American Multiculturalism & You

     I may have to stop listening to NPR. One Sunday they had a guest, I didn’t catch his name—Don something—who was asked if he believed America was a multicultural society. This clod replied in all seriousness, “No, I do not. “Imagine. he actually said that. The most frightening thing about this is that he probably believes that crock of shit. Since the Trump campaign kicked off in 015 there has been a terrifying rise in right-wing bigotry and fascism in this country’s discourse.

          Let me explain something, in as simple and with as cordial language as I am able: YOURE FUCKING NUTS.

          Point two: Fuck you. We’re not going back.

          You want to live in the 19^th Century under Biblical conditions, without electricity or public toilets, build a time machine. The rest of us are not going to tolerate a nation of stupidity and intolerance. Point of fact: white people were not here first. That honor goes to the Native Americans, to the native peoples of the Bahamas where Columbus landed. The Spanish began colonizing the Americas in the 15^th Century. In fact the first permanent Spanish city in the Western hemisphere, was established in Santo Domingo in the present-day Dominican Republic in 1496. Florida was claimed as a Spanish colony by Juan Ponce de Leon in 1513; Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi in 1541.

           Put into perspective, the first English settlement in North America, Jamestown, was not established until 1607. Latinos were here and had a healthy population and culture well before the Great Land Grab of 1846—oops, I mean the Mexican War, which was preceded by the original American land grab in the so-called Texas War of Independence in 1836. California, New Mexico, Arizona were wrongly seized as part of the war’s aims, basically taken under the terms of 1848’s Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and under the policy of Manifest Destiny. Or, the Law of Conquest. Does no one realize how much this bears shades of Nazism?

          And to all those who complain about the rights justly claimed by African Americans, which rights are guaranteed by original Constitutional law and subsequent amendments, to all you sickies who shouted, “Kill that nigger!” at Trump rallies in 2016…just remember, YOU brought them over here.

          You kidnapped them from their African homes, drowned them in the sea and seeded them all across the Caribbean and the Southern Atlantic coast of America. Did you seriously think they would give up their culture in order to adopt that of their oppressors? Recall this, you white people did not HAVE A CULTURE of your own when you arrived on these shores. 

        So to all you deniers I say America is a polyglot of cultural influences, Native American, African, Latino, Asian, Germanic& French and every other immigrant soul that has blessed our soil. As much as I’d love to tell you what you can do with yourselves, today I’ll settle for this. If you deny that America is a multicultural nation, then I’m afraid you’re an imbecile, and not a very well-educated one at that. You’re probably the same sort of boob who believes the Bible is true history and the Earth is only 6,000 years old or less. Literally descended from apes? Yeah, I can believe that, but I wouldn’t want to insult our primate cousins.

Addendum 'Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Did I say Yoko Ono sounded serene in my last post? I may have exaggerated.

It's true Yoko did a splendid job on 'Angela' & 'Born in a Prison'.  However, when you set the needle on the aforementioned 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' as well as the LP's closing track, 'We're All Water', she's back to her old screeching tricks. And this goes on for over seven frikkin' minutes. Sorry.

'Sunday Bloody Sunday'

There are actually two versions of this song that I know, the first of course being John Lennon's from his Sometime in New York City album from 1973. I may have been the only person at the time who loved that LP, possibly because I was a nine-year-old kid who was totally divorced from the events under protest on that album.

Here's the thing with John Lennon: you don't want to piss him off, 'cause he will write a song about you. Taylor Swift? pfft! John is the archetype, the man who will crucify you in song. Just listen to "Gimme Some Truth". Unfortunately "Sunday Bloody Sunday" got lost in the melange that was this album. That was too bad 'cause it was the best song, hard, biting with the full power of the Plastic Ono Band at his back and a merciless solo bridging the choruses.

Curiously this was also the first LP where Yoko sounded fabulous. Where John was angry, Yoko was lyrical, more serene, which made her political sentiments more effective. One could say the student had exceeded the master.

Count ahead ten years. I barely knew U2; most of us didn't in 1983. What'd they have on MTV back then, like three videos? With the concert at Red Rock, Colorado, they became flesh, four passionate young men ready to storm the world. I believe that was the point of the concert, to make the world aware of them. It worked for me, they never left my sight after that. Especially after they performed "Sunday Bloody Sunday", their own version.

That was the first time i fell in love with that song, with Bono stomping the beat, waving that white flag while the Edge cranked out the riff. reminding us that we need to stop this, just stop it:

"How long, how long must we sing this song?
"Tonight, we can be as one, tonight..."

And just when you thought the song was over, they bring it back full force for one last refrain.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday' never gets old, and maybe that's the problem. This whole generation of vipers, all those old geezers are leading us into new wars, new acts of terrorism. They keep promoting the wrong ideas, the same outdated group-thinking that if you bomb the blazes out of people, the enemy is going to surrender. Either that or you'll pound the people around them into annihilation. Look at the Middle East; all that's accomplished is making another generation that's going to grow up hating us, with good reason.

What we need is what we haven't got, a President who's willing to stand up, who has the moral courage to tell us, "Stop it stop it just #@*&^%$# stop it! We're not Neanderthals, We don't need to do this anymore. We're not going to accomplish anything with a military solution. We're not going to win if we keep killing each other."

I am not your associate

associate

a person with subordinate membership in a society, institution, or commercial enterprise

Source: https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/associate

     I’m seeing this everywhere now, hearing it every single day over the ‘Interstore Audio monopolized Network’ broadcasting in every supermarket that I frequent. It started with Walmart of course, this referring to their grocery workers as ’associates.’     

     What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway, ‘associates’? That's the shit term Walmart uses to identify us.That is the word business people used to refer to  colleagues they know but who are not their friends. ‘Hello, this is Oswald, my associate. He will be breaking your kneecaps today’. 

     Words have power. There are many meanings attached to this word, but I think the one I've pasted at the top there best defines how our employers see us lowly minions today. By inference that implies we are really not part of the company; that we work here but we’re not part of the family, is that so?    

     That really burns me to hear that, every day. ‘Our meat associates would be proud to serve you’. Yes, except they’re not really one of us. What this says is that we're not as valuable to the Company as the CEOs sitting in their head offices. That our work doesn't matter when the reverse is true. Without us doing the grunt work, the Company would collapse into a disorderly mass. 

     I’m going to admit something right here; I’ve spent the last 19 years working in a supermarket, stocking the shelves and facing them to make them presentable in the morning so, when a customer comes into the store, it looks like a place where they might want to shop again. 

     I’m not doing this because the company appreciates it, oh no. Truth is as far as the company is concerned, whatever we do, however hard we work, it will never be enough. They will always want more. Which is fine; I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for the most selfish of reasons. Whatever I do on my job, it’s going to be something I’m proud to have my name on. Because I’ll tell you what, whenever they lay me off, and that’s a given, the only thing I’ll take away from that job will be the reputation I’ve built over the last 19 years.         

     I’ll tell you something else. I am not a goddamn ‘associate’. I will never be an associate. I’ve worked my ass off at my job. I’ve been un-fuck-up-isizing my workplace since the day I walked in the door. I’m a laborer, a night shift worker. I have been a member of my company’s so-called family for 19 years and I categorically refuse to be patronized or belittled in that manner. 

     And you can bet your corporate out-of-touch ass that I will see that put in writing when the next contract comes up. I will see it written in stone that we are not simply ‘associates’ of the company.