I was in the American South when desegregation became the law. When school districts in Bigotsville were forced to hold bi-racial proms, they did what bigots always do in that case -- they cancelled the prom, and instead the White Leagues held a private prom -- no niggers allowed, on penalty of being arrested for trespassing by bull-necked white Sheriff's deputies stationed outside. And believe me, if you were a black boy or girl, that's the last thing you wanted to have happen to you -- because you might never make it to the police station afterwards, and then the FBI would be dragging the river for your body a few months later.
So when I hear that the same thing happened to a gay girl in Mississippi, it's like I'm having dejavu all over again. These inbred redneck cracker motherfuckers ain't learned a goddamned fucking thing in the past forty years. They're still the same hate-filled spiteful cocksucking bastards as always, pure festering evil masquerading as human beings, just looking for a new nigger to hate now that their old ones have given them the finger and worse. And now they found one: Gays.
So it goes in the State of Mississippi. We shoulda let'em secede in 1861. Just sayin'.
-- Badtux the Observant Penguin
I agree. "inbred redneck cracker motherfuckers" never change. The only thing that changes are their targets.
ReplyDelete'Ditto'(gag) But don't let me stop you from expressing how you really feel. Well said, my friend.
ReplyDeleteTux
ReplyDeleteYeah I was living down south in 1969.Gulfport Mississippi. I saw some shit that stayed with me these many years. At the same time I also so some acts of kindness that was heart warming. I thought way back then in time people would die out and bigotry would fad away. The "new breed" are worse than their parents. Seems hate is an easy emotion to cultivate.
ya all.
What was the line, oh yeah: "I hate these toothless, banjo-strumming redneck pricks."
ReplyDeleteinbred racist crackers
ReplyDeletefall quite right near the tree
and always like the others
they are as ignorant as can be
hate they eat for breakfast
lunch is a racist stew
dinner a dose of malicious
dessert a heinous brew
they scapegoat the different
a weakness they perceive
bred to be intolerant
raised to just be mean
raised to just be mean
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of a novel I started writing back in the early 1990s that I came across recently, it was called The Bottomlands. A Sheriff's deputy in a rural Mississippi county escorts a young fresh-out-of-school social worker to see a child after the school reports the child was bruised and battered. They arrive at the home and the father isn't there, but the deputy coaxes the kid out from behind the television with the promise of being able to sit in the cop car and run the siren. The social worker talks to the kid a while, and the kid won't say anything. As they're walking back to the car, the deputy said, "probably the older brother beats up the younger brother. That's how it works out here." "But why?" "It's like a junkyard dog, ma'am. Keep'em hungry, whack'em upside the head from time, it makes them mean and crazy and ready to bite the head off of anybody who sticks their head into the junkyard." "But why?" "I guess there's just a meanness in this world, ma'am. I guess that's all." "What can I do?" "AIn't nothin' you can do, ma'am. He don't seem to be in danger of bein' killed, just being raised to be mean and vicious, and there ain't 'nuff foster homes in the whole county for kids who ain't being raised right."
I observed a hell of a lot, between being raised in the South and teaching school there... one of these days, I'll be able to write about it. Maybe.
- Badtux the Southern Penguin
It's all instinct, right? Some peoples instincts are more "emotionally" based then others.
ReplyDeleteSome people think, some people just react. The South seems to have more of the reactionary instinct...
I dunno, I can't explain it.
In 1964, I began the 5th grade in Leesville, Louisiana. My teacher was from Georgia and I, being a damned Yankee military brat, could barely understand her southern accent. We said the Pledge to the flag, and then every morning, she cried out, "All you kids who hates N******, raise your hands!"
ReplyDeleteMine was the only hand unraised. My straight A grade average fell to solid failing marks in a week. I stopped going to school in a month. Yeah, inbred redneck crackers come in both genders.
Oh yeah, Labrys. My 5th grade teacher was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. She taught us that Abraham Lincoln was a war criminal who stole the property of fine Southern gentlemen without compensation in violation of the Constitution, and that the Negros were better off under slavery because they were inherently too stupid to take care of themselves.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. I'm not joking, and neither is Labrys, folks. That's what we were taught in schools, back in the South in the 1960's...
- Badtux the Southern Penguin
Yep, Badtux, that sounds about what I would have been getting had my weeping not made my mother simply keep me home. I saw the black children riding to their "separate but equal" school, too. On their so-called separate but equal schoolbus: the open back of a battered pick-up truck in a deluge of hurricane backwash rain.
ReplyDeleteIf that South ever decides to "rise again"...I will re-enlist to put it back down.
Amazing. I was raised in Tennessee and a member of the Class of '69. And while it would be ridiculous to say I did not witness blatant racism in many forms (I dated a young lady that was a full blood, Mescalero Apache in '67/'68. She looked very "black" so I got to experience racism and bigotry up close and physically.) I never witnessed anything of the degree any of you have described here. Actually, our teachers were more on the cutting edge of embracing integration.
