I'll Have the Racism With Nuts, Please

I have a friend with whom I have the most interesting conversations. We have a good deal in common and have spent many hours discussing everything from politics to religion to food to women to the stupid things we did while growing up, and although we often play devil’s advocate to each other, we are always civil and able to agree to disagree.

My friend is a black man who grew up in South Carolina; I spent half my youth in a lily-white Illinois farming community and the other half in a suburb of Detroit. We both have degrees and we are also both veterans. One of our favorite subjects is racism, and with America on the cusp of an historic presidential election, it’s never too far on the back burner to be easily moved front and center, no matter where the conversation starts. So you know, my friend is a republican, and in spite of his proud nature, he is not professing fealty to Obama. I believe he will make a choice based on rational thinking and not blind racial allegiance. As I’ve stated before, I always listen to all candidates, then vote for the one I’m most comfortable with when they lie to me. So, now that I’ve told you that, let me tell you this:

We were talking the other day, and my friend told me that he’s very keen to find “hidden” racism in everyday situations. I wanted to know how, given the virtual castration of political correctness, such a thing was possible. “It’s everywhere”, he said. I wanted a specific example. He cited Blue Bell ice cream, a very popular brand in the southern American states. “How”, I asked, “do they purvey discreet racism?” He said they have a package that contains both chocolate and vanilla flavors in one carton. The chocolate, he said, is divided right down the middle, separate from the vanilla. “Yeah”, I said. “So?” He said it’s not two flavors swirled together. It’s black on one side, and white on the other. I had a hard time suppressing a giggle here, but he went on to say that the company slogan was “Tastes like the good old days”, which meant that the presentation of the two flavors in the package was a subtle reminder of how wonderful America was when we had separate drinking fountains. I laughed out loud at this point, convinced that he was pulling my leg. We both eventually agreed that there really are people who would believe such nonsense, although I don’t believe that he totally discounts it. I shouldn’t be too hard on him, though. If I’m not mistaken, it was a white person who claimed the Virgin Mary appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich (that she sold ten years later for $28000 on Ebay).

I asked my buddy a few minutes later if he had been keeping up on a developing story here in Florida that involves a young woman currently in jail on suspicion of having something to do with the disappearance of her 6 month old baby girl. (I won’t go into details; you can read about it here.) We were looking at an internet article on the story which featured a large picture of the missing child. The missing white child. My friend opined that the story wouldn’t be getting the coverage it is if the missing child was black. I disagreed. In fact, through a grisly coincidence, I pointed out the case of the woman in Pennsylvania who was arrested last week for killing an 18 year old pregnant girl, cutting her unborn infant from her womb and taking it to a hospital, claiming it was hers. (Read details here) Both victim and perpetrator in that case were black.

My point should be obvious: horrific crimes get the attention they get because they’re horrific, not so the media can portray thugs or rednecks in a bad light. Whether you’re from the hood or from the trailer park, you are just as apt to commit an atrocity. No rational person wants to see an infant, any infant disappear. To hear of their slaughter is an anathema. If ever there was an innocent victim, it is the child caught in a maelstrom of adult emotion.

Do black people have a history of mistreatment? Of course they do, but so does everybody else. Name one race throughout history that hasn’t subjugated others (as well as itself) and I’ll kiss your ass. We’ve been hurting each other since time began, and until we learn to get along, we’ll keep on doing it. Bad people come in all colors, and they all leave the same red stain.

OK, that’s enough for now. Watch for an upcoming essay on news bias and religious intolerance. And with that, I think I’m going to have a treat: A bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup sounds like just the ticket. I don’t care about the presentation. Call me crazy, but food is for your mouth, not your eyes. And by the way, my dad makes the best ice cream in the world. So there.

Devil May Care

Regular readers of this blog know that I often use this space to rail against the evil television. It can suck your life away, lulling you to the point where mindless drivel can seem like compelling entertainment. Like a drug, it is insidious in its ability to make something stupid seem fun; it’s a little devil on your shoulder telling you that Brett Michaels’ love life really IS interesting. As you may have guessed from the title of this essay, I use the “devil on the shoulder” analogy for good reason: The Prince of Darkness was on my television this past weekend. And I liked it.

