Bad Questions to ask a Transsexual

By Calpernica Addams

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The kitchen sink vs the kitchen table


Strange, when you consider that we live in a culture that thrives on vituperation institutionalized by conservative talk radio - guys such as Rush Limbaugh are paid to be mad. But, of course, white anger is seen as fundamentally reasoned and righteous, and Americans have an almost limitless capacity to forgive it when it isn't. Talk-show host Don Imus was kicked off the airwaves for a racial insult he made against black women last May, but he was back at the microphone in six months' time. Mr. Limbaugh's many transgressions hardly raise an eyebrow, including taunting Mr. Obama as "Barack, the Magic Negro," a parody of "Puff, the Magic Dragon." William F. Buckley Jr. was eulogized as a genteel genius recently, his sanctioning of Jim Crow laws in the South in the 1950s written off as a forgettable faux pas. Mr. Buckley's real genius was dressing up white anger in the guise of intellect.

Black anger is never seen as intellectual in nature, merely primal, and black public figures therefore have no such latitude (unless, of course, they're in the conservative camp already, in which case they can rail to their hearts' content).

There are exceptions. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is lauded now as a paragon of peace and disciplined black leadership, but it's useful to remember that he was mad most of the time. The famous let-freedom-ring tremulousness in his preaching voice reflected not simply emotion or patriotic fervor but frustration. It's also useful to remember that toward the end of Dr. King's life, his unrelenting social analysis was not met with much enthusiasm; even his supporters called him radical and out of touch. But that hardly deterred him.

Jay Smooth

The Music Biz and the Moral High Ground:Two things that have nothing to do with each other.

Ten OTHER things Martin Luther King said

Thanks to asim for introducing me to him.

His video blog is http://www.illdoctrine.com/