ReplyDeletemy mother marched against integration in New Orleans. i can tell you the south is full of easily led, hungry poor white folks. focus the anger on the latest "other". it works since i grew up in the 60's. EVERY TIME.
ReplyDeleteIgnorance and fear work really well down here. blacks and white tolerate each other a little more now. but that's it. Southern Rights first and foremost. Power Money and Hate seem to be all that matters.
i would have loved to have been from anywhere but from the South.
it hasn't changed much. still the hatred and violence stoked by dubious leaders, no separation of church and state here. so different from what is called "society" in the North.
a breed apart. Frightening, as all getout, to see the violence/hatred of the '60 all over.
Benny - You guys must live in a part of the South foreign to me. I have not seen examples of the sort of stuff you guys are describing in a long time, if ever.
ReplyDeleteUnlike you, I wouldn't live anywhere else. As a matter of fact, I find your whole comment full of mischaracterizations, if not outright lies. Good luck with perpetuating that caricature image of the South and Southerners in general.
I'm usually not that harsh, but you sure sound stupid. Sorry.
Hank: About three years ago, I got a panicked call from my property manager who manages my properties in the Deep South. "Cousin X" (who rented one of my properties, pretty much everybody in the area is a relative, and my property manager is a relative too) "wants her boyfriend to move in."
ReplyDelete"Is he a drug addict?"
"Uhm, no."
"Does he have a criminal record?"
"Uhm, no."
"Is he from a trashy family?"
"Uhm, no, his family is good church-going folk."
"So what's the problem?"
"He's a NIGGER!"
"I don't get it. What's the problem?"
"It ain't right, a white woman with a nigger boyfriend!"
"Well, that's how it is nowadays. Add him to the lease."
"Well okay. But it just ain't right!"
That's not the first time I've heard the N-word from family. I'm "one of them" by birth, so they don't try to hide their racism and bigotry. But an outsider? An outsider will *never* hear the N-word from them. It wouldn't be polite. It might offend someone. (Family don't count on that regard). It'd be bad manners. Bad upbringing. A child who used the N-word amongst strangers would get his butt whupped so hard he'd have to eat standing up. But that don't mean they don't use it amongst themselves. It just ain't polite to use it in public anymore.
Another relative, during the recent election: "I don't want to vote for McCain. He's too darn old, and being President ages people. But I don't trust that Obama."
"Why not?"
(Relative looks at me as if I'm crazy). "Well, I just don't trust him. You know how those people are."
"Uhm, okay." Thinking, yeah, right, "those" people. Everybody knows those niggers are lazy and shiftless liars, right?
Note that these incidents are recent, within the past four years -- not within the past *forty* years. Either you live in a bubble, Hank, or you're oblivious to what's around you.
- Badtux the Southern Penguin
Maybe I just don't hang out with racists and bigots? I didn't say it DOESN'T happen or exist. I just haven't experienced the flagrant examples you guys have talked about here.
ReplyDeleteBack to "Gays are the new nigger"... hmm, a song that might be about how gays are tormented in the South?
ReplyDeleteThe kid who drove his car into the bridge pylon at 100mph was tormented for being gay. His friend who moved away was afraid to express his love for his friend for fear of being similarly tormented until it was too late.
I have stories, my friend. I keep my eyes and ears open and in person am a bland non-threatening person that folks seem to trust for some reason, when I was teaching the kids told me things that you wouldn't believe about what was going on in the area -- and when I checked it out, the kids weren't lying. And even the fiction I write might have more truth behind it than you'd think.
- Badtux the Story Penguin
Again Tux, not saying it doesn't exist and I'm certain there are pockets where it may be worse than others.
ReplyDeleteI don't put a whole lot of stock in what kids are being mean to each other about on a given day over a given subject. Let's face it. Ugly peer pressure can drive a weaker child to jump off a bridge because they wore the wrong color shirt! And yes I am reasonably well informed as I have a 16 year old daughter in high school (who is bi-racial) and a 26 year old daughter who is a high school teacher. So, at least on this subject, I don't get my information strictly from Fox News! ;-)
Also, I have a sister who is Gay, a couple of cousins and several nieces and nephews so I get some first hand knowledge and exposure on that subject as well.
But still Tux, I haven't observed the kind of flagrant behavior that has been talked about here. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Just saying I haven't observed it and I do get around pretty good and am pretty much in touch.
But you can't be all bad. I see your a "picker". I'm a half fast guitar player also.
Hey, off topic but being you're a musician AND song writer. (I've got a 33 year old son who is a songwriter and in the music industry also.) Going back to the topic of profanity, the lead Singer for Linkin' Park (I believe) once said that even though he was a big fan of profanity, he didn't use profanity in his lyrics because he doesn't feel it added anything to the music. I guess that sums up how I feel about it when writing.
In the immediate of conversation, heck yeah! I can be prolific with it. But given the time delay of writing, it just seems you can avoid it with the same amount of effort it takes to use it.
Plus, no sense giving people who are prone to disagree with your mere existence anyway such an easy complaint!! :-)