didn't burn through wood or metal or anything like that. Same kind of LASER as a LASER pointer (except way more powerful) Thanks for your comments! I was just out in the garden thinking about how the piles of horse manure had been converted into fertile soil over the winter and I kept wondering if adding mayonnaise might help...thanks Rob! LOL

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  6. A) Jezebel is terrific.

    B) So is this post.

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    1. A) I absolutely Agree!

      B) Thank you so much!
      I was nervous when preparing to click [Publish] could generate some pretty negative feedback!

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  7. Excellent read. I'm getting addicted to you, Michael Adams (well your writing anyway)-- you have been warned.

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    1. Thank you! Thank you! and Thanks! ...also Gracias! I've been sitting on the topic Confederate Flag topic for some time and figured it was time, when I read the Jezebel article. I really had some anxiety about publishing, but when I finally did, I was glad. I felt it had to be said. The feedback has been great...so I'm even more glad now! LOL.

      BTW...I've thought of that missed party of yours a few times over the past couple of days...I think that was way to close to home for me. I would totally miss something like that, because I had it on the wrong day. LOL!

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    2. Oh no, what happened to my comment?

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    3. Of course, this one shows up while the other eloquent answer disappears LOL. I think it went something like this: Anxiety about publishing? Sounds vaguely familiar... blah blah blah :)

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    4. OH, bummer about your comment disappearing! I hate when that happens! Thanks!

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  8. The dress was also worn into a school event, which makes it a little different than wearing it out on the street.

    Granted, in most places in America, wearing a confederate flag out on the street would end in much worse than simply getting asked to leave the dance...

    Los Alamos! Novelist William Burroughs went to a boys' school at Los Alamos Ranch in the Twenties - they later closed the school down so they could use it to develop the bomb because it was the most isolated place in America with electricity.

    Cool...

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    1. Yeah, the building still stands that was the boys school it's called fuller lodge. Today it is a historical landmark:
      http://wikitravel.org/upload/en/thumb/f/f5/Fuller_Lodge.jpg/800px-Fuller_Lodge.jpg

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