A black guy I know talks about the Confederate flag/racism
Earlier this week I fell into the darkest rabbit hole Ive yet to know. I started reading ultra conservative / racist websites, reading the comments on the articles, trying to place my thumb on the pulse of a beating heart unfamiliar. It started when a confederate flag showed up in my facebook feed amongst the gifs of cats being assholes, relationship announcements and short videos of my friends offspring not doing anything particularly exciting. To my surprise it was someone I knew posting and praising the confederate flag. I followed it to a website that looked like it was designed in the late 90s with no spell check and then I followed link after link until I feared for my life, mourned the death of humanity and began to sleep with two eyes open. I went back to the original post a few times, debating whether or not to comment on it. I finally decided to, after all, no strides are made in silence. On occasions when I think maybe I can make a difference in someones perspective, I generally tip toe, so instead of WHY ARE YOU POLLUTING MY FACEBOOK FEED WITH RACIST ASS FLAG NONSENSE YOU FUCKING FUCK, I tried to explain what that flag means to me in the soft toned voice I use to pry rock candy from the grasp of elderly women. I explained that regardless of what ones intention is with that flag, this is what every black American feels when they see it, fear, hatred, oppression, every time theyve read the word nigger etched into the wall of a bathroom stall, every time theyve heard its bitter bite shouted and the kind of paranoia that fits well within the frames of reason. Some guy with a confederate flag as his profile picture (and I thought a rapist raccoon giving a beagle what for was racy) got back to my comment right away. He wrote Alfred Howard ..It really offends me to see young men walking around in public for my daughters to see .with their pants down below their asses should we stop that as well. First of all, I love that Men is in quotes, already establishing that we are less than. I was so dumbfounded by this response that it basically cleared up all the confusion. Oh, Im literally trying to have a rational conversation with a fucking idiot whos response to his fear of young black males is to in turn intimidate them with fear. As if two wrongs dont make a right wasnt one of the first tenets all parents bestow upon their children. How do you build a bridge to a mind so distant? I sent him an email, an invitation to talk. Because I can post all the equality rants in the world and harvest likes from people who already agree with what Im saying, but if I can change the mind or vantage point of someone who likely hates my existence before knowing it, then its a small victory.
At the end of the day a flag is color on fabric, we infuse our symbols with meaning through action. The Swastika finds its roots in Hinduism, but meaning evolves and evokes. The confederate flag is a racist symbol with an ocean of blood shed in its name. You can claim it means something else to you, but it carries a weight beyond virtue regardless. I once hoped that the archaic values it represents to me would die through the course of generations, but hatred is passed on, not through blood, but through whispers. Maybe we shout the opposite.
this is Al Howard, a record store clerk on Mission Bay in San Diego. He is also an amazing musician who is in many bands in the area. He is my favorite writer of the era too.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Thank you.
DamnYankeeInHouston
(1,365 posts)ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Hilariously funny. I think they should be filming a TV show right now with his experiences. he has a HILARIOUS book out too....The Autobiography of No One:
On the sacred duties of being in a band: As a musician, it is your duty to sign a boob, no matter whose boob, or whose mothers boob it is, whether you want to or not.
On racial stereotyping: Dear white people shopping at the record store, this photograph of Lionel Richie hanging at the store is not me. Please stop asking.
On being confused for a homeless person:
[M]y girlfriend mistook a homeless guy for me outside of the House of Blues. To her credit he did look a lot like me and had a similar wardrobe. Hopefully he only got some spare change out of the mistaken identity.
On what hed rather do than hear Christmas music: Id rather be Ol Dirty Bastards road manager. Id rather live in a state that banned bacon and played Barbara Streisand [sic] exclusively on the radio. Id rather be a Steely Dan fan, the dildo and the group. Id rather relive watching the sex scene from White Men Cant Jump with my mom again, that was uncomfortable.
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-13628-7-great-tes-from-al-howards-book.html
More: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/apr/03/lists-guilty-pleasures/#
yurbud
(39,405 posts)ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)I've been very sick. For a while. I wouldn't even wish long term sickness on the worst of the Kardashians. Over the last 12 weeks I've lost 12 pounds and my stomach reacts to food the way some white cops react to black males reaching for their wallet. Fortunately I'm slim and trim for the beach season, but I've been to the beach twice in 12 years, so I'm not sure how this helps me. I got this ominous letter from the doctors office last wednesday which simply said "it was nice to see you the other day, your labs were abnormal, looking forward to seeing you soon." WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!!! I literally screamed to myself like I was rehearsing the Charlton Heston end scene from planet of the apes. At least stress doesn't adversely affect a churning stomach. I tried to call, but they won't tell you results over the phone. This gave me three days to meditate on anxiety and allow outlandish thoughts to to crash like sneakers in the centrifuge of my mind like "they'd probably text if it was HIV, maybe I'm pregnant and why do I shake hands with some of our customers." The following day I worked an 11 hour shift. According to my phone, I walked 5 miles during my shift which takes place is a small room. Thank god there's no security footage to track my hyper lunacy, stress manning the steering wheel of my machinery. Finally on Friday I would get the verdict that would be as anticlimactic as this post. Not certain this will remedy the situation, but I'm basically allergic to everything, peanuts, shrimp, sesame seeds, the sky, CHICKEN, barely and rye. I protested the chicken. "Sorry doctor, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a black male, I literally have seven drumsticks in my pocket." Which elicited no laughter and that negative reinforcement may have single handedly upended my future career as a stand up comedian. Maybe this chicken allergy explains why I preferred Yo La Tango to Lil Kim, perhaps I'm on some inverse Rachel Doezal shit where I'd rather watch Friends than A Different World and I show up to the bbq with a kale salad, reverse Rachism. Perhaps I'll wind up on a reality show solving mysteries with my best friend Juan who's allergic to beans. Perhaps I've been gradually committing slow chicken suicide (which sounds like a shitty stone temple pilots song). Perhaps this has nothing to do with my current affliction at all. Well, after much protesting, I've cut chicken out of my diet, I cried gravy tears, I've had buffalo wing dreams deferred where I awoke in a fevered midnight sweat, heart pounding, chicken the distance I can't reach. I'll keep you posted.
