Let's approach this diagonally:
I know very little about the history and traditions of Diwali. If I wanted to learn more, I'd be highly skeptical of an account written by an English noblewoman in colonial India, particularly if she used the phrase "hindoo savages" several times in the text.
Similarly, a piece by a Westernized, Christianized, self-described "person of Indian descent" who lives outside the subcontinent and is relentlessly critical of the Bharatiya Janata Party may not be an unbiased source either.
The paragraph you are currently reading draws comparisons between the previous examples and people like John McWhorter and Shelby Steele, along with white conservatives who comment extensively on the failings of the Black community. The logic is flawed, the examples specious, and there is a great deal of unnecesary profanity.
. . .it shows when I start getting bored, doesn't it?
So, at the National Review, Roger Clegg helpfully points out:
"Indeed, the stance of the civil-rights establishment is contrary to the interests and self-respect of African Americans."
As the National Review has been complaining about how the civil-rights establishment is contrary to the interests of African Americans since evilnastybad Communist Martin Lucifer Coon was organizing bus boycotts, you might take their words with several grains of salt.
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As usual, George Kelly (and, by extension, Jake Tapper) demonstrates that you needn't play an Ace when a Two will do, a lesson I've been distressingly slow to pick up on.
God, conservatives are boring.
Spent lunch listening to a well-meaning idiot droning on about how his daughter has never been a "girly-girl", didn't like playing with dolls, hung with her older brothers and played sports -- utterly unremarkable stuff that he seemed to think was wholly unprecedented in human history. I went gently from pretending to be interested, to pretending to pay attention at all, to pretending not to be falling asleep. Bastard still caught me trying (and failing) to stifle a yawn.
Yes, gender roles stupid and not representative of anything but narrow-minded bigots like, um, you. Fascinating that your child ignores them, but I gots a feeling if it was one of your sons stepping outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior, or your daughter comes out in junior high (as the kids are wont to do these days, god bless 'em), you'd be singing a different tune.
If, for some reason, you're not getting your U.S. RDA of middle-class married white male tedium, local boy made dull James Lileks churns this sort of thing out practically every day. His writing and politics aspire to mediocrity, but the conservative/libertarian crowd worships his every word.
Wait, change "but" to "and" in the previous sentence.
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Yes, as a matter of fact it is that time of the month.
Rent is due within the next five days, or they hit me up for another fifty bucks in late charges.
More Stalinist revisionism: added a few links about the Negritude movement to the front page. The referrer logs show way too many people ending up here because search engines, like computers generally, are mind-bogglingly stupid.
Really wish people would specify neo-Nazi skinheads when some idiot does shit like this. I've known lots of cool skins who. . .
Whoops, sorry, broke kayfabe there for a minute. Next, I'll be claiming that all Arabs aren't fanatical terrorists, or even suggesting that there's no fucking reason to expect all Muslims to condemn terrorism unless you think they're all terrorists, or something equally absurd.
It won't happen again. I promise.
More explanation on that last link: Harvard senior Zayed Yasin is giving a speech at commencement, with the title "American Jihad". Apparently, he wants to reclaim the word from the psychos who use it to mean "holy war against the great Satan".
Various folk who find it useful to have an enemy resent the attempt, of course, and demanded to see the speech before he delivered it. Now they have their knickers in a twist because he doesn't outright condemn terrorism. I bet he doesn't come out in support of the little pine weasel either. Bastard.
If this strikes you as an insensitive, cavalier, or even callous way of treating such serious issues. . . you really are at the wrong web site, hon.
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Why yes, I have been to the Middle East. And I've been shot at, too. Shut the fuck up.
Settled in his seat, with the two curved canopies
of clear plastic over them (the stationary one of
the car, and the tunnel above rushing backward at
one hundred seventy-five kilometers an hour), Bron
turned to the left (Sam was also sitting there), thought
about ice-farmers, and asked: "I still wonder why you
decided to take me."
"To get you off my back," Sam said affably.
"Maybe it'll lead you to some political argument
that seriously challenges my own position. Right
now, though, yours is so immature there's nothing
I can say to you, except make polite
noises — however much those noises might sound
to you like ideas. [...] Maybe seeing a bit of the
real thing will waylay your fears and shut you
up. Or it may send you off screaming. Scream or silence,
either'll be more informed. Personally, with you,
I'll find either a relief."
-- From Trouble on Triton, by Samuel R. Delany, Wesleyan University Press edition with a foreword by yesterday's quoted author Kathy Acker. I could keep the chain going by quoting Neil Gaiman tomorrow, but that would mean, like, two minutes of research, and imply a degree of consistency you really shouldn't grow accustomed to.
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Negro what? Negro where? Negro when? Negro today.
Son, wipe
your feet.
