RACISM REDUX: ANGLO (steve) KING, NO WHITES ALLOWED and TEXAS CURRICULUM

Aaaah.....yes.
I have been described as an angry person once or twice, this is true. But I make a concerted and conscious effort daily to redirect my anger, and generally I do this by calling to mind the Monty Python lyrics; "Always look on the bright side of life." Indeed, it is a personal rule of mine that for every negative thought or sentence I must, MUST find some positive spin. This is really nothing more than a survival technique. Anger builds upon anger and negativity indeed feeds upon itself like the out-of-control snowball barreling down the mountainside gathering momentum and mass along the way. This shit cannot be good for a person. So I choose instead a Sisyphean course of action, eternally attempting to shove the boulder of positive thoughts to the top of the mountain despite the fact the anger and negativity will always push it back down to the valley. Luckily, life is so vast and intricately complicated that it does indeed provide plenty of positive fodder: my kids, my relative health, my family, a comfortable couch, etc. etc. Okay, that being said, if a person has even a scrap of sensibility for their fellow man and pays even a modicum of attention to what is happening in the world around them, how the hell can they avoid being Pissed the eff off??? In the last week or so, we have been handed several incidents that could set our blood to boil. Therefore, I present to you after a blissful hiatus of smiley faced unicorns and rainbows, the revival of Damn the Man. Dammit!

Right-o, then: Exhibit A:

Steve King, Congressman from Iowa.

Okay, I already knew this guy was an asshole. My mother lives in Northeastern Iowa and last spring, after Iowa's Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal, she was plagued with robo-calls from his office begging for assistance in overturning the decision. It mattered little that his district is clear across the state from her, she is not his constituent and she called his office several times to tell them to stop. They kept a-coming, and not just to her, several of my friends in Iowa suffered similar harassment. My mother finally got the calls to stop by calling his office in DC and, because she somehow got a hold of one of his aides cell phone numbers, calling said aide after each robo-call.

And now, he rears his crazy face again in his Quixotic fight to retain the status of the white European christian man,this time by voting against a symbolic measure to honor the slaves that, well, ... slaved... to construct the Capitol. His rationalization? "And of the 645,000 Africans that were brought here to be forcibly put into slavery in the United States, there were over 600,000 people that gave their lives in the Civil War to put an end to slavery. And I don't see the monument to that in the Congressional Visitor Center, and I think it's important that we have a balanced depiction of history." Ok first of all, that sentence doesn't make sense. Is he saying 600,000 of the 645,000 slaves kidnapped from Africa gave their lives in the Civil War? Well, yeah, he is saying that, literally, but what he means, we can safely assume, is that 600,000 (presumably) white Union soldiers 'gave' their lives, yadda yadda. Dude, learn to speak your native language. And, of course, had he done a quick Google search on Civil War soldier memorials in the DC area, it would have taken .024 seconds of his precious time to find 226,000 results of sites with information about such memorials.

He originally claimed his opposition was simply a result of his policy to vote against purely symbolic gestures. Until he was reminded of his resolution from December of 2007, "Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian Faith." Oh. Oooops. Then He backtracks and explains that his no vote was actually; "...a bargaining chip to allow for the actualy(sic) depiction of "In God We Trust" in the CVC". Yeah, whatever. It's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide the fact that he is, simply put, a racist ass and he is up against the wall with the fact that his kind is going down, GOING DOWN. About time. No mas, asshole.

Moving right along, then...Exhibit B: The Valley Swim Club

A private pool in Philadelphia kicks to the curb a group of Black kids. Because the kids are black and the pool's management are racist. This is pretty much unambiguious and indefensible. Really, I just include this to illustrate the fact that the recent popular mantra of 'Racism is Dead' is, unfortunately, laughably premature. What really kills me about this story are the kids and the fucking boulder created in their stomachs when they fully realized what was actually going on. Goddammit.

Our final exhibit, Exhibit C:
Texas' Desire to Bleach its State Curriculum Standards

Sigh. A committee to provide curriculum recommendations to the Texas State Board of Education wants to blacklist historical figures such as of Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez with the rationalization that they can't hold a candle to Ben Franklin. Nice try, assholes. You know, I'm not even going to detail their rationalizations, suffice to say they stand behind Congressman King with their backs to the wall of their declining status. Aaaah, but here's the positive spin: Steve King, Texas committee assholes? Their backs ARE against the wall. Business as usual for Whitey is slowly yet undeniably fading. What we're witnessing is kind of a cultural 'Fight or Flight' reflex-the primordial response to the threat of extinction; all emotion and devoid of reason. Makes me wonder, in the words of Bob Dylan; "How does it feel? To be on your own? With no direction home? A complete known..."

Aaah, Karma. It's a beautiful thing.