Mini-RANT || The War on Christmas

Every time I think about the so-called War on Christmas here in the USA, I cannot help thinking about Christmas, the stripper I ‘met’ at a bachelor party a while back. Like many strippers she was quite beautiful. However it was her honesty that really pulled me in, by the cheap tie I was wearing; she told me I was handsome, and that none of the money she was making was going toward college tuition.

Im just putting this here for a place holder.

While I am not an expert in strippers, Christmas’ most valuable asset was in fact her assets. As many of us reflected later (probably not as eloquently) Christmas was probably the reason that the word callipygian came into being. You may be asking yourself what does the War on Christmas, (the media war, not the actual pin the donkey on the tail variant we all played with Christmas later) have to do with Strippers?

I was faced a similar conundrum during the bachelor party when I tried to figure out if Christmas was in fact,wearing a thong as Shawty proceeded to “get low low low low low low low low”. Suffice it to say that there is as much of a war on Christmas, as there was any visible bits of her thong during her rhythmic interpretation of Flo Rida‘s chart topping song: Apple Bottom Jeans.  For those of you who do not get subtlety, wedging three strings of floss between two Christmas hams egregiously sandwiched together is an insult to the concept of separation.

The War on Christmas is just another jingoistic invective couched in the lobotomised images of a holiday celebrating commercial excesses of capitalism. You know how I know, well George Washington attacked Hessian (German) mercenaries on the day after Christmas during the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776.

We have gotten it wrong all these years, we should wage War on Christmas. We should take George Washington’s example and attack our future enemies. Luckily according to mass media we should attack: Muslim, Sikhs, country’s where everyone’s skin tone is consistently darker than Rashida Jones. We do not need to attack the Chinese, it seems their government is doing too good a job of exterminating innocents.

In the Treaty of Tripoli signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers on January 3, 1797 states:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Mohammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

While there are people who will waste time arguing about separation of church and state, I will tell you that there is no war on Christmas. There are just some people who feel uncomfortable with diversity. If parents do not want their kids praying and their elected officials pass laws stopping prayer in public school, that’s just democracy in action not an attack on Christian Morals.

We took the Christ out long time ago. America has no moral fibre; look at the ever-growing poverty in the country, our toppling democratic governments, spying on our neighbours, native American genocide, slavery, how we let corporation exert such strong influence over our democracy, the gradual erosion of civil liberties, all the attention we paid to Miley Cyrus in 2013, our turning a blind eye to the Iraqi use of chemical weapons on the Iranians, the death grip the CIA had during the Cold War on Latin America – should I go on?

Christmas is a pawn in another chess game.  It is a symbol, like the Golden Arches, we’ve been conditioned to love. In and of itself, Christmas has no real meaning. I side with Jean Baudrillard on this one Christmas. The Jolly Old St Nick, the Henry Ford inspired Industrial factory at the North Pole (elves have no insurance or worker’s comp) all of these are symbols that are not based in reality, in fact if you follow Baudrillard, these symbols are instrumental in hiding the reality of our times from us. “… our lives are so saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning is being rendered meaningless by being infinitely mutable. “

There will always be on Christmas for me that is neither a symbol or a but a cold hard fact.

Some thoughts about some of my posts on race relations in America

“America is the original version of modernity. We are the dubbed or subtitled version. America ducks the question of origins; it cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth. Having known no primitive accumulation of time, it lives in a perpetual present.”

― Jean Baudrillard, America

Lately I have been writing a lot about race relations and sharing with you all what things look like from my perspective. I just want to say that I harbour no ill will towards any race gender, etc. We are all a part of some wonderful mosaic that we cannot perceive clearly perhaps because of the distance we are are to it. What I want or endeavour to do, is to put everything on the table like you do on the fourth date just lay down/smack it down right there next to the syrup tray at IHOP. In writing and sharing what I do, I don’t want to make anyone feel bad. I have been on this blog calling myself the greatest patriot of my generation because I accept America and American society for what it is. I accept our history and our current state in the world. I also pay a lot of attention to what’s going on so I don’t get caught up in things which aren’t going to push me forward in life. So I thought I would share some observations with you about a difficult topic, black and white people and how they get along or don’t get along.

