Comical Race Theory: THEY CANNOT BE SERIOUS!
I’m not sure why Mindy Kaling decided to have legendary tennis player and former Superbrat John McEnroe narrate her new Netflix comedy “Never Have I Ever.” With his long curly hair, Superbrat McEnroe of the late seventies and early eighties looked more like a not so little, darker-haired Orphan Annie than he did the young females of color starring in Kaling’s show. The show is funnier without the comments of an older, wiser, quieter McEnroe. However, the 20th Century younger, crazier, louder McEnroe would be the perfect narrator for this absurd anti-democracy, white supremacy, reality television period in American history. Even before white evangelicals and white women voted for a self-proclaimed sexual assaulter, thrice-married, low-rated reality television star to be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, I would occasionally channel 20th Century McEnroe when a wily politician (not always a conservative one) was dodging an interviewer’s question. In my best loud Superbrat voice I would shout, “ANSWER THE QUESTION, JERK!” As I’ve grown older (like Biden), I try to shout less to save my vocal cords and blood pressure, but I often want to shout another Superbrat McEnroe classic, “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS” as I watch what’s happening in our politics, culture, and even my personal life today. I’ve made the point several times recently that I wouldn’t have survived (even thrived) in white institutions for 48 years if I didn’t have a good sense of humor. I told my high school classmates in a Facebook discussion of systemic racism that I would have died of a heart attack or stroke or been in jail for murder if I hadn’t been able to laugh at some of the racist shenanigans of administrators and my colleagues in the Cal Poly Pomona English and Foreign Languages Department. I’m still occasionally able to laugh at the absurd racists who are trying to destroy our democracy and who are harassing me, but it’s getting harder.
When a corrupt fixer lawyer at the Kriger Law firm responded to my spreading the news (to a local newspaper reporter and a foreclosing company) of the racism of the property management company CMS (Condominium Management Services) by telling a lie about what I “allegedly” said in a 2016 meeting—“I won’t serve with those two white women”—I was initially enraged and ready (once again) to drag neighbors and former neighbors who attended the meeting into this years-long corrupt, racist mess, but I soon found the lie hysterically funny. I had even more fun writing a scathing letter to the ridiculous lawyer, complimenting him on his use of the “ass-covering” modifier “allegedly” and chastising him for trying to bully me with what I called a Pee Wee Herman “I know you are, but what am I” lie. Racists, even educated ones, tend to be less clear-thinking than even not so well-educated people of color and their less racist white allies. The racists involved in the Bungalows War mess continue to underestimate my intelligence while I continue to outwit them. They cling to their racist theory that black women, especially older ones born in the Jim Crow South, are stupid and so can be intimidated and played by their lawyer jargon.
Most of the racists I encounter on Twitter and Facebook aren’t as well-educated as the foolish Kriger lawyer, so I try to be more patient and less brutal in my witty takedowns of them. Intellectual bullies can be as obnoxious as physical or politically/economically powerful ones. But when social media bigots call me ignorant, I weaponize their grammar/editing errors and blow them up. One troll responded to my comment about Trump’s knowing less about “the system” than a fifth grader (this was on a Brian Williams video site, so any conservatives commenting were trolling) with “your some kind of ignorant.” I shot back, “I’m the kind of ignorant that knows the difference between “your” and “you’re.’” A troll commenting on my response to a Jim Acosta tweet asked me if I was a “freaking teacher” after I called him out for several errors. I responded, “I’m a freaking retired English teacher.” My response to the Acosta tweet about not insulting clowns activated several trolls, but most of them dropped out after one or two verbal punches from me. They realized that they were punching above their weight. But two hung around for days, debating me on such issues as immigration, taxes, Barack Obama’s competence, real religion and birth place, and Joe Biden’s “alleged” dementia. They were responding to my comment that comparing Trump to clowns, pigs, and toddlers was insulting to all of them, so we should call him an alien since he calls people coming across our southern border “illegal aliens.” I had fun asking if Ivana and Melania Trump were “legal aliens.”
While most of what is being said and done during this anti-democracy, white supremacy period is absurd, it’s not always amusing. There is nothing funny about a rich white man who didn’t have one grandparent born in America and four of whose five children have foreign-born mothers being allowed to appoint himself Captain America with the right to determine who is and who is not a “real” American and who should and who should not go back to their ancestors’ country. And there’s certainly nothing funny about a born-rich white man whose mother is from Scotland and whose father’s first language was German (according to niece Mary) winning the Republican nomination and the electoral college because he said that his half-black predecessor, whose white maternal relatives (the people who raised him) were from Kansas, was really born in Kenya and because he promised to build a wall to keep the brown “rapists and drug dealers” that Mexico was “sending us” from coming to America.
