RSSYa Know What I’m Sayin’, Honkie? “Kiss My Black Ass!”
Gene Lalor | July 15, 2009
The idea of monopoly, exclusive control not the popular board game, is antithetical to American ideals whether monopolistic power rears its ugly head in the business or political sphere.
We are more familiar with industrial monopolies which throughout our history have been prosecuted as being in restraint of fair, even-handed trade but such control can also exist in politics when one party or individual unfairly maintains a steely grip, sometimes for decades.
Politicians recognize the inequity of such power and occasionally go through the motions of curbing it through term limits to which the monopolizers object, for obvious reasons. They enjoy their control.
We’re more tolerant of political monopolies because, after all, the party and office holders have usually been elected to their positions by the voters, and they make the laws to keep themseves there. To many people, they’re harmless, ensconced as they are in their sinecures and the electorate is equally comfy in the hope they will somehow benefit from their longevity in office.
Excessive longevity in office, however, can breed discontent, especially when combined with other factors such as race in our our ostensibly color blind society. In truth, color blindedness is more often a legal concept rather than an actual state.
In the case of tiny, run-down Alligator, Mississippi, population 220, that recently proved to be the case.
Three quarters of Alligator’s population is now Black and the White mayor had been in office for 30 years.
Time for a change, figured Alligator’s Blacks, time to emulate the amorphous, undefined change that the nation’s first Black president promised. So, Alligator sent the 71 year old White Mayor Robert Fava packing and elected a Black, the former clerk in Fava’s general store, Tommie “Tomasso” Brown, age 38, in his stead: http://bit.ly/TwLDW
Let’s hear it for Mr. Brown! Change had finally come to Alligator, Mississippi thanks to the first Black who ever bucked Mayor Fava.
Change, however, isn’t always all it’s generally cracked up to be, at least as far as Alligator’s population was concerned. As far as Mayor Fava was concerned, he lost because, “They wanted a Black mayor,” not because of the content of Mr. Brown’s character or extent of his expertise but because of the color of his skin.
Fava also believes that Brown’s promises of a town recreation center and swimming pool helped.
For a glimpse of life in Deep South Alligator and at Brown’s governing philosophy, and admiration for President Obama, see the video on the above website. However, no explanation is given for the meaning of “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid,” the words emblazoned on his T-shirt.
What ensued from Mr. Brown’s election by ten votes, 37-27, may not be a foreshadowing of America’s future. Then again it could be.
After decades of holding a monopoly over the mayor’s office, Mr. Fava and his general store, one of three surviving businesses in forlorn, once-thriving, Alligator, were treated with something less than respect by the Obama/Brown supporters.
As a 31 year old Black Alligator mother expressed it, ” ‘Everybody out here was whooping and hollering and running and trying to flip,’ said Patrina Brown, 25, the new mayor’s niece and newly elected as one of Alligator’s five aldermen.”
“Some youngsters ran into Mr Fava’s store to taunt him. ‘They was pulling down their pants, shouting, “Kiss my black ass, because we got a black mayor,” swinging their things around and throwing stuff,’ said Jennifer Green, 31, a black mother of 10.”
I’m guessing Fava has an inkling of what lies ahead for himself and for Alligator where everyone used to “get along.” What lies ahead could be related to the threat proclaimed on Brown’s T-shirt.
Contributor's website: http://www.genelalor.com/
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