Observation

In every major city I have been in in the continental united states there are designated places where black and white people  live. The only time we live in the same neighbourhood is when its being gentrified and  and the minorities are being kicked out to turn their own shitty apartments into luxury condos. Which is ironic because  many of the neighbourhood where we live were abandon by white during a mass migration to the suburbs when there was a money surplus

I did not interact much with White People until I went to prep school, and for many of my fellow classmate they did not interact much with any black people at all and probably still don’t outside from DMV workers, cashiers, contact with security guards. When we got familiar with each other  and cool what would always happen was that we would ask each other questions:

What is the hood? Why do they always say this and that in the rap song? Why do you play “We’re not gonna take it so much?” What’s up with white people walking in the city without shoes and sitting on the floor? I didnt understand fight club, what are you so angry about ? Why do black girls tie there hair ? Why are birkenstocks so popular ? Do you really hate white people? Do you really eat cheese sandwiches all day? Why is it bad when we say the N word? What does this slang word mean ? How comes sometimes you speak slang  and other times you speak really differently?  If your grandmother was mulatto who could be mistaken for white, why are you dark ? Do the police really bother you that much? Why are there so many white serial killers ?

We are strangers to each other when you look at it. For many of us we just have past history and current transgressions to go on and that is not promising, there is too much pain there to be honest. Since I read a lot and educate myself a lot on history, all sorts of science there are some conclusions I have come too about black and white interactions that I express here through humour. Humour because a) it makes what I say more palatable and b) I don’t want to get shot or watched more by government for saying what I am saying.

Let me give you some examples of humour that makes a statement

#1

Scenario: Imagine for a moment every time you say a person from your own race on TV and they were depicted as violent, ignorant, criminal. There were no hero that looked like you, at best you could be a subservient side kicked who because of street smarts and a hard fucked up life could help the main character navigate through places he couldn’t you may notice that something is up. Every culture every ethnic group has their own language which encapsulate their own unique way of seeing things. But the language you use isn’t your own language. Every culture has a its own myth that help form a bond through time between the generations, you dont have any myths, you don’t even know where you come from literally? Add to it that when you go outside the police always question you, look through your stuff, some people call you nigger, or throw change at you, or some women say things like  I couldn’t bring you home to my parents so we have to meet in secret, or I am not attracted to (insert adj here) people, you start to notice that shit got real.

Joke: ON SNL Jamie Foxx talked about Django unchained and how it was so cool to shoot white people. I’m paraphrasing but there was immediate negative response. The idea was that if a white person had talked about shoot black people in a movie and how cool it was  they would be fired.

The Reality: Trayvon Martin or episodes of police brutality.

While we operate under the idea that we are all equal legally in America, it’s not always true. and Socially that never happens. A black man in America does not stand on equal ground with a white man in many ways. That’s just how it is.

I couldn’t imagine a black neighbourhood watch guy chase down and shoot a white kid  armed with skittles and for it to go down how it did. The joke was an important joke that needed to be said. Ive never seen a mainstream  blockbuster movie with a black hero, let alone a black slave The following movie doesn’t count.

Actually if you look at it less than a100 years ago lynching were legal and cool to the point that the whole town was invite and photographs of the deceased were turned into post cards and mailed to friends. The general consensus most Americans would say was that: That was a hundred years get over it ! but that statement doesn’t really deal with or address the complexity of the situation. What matters now is the present because it absolves any sense of responsibility for the past and how the past continues in strange ways today. The point of the joke to me is that we are not on equal grounds. I do not know any black people that wants to kill random white people, but the past weighs heavy in our relationships.

I will defer you  to Louis C.K

 

You may be surprised to know that before I post many things I have people look at it and ask if it is ok – will it rustle to many jimmies? etc. It is not my want to make some people feel bad. I just want to share with you my perspective. I’m just putting it down on the table, showing you what I am working with, with a little bit of humor, because at the end of the day we are all human beings and I think to really make a change in things, in life, you have to be willing to talk and listen and share. I write each post from the ambiance of friendship as dorky as that sounds.

Ok that’s it

Dave