[from 6/24/09]
It's three hours to deadline and all I have is a note to myself that says, "write about how sorry we are." OK, um, we're very very sorry we didn't start thinking about this column a whole lot earlier.
The note concerned two or three oppressed minorities that I don't belong to. The "we" in the note refers to me and the other nonmembers of the minorities in question, AKA "the Sorry."
Of course, one of the things we all aren't good at talking about is that you can be an oppressed minority for the purpose of one discussion and one of We the Sorry or We the Should-be Sorry for the next. Complicating matters, there are oppressed majorities. For example, Christians are severely oppressed, as passages from the Bible may be engraved in stone and propped up almost anywhere EXCEPT public property. Demand reparations!
But I digress. I was talking about oppressed minorities, having in mind African-Americans, specifically those descendent of slaves, and the LGBTQ crowd, and maybe one other.
One of the points I always want to get across is that we oppressors and/or former oppressors are the real experts on oppressions, and the "go to" people for information about them. I mean, if you just want to know what it's like to be an oppressed person, go ahead and ask one of them, they have that down. But if you want to know how someone can be oppressive asked an oppressor. It's just common sense.
For example, the recently passed Senate version of an apology for slavery contains a clause that would disallow its use as a basis for claims of financial reparations. If you ask an African-American descendant of slaves about this you can expect to find out how they feel about it, but don't expect any useful information as to why that clause is in there. For that you have to ask racist white Senators.
While not a Senator, I HAVE been white and racist, so I can guess for a fact what it's about. White people are doing this calculation: "There's so many of us, and so many of them. If we give all that money to them, that takes away so much of our money. Damn, that's no good. OK, let's just say we're sorry and hope they're satisfied with that."
It's really all about the money. Frankly, guys, it was all about the money when our ancestors enslaved you. It was all about the money when they set up segregation. The idea was to use you to make money, and then when that didn't work, to keep you from getting a share of what money was left over. It was all about the money then, and it still is.
It's all about the money. It's not about hate. Racial hate was just something that was invented by rich whites to bring poor whites on board with the money thing, to get them to go along with whatever it took to hang onto the money.
With the Japanese it was the same. Make reparations just for that generation, drag your heels until most of them are dead, make the amount as paltry as possible, and you can shelve the hatred.
Sunday will be the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, as good a time as any to ask why it happened. More to the point of this column, we need an oppressor to step up and explain how that oppression comes about. I'm at a total loss when it comes to the general issue of oppression of LBGTQ people, but I have a guess about the opposition to same-sex marriage.
It's all about the money! The whole idea that it's about preserving the sanctity of marriage is a load of crap used to string the poor people along. The real issue is, marriage benefits cost money, and the majority is calculating "more for them means less for us."
It's all about greed, never about justice. That's how sorry we are.
The note concerned two or three oppressed minorities that I don't belong to. The "we" in the note refers to me and the other nonmembers of the minorities in question, AKA "the Sorry."
Of course, one of the things we all aren't good at talking about is that you can be an oppressed minority for the purpose of one discussion and one of We the Sorry or We the Should-be Sorry for the next. Complicating matters, there are oppressed majorities. For example, Christians are severely oppressed, as passages from the Bible may be engraved in stone and propped up almost anywhere EXCEPT public property. Demand reparations!
But I digress. I was talking about oppressed minorities, having in mind African-Americans, specifically those descendent of slaves, and the LGBTQ crowd, and maybe one other.
One of the points I always want to get across is that we oppressors and/or former oppressors are the real experts on oppressions, and the "go to" people for information about them. I mean, if you just want to know what it's like to be an oppressed person, go ahead and ask one of them, they have that down. But if you want to know how someone can be oppressive asked an oppressor. It's just common sense.
For example, the recently passed Senate version of an apology for slavery contains a clause that would disallow its use as a basis for claims of financial reparations. If you ask an African-American descendant of slaves about this you can expect to find out how they feel about it, but don't expect any useful information as to why that clause is in there. For that you have to ask racist white Senators.
While not a Senator, I HAVE been white and racist, so I can guess for a fact what it's about. White people are doing this calculation: "There's so many of us, and so many of them. If we give all that money to them, that takes away so much of our money. Damn, that's no good. OK, let's just say we're sorry and hope they're satisfied with that."
It's really all about the money. Frankly, guys, it was all about the money when our ancestors enslaved you. It was all about the money when they set up segregation. The idea was to use you to make money, and then when that didn't work, to keep you from getting a share of what money was left over. It was all about the money then, and it still is.
It's all about the money. It's not about hate. Racial hate was just something that was invented by rich whites to bring poor whites on board with the money thing, to get them to go along with whatever it took to hang onto the money.
With the Japanese it was the same. Make reparations just for that generation, drag your heels until most of them are dead, make the amount as paltry as possible, and you can shelve the hatred.
Sunday will be the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, as good a time as any to ask why it happened. More to the point of this column, we need an oppressor to step up and explain how that oppression comes about. I'm at a total loss when it comes to the general issue of oppression of LBGTQ people, but I have a guess about the opposition to same-sex marriage.
It's all about the money! The whole idea that it's about preserving the sanctity of marriage is a load of crap used to string the poor people along. The real issue is, marriage benefits cost money, and the majority is calculating "more for them means less for us."
It's all about greed, never about justice. That's how sorry we are.
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