April 2, 2008

The Color Stupid

awalkerspits.jpgMy ongoing problem with Alice Walker is not her crappy writing, -- that's easy enough to avoid -- but her crappy thinking. That's not so easy to avoid since, with the rise of the Internet, Idiocracy is everywhere. Indeed, with the rise of the Obamatron, Idiocracy is the new governing principle of the Democratic Party -- and it couldn't happen to more deserving folks.

But along with the fun this brings to the connoisseur of Idiocracy, it also brings pain. One of the constant irritations of the Obama candidacy is the endless stream of the half-talented and the race-hustlers scrambling for a place in the envisioned Obamastration, or at least a hot weekend in the Lincoln bedroom and a ride on the plane.

In their thirst for future favor, ranking members of the Idiocracy such as Walker are now commonly given space in the walking corpses of newspapers. This would be fine except for the fact that although newspapers are dead, the Internet insists on keeping them alive. In my perfect world the rule would be: "If you can toss your crap on my front porch, you can't toss it off on the Internet. I mean, fair's fair."

But the Internet, like life, is not fair. Dead newspapers still insist on putting their idiots online where, like the hidden turds in a bank of stained February snow, they melt out with Spring.

I try to step around these little gifts strewn on my path through the Internet. But every so often, there is a shit sculpture so exceptional that no matter where you go, no matter how you try to avoid it, you still step in it. You step in it because it is so stunningly stupid it is linked everywhere. And then, because it sticks to your mouse, you drag it back to your home page. Sorry about that.

Case in point -- the recent squeezing of that Novelist Laureate of Loonies, Alice Walker.

Let's review. Walker is a writer who last wrote something notable in, what, 1982? This of course does not stop her from publishing drivel 25 years later. She's one of the go-to babblers that crap up whenever some bong-baked newspaper editor needs something to drop into the hole between the toilet paper ads and the cookie coupons. And Walker's droppings do not disappoint.

The title alone lets you know your are on the cusp of some vintage babbling: Alice Walker: Obama is the change that America has tried to hide

Now, I don't know about you, but Barack Obama is not exactly Ralph Ellison's "The Invisible Man" of 1948 in the America of 2008. This plain fact is evidently lost on Walker who has been so long in the crazy race place that she actually believes she still has something sane to say.

True to my inner goddess of the three directions, however, this does not mean I agree with everything Obama stands for. We differ on important points, probably because I am older; I am a woman and person of three colours (African, Native American, European); I was raised in the south; and, when I look at the world after 64 years of life, there is not one person I wish to see suffer.

Sigh. It is hard to imagine a more puerile collection of sentences.

"My inner goddess of the three directions?" -- What can a person do when confronted by such an image other that to gape in disbelief as it sets the cause of Gyno-Americans back to the stone age.

"I am... a person of three colors (African, Native American, European)." It was once the case where one could be said to be waving the bloody shirt, now what is done is to wrap yourself in the rainbow flag.

"When I look at the world after 64 years of life, there is not one person I wish to see suffer." Well, Alice, if you truly believe that, please stop writing. You will save millions.

Walker's litany of "qualifications to speak" ( Female, old, tri-colored -- a three-fer in political correctness) is only a preamble for Walker's wish list. I've numbered the items for quick scanning since in a block they numb the mind past all feeling.

1 I want a grown-up attitude to Cuba, for instance, a country and people I love.

Let me get this straight, Alice, Cuba is the one country on Earth that comes first in your heart? O.....kay, next...

2 I want an end to the war immediately, and

People in the desert want ice-water, Alice, that doesn't mean they get it... especially "immediately," but please, please, hold your breath and stamp you little foot.

3 I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and drive themselves out of Iraq.

So, the policy in AliceWalkerLand is to trash the guns and get in the Humvee and drive blissfully to the Kuwait border? Or is it to just send small notes asking them to do so? Alice, it is gratifying for me to know that your lobotomy was a success. I'm looking forward to your coming service as Obama's National Security Advisor. Remember, it is a stepping stone to Secretary of State.

4 I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and

Well, Alice, I want the Israeli government to quite playing patty-cake with the Palestinians, but that doesn't mean either of us are going to get our wish, does it?

