>Why not? Stupidity and ignorance are color blind.
>
>-- Luke
art is neither stupid nor ignorant. you don't like his language because you are offended. poor oblate. is your backhanded swipe at art any less rude? does it engage him? do you even give reasons as to why art is to be considered ignorant or stupid? no, it's just a rude, nasty, childish little snipe that demonstrates that you're no better than anyone else here. yet, you fancy that you are because you don't use sewer language and wrap yourself in a sense of superiority.
yes, there are limits. no, people shouldn't cry "i'm oppressed and, therefore, angry, so i can get away with being a jerk." nonetheless, it might behoove us to sit down and think really damn hard about what life is like in these here United States. what prompts the anger. why isn't it an isolated thing, peculiar to Art? if you can counsel others to think about how the US caused blowback or what have you, then surely you can take into consideration the possibility that denouncing Art's behavior might come along with an important recogniztion of the _why_ of some of that anger. not platitudes. not empty gestures of the white wuss who's fucking shaking in his or her boots, afraid to piss him off again so, you either cut him down so he can't actually respond but with more insults or you stay silent. but, no, not a word of engagement with Art from some here. just insults.
good model we are for diplomacy in the Middle East.
and maybe, like those you counsel to think about why some in the Arab world are pissed off enough to kill thousands, you might just manage to do the same for a fellow human being who is not only on the same side, politically, but is a member of a social group you've chosen to participate in.
then, imagine having to think about how you present yourself every day and that it's not just about you, but it's about how your represent "your people". imagine what it's like to spend most of your life interacting with people who talk about things that seem to have no bearing on your life or relate to the issues you think are important. imagine that, no matter how crappy and depressing your life might seem, that you get to always, always glide through life with fewer hardships and humiliations--the kinds of day-to-day humiliations that have to swallow day by day in order to merely survive--because you have white skin, a kind of special key that opens doors, makes you less visible to the police state, means that you'll be assumed to be from the "right" side of town until your behavior proves otherwise. come on try it. whenever you've felt marginalized, imagine it again and then think about how it would have felt if you could never shake that experience.
after awhile, voices that counsel propriety and supposedly hard-headed realism about how you should be nice, upstanding and take the high road so whites don't think badly about angry, raging blacks eats away at you.
kelley