A Message To My White Brothers, Whatever Their Skin Color Or Racial Derivation

Jeff over at Protein Wisdom has written a series of posts under the heading "Provocateurism" that led me to a little thought that is, in some circles, needlessly, in my opinion, characterized as radical. Which is a lot of commas for such a small bit of text. That thought is that those concerned with American racial divisiveness and angst and sturm and drang and cetera need to come to grips with the question "why is it that white people who procreate with other races don't have white children?"

Yeah, from the mouths of babes, right? In other words, why are caucasian attributes considered to be so fragile that they can't survive exposure to non-caucasian attributes in the genetic mixing bowl? Why is white skin considered to be so adulterable, in a way that Asian, African, Latino, Pacific Islander, et al are not (in the U.S., generally, at least)?

Is it a function of the majority-white demographic hereabouts? And if so, when said demographic shifts significantly enough that whites are just one more minority among many, instead of being the overwhelming majority, will that attitude change? Will more "half-white" and "quarter-white" children start checking the "white" box on their census forms and thereby cause some sort of (purely academic) resurgence in American whiteness? And, in an hilarious development, would some of them develop so ferocious a racial identity that the white power movement would experience an heretofore unexpected diversification within its benighted ranks? Leading then to some sort of schism between the hard-line and moderate white supremacists, the latter being perhaps more concerned with dwindling subscription rates, and willing to accept adherents of any skin-tone or maxillofacial configuration so long as their ideology is correct?

Some questions, you see, just lead to more questions.

Repent Ye, Syndicated Columnists!

Charles Krauthammer asks a number of questions in his column today about Obama's recent speech on race . We at the Fiery Sword have prepared an uncomfortable answer for him:

Because focusing the conversation on race is easier and more politically acceptable in the current climate than stating the obvious: Christian Preachers Say The Darnedest Things. These guys are dependent on demagogic incitement to keep their jobs, and they base most of their pull on the notion that the people they are talking to are fundamentally flawed and deserving of punishment, and only they possess the power to avert that punishment. The notion that 9/11 was punishment for transgressions (sins, if you will) flows naturally out of the modern Christian theology. Given that those who believe themselves to be special, to be saints in the land of the wicked, are more likely to cling to the church, declaring America to be the aforementioned wicked land is the best choice for a preacher who wants to retain his job for upwards of two decades.

But good luck dropping that little egg on a campaign trail where all the candidates are crassly scrambling for the mantle of "most devout." Pointing out the glaring incompatibility of pretty much ANY Christian sermon with the qualities necessary for competent governance is not the kind of thing that gets one elected to public office, and we can thank who for that? The liberal elites? Not so much, CK.

Against The Power of Mordor There Can Be No Victory

There are no coincidences. Don't say I didn't warn you.

In My Country

Yesterday, on my way home from work, about a block from my house, I discovered something kind of unsettling: my brand new brakes, which are nominally anti-lock, sometimes lock. The guy in front of me accelerated as though he was going to go through the yellow light, and then abruptly changed his mind for reasons which will become evident below. I slammed my brakes, and the car slowed, and then the brake pedal ceased to resist my foot and the car ceased to slow, and I hit this dude's Honda.

It was a low-speed collision, there was no damage and no airbags were deployed. The reason for the Honda's caution became readily apparent, as the cop who had stopped at the other side of the traffic light turned on his flashers and waved us both over to the parking lot. I got out and checked with the other guy, and we shook hands and agreed that there was no damage and we were both okay, and that was nice, and I apologized and he said it was nothing, and I felt quite relieved. The cop then took my license and asked the other guy if he had one, and the other guy smiled and said "In my country."

Immigration laws are laws of necessity, not choice. So much of our society and system of government, from politics to finance to education to medicine, is predicated on everybody being equal in the eyes of the law, and thus recognized by the eyes of the law. We don't have laws against unsanctioned immigration because we are xenophobic, we have them because we have a system that we all enjoy, that we all agreed upon in some form or other, and the proper functioning of which requires certain rules.

The passenger in the other car mumbled something to the driver and then walked away across the parking lot when the cop asked to speak to me. He asked me if I wanted to pursue the issue. I told him the accident was pretty clearly my fault, mechanical failure or not, and that any pursuing was the other guy's decision. The cop looked up at me and scowled, and told me that the other guy wasn't really in a position to pursue anything. He walked back over to the other car and starting asking more questions, taking pains to make clear right off the bat that he was no fan of illegals. Tattered papers were produced and exchanged, and the accident was quickly becoming the least of this guy's problems. I tried to signal my apologies over the cop's shoulder, and the guy gave me a hapless smile and raised his arms in the international sign language for "Oh well, what can you do?" The cop turned around and told me that I was free to go, and that I really ought to act upon that freedom.

