The Soft Bigotry....

This kind of stuff is what many white Texans talk about with each other when nobody (coughtheblacks!) is around (circulated to me via the office grapevine):

James Henry, the latest Longhorn to be arrested, wrote on his MySpace page:

About Me: Whats really good wit ya as you know my name is JAMES HENRY AKA J*HEN im a nigga that about making money hand having fun with the ladies and chillin in the trap with my niggas!!! Im from the tone aka DAT COUNTDOWN CITY!! but i reside in the ATX now cause im up here doin the football thing!! so come holla at cha yo boi special all glowing ass ladies :)

Translation:
About Me: I hope this note finds you well.
My name is James Henry, although I occasionally affect the jocular nom de guerre of J*Hen.

While I tend to focus on financial success, I balance my interests by participating in the dating scene, and with a relaxed attitude of casual bonhomie.

I hail from San Antonio, sometimes referred to as the "Countdown City," a playful reference to the area code "2-1-0".
However, I currently reside in Austin, Texas where I am active in the University of Texas' famous Longhorns Football Club.

Feel free to contact me, and I extend a special invitation to the special ladies whose radiance shines as if from within. I remain

Your humble servant,
James Henry

Actually, when I think about it, white people often don't care who is listening.

That's a picture of Lincoln Perry, "America's first black movie star" up there, aka Stepin Fetchit, "a befuddled, mumbling, shiftless fool." www.npr.org:

"Seen through a modern lens, Perry's "laziest man in the world" character can be painfully racist."

Being a sight-challenged, slightly addled Mr. Magoo of the cheap seat blog world, when I first read that quote, I thought it said, "playfully racist." That's what the e-mail above is. Sick shit that we rub in the face of black individuals everyday.

It is important that we get the national conversation on race they've been promising us since Katrina. All the media can seem to focus on is black-on-white crime in NO. Personally, having seen the images available in the alternative media, I wouldn't be surprised in NO was burnt to the ground by traumatized, desperately frustrated victims of institutional dehumanization. It is a predictable outcome of unremedied social pathologies of this ilk.

The attempt to find justice for the Jena 6 is a battle to closely watch.

EDIT: Please sign the petition to free the Jena 6: http://colorofchange.org/jena/