Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

you know, when I first started riding the Internet, I would occasionally mouth off about something that I knew little about. After getting caught out on that behavior, I stopped mouthing off so much.

I dropped by bgp’s blog and saw a post castigating black men or, at least, one black man of suggesting that black women are ’soiled’ which is why they end up loving apparently ‘pristine’ white women:

“Sigh, if only black women (aka women of color) weren’t so used and cheap and passed around, we wouldn’t be attracted to white women.”

This kind of shit pisses me off. I have a reputation at LBO, some folks think it’s a bad one, for wanting to actually, you know, read what the hell it is I’m criticizing. And as I observed bloglandians run around refusing to actually read stuff most of the time, I was appalled — especially because most of these people considered themselves writers or, at least, wanted to be read. They wanted to be recognized: they wanted people to consider what they wrote, and I’m assuming they wanted that consideration done in the best light possible.

And yet, so many people don’t bother to give other writers the decency of actually, you know, reading what the fuck it is they said before making a snap judgment!

And then, someone in comments has the nerve to get all elitist snob ass on this guy and say some shit about how the poor guy is, you know, not that good. Sound familiar? Instead of reading the fucker, just put a label on him, call him or insinuate that he’s a shit writer, with tired ideas: boring, stupid, lacking talent, and too fucking lazy to get attention with his skills and more interested in causing internet sensations to get attention!

Sound familiar? Yet?

I mean, how the HELL is this different than what went on in bloglandia every fucking time some asshole decided that critics were lousy writers, who had tired old ideas, and said nothing of importance?

In comments, Kai wrote:

I get the (first) impression that the author intends these word choices to jar and shock. That’s how banal writers sell books; come up with “controversial” and “provocative” soundbites (usually putting a “fresh edgy spin” on tired memes and problematic formulations), hopefully piss off some people enough to stir up media chatter and get on the air to wave the book around in front of a TV camera.

I have not read the whole book. But I bothered to go over to his web site and read what was there.

Here’s a clue: Do you think the guy would quote Nikki Giovanni calling white women out on Emmett Till, asking them in public, “how does it feel to have this done in your name?” (paraphrase) if he was a complete and utter asshole trying to “drag women of color through your cheap ass bullshit justifications.”?

He may be a complete and utter asshole for many other reasons (I suspect there’s a lot of problematic black nationalism that he hasn’t unmoored from its strong sexism, though he seems to be trying). However, I doubt it’s because he’s trying to drag women of color down in the way being described here. This is the conclusion of his first chapter.

The history and circumstance that has soiled the Black woman’s image has continued to direct the Black man’s mind away from that desperate sight toward that which he has longed to be recognized by. His goal is to be loved and accepted by those who he was designed to worship in order for his dignity to triumph. He sees himself as a historic failure - failing to provide for his family, protect his woman, and secure a livelihood. Additionally, he finds it difficult to connect with the Black woman outside of sensation because she serves as a symbol of his systemic failure. By giving birth to him in bondage she represented the synthesis for his circumstance. The precious gift of life which was once cherished had now become a curse. Her womb was a graveyard as life became death. As a result he will chase the white woman to the ends of the earth and will stop only when he catches his mind.

Seriously? There’s a lot of stuff in there that bothers me, stuff for which I seriously doubt there is any evidentiary basis, but this guy wouldn’t be saying that black men will stop chasing white women when they ‘catch their minds’ if he was engaged in trying to drag black women through his bullshit justifications — trying to explain away and justify as somehow inevitable that black men will naturally want white women.

Seriously? Because I think he’s saying there that, basically, black men in the U.S. are in the grip of a systemically-induced form of “loosing their minds’. Because, looks to me like he might be, you know, criticizing that behavior. And reading the chapter, it looks like he’s engaged in, you know, a structural freakin’ analysis of racism and sexism!

He’s justifying sleeping with white women, because he writes this?

So if the highest of intellect find it hard to control themselves, then there was no wiggle room for the semi-literate tart to tighten her tongue. Not realizing I was Black she (after the most intellectually barbaric discussion I have ever had with a human being) concluded that she “expected nothing more from the Black jurors because it doesn’t get any dumber than Black women.” This high school drop out and fellatio aficionado still had the pride and self-respect to believe that she was better and smarter than her Black counterpart. Needless to say, I left it alone because this chick could not stimulate me with a lap dance let alone her intellect.

Do you feel better now that you’ve dragged him through your bullshit? Fuck me dead people. You are all much smarter than this. You want and deserve to be read and taken seriously. And you want and deserve to be given a reading in the best light possible.

Can’t you fucking do the same to other people?