They're Not Racists. They Just Have A Finely Developed Sense Of History

We seem to recall that during the recently concluded presidential campaign pundits were rhapsodizing about a "post racial" America. Then that smooth talking black feller went and got hisself elected and all manner of hullabaloo broke loose. All of a sudden the bubbas was a coming out of the woodwork like roaches in a fire, packing heat to political rallies, shouting "You Lie" in Congress, carrying signs showing the President of the United States in everything from a Hitler mustache to the tribal costume of an African chief, sending each other pictures of watermelons on the White House lawn, songs about The Magic Negro and just generally getting themselves worked up into a state of the vapors we haven't seen since Rosa sat at the front of the bus.

To paraphrase Mr. Clemens, it seems reports of the death of racism have been greatly exaggerated. Apparently, rather than a post racial America, we have become a publicly racist America, all of which brings us to Arizona.

A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents. John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona who supports the proposed law aimed at so-called "anchor babies," said that the concept does not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

 Well, to get technical about, it doesn't conflict with most of the Constitution. In fact, the only part it does conflict with is the first sentence or two of the 14th Amendment which says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;."

"If you go back to the original intent of the drafters ... it was never intended to bestow citizenship upon (illegal) aliens," said Kavanagh.

Yeah, maybe, but the original intent of the Founders was to count each black person as 3/5's of a human being too, and we've sort of  gotten a little beyond that, don't you think?

Eh. Maybe not.

Now, contrary to what you may be thinking, we're not here to join the chorus of folks bashing, boycotting and just generally being embarrassed by the presence of Arizona. In fact, we think they are doing the country a valuable service. Here's our point: The only thing the Civil War...excuse us...the only thing the War of Northern Aggression taught the bubbas was that Yankees is some mean old bullies who are bound and determined to interfere with the natural order of things. Also, if you want to fight a war it's better to have factories than plantations, but set that aside for a minute and let's focus on the bully part.

So the Yankees come down with all their fancy pants laws and set about wrecking a whole way of life. OK, not a whole way of life, just the slavery part, but that has ramifications, man! Negroes going wherever they want, Negroes learning to read, Negroes getting paid for work, and especially Negroes getting to vote. Where does it end? Think the 14th Amendment is a problem? Try the 13th! Or the 15th! The bubbas never bought in to that whole 3/5's to 5/5's thing but being as they lost the war and all they had to get more subtle, which wasn't exactly a trump card in their deck. Still they did manage to come up with literacy tests, poll taxes and whatnot.

Things were fine for almost 100 years until some uppity negro told on them and then everybody's all Civil Rights this and Civil Rights that. What's a good old boy to do? We mean, there comes a point when your bigotry has to become so subtle no one even notices it's bigotry anymore.

Then Barack Obama got elected and it was OK to be a racist again as long as you said you weren't a racist, just a conservative, or a patriot, or a libertarian (whatever that is) or a Tea Bagger, or a Randian, or anything, who cares brother?! No more subtlety!

Suddenly there's racists in the Congress, in state legislatures, on the world wide internets, the tee vee and the radio, just thicker than flies on a dog turd and we have to tell you folks this is a good thing. Fact is, we need these people out here we can see them. We need them to say what they say where people who aren't racists can hear them because when they got to practice their bigotry undercover, when they got to express their hatred of people who were different in ways only those people on the receiving end of that hatred could feel, it was easy for the rest of us to let it slip by, to just turn away and pretend it wasn't there.

But now these people are in our faces. They're in everyone's faces and they're demanding that we join them. They're demanding our permission to abandon the promises this country was founded upon. They want to turn the whole country into a plantation with them at the top like it was back when the real president's name was Jefferson Davis, not Abraham Lincoln.

Now, you may be saying wait a minute there Ironicus, you've been talking about black folks, but those people in Arizona, they ain't got nothing against black folks, they're just trying to get rid of some wetbacks.

True. But as Jefferson Davis said in his inaugural address, "If it ain't white, it ain't right." Well, maybe it wasn't Jefferson Davis. Could have been Michelle Bachmann, or maybe Pat Buchanan. We'll get back to you on that.