Falling down on the job

I know, there hasn't much here in recent weeks. Hard to keep people interested in a blog when there's no new content. I thank those of you who continue to check in!

Truth is, I'm working on a writing assignment that's keeping me pretty busy and focused off-line these days. This particular assignment has to be finished by the end of April, so you'll see more of me after this month. I hope to be able to tell you about said assignment a bit later this year.

In doing research for this item, I've read a lot of old newspaper articles from the 1940s, including columns by the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Bill O'Reilly of the day, Drew Pearson. American University holds the archives for his syndicated column and radio show, the Washington Merry-Go-Round. In reading one column, I came across this incredibly offensive point:

"Dynamic Ed Stettinius, handsome Undersecretary of State, has just chalked up another victory in revamping the U.S. machinery of foreign affairs. Soon after Ed entered the placid, staid old Department of State, he succeeded in banishing the Negro messengers from tables outside the doors of prominent officials, relegating them to the men's lavatory. Afterward, Ed tackled another problem--State Department floors..."

So, let me get this straight... the man who would succeed Cordell Hull as Secretary of State under Roosevelt and Truman, help found the UN, and was a longtime friend of Liberian President William Tubman, moved the "Negro" messengers from the doorways of officials to the toilets at the State Department?!?

I need to research this. I don't necessarily trust Drew Pearson's columns because of the crap he wrote about the group my mom flew with in WWII. He helped whip up a misogynistic frenzy to bring around their downfall. That's unfortunate because Pearson was one of the few journalists who would later voice outrage at the evils of McCarthyism. (And McCarthy famously slapped or kneed Pearson in the groin in a public venue during that ugly period of our history.)

I hope this is another piece of BS, but now I want to know more. If it's true, it's another shameful piece of our historic puzzle. If it isn't, it's a mark against Pearson for wartime yellow journalism.

Either way, it distresses me. Move the black guys to the crapper. Yeah, that works.

Lovely.

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I'll post as often as I can over the next three weeks, folks, but things will be a little thin this month.

Meanwhile, on a more pleasant point, enjoy this video from Crowded House - who, after 20+ years, I finally get to see in May. I am smiling an almost painful Cheshire Cat grin as I write this:



There is something very sweet and sad about this video, which contrasts such visual innocence with lyrics about Paul Heaton's suicide. Personally - and somehow appropriately for Paul - my favorite kid is the guy on the right going nuts on the conga. He makes me smile.

DC peeps: Crowded House is playing the 9:30 Club on May 2. Tickets are $45. It will be SO worth it!

Jena

Several days ago, my friend Spencer wrote an excellent post about the wretched, shameful mess that has transpired in Jena, Louisiana. If you aren't familiar with the story - still unfolding - visit the Wikipedia link I've provided to give you some of the background. There is so much ugliness in what has happened, it sickens me. And it ain't over by a longshot.

Racism is alive and well in America, and Jena -- soon to be the site of a rally and march on September 20th - is another sad milestone in a road that we are still traveling down.

This morning, I was accused of racism. I was waiting for an elderly woman to finish backing in and out (and in and out) of a parking spot behind the urgent care clinic where I needed to go (whoo hoo -- more antibiotics and an inhaler for "She Who Breathes Like Darth Vader" here.) I simply wanted to park in the last remaining spot, just two down from where she continued to angle her boat of a vehicle. A guy waited behind me, impatiently, in his Lincoln Navigator. Finally, he drove up onto the sidewalk, bolted past me, honked at the old woman and took that last remaining spot.

He and his group of friends got out of the car, pointing at me and laughing. When I rolled down the window and yelled at the driver for being a total jerk, he spun on me and immediately accused me of yelling at him because he was black and I was racist. I was dumbfounded. Here was this affluent young suburban man with a car that cost more than what I make in a year, and when I call him on rude behavior, he whips out the racism card? WTF?

I yelled, "Uh, no, hon. I'm not racist, but you are an asshole!" I'm an equal opportunity loudmouth, folks. I don't care if you're black, white, or green -- you steal my parking space, you're a weasel.

At that point, the guy yelled at me, "Bitch, you got served!"

I started laughing. It was the only response I could summon. I couldn't help myself. I yelled back, "Omigod! Are you serious? Are you in a cheerleading movie?" (His friends laughed at *him* then.) I shook my head and gave up. I left the elderly woman to the angling of her boat and I found another spot up front after 15 minutes of waiting.

But thinking about it this afternoon made me angry. A young man bizarrely called "racism" in some weird kneejerk response to him being outed as a classless boob. It pisses me off when there are REAL situations of racism, like the terrifying, life-altering events in Jena, Louisiana happening. And I'm willing to bet, for every Jena that finds its way onto the Internet and into our homes as a 2-minute piece on the evening news (barely a blip in our short attention span American Idol culture) there are probably a half-dozen or more situations we'll never hear about. And lives will be damaged and lost -both immediately and slowly, incidiously.

And we'll never know.

Instead, we'll hear more about Britney looking fat (she didn't) or Kanye West having another temper tantrum at the VMAs. The important stuff, dontcha know.

And that's to our devastating, collective shame.