5 I want the people of the US to cease acting as if they don't understand what is going on.

Alice, I assure you that the "people of the US" fully understand "what is going on" even as you bend over backwards and front-wards for the terrorists of the world. You really have to stop being so bendable.

6 But most of all I want someone with the confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend", and

Dear Ms. Walker, while "the talking cure" may have worked for you, it does not follow that totalitarian regimes are candidates for psychotherapy.

7 this Obama has shown he can do.

I'm sorry, Ms. Walker, but I seem to have missed the reports and videos of Barack Obama sitting down with world leaders and hammering out the hard global issues of our time. Please show me where they can be found.

But enough of these slabs of pap, Ms. Walker. Let's get on to your real reason for loving Obama and feeling he's fit to serve -- he's black. That's really the only qualification he has and it trumps all others. It especially trumps Hillary Clinton who is, according to you, a racist simply because of her birth.

It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man". One would think she is just any woman, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in the US in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to try to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.

So, Ms. Walker, at the end of the day you hold that Clinton is not a viable candidate for President because she cannot be "innocent of her racial inheritance?"

I hold no brief for Ms. Clinton, Alice, but can you please explain to me why your statement is not one of the most racist remarks to date in this doleful and deeply racist campaign? If any so-called Americans are busy polarizing this country around the concept of race, it would seem to me to be the people of color such as yourself. So please tell me why you are 'innocent of your racial inheritance?"

Or is it the case that since you are "a person of three colors (African, Native American, European)" you only carry only 'one-third of all the history of black womanhood in the US in your person?' Can you please ask your

"inner goddess of the three directions?"
and see if she has anything to say?

I'm seeking to understand the neural circuits that give rise to your perception of reality. All this blather about how Obama is not about race except when he is about race is just not making it with me.

If you can explain this, please put it in an email to vanderleun@gmail.com. That way you will avoid polluting the Internet even further.

Posted by Vanderleun at April 2, 2008 7:53 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

America has showered every treasure on Alice Walker - fame, riches, opportunity without ceiling - and she spits on America at every turn.

I came across a note in Eric Hoffer's 1970s diary the other day to the effect that the intellectual/teacher class pines for the middle ages when rigid heirarchies held sway, where their authority was recognized and revered. As opposed to a modern-day, bare-knuckled America which gets along just fine without intellectuals of Walker's ilk. Writers/intellectual/teachers must be driven to madness in contemporary America - a society, for better or worse, that barely notices them...

Posted by: Das at April 2, 2008 12:00 PM

Excellent observation. I'm updating the illustration accordingly.

Posted by: vanderleun at April 2, 2008 2:34 PM

No doubt the Neapolitan Ms. Walker would be gratified if Hillary took her advice and started referring to herself as a "white woman."

Then again, maybe not.

Posted by: neoneocon at April 2, 2008 2:53 PM

But enough of these slabs of pap, Ms. Walker.

Above clarity with the written word, I have to admire grace. Slabs of pap. Great metaphor.

I can almost hear the sickening lazy slapping sound as one weighty lardish slab is plunked down on the other.

Posted by: Morgan K Freeberg at April 2, 2008 3:08 PM

Sorry, folks, but none of your comments have legitimacy because you're all Whites and Jews!

I will now go flagellate myself with a rolled up Stars & Bars in a futile attempt to expiate my own inherited guilt.

Posted by: Roderick Reilly at April 2, 2008 3:21 PM

Well done, VDL. Your writing today is the equal of the RDH 'Pieta of Poverty' from yesterday. Keyboards everywhere are taking a beating this week.

Posted by: dr kill at April 2, 2008 6:16 PM

There is way too much sound and fury here.


Posted by: montag at April 3, 2008 2:49 AM

One can assume Ms Walker never read Animal Farm...

Posted by: Pappy at April 3, 2008 6:48 AM

I'm seeking to understand the neural circuits that give rise to your perception of reality.

It's still more of a description, but Alice made me think of the "Perfectly Bigoted Solopsist".

More importantly, that was sure a great take down and apart, Mr. Vanderleun. It was a dirty job done beautifully.

Posted by: J. Peden at April 3, 2008 7:24 PM