We'll be shooting a video for Erik Canzona and the Narrows Thursday night at Kearny Mesa Bowl, I'll be playing the guy from the WB version of the Machinist.
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Big Sur has been overrun. Trampled by summer. The secret is out, betrayed by hashtags and majestic photos. The ocean mist that is Kerouacs ghost shouting DAMN YOU EARLYBIRD, VALENCIA & X-PRO II, DAMN YOU TO HELL!!! Everyone took the bait and descended at once. Trying to park near a waterfall on a recent visit was like vying for position at Wallmart on Black Friday. Boxing out LA expatriates, attempting to catch vistas like you were throwing elbows for Elmos circa Christmas 96. Picture a woman in a hot pink jumpsuit with the word Sexy bedazzled onto her ass, holding a big mac and devouring space like the aforementioned burger, selfie sticks reaching for the heights of the redwoods themselves and a Steve Miller song blaring from a campground as a football sails through the air like a stealth missile aimed at your peace. At one point during our set, some dude threw $2 at chanteuse Shelbi Bennett and told her to play some Guns N Roses. And as much as I wanted to hear a spectral version of Its So Easy, this was very different from previous outings beneath the quiet. But who am I to criticize, I dont live there, Im just another contributor to the din, gazing slack jawed at the slightest verdant sliver of marvel that I can fit into my distracted existence. Were all just trying to trade concrete canyons for something more. To partake in the vastness. Tourist in our home trying to rekindle the fraying thread that once kept us attached to nature. I pray the bait of whim never eludes me, that once my fluffy roof is Morgan Freeman gray, I can still muster the energy for escape. I had the time so we kept the car aimed north, to the rocky shores and breathtaking vistas of the Oregon coast, empty roads, respite and cozy quiet. #?Imnottellingyouwhere.
Tonight at the merrow Birdy Bardot, hope to see you there
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)As far as I know I'm a heterosexual man. I don't like dance music, my room is a mess and I really appreciated Kathy Ireland's month in the swim suit calendar purchased in brainwashed adolescence. But over the past three days I've watched Lenny Kravitz's penis explode out of his pants like a scrawny Brown Kool Aid man through a brick wall of black leather, 458+ times, in fact I'm going to watch it again right now. A part of me worries I will watch it repeatedly while driving and wrap myself around a telephone poll, clinging to my phone in my cold dead hand, giving my mom the tough news "he died doing what he loved." I've legitimized it in my mind as ok, I mean it's ok regardless, but ok within my sexual definition of self in that I'm mesmerized, if not full on hypnotized, by the facial expression he makes at the moment of impact / breakout. 11 years ago I tried to fart on my best friend's head and I jumped up and accidentally fired a turd out of a hole in my pants. I like to think I made the same face, a unique combination of shock, shame and some kinda misplaced feral pride, basking in the feat of what should never pass. Lenny looked intense, like he had something to prove, the shadow years of a career, the hits long in the rearview, relevance alongside like tumbleweed leaving the reach of sight, he had cut his dreads and lost his power like Sampson, but he clung on, leather leaps and stunt struts, that stance of Los Angeles, forever young where "disingenuous" owns a question mark. The problem I had was with forwarding. After all, as funny as it is, it's a penis breaking on through to the other side, it's not a cat gif nor a child fail. Every text I forwarded had a moment of pause. I think they'll find this funny, but if they open it at work and they work with children and a young kid sees Lenny's manhood, did I cost a friend a job, a child his youth? I thought "this is going to crack my mom up", but that message went unsent, I think a wise decision, after all, dick pics have derailed political careers, did I really want to send a dick pic to my mom and read about her heart attack on buzzfeed. I sent it to Brad Lee who asked if there was a Grammy or Emmy for gifs, perhaps that's what a Cleo is, I don't know. But it's a heroic 1 second of film (ha, I accidentally typed firm instead of film, Lenny's dick is homosexual propaganda, the republicans were right, we're all going to be brain(bow)washed and Are You Gonna Go My Way was about sexual orientation) and accomplishes what it takes Judd Apatow 2 hours to pull off. It deserves something! Didn't need to google image search Kathy Ireland for this piece though, what happens to a wet dream deferred.....