Wow! Whatta Rant!

[undergroundpanther]

DEAR BOSS MAN: STICK’EM UP!

Dear Boss Man:

This is a stick up. It’s time you recognize my innate dignity. Why should you have any privileges when you constantly trample on my rights?

Hurricane Katrina was the last straw. It all started with your god, Ronald Reagan, and his religion of trickle down economics. Now it’s all going to end with a new system—blow up finances.

I know, I know…you say violence is wrong, that I should turn the other cheek. But I only have two of them (four if you count my overworked ass). I’ve been bitch slapped and spanked for so long I hardly notice it anymore. I’ve labored my whole life, but you won’t even let me see a doctor, get healthy food, or have a subsistence retirement plan. I’ve sent my sons and daughters to maim and kill other poor folks all over the world, seen my kin and offspring blown to pieces for your enrichment, watched my parents and grandparents moved from one nursing home to another as they closed down to save you money, been arrested and put on trial for getting what I needed, and ridiculed and laughed at for my bad manners.



http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=471

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. Hmmm

Dear "Boss Man" This is a stick up?

I understand the sentiment but I'm not real comfortable with the imagery there.

[undergroundpanther]

4. Tallahassee

When the rich treat you like scum
simply because you are not rich,and assume you are inferior or dangerous it feels like an emotional assault.When you can't go to a doctor when you are sick and dare not take off work, because the government we pay taxes to refuses to help the general welfare and instead feeds the rich, and makes laws that allow exploitation it is a form of assault by proxy.
The american people have been abused by the wealthy for a long,long time .What happened after Katrina in New Orleans is a prime example of the rich fucking over the poor who would kill off the poor rather than help them and deal with their biggest fear EQUALITY and Human rights and respect for all people.
The rich do not want equality or human rights because if they did they wouldn't be such greedy pigs and act like such assholes to poor people they depend on,to clean the pool garden,take out trash, The rich use the poor as slaves to fix or manage every mundane thing these debutantes are unwilling or unable to deal with themselves,Life's stopped up toilets,vacuuming of rugs, endless cooking... All these hypocrite well dressed thugs will always deny how parasitic they are on the poor to their dying breath and we have to remind them their fortune costs US too much..

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. Yes, I understand all of that

and agree with it. But the author just fell into one of the oldest stereotypes of black men there is: a thug with a gun.

"Boss Man" is a classic black expression, and "this is a stick up" feeds right into the basest of symbolism. To me, blatant racism.

I think he could have gotten his point accross without that metaphor. Like maybe: "Boss Man. Stop. Look at me. Look into my eyes."

I'm not the author, and that is probably weak..but there are thousands of black men in prison all over this country and we don't need to be perpetuating that stereotype. Because this man's anger (the fictional narrator) is probably going to end up with him doing 25 years to life in a prison run by even more white men. Can you see my point?

[undergroundpanther]

7. Yeah I see the point you mention.

But oppression has no colors really.

Yes black people are more oppressed than most whites are in general,and Native Americans are more oppressed than many blacks are nowadays.The Rez is like a prison in alot of ways and still every football season there's "redskins"There are no humiliating black mascots... The problem is wealthy people think they are entitled to oppress less wealthy people and less wealthy people are found in all colors and incomes,and some less wealthy people think the wealthy oppression of people less wealthy than themselves is OK as long as it's not in their backyard..And that shit has got to stop.

Sometimes when an oppressor refuses to pay heed to oppressed peoples demand to be treated with respect,fairness it angers and if the rich refuse to hear the pain or warnings,he will find himself threatened and if he still refuses to listen and care he'll find himself on the wrong end of a gun eventually.And it is not anyone's else's fault but the oppressor who did not care to hear he was hurting others and stop doing it by himself.
If race stereotypes plays into this I'm not surprised considering it was poor black people who were dying outside the super dome shouting for help and water on CNN while too many white(and other colored) folks watched them suffer from the comfort of their easy chairs in the suburbs.. I didn't see many whites outside the super dome,in fact mercenaries rescued the whites,the people from england and all and left the black people to die.. So the whites could gentrify New Orleans into a white country club or something. New Orleans was another American genocide,the storm made it possible. Bush made sure it happened.

So as I see it the white oppressor class is who creates the stereotype and uses it to perpetuate a lie for the whites to react to.Same old shit happened with that stupid wild Indian Savage stereotype.The blacks who are desperate ,like the Indians who are I fear don't have many options left to make their voices heard anymore.I think they can use a white man's stereotype to their own advantage...Nola should have made that clear that rich america does not give a shit,..But still people fool themselves on all sides of this. Believe me being a punk ,transgender, bi,fat and half native American I hear plenty of shit out of ignorant mouths and it ain't always white people saying it and perpetuating it..and it isn't always for the same top-down reason whites use it when other races use the white generated stereotypes themselves.

[villager]

2. loved the Ayn Rand line in that rant:

"May your goddess, Ayn Rand, spin in her grave, as the real Atlas is about to shrug."

[400Years]

3. " If you can’t share your wealth, we’ll spread our poverty."

thanks for the link.

[sendero]

6. This expresses..

.... the direction I think America is headed better than I ever could.

[lonestarnot]

8. waiting and watching!