There’s also nothing funny about the absurd racist claim that the mostly peaceful BLM protesters, who were more likely to be victims of rioting police officers than violent rioters, were terrorists and anarchists while the real terrorists and anarchists, the insurrectionists who tried to stage a coup on 1/6 and were hunting Mike Pence to hang him and Nancy Pelosi to shoot her in the head, are being compared to tourists. I laughed at Officer Hodges’ comment during the first 1/6 hearing that if that’s how American tourists act no wonder people in other countries don’t like them, but calling black people anarchists and terrorists endangers our lives while racist white people can beat and attack hundreds of cops, leaving more than 140 injured, some of them severely/permanently and still portray the one person killed by a cop defending the Capitol as a martyr because she’s a white woman. It’s absurd that the cops were being beaten with BlueLivesMatter flags, but it’s not funny. It’s absurd that the anchors on Fox, who kept replaying the most violent scenes during the 93% peaceful protests last summer, calling for law and order and defending the cops beating, pepper spraying, and shooting protesters and journalists with rubber bullets, were actually ridiculing those heroic cops who saved our democracy and the lives of Democratic and Republican politicians as well as staff, janitors, and other people doing their jobs that day, but it’s not funny. Laura Ingraham, possibly the worst blonde not named Ivanka, actually gave out acting awards to those four police officers (two of them white) who were describing their traumatic experiences. I gave her (on Twitter) the worst performance by a Karen award and suggested she compete on “Dancing with the Stars” since she probably can dance better than her colleague Tucker Carlson, the worst dancer to ever appear on that show.
Most of the events of this past week were not funny, but the appearance of the goofy G-Squad of Goons—Gaetz, Greene, and Gohmert—at the Washington jail so they could inspect the conditions of the cells where the Terrorists/Traitors, Racists, Anarchists, Seditionists, and Hoodlums (TRASH) were being housed did tickle my funny bone. I suggested the goons might actually be checking out the accommodations because they knew they would be there soon. As I was comfort-reading a fun book about the so-called “real housewives” (many of whom aren’t married), I imagined a confrontation between three women who have been paid to be reality tv stars and the G-Squad, who should be paid for their absurd made-for-television antics, but not for badly representing their constituents. Since Greene is from Georgia, it would be appropriate for three of the more rambunctious Atlanta Housewives to confront them at the jail. I would cast lawyer/mortician Phaedra, big mouth bully NeNe, and shady beauty queen Kenya to serve as the welcoming committee the next time the goofy goons appear outside the jail. If he can reproduce his eighties voice, McEnroe can serve as narrator of that potentially hilarious confrontation.
I wish the election of an insane, white supremacist, reality tv host “alien” was a joke. And I wish the birther nonsense and the voter suppression activities were jokes. But they’re not, so the media, as well as American citizens and voters, must take the threat to our democracy seriously. The white supremacists are serious, so we must battle them seriously. But we can laugh while we’re battling. Right, McEnroe?
When a corrupt fixer lawyer at the Kriger Law firm responded to my spreading the news (to a local newspaper reporter and a foreclosing company) of the racism of the property management company CMS (Condominium Management Services) by telling a lie about what I “allegedly” said in a 2016 meeting—“I won’t serve with those two white women”—I was initially enraged and ready (once again) to drag neighbors and former neighbors who attended the meeting into this years-long corrupt, racist mess, but I soon found the lie hysterically funny. I had even more fun writing a scathing letter to the ridiculous lawyer, complimenting him on his use of the “ass-covering” modifier “allegedly” and chastising him for trying to bully me with what I called a Pee Wee Herman “I know you are, but what am I” lie. Racists, even educated ones, tend to be less clear-thinking than even not so well-educated people of color and their less racist white allies. The racists involved in the Bungalows War mess continue to underestimate my intelligence while I continue to outwit them. They cling to their racist theory that black women, especially older ones born in the Jim Crow South, are stupid and so can be intimidated and played by their lawyer jargon.
