blah blah blah
"I'm an intelligent man," he said giving me a wild stare that begged me to challenge him, but I was already in the process of tuning out; focusing my attention over his shoulder on a cheap clock on the wall that he said would be the "probable target of anybody who wanted to break into his home for a quick fix." When I was a lot younger, I learned a trick in college speech class: if you get nervous when you have to address a large crowd, you look over their heads so that you don't have to make eye contact. Your audience thinks you’re looking straight at them. "I don't watch the news because I don't like anybody telling me what to think," he continued, "I mean, I'm a reasonably smart guy and I don't need anybody to tell me what somebody's saying when I can just listen to them and decide for myself."
There are times in my life when I just have to shut up and listen and this was one of them. Without realizing it, this guy knew every button to push on me and I had to sit there and put up with that. Well, I didn’t have to, but this day wasn’t about me and I wanted to be supportive for Mel while she visited with some friends. That’s what love is, y’know? To be honest, I’m pretty sure this guy was focusing on me because I was the only other white guy in the room. It started off innocuously enough with him telling stories about “Sweetie”; an ancient, rust colored, miniature poodle with a lazy eye and a bad temper that he cradled in his arms and petted softly like Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Things rapidly took a turn for the worse when he asked me who I was voting for at election time. “I haven’t quite decided yet,” I said trying to defuse the situation before it started.
“You know that Obama is a Muslim, right? It’s right there in his book, the Audacity of Hope. Hold on, I’ll show you.” He took his dog in another room and then returned moments later with a print-out of some email. The email was one of those bullshit things that people send around with a bunch of half assed facts and quotes on it about any number of topics. Steven Colbert refers to this particular style of information as "truthiness" which is a “a satirical term to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts." George Orwell called it "doublethink"; “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.” At the bottom of the email was a single quote highlighted in yellow, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” He nodded his head slowly at me as I read the quote.
“I’d like to know what the context of this quote is,” I said, handing the paper back to him. “Have you read the book?” He shook his head no. “I’m a smart man. I don’t need to read the book. Everything he needs to tell me is right there.”
Sure it is. Here’s the full context of the quote taken directly from Obama’s book: “Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during WWII, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." That sounds pretty good to me. Nobody stood up for over 100,000 Japanese (a huge percentage of them U.S. citizens) who were interned after Pearl Harbor. How about all the U.S. citizens who’s lives were ruined during the era of McCarthyism?
The conversation (as one-sided as it was) continued to develop like a fart in an elevator.
"You never got into that Dungeons and Druids or Devils or whatever, do you?"
"That's Dungeons and Dragons. No, I don't currently play it, but I played it a lot when I was a kid."
"It's an addiction and it's sucks people in and twists their thinking."
"I'd say it's first and foremost a game that people enjoy. Personally, I liked the narrative elements of the game and the sense of community. It's a game that expects you to think in a manner that combines creativity with analytic thought. If you're somehow addicted to it, you probably have other problems that are unrelated to the game."
"You don't go to San Francisco, do you?" Again with the expectation that somehow we're akin due to our skin color or religion. "Yes I do. I enjoy going to the city. I've applied for several jobs in the city and I like the culture and nightlife."
"Hmm. Well, the only reason I go to San Francisco is to drive right through it. Lot's of crazy people up there."
"Freedom is not free and Obama and Hillary hate the military. They want to disband the military. They don't understand that you have to fight for what we have here."
It's weird to hear this type of thinking so close to home. Usually I hear it when I turn on the radio around Bakersfield or when I channel surf past Fox News. To be honest, I respect everybody's right to have an opinion, but I draw the line at opinions that can't be substantiated in any way. The world doesn't work so great on gut feelings and popularity contests. As I left his house, he waved in an encouraging manner to me and assured me that we'd hang out again soon. Fair enough. If we happen to hang out again on my turf, then you'll have to listen to me.
There are times in my life when I just have to shut up and listen and this was one of them. Without realizing it, this guy knew every button to push on me and I had to sit there and put up with that. Well, I didn’t have to, but this day wasn’t about me and I wanted to be supportive for Mel while she visited with some friends. That’s what love is, y’know? To be honest, I’m pretty sure this guy was focusing on me because I was the only other white guy in the room. It started off innocuously enough with him telling stories about “Sweetie”; an ancient, rust colored, miniature poodle with a lazy eye and a bad temper that he cradled in his arms and petted softly like Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Things rapidly took a turn for the worse when he asked me who I was voting for at election time. “I haven’t quite decided yet,” I said trying to defuse the situation before it started.
“You know that Obama is a Muslim, right? It’s right there in his book, the Audacity of Hope. Hold on, I’ll show you.” He took his dog in another room and then returned moments later with a print-out of some email. The email was one of those bullshit things that people send around with a bunch of half assed facts and quotes on it about any number of topics. Steven Colbert refers to this particular style of information as "truthiness" which is a “a satirical term to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts." George Orwell called it "doublethink"; “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.” At the bottom of the email was a single quote highlighted in yellow, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” He nodded his head slowly at me as I read the quote.
“I’d like to know what the context of this quote is,” I said, handing the paper back to him. “Have you read the book?” He shook his head no. “I’m a smart man. I don’t need to read the book. Everything he needs to tell me is right there.”
Sure it is. Here’s the full context of the quote taken directly from Obama’s book: “Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during WWII, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." That sounds pretty good to me. Nobody stood up for over 100,000 Japanese (a huge percentage of them U.S. citizens) who were interned after Pearl Harbor. How about all the U.S. citizens who’s lives were ruined during the era of McCarthyism?
The conversation (as one-sided as it was) continued to develop like a fart in an elevator.
"You never got into that Dungeons and Druids or Devils or whatever, do you?"
"That's Dungeons and Dragons. No, I don't currently play it, but I played it a lot when I was a kid."
"It's an addiction and it's sucks people in and twists their thinking."
"I'd say it's first and foremost a game that people enjoy. Personally, I liked the narrative elements of the game and the sense of community. It's a game that expects you to think in a manner that combines creativity with analytic thought. If you're somehow addicted to it, you probably have other problems that are unrelated to the game."
"You don't go to San Francisco, do you?" Again with the expectation that somehow we're akin due to our skin color or religion. "Yes I do. I enjoy going to the city. I've applied for several jobs in the city and I like the culture and nightlife."
"Hmm. Well, the only reason I go to San Francisco is to drive right through it. Lot's of crazy people up there."
"Freedom is not free and Obama and Hillary hate the military. They want to disband the military. They don't understand that you have to fight for what we have here."
It's weird to hear this type of thinking so close to home. Usually I hear it when I turn on the radio around Bakersfield or when I channel surf past Fox News. To be honest, I respect everybody's right to have an opinion, but I draw the line at opinions that can't be substantiated in any way. The world doesn't work so great on gut feelings and popularity contests. As I left his house, he waved in an encouraging manner to me and assured me that we'd hang out again soon. Fair enough. If we happen to hang out again on my turf, then you'll have to listen to me.
posted by weezie at
9:04 PM
2 Comments:
I had an incredibly similar experience at the in-laws in PA last month.
"You know Obama said he rejects the white race, don't you? It's in his book!"
(also staring me down with challenging eyes)
To keep the conversation cordial, I just replied, "There's no way I can possibly respond to that." I logged that in my passive-aggressive payback bank, and later that night, I made sure to get 50 dollars worth of scotch as I pretended to be very interested in the nuances of distillation techniques.
Who exactly were you speaking with? And why were you in their house?
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