Big-House Heroes

You know what’s ironic about the idiots who call this cop-killing rapist in the news a hero?  These sniveling little dingbats who march on the street and pretend like said cop-killing rapist was “striking back against an occupying white army?”  What’s ironic is that another group of people cheer for cop-killers, too:  They’re called felons.

But let’s be clear.  My neighbors in this place do so mostly because they’re dumb.  They have a childish goal to “fight the power” and “rebel against the ones who put me here.”  These are the same guys who nod righteously to a heavy metal song about anarchy, yet wouldn’t have the first clue of what to do if social disorder broke out because they couldn’t watch Gossip Girl.  Most of the guys I hear in this place don’t have any real beef with the cops; they’re just doing what’s socially acceptable in prison. 

But these clowns out there on the streets, they think they’re actually fighting for a cause.  I saw one of their spokesmen on The O’Reilly Factor regaling everyone with the latest tale of black victimhood.  This guy was an adult, at least in age, and yet he sat there with a straight face and said his rapist hero did what he did because “young black people are being forced into a life of crime a prison.”  By whom?  The white establishment of course.  I’ve even heard the word “genocide” used in these mind-numbing discussions.

Genocide.  Really?  Tell that to the Rwandans.  Tell that to the people in Darfur.  Okay fine, if the copes are perpetrating genocide against young, black men, why is it that every one of these young black men has a gun and is shooting back at the cops?  Why do they all have criminal records?  It must be a big coincidence that all of them were doing something illegal when those “white oppressors” shot them full of holes.

In fact, doesn’t this sort of defeat their argument on its face?  If there was a white establishment trying to get rid of blacks, why would they only target the thugs, killers, and rapists?  Wouldn’ tit be more prudent to target the hard-working, hard-studying young blacks who are going to college becoming lawyers and politicians?  Their argument is so dumb they can’t even see the inherent contradiction.

These protesters need to grow up.  They need to take a look at the many black kids who are busy doing their homework and working while these “heroes” are out on the streets being hoodlums.  No one’s forcing them into a life of crime because no one’s forcing anyone into a life of crime.  You know what every single young thug in prison has in common?  Whether they’re white, black, poor, middle-class, whatever?  You know the common thread?

They all – every single last one of us – sat around and did other things while responsible kids worked hard and succeeded.  They did their homework; we got stoned.  They busted their asses for a better future; we mocked them.  Get the point?

Special Concessions for Americans?

In his book America Alone, Mark Steyn talks about the concessions made to Muslim prisoners as mirrors of the concessions made to ordinary Muslim citizens in the West.  In British prisons, toilets are being remodeled because they face toward Mecca.  Even here in the States, a recent court ruling stated that Muslim prisoners could be allowed to eat camel.  Mr. Steyn made the excellent point that men in the Army have to make do with MREs, but Muslim prisoners can eat camel on the taxpayer’s expense.

Here in my current home, the only such instance that I’ve seen is that pork is no longer served as part of the generalmenu.  And to be fair, Jewish prisoners get a special kosher diet, and even Wiccan prisoners can get a meatless diet.

However, I remember seeing on the news once that Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were being allowed to cover the windows of their cells because they’d complained about privacy.  I must have missed something – are we supposed to have privacy in prison?  Maybe it’s the strip searches, the public showers, and the nude urinalysis tests that cause me to think otherwise.  Regardless of your religious views, if you cover your window in this prison and refuse to clear it, a dozen guys in riot gear holding shields and pepper spray will do it for you.

Still it seems like the bending-over-backwards mania out there on the streets hasn’t yet reached American prisons.  On the news I see Muslim taxi drivers whining about passengers who carry alcohol, and universities using taxpayer money to install foot baths, and an “Islamic Cultural Appreciation Week” in a public school.  Most sickening is the fact that if you oppose such things, you’re labeled anti-Muslim or a racist.  And just try to be a “European American” who’s proud of his or her heritage – you’ll be called a colonial imperialist at best.  (Muslims always seem to view the rather profuse Islamic imperialism with pride, of course.)

Personally, I don’t really care about my own supposed Christian European heritage – whatever that even means.  People who bring cultural relativism and ethnicity into this matter often seem to forget that terms like that are meaningless on a long enough timeline.  Go back far enough, and even the staunchest racists find themselves sharing a grandpa with the ethnic group they despise, and every single one of us comes from a “caveman culture” or an “African plains culture.”

