on having black friends

i was just re-reading a draft of a script i'm preparing for the foot canvassers who are campaigning for us in this municipal election. i was surprised to see that i had suggested they refer to "other important tissues in the platform". my candidate would, i think, be concerned that we are publicizing his sensitive tissues. reminds me of a time i helped a friend with her resume which ended up indicating to a number of potential employers that she had vast experience in pubic relations.

but never mind that for now.

if someone feels the need to utter i have black people who are friends, then their black friends should bolt. it's hard to decide what is more worth my concern: the fact that someone actually said that, or that his black friends haven't figured out how big of a shithead they're hanging with. any of his friends in their right mind should bolt, actually.

haven't a lot of us become super wary of defensive "ists" (racists, sexists) clawing their way back to credibility with comments like NO i'm not! why heck, i've got those kinds of friends, i know people who are that. it's embarassing. for not far beneath that transparent cover is often the dangerous and sad mind of a dumb-ass. there are few things worse than a dumb-ass with big opinions and a big mouth.

i wish i could say i'm shocked and outraged. but i'm barely even surprised about all the mailloux nonsense. on the other hand, what the fuck year is it again? oh, so it's not the 1800's? ok, that's straightened out. so then why do we have to listen to some bearded white guy talk about the inferiority of black people's iq's?

there are people who get all foamy at the mouth about free speech and all that, who wish civil libertarians (aka, we normal people) would just chill the fuck out and let people speak their minds. there is free speech - opinion, dialogue - and then there is bullcrap. those kinds of minds have no business talking shit, let alone on mainstream radio. have you ever noticed the mountains of free speech that anyone can access underground? there's a reason they call it underground - it's beneath most of us. and there's plenty of room down there for mailloux and millions of other cuckoos. i'm not talking about alternative radio and other alt media, i'm talking about the objectionable underground media. inhabited by people society considers creepy and/or dangerous. those folks are pushing all kinds of envelopes, not to the right or to the left, just way over the fucking edge. i'm thinking mailloux should pump up the volume à la christian slater from a basement studio. that, or he should just fuck right off. because people who achieve a dr. phil -like popularity in a savvy place like quebec have a big responsibility to be reasoned and unprejudiced.

mainstream radio is reserved for the non-racist type of broadcaster, is it not? or at least the people who can fake it well. unless, of course, you count those fanatical religious radio stations. if i want to hear questionable, nay offensive, blather that dances around racism, misogyny, poor-bashing, or even directly advocates the assassinationof a south american leader, why i could just turn to one of those (it's a multi-faith community of broadcasters that is sometimes known to spout racist and classist junk in the form of religious dogma, so why name a specific one here? we all know who they are and how quickly blood can start oozing out one's ears when one happens upon one of their mind-numbing radio broadcasts).

i remember a hundred years ago during a university student council election i was involved with, a certain preppy white boy was trying to defend himself against allegations that he was - gasp - a homophobe. he actually said, into a microphone, that no he wasn't, that his mom had a gay friend, and that his family had that gay friend "for dinner" many times. nervous 19 year old idiot frat boy, or scary guy thirsting for some chianti and fava beans? hmm ...