I generally don't blog about politics here (or anywhere) because this is Colicky Baby Records and Tapes, not Enraged and Disgusted Quasi-Marxist Post-Situationist Records and Tapes (yet), but the Pfather Pfleger pflap ricocheting around the pipes today like a particularly evil unit of Quick Draw McGraw ammo has my guts in a roil, and it's got to come out. (Another reason I don't blog about politics is that they inspire the worst in mixed metaphors by me. One more alert: The following rant is unrehearsed, hastily written, sloppy, and unedited, for the most part, so you all may wanna skip it entirely and wait for some more wacky smartass baseball posts and/or obscure YouTube rock, jazz, and ukulele videos, which will follow fairly soon, I'm sure.)
Conventional punditry has it that Obama faces big difficulties from racism among rural, poor, uneducated white people. Frankly, I think he's got enough to worry about from (a more subtle but just as virulent type of) racism among the urban (and suburban and exurban), relatively affluent, nominally educated ones. The reaction to Pfleger's sermon proves to me once again that even "liberals" are not ready to discuss race in a way that makes whitey uncomfortable. To fail to suck liberal white ass just isn't cricket; it just isn't, as they say in Blighty, done. Tut tut. Pfleger didn't get the memo, I guess, the memo that clearly indicates that all oratory on racial issues must be prefaced, during-faced, and post-faced with repeated assurances that almost all white people are A-OK, except for a few of those bad, uneducated ruffians, mostly from the distant past. Any suggestions that such a thing as white privilege exists are just not cool, bro. Those suggestions, are, in fact, "black racism," because "making some sensitive pale-faced suburbanites feel bad by saying some nasty, nasty words in loud, loud voices" is totally on a par with "creating a permanent underclass via the 'badges and indicia' of slavery, continued institutionalized bias, systematic police harassment and torture, disproportionately harsh treatment by the criminal justice system, coverage in the media that vacillates between 'benign' neglect and unconcealed disdain, etc. etc., and so forth."
I didn't read all of Pfleger's sermon, and I don't really feel like watching the video, so I don't know about the assertions on Pandagon.net that he dove into the realm of misogyny -- to which, if true, I say, shame on the Pfather. I'm not among Pfleger's pfans, by any means. I'll be ticked off at him pforever for getting all the head shops shut down, and he's demonstrated a large degree of unthinking ass-headedness several times over the years ... but I'm sticking with what I said in the previous graf. Maybe ostensibly progressive white people are so easily bruised in the emotionality because of a huge case of subconscious guilt -- or fear. That'd make some sense. It's still irritating as all get-out. OK, that's enough from me on that. Challenges and/or practically anything at all in the comments are welcome.
One last parting shot -- in somewhat ironic honor of the new Mars mission (which I hasten to disclose, I consider to be hella cool), here's this (followed by more Gil, just because if it's good to you it must be good for you):
Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey on the Moon
Gil Scott-Heron - Black History
Gil Scott-Heron - No Knock
Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey on the Moon (another version) & Hold On
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