I love horror movies, even bad ones, although I do all I can to avoid the tripe that passes for horror on the Sci-Fi channel. “Mansquito?” Flying half-man, half bug? Give me a break. No, the Sci-Fi channel isn’t very good…until they have their holiday “Twilight Zone” marathon. Then it’s good. I got sucked into it for a couple hours this weekend, waiting for the best episode of the series. “The Howling Man” (written by Charles Beaumont) is about a traveler who unwittingly unleashes Satan into the world. Lost in a storm, the traveler arrives at a monastery of sorts, populated by terse and less than friendly monks of an obscure order. They deny him shelter, and he collapses, earning a dry spot in spite of the monks’ inhospitable demeanor. Upon awakening, he hears a mournful howling and happens upon a haggard man in a cell who tells the traveler that he has been imprisoned unjustly for kissing a girl that the monk was sweet on. (I’m not making this up.) The traveler goes to the head monk (John Carradine) and demands to know why men of God have a prisoner that they’re trying hard to ignore. The monk tells the traveler that it is no man in the cell, but Satan himself, father of all lies. And that, of course, is the rub. Who’s lying, the crazy guy with beard in the cell or the crazy guy with the beard and the staff? The traveler listens to both arguments and sides with the prisoner. Now, the only thing barring the door to the cell is a “staff of truth,” not much more than a broomstick. There’s a window in the cell door that allows the prisoner to get an arm out. He could easily reach out the window, lift the bar and walk out, but he doesn’t. The traveler asks him why he doesn’t, and the prisoner utterly ignores the question, imploring the traveler to remove the bar…which he does. And, you guessed it, once freed the prisoner transforms into the classic Beelzebul, complete with goatee and horns. Before the traveler passes out (after being “zapped” by Satan), he realizes that he has been fooled. In an epilogue of sorts, we see the traveler years later, and he himself has captured the devil, after a couple wars and nuclear weapons proliferation, all consequences of his foolishness years earlier. He is explaining to a maid that he has the devil trapped in a closet and that she must not open the door (also barred by a “staff of truth” not much bigger than a pencil) while he is out. Does she let him out? Of course she does, and it starts all over again. Great stuff, huh?

My fascination with things macabre aside, I think what I like most about this story is the ease with which our hero is fooled. The concept of an evil presence is hard enough to swallow, but evil incarnate? Why, that’s just nonsense. Isn’t it? I once heard a priest say “The devil’s greatest trick is to make you think he doesn’t exist.” Now, I’m no logician, but there’s really no way to win an argument with that kind of reasoning. It’s akin to “everything I say is a lie.” In the words of the immortal William Dozier, “it’s a confounding conundrum!” It is the perfect story.

I’m digressing. I got to wondering why the devil would want to make you think he doesn’t exist. The obvious answer would be so that he could go about his malevolent business undetected, but what good is that? If he doesn’t get to laugh maniacally at the mortals he has corrupted and enslaved, why bother? By all biblical accounts (and there aren’t many), Satan just doesn’t figure in the big picture. In fact, he is mentioned only a few times in the old testament as Satan (a being), and should not be confused with Lucifer, a different entity altogether. In fact, it wasn’t until around the second or third century that he came to be considered by Christians as the antichrist. In spite of his popularity (?) today, he wasn’t a very big deal in the beginning. No wonder he’s so pissed off. But you know, the whole good versus evil thing just doesn’t work without him, and, much like God, we have created him in our image to explain away our responsibilities for acting like…God’s creatures. He is all of the things that are the worst in men and he bears the blame for all men’s sin. Research the etymology of the word “scapegoat”, and you’ll find one of his names. Nobody likes to have their name forgotten, and I’m sure the devil, full of pride, wants to be remembered.

I love the concept of Satan. I hope he lives on for centuries in films and stories. May we continue to keep him alive in our imaginations and invoke him to scare the shit out of children and the gullible. He frightens us for good reason: we can see ourselves in him. No matter how much we vilify him, we need him. In fact, I believe that he takes a great deal of delight in our aspirations of divinity. I offer this quote from Mark Twain: “But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?”

By thinking that we are above or different than he, by claiming a “golden rule” mindset but not living it, we prove ourselves to be that which we profess to hate. Rock on, Evil One.