Most of the racists I encounter on Twitter and Facebook aren’t as well-educated as the foolish Kriger lawyer, so I try to be more patient and less brutal in my witty takedowns of them. Intellectual bullies can be as obnoxious as physical or politically/economically powerful ones. But when social media bigots call me ignorant, I weaponize their grammar/editing errors and blow them up. One troll responded to my comment about Trump’s knowing less about “the system” than a fifth grader (this was on a Brian Williams video site, so any conservatives commenting were trolling) with “your some kind of ignorant.” I shot back, “I’m the kind of ignorant that knows the difference between “your” and “you’re.’” A troll commenting on my response to a Jim Acosta tweet asked me if I was a “freaking teacher” after I called him out for several errors. I responded, “I’m a freaking retired English teacher.” My response to the Acosta tweet about not insulting clowns activated several trolls, but most of them dropped out after one or two verbal punches from me. They realized that they were punching above their weight. But two hung around for days, debating me on such issues as immigration, taxes, Barack Obama’s competence, real religion and birth place, and Joe Biden’s “alleged” dementia. They were responding to my comment that comparing Trump to clowns, pigs, and toddlers was insulting to all of them, so we should call him an alien since he calls people coming across our southern border “illegal aliens.” I had fun asking if Ivana and Melania Trump were “legal aliens.”
While most of what is being said and done during this anti-democracy, white supremacy period is absurd, it’s not always amusing. There is nothing funny about a rich white man who didn’t have one grandparent born in America and four of whose five children have foreign-born mothers being allowed to appoint himself Captain America with the right to determine who is and who is not a “real” American and who should and who should not go back to their ancestors’ country. And there’s certainly nothing funny about a born-rich white man whose mother is from Scotland and whose father’s first language was German (according to niece Mary) winning the Republican nomination and the electoral college because he said that his half-black predecessor, whose white maternal relatives (the people who raised him) were from Kansas, was really born in Kenya and because he promised to build a wall to keep the brown “rapists and drug dealers” that Mexico was “sending us” from coming to America.
There’s also nothing funny about the absurd racist claim that the mostly peaceful BLM protesters, who were more likely to be victims of rioting police officers than violent rioters, were terrorists and anarchists while the real terrorists and anarchists, the insurrectionists who tried to stage a coup on 1/6 and were hunting Mike Pence to hang him and Nancy Pelosi to shoot her in the head, are being compared to tourists. I laughed at Officer Hodges’ comment during the first 1/6 hearing that if that’s how American tourists act no wonder people in other countries don’t like them, but calling black people anarchists and terrorists endangers our lives while racist white people can beat and attack hundreds of cops, leaving more than 140 injured, some of them severely/permanently and still portray the one person killed by a cop defending the Capitol as a martyr because she’s a white woman. It’s absurd that the cops were being beaten with BlueLivesMatter flags, but it’s not funny. It’s absurd that the anchors on Fox, who kept replaying the most violent scenes during the 93% peaceful protests last summer, calling for law and order and defending the cops beating, pepper spraying, and shooting protesters and journalists with rubber bullets, were actually ridiculing those heroic cops who saved our democracy and the lives of Democratic and Republican politicians as well as staff, janitors, and other people doing their jobs that day, but it’s not funny. Laura Ingraham, possibly the worst blonde not named Ivanka, actually gave out acting awards to those four police officers (two of them white) who were describing their traumatic experiences. I gave her (on Twitter) the worst performance by a Karen award and suggested she compete on “Dancing with the Stars” since she probably can dance better than her colleague Tucker Carlson, the worst dancer to ever appear on that show.
Most of the events of this past week were not funny, but the appearance of the goofy G-Squad of Goons—Gaetz, Greene, and Gohmert—at the Washington jail so they could inspect the conditions of the cells where the Terrorists/Traitors, Racists, Anarchists, Seditionists, and Hoodlums (TRASH) were being housed did tickle my funny bone. I suggested the goons might actually be checking out the accommodations because they knew they would be there soon. As I was comfort-reading a fun book about the so-called “real housewives” (many of whom aren’t married), I imagined a confrontation between three women who have been paid to be reality tv stars and the G-Squad, who should be paid for their absurd made-for-television antics, but not for badly representing their constituents. Since Greene is from Georgia, it would be appropriate for three of the more rambunctious Atlanta Housewives to confront them at the jail. I would cast lawyer/mortician Phaedra, big mouth bully NeNe, and shady beauty queen Kenya to serve as the welcoming committee the next time the goofy goons appear outside the jail. If he can reproduce his eighties voice, McEnroe can serve as narrator of that potentially hilarious confrontation.
I wish the election of an insane, white supremacist, reality tv host “alien” was a joke. And I wish the birther nonsense and the voter suppression activities were jokes. But they’re not, so the media, as well as American citizens and voters, must take the threat to our democracy seriously. The white supremacists are serious, so we must battle them seriously. But we can laugh while we’re battling. Right, McEnroe?
No comments have been added yet.
