The Color of Color

I never cease to be amazed at what's in the recesses of people walking and talking our streets attired as if they were civilized, until they let slip the sheer, blind tribalism they've brought with them from their caves.

Saturday I attended a party in honor of a friend of a friend at which there were many former Americans abroad, specifically, folks whose aging parents had toiled defending the indefensible in Latin America, in this particular case, Ecuador. Suddenly a woman who became aware of the predominant group in attendance chimed, "I didn't realize there were that many white people in Ecuador."

There was no mistaking the meaning. She meant "white" as in White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, among whose trash she had obviously been reared. Her defense was that her surname, obviously through marriage, was "Ruhmeerezz."

White? "European," one peace-at-any-pricer offered.

Last I checked, however, Spain was in the European Union. Indeed, they went to Ecuador 500 years ago from Europe, long before the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock. Indeed, many descendants of Spaniards in the U.S. West and Southwest think, with some historical evidence on their side, that it's really the Anglos who are the illegal immigrants there.

Part of the problem is a subtle change in the way even the most educated and liberal people speak of ethnicity in this allegedly "post-racial" era. I keep hearing at seminars and symposia the phrase "of color," applied to African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, etc. It's the new easy shorthand.

But, folks, white is a color. It's not a color of skin, however. Ever tried to draw white people with crayons as a kid? There used to be a color specifically for that (don't know if there still is) and it was not white.

That's because the people called "white" aren't really white. They come in skins that range from a sickly to mottled pink, to a tan that can be indistinguishable from some of the lighter folks of other "races," to a quite brownish brown.

Indeed, the people who think they are "white" today, weren't always considered "white," as one of my favorite and scholarly blogs notes in the recent post Before I Was White.

The Zone

It's often the small things that make a difference.

Giggling through an otherwise boring transaction in which the bank staff just can't spell your name (three times). Gliding through traffic after a satisfying workday. Finding the perfect parking spot even thought it's 8pm. You feel you have the karma and nothing can touch you.

Sure, having karma is itself a contradiction in terms. Karma just is, like grace. No one owns it.

Like The Zone. Capitalized. Mysterious. Undefinable. Without clear borders. It's a strangely satisfying state of mind that comes from nothing (no drugs, sex or rock and roll), probably doesn't last too long, but what a high when it's there!

Mosque in NYC: Bushit Still Distorts 9/11

News that a mosque is planned to be built about two and a half blocks from Ground Zero in New York City have fanned the flames of the worst kind of intolerance and misinformation lingering from eight years of Bush propaganda. Even a usually sensible blogger cries foul, arguing that the plan "seems like tasteless nose thumbing at Americans and at worst, an attempt to replace our native cultures."

Lest you be confused, this not an Indian woman writing about "our native cultures." No, this is someone taking the easiest phrase out of the 2001-2008 ersatz thinking manual. Rule 1: when in doubt, trot out nativism. The same nativism used against every immigrant group since the Irish potato famine.

Oversight? Absolutely not. I tried to call the blogger to her senses (see comments here), but she continued to argue insane notions such as "The devastation of 9-11 was not committed in the name of Jesus or Yahweh, but to praise Allah."

That's right, fellow non-Muslims. Let's tar a billion and a half Muslims in the world because of the alleged actions of 18. Let's forbid the building of a mosque just to show them. Right? Wrong!

So little is really known about 9/11 and so much nonsense was justified in the name of that event, that most people forget that

• we never had actual evidence proven in court about who and what brought these events about, nor much less why, having instead to rely on the word of the men who stole the election of 2000; 
• there is no "war" on, since a war is a state of belligerency between two nation-states -- those who would like to try every Muslim in a military tribunal ought to ask the same for the Mafia, the KKK, the white-power militias associated with the likes of Timothy McVeigh, since they are equally as criminal and at war with American society and ideals as Al Qaeda; and
• we do have freedom to believe in anything or nothing at all in this country (and I, for one, would like very much to keep it that way).

In the particular case of the mosque in question, it is planned to be erected two and a half blocks away from Ground Zero. There is a Greek Orthodox church and other places of worship in the vicinity. The leader behind this project is a respected advocate of inter-religious tolerance highly praised and respected by a leading New York rabbi.

If we are going to decide that all mosques and Muslims are responsible for the crimes of 9/11, then

• Are all U.S. whites responsible for 300 years of kidnapping, torture and slavery of millions of African Americans?
• Do all Jews and all synagogues stand accused for the Israeli armed forces attacks on civilians during the Sabra-Shatila massacre of the 1980s, or the flattening of Qana just a few years ago or the humanitarian disaster of Gaza that still continues today?
• Is the rape of children by a relatively small proportion of priests irrevocably the fault of all Catholics, including the children, and all Catholic churches?

I could go on, but the intelligent reader will have gotten the point. Even if all 18 suicide attackers on board of the four airplanes that crashed on September 11, 2001, died with praises of Allah on their lips or their minds (which we don't know for a fact), it is hardly reasonable or logical to blame these actions on their religion and all fellow believers.

Let's stop the shouting and start reasoning together.

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