DONL 1
I bought my school bus yellow 85 Dodge pickup with Cadillac spoke hubcaps and
a homemade plywoood bedcover from a trim carpenter named Timmy. Timmy is
having marital problems which somehow have become so out of hand that his
whole family has come to witness numerous fights between Timmy and wife, and
some of these fights have occurred in front of their two children. Timmy's
mom found this last bit so upsetting that she mailed him a letter which very
uncharacteristically had her espousing the rather base opinion that by
fighting like they do at so many family gatherings, and in front of their
children, "they are no better than niggers."
As insults go among the average white Louisianan, this was a doozy. For it
to come from a mother to a son is almost unthinkable. Timmy once said to me
that the annual college football game between Grambling and Southern would be
a good time to put a bomb in the Superdome because "you could kill so many
fuckin' niggers." That pretty much expresses a prevailing sentiment among
white people in Louisiana. No, not all white people feel that way here, but
more than you would like to believe. Many, many more than you would like to
believe. Or so I presume (what you would like to believe).
I used to explain to my likeable yet so completely casual rascist white
co-workers that white and black people in Louisiana to the casual observer
that I am, have more in common culturally than any white/black population I
have ever been around. "You eat the same foods, you are influenced by each
other's music, and the way whites around here talk sounds more black than
white much of time," I would antagonize. "You say 'ax' for 'ask', you say
'zink' for 'sink', you say 'I'm going to make groceries,' whereas the rest of
the white world is saying 'I'm going grocery shopping.'"
That the two races have been "mixing" around here for three hundred years is
a most beautifully obvious thing and yet vehemently denied on individual
basis's.
And coming home from an average summer work day to be met by a front porch
full of neighborhood youth, some gangsters, and maybe a parent or two, all
black skinned, playing dominoes, or card games like pity pat, or tonk, and
the only thing more frustrating than hearing them refer to each other as
"nigger" is the absolutely ridiculous refrain of "don't say that, Mr. Jim (or
Miss Amanda) don't like you using that word up here." I suspect I hear the
word "nigger" coming from black mouths more than white. I don't know what
that means, but I've heard it used as an excuse many times: "Shit, they call
themselves that, why can't we?"
At some point I just stopped answering, out loud.
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I bought my school bus yellow 85 Dodge pickup with Cadillac spoke hubcaps and a homemade plywoood bedcover from a trim carpenter named Timmy. Timmy is having marital problems which somehow have become so out of hand that his whole family has come to witness numerous fights between Timmy and wife, and some of these fights have occurred in front of their two children. Timmy's mom found this last bit so upsetting that she mailed him a letter which very uncharacteristically had her espousing the rather base opinion that by fighting like they do at so many family gatherings, and in front of their children, "they are no better than niggers." As insults go among the average white Louisianan, this was a doozy. For it to come from a mother to a son is almost unthinkable. Timmy once said to me that the annual college football game between Grambling and Southern would be a good time to put a bomb in the Superdome because "you could kill so many fuckin' niggers." That pretty much expresses a prevailing sentiment among white people in Louisiana. No, not all white people feel that way here, but more than you would like to believe. Many, many more than you would like to believe. Or so I presume (what you would like to believe). I used to explain to my likeable yet so completely casual rascist white co-workers that white and black people in Louisiana to the casual observer that I am, have more in common culturally than any white/black population I have ever been around. "You eat the same foods, you are influenced by each other's music, and the way whites around here talk sounds more black than white much of time," I would antagonize. "You say 'ax' for 'ask', you say 'zink' for 'sink', you say 'I'm going to make groceries,' whereas the rest of the white world is saying 'I'm going grocery shopping.'" That the two races have been "mixing" around here for three hundred years is a most beautifully obvious thing and yet vehemently denied on individual basis's. And coming home from an average summer work day to be met by a front porch full of neighborhood youth, some gangsters, and maybe a parent or two, all black skinned, playing dominoes, or card games like pity pat, or tonk, and the only thing more frustrating than hearing them refer to each other as "nigger" is the absolutely ridiculous refrain of "don't say that, Mr. Jim (or Miss Amanda) don't like you using that word up here." I suspect I hear the word "nigger" coming from black mouths more than white. I don't know what that means, but I've heard it used as an excuse many times: "Shit, they call themselves that, why can't we?" At some point I just stopped answering, out loud.
- jimlouis 4-04-2000 1:47 pm