Mr. Artiz was in the wrong place at the wrong time yesterday evening. In a number of ways. First of all, he was in front of me, my over-zealous desire to get home, and my dubious brakes. Secondly, he was in Arlington, Virginia, without legal citizenship of the United States. One was not his fault and the other, barring abduction/blackmail/et cetera, was. I'm not sure exactly what happens to illegal immigrants when they get stopped by police for being victims of someone else's criminal negligence, but the immigrant in question most certainly found out the hard way last night, and I feel pretty bad about it.

There are those who would celebrate this sort of thing. They would congratulate themselves on doing their part, however accidentally (haha), to combat the alien menace. There are those who would decry the injustice of it all, that this guy who was just minding his own business and obeying the laws of the road should be subjected to interrogation and criminal penalty on account of someone else's folly. I'm not really entirely in either camp. I feel really terrible that I might have caused this guy to be separated from his family, that I might have swiped bread off some kid's table, that I might have screwed this guy over at his most vulnerable position, perhaps tantalizingly close to getting himself on the right side of the law. But alternately, he knew the rules of the game, and he knew where he stood in regards to them. Like a British officer whistling "Tipperary" in the trenches, this guy's defeated smile signalled an acceptance of fate, and of the risks inherent in his actions. Sometimes, out of a clear blue sky, things just go completely sideways. What can you do?

The US Congress is debating a reform of current immigration law right now. By the sound of things, neither side of the political spectrum is pleased with the whole bill. Because of that fact, I'm inclined to support it, or at least not oppose it, and here's why: if we could grant the prosperity of our nation to every other person around the world, we would. We cannot, however, guarantee that the prosperity we now enjoy, the enviable conditions that cause people to flock to our country in search of a better life, can be maintained if we allow everyone who wants to come here to do so. There's no comfort in that equation, there's no moral high ground to be claimed, there is just the unfortunate reality that our situation will be either exclusive or unsustainable. That should cause some guilt, but that guilt can be acknowledged without diminishing the pride of citizenship. Of those to whom much is given, much is expected. So my apologies to Mr. Artiz, and I wish him the best in his attempts to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that have been granted to me since birth. There are obviously some advantages to doing it legally, but the fact that he didn't avail himself of that option earns him the same amount of ill will from me that I earned from him.

A Brother's Gonna Work It Out

Follow me for a second: you walk into the polling place, present your ID, and stroll over to the voting booth. You look over the options, you select which bond issues you support or don't support, you wonder briefly if this is one of those Diebold machines you read about, and then you get to the screen where you are going to select a presidential candidate. You're a smart person, you've paid attention to the issues, and you're just about to vote for the candidate whom you feel is best qualified for the job, or at least the best qualified among the usual pathetic pool of applicants, and then you stop. When reaching for the screen, you have caught sight of your hand, the back of it, specifically. Wait a second, the skin on your hand is a shade of brown, and not a tanned brown, or a latino brown, or a blotchy liver-spotted brown. It's the color of skin that a certain subsection of the populace has, those who are casually termed "black people."

Oh shit. It's time to rethink things. You're black. You pull your hand away from the voting screen. You've just realized that you're not a person, you're a Black Voter. That means that your vote isn't a normal vote, it's a very special vote, fraught with all sorts of heady cultural horsefeathers. And then, right before your eyes, the other options on the screen fade away, and the only candidates you can see are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. The issues of the day fade from your mind, and all you can think is, "Gee, Hillary spoke in a fake southern patois during that one stop on her campaign, that was pretty great. Obama has the same skin-color, within the strictures of Jim Crow law, as I do, but is he black enough? John Edwards said he would help poor people, and Kanye and I care a lot about poor people's issues ever since every face on the television during the Katrina footage was as dark as mine. WWAlSharptonD?!"

Whoa! That's quite distressing!

If this happens to you, the Fiery Sword recommends that you quickly remind yourself and the Washington Post that there is a dream extant, dreamt often and dreamt before, that one day a man's worth will be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. At which point you are free, once again, to vote your conscience, and not your melanin. This pre-election public service announcement has been brought to you by respect for ones' self and one's fellow human beings.