But since Americans aren’t going to enjoy unity by sharing cave paintings or axe markings, perhaps we could opt for something more modern:  How about American Cultural Appreciation?  We could celebrate the things that are great about America, such as unmatched freedom and opportunity.  We could point out that, contrary to the ravings of clowns like “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright, America spends more money on defeating AIDS than all other countries on Earth combined.  We could point out that America’s greedy capitalists give more money for foreign aid and charity than anyone else.  We could discuss American values like hard work, tolerance, and self-reliance.  We could even reminisce about how America defeated a few minor blips in the road of freedom like Nazism and communism and freed millions of people from tyranny.

Try to imagine Americans in any Islamic country asking for an “American Cultural Appreciation Week.”  Forget that – try to imagine Americans asking for such a thing as a public school in any country of Europe.

Nas and Bill O’Reilly

I was watching The Colbert Report the other night, and the guest was the rapper Nas.  Apparently Nas (along with many others) is participating in a petition against Fox News and Bill O’Reilly in particular.  According to Nas, O’Reilly is a racist who says “much more hateful and spiteful things than any rapper does.”  This started after the Virginia Tech murders, when O’Reilly protested the fact that Nas was performing a benefit at the school.  Because Nas has lyrics glorifying violence and a gun conviction, O’Reilly said, the rapper is a poor choice to perform, considering what the students at the school had just been through.  In response, Nas came back and called O’Reilly a racist.  How clever.

I watched that initial exchange, and I’ve been watching The O’Reilly Factorfor years.  I hardly ever agree with Bill O’Reilly, and I think there are plenty of times that he should be naming himself the “Pinhead” of his “Pinheads and Patriots” segment.  I post my disagreements with him all the time.  But he’s not a racist, he doesn’t use smear tactics, and he doesn’t spew hateful diatribe.  He even occasionally admits that he was wrong.  I’m not defending him or Fox News – I like to think that I’m defending rationalism.

Nas is simply being irrational.  Regardless of whether O’Reilly is right or wrong, he never brought race into the issue.  He simply pointed out that Nas had violent lyrics and a gun conviction.  I get it, I get it:  Nas is a baby.  He can’t take the heat, so anyone who disagrees with him or doesn’t like his music is a racist.  I hate to break this to Nas, because he seems to have a neat little world of self-entitled victimhood worked out, but just because someone criticizes you doesn’t mean they’re a bigot.  It also doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

On The Colbert Report, the host asked Nas about that gun conviction.  The rapper’s response?  “We need to talk about how those guns get into our neighborhoods in the first place.”  Typical victim thinking.  It’s not my fault I decided to carry an illegal weapon, it’s because of America’s culture and social structure.  They forced me into it.  I’m such a mewling little infant that I can’t be held responsible for my own actions, so I’m going to blame for my own actions, so I’m going to blame everyone else.

How many people would be shocked to know that Nas is stirring all of this up at the exact same time that his new album is coming out?  Starting a feud with Bill O’Reilly is good for publicity.  I have a suggestion for Nas:  How about a petition against CNN or Jesse Jackson?  You remember when that CNN analyst called Juan Williams a “happy Negro?”  You remember what Jesse Jackson said about Barack Obama, and how he used the word “nigger?”  You remember when Dan Rather called Barack Obama “Osama bin Laden?”  Where’s the outrage?  Where are the charges of racism and hate-spewing?  Has O’Reilly ever said anything remotely as bad as that?

The “worst” thing that can be said about Fox News is that it leans to the right.  So what?  You’re a big boy, Nas.  Pull up your training pants and accept the fact that in America, everyone doesn’t have to agree with you.  Try actually making an intelligent argument against them rather than killing rational discourse with cries of racism.

Why People Should Stop Cheering for Jeremiah Wright

Where do you begin with Barack Obama’s mentor Jeremiah Wright?  It’s impossibleto resist commenting on this guy, while he soaks up his fifteen minutes.  He’s appeared at an NAACP event, at a press interview, and on PBS with Bill Moyers.

How about we start withhis statements that white kids and black kids learn with “different sides of their brains,” and hear music in “different beats” in their heads.  Yes, apparently whether your ancestry is African or European determines which side of your brain you use to learn, and whether you count the second and fourth beat in 4/4 timing or the first and third.  Apparently we should have separate teachers and classes depending on the amount of melanin in a student’s skin.

Since I’m absolutely positive that “Reverend” Wright is interested in scientific study into this matter, perhaps he should be made aware that there are several very distinct groups of people with African ancestry, including Bantu, the Khoisan, the Pygmies, the “whites” in Northern Africa, and those of Madagascar with an Indonesian background.  Africa has by far the largest genetic diversity of people on the planet.  You can’t simply group all Africans together, and you fall headlong into absurdity when you claim that all of these people share a trait like “left or right brain learning.”

