Al Barger and Brother Man

So Trent Lott has lost his job as senate majority leader over a couple of stupid ambiguous sentences at a birthday party that were taken with great offense by the professional civil rights community.  This hardly seems like a fair basis for losing an important job.  I know I've said stuff that could be taken far worse.  If I thought Trent Lott was anything more than a turd eating vote hustler, I'd probably be pretty cheesed.

Of course he's absolutely not anything more than that, so I'm just happy to see a deserving jerk get knocked down.  Similar judgment of his character all around probably goes a long way toward explaining why he had so few defenders, especially among Republicans.

Still as he was being unfairly railroaded over some very minor remarks, I felt some sympathy pangs as he resisted the inevitable.  Even if you don't like the guy, it's too bad to see him go down over something this petty.

I was in this frame of mind as I visited the Mercer museum near Philadelphia.  This really curious poured concrete castle was apparently designed as both museum and personal home.  It has the finest collection of everyday early American artifacts I've seen.  Old plows and carriages, whole apothecary shops, vintage blacksmithing equipment.  It's a great window on an old world.

One of the displays had a cigar store Negro whom we shall call "Brother Man."  Naturally a velvet rope to me says "Hello, come on across and put your hands on the display."  So, like kids crossing the velvet rope that segregated the races at a 1950s Little Richard concert, I hopped on over to bond with the Negro.  This was particularly attractive as I know THIS guy's not going to whig out and try to have me fired from my job if I say something he disagrees with; I can have an honest conversation with him.

This first photo perhaps reveals some sense of ambiguity.  Frankly, some black folks cheese me off a good part of the time.  The constant priming of the victimhood impulse.  Sometimes it seems like black folks can say about anything they wish, but us white guys have to be real careful not to say anything to cheese off Brother Man- especially in the typical workplace.  A "racist" seems to be defined as any white person who a person of color doesn't like.

So, looking at this picture you might wonder if ol' Al is perhaps raising his fist to smite Brother Man rather than listen to any more of his black foolishness blaming whitey for the high rate of illegitimate childbearing, criminality and child abuse that are holding him back.  I see Brother Man lining up behind cheap demagogue bigots like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, and I have a real strong desire to slap some sense into his silly head- let alone what I think when I see him running around with Louis Farrakhan and talking trash about "white devils."

Yeah, Brother Man could get a good beatdown for his nonsense.  As even some black folks would admit, Rodney King NEEDED to get his ass whipped.  He's a jerk, and made police chase him.  Then again, what good did that do?

Plus, it ain't easy being Brother Man.  It's not like it's all watermelon, Ripple and hookers having to be a black man in America- though it beats hell out of being a black man in Africa. 

Plus, you might also notice that I had the Hammer of Justice [another name of my own invention] hanging over my head, ready to strike my cracker ass down if I oppressed Brother Man.

I can perfectly well identify with feeling like the, uhm, "black sheep" of society.  Also, I was hooked on Richard Pryor records as a child, and my first instinct on seeing the Rodney King video was to want to go beat up cops- no matter how bad that King punk deserved it.  I raise my fist sympathetically in a defiant black power salute.

Yeah, I'm down with Brother Man, like Jane Fonda in her famous 1970 mugshot.

As we bonded, Brother Man taught me a lot of things, like keeping syncopated rhythms to make good music and basketball playing.

Also, he pointed out that while his clan comes out with multiple times the national average of violent criminal activity, they also represent a disproportionate share of membership in our military.  [?]  They may collectively have more dysfunctional criminal activity in their communities, but they perhaps make up for that by their strong role in defending the country.

Naturally, as soon as I got done bonding with Brother Man, I immediately hightailed it over to give my report to The Man.  Standing there baring his evil grin, with the giant hooked nose of his tribe, he is the head of the White Conspiracy to hold down Brother Man. 

All us white folks report back to The Man of course, so he can better co-ordinate our response, working day and night to keep Brother Man down.

We can't help doing it.  I guess it's just in our White Devil genes.

Talk back to Al!

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