Similarly, stating that all white European Americans share the trait of learning with a particular side of their brain is just as foolish.  “Reverend” Wright is making the puerile error of assuming that skin color constitutes what it means to be a “people.”  He seems to have forgotten the fact that more genetic diversity exist within the groups he’s talking about than between them.  Perhaps the “side” of the brain he uses is prone to ignorant stereotyping.

“Reverend” Wright should also be told that he sounds exactly like every white supremacist that I’ve heard, sitting here in prison.  They all say the same things, that blacks learn differently, hear music differently, and that somehow these traits are dependent upon their ancestry.  Instead of “Reverend” Wright’s words, however, they say something like “Blacks don’t do well in schools made for whites, and blacks like jungle music.”  Perhaps someone could explain to me the finer points – how exactly is this different from what “Reverend” Wright said?

Regardless, is this how he proposes to address the issue of race in this country?  By making sweeping racial stereotypes and mocking the way people talk?  Does he honestly think that such idiotic blanket statements can be applied to people like that?

He made sure to repeatedly point out that “we’re different, not deficient.”  The way I see it, we’re only “different” because of cheap demagogues like “Reverend” Wright who use victim-politics and race-baiting to get people to clap for him.  Rather than try to divide people, why can’t this guy use his status and fifteen minutes to talk aboutt how we’re all human beings with the same rights, the same mental capacity, the same abilities, and the same opportunities?  Why can’t he say that what continent is in front of “American” when someone describes you is completely immaterial to the kind of person you are?

Barack Obama and Birds of a Feather II

“Imagine if someone took the five stupidest things you’ve ever said, and played them nonstop, as if those five things represented the totality of your worldview.”

That’s presidential candidate Barack Obama, once again defending his pastor Jeremiah Wright by making equivocations.  Showing his courage and desire to answer tough, serious questions, Senator Obama appeared on The Viewand replied in that manner to the controversy over Jeremiah Wright’s statements.  For all the people out there who seem to have forgotten, these statements include: The government engineered HIV to kill black people, the government ships crack cocaine to the streets to imprison black people, America’s chickens are coming home to roost (concerning who’s to blame for 9/11), God dam America, and the U.S. of KKK.

And yet Obama continues to defend this guy.  He continues to make excuses for him.  He continues to ask that we look at all the nice things Reverend Wright has said, all the peaceful loving messages from Jesus.  Am I the only one who’s incredulous about this?  I want to know why millions of Obama supporters aren’t out there dropping this guy in droves.  Can we get some accountability here?  Are Americans so bedazzled by his charisma that they can’t see anything deeper than his smile and his rhetoric?

Senator Obama is acting as if Wright is being taken out of context, as if these types of statements are anomalies.  Maybe the guy was just angry that day, right?  This is garbage.  Wright has been saying things like that for years.  Those sermons were on the church’s website, as representative of what you will get if you listen to Wright.  How do you take comments like that out of context?  How do you justify listening to sermons like that for most of your adult life, and daring to say that he “also said many nice things”?

Jerry Falwell also said many nice things, and helped many people, so would Senator Obama and his legions of followers be willing to forgive Republican presidential nominee who consider Falwell a “mentor”?  Would they not beat that horse repeatedly and demand that the Republican answer for the hateful, ludicrous things Falwell has said?

Let’s be even more specific.  Suppose it came out that John McCain had attended a church in which the white pastor made statements analogous to Wright’s, such as: “Black people are the reason there’s so much crime in America.  Blacks are an inferior race who are prone to smoking crack and joining gangs.  Blacks are to blame for the genocide in Darfur because civilized white people don’t do those types of things.  The United States sacrificed thousands of good white people to end slavery, and the blacks are still complaining and whining.”

How loud would the rightful uproar be?  And suppose Senator McCain defended this pastor by saying, “Those are just a few stupid things he’s said.  Listen to his peaceful loving sermons.  He’s really a great guy who taught me about Jesus.”  All of us would be out there in the streets demanding that he resign from the race.  His professional career would justifiably be over, and everyone knows it.

So where is the uproar concerning Wright?  All I see is more fawning over Senator Obama, even in the news media.  So what if he made a good speech about race in this country?  Are Americans really going to continue supporting a guy who makes excuses for a man like Jeremiah Wright?  This is untenable.  This is absolutely and stunningly absurd.

Hey, guess what, Senator Obama?  We don’t care that your pastor also said many good things.  There are plenty of pastors out there who say good things, and they manage it without the hateful filth and lies.  Why didn’t you pick one of them to be your mentor?