rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Six Feet Of Water In The Streets Of Evangeline Part 3: Living in the Black & White World

     So far, so good. The evacuees arrived yesterday and are still getting settled. Luckily the pinhead contingency hasn't made any formal move of protest. Although one idiot got mad when he saw a black teenager going into a local convenience store yesterday morning, started running his mouth about how the n words are gonna take our jobs etc - and I happen to know this particular pinhead has been unemployed for years and gets his SSI check onh the 3rd of every month, but that's not the funny part- turns out the kid was coming from the bus from Denver that had stopped in Fowler to pick up freight and take a rest stop. He just happened by to get a pack of smokes or something. But the incident was so indicative of how so many folks are responding to this sudden influx of difference in our little town. Basically jumping to conclusions w/no real information to back it up.

     This time it was harmless. The kid didn't hear the pinhead's remarks, but I still noticed the kid's eyes as he passed us. Untrusting, maybe a little scared. There were 3 of us white guys sitting around a table in a little hick town. So maybe he jumped to his own conclusions about us. In either case the pinhead was wrong and so was the kid, but only a little. I really thought that the fact that race relations in America were in desperate straits was old news but apparently it took Katrina to bring to light the cold, hard truth that there are (at least) 2 Americas. John Edwards tried to tell us, but the country didn't want to hear it. Still doesn't. It both disgusts and scares me how easily some people can justify and/or deny a blind hatred of a complete race of people just because of color. And apropos of maybe just a little something: I've always been treated better as the only white guy in a black bar than I've seen the only black guy treated in a white bar.

It's recently been made know to me that in my town, Fowler, Colorado, it was freaking illegal for Mexicans to live within the city limits until 1964.

1964!!!!!

I cease to be amazed at the venality of some people. I guess I am naive (another accusation aimed at me by the pinhead of my last post), I thought that when the shit really came down, as it has w/Katrina, that folks would be smart enough to realize that "there but for the grace of god etc" and, like all good people, come to the aid of their party. Another civics lesson learned. Now I know I've written stuff about the uselessness of life and how people are garbage and all before. My only defense is that I wrote these things while extremely depressed and only thought I meant them when I wrote them. In this time of true desperation, I've thrown all my rhetorical smart assedness out the proverbial window and expected others to do likewise. Most have, as the amount of donations to not only our little shelter, but throughout the world, has been nothing less than amazing. I guess it's my own problem that I'm still concentrating on the few who stand against helping their fellow man, but it pays to keep yr eye on the paranoid extremists of our time.

      Well here I go, all vague and disjointed and not writing about music again. Sorry. I guess I'm just trying to figure out the whole right and wrong of things and failing miserably. Things aren't black and white, there's a whole lotta gray area to consider here, beyond the obvious (get these people off the roofs and into a safe place). I fear for the future (as usual) but now, I think that fear is rooted in something more concrete than any free floating anxiety. Once the dust settles America will be host to an entire new class of refugees. Folks displaced and shell shocked all around the country. It will be a test of our national identity how we weather this storm after the storm.

     For once I'm betting on humanity

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:53 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  14 September 2005 - 19:59

 

don't worry about not posting about music, man, there's music in your post. and not all music sounds sweet. i'm hoping we (the human race) don't revert to form this time and decide to walk the road together.

howard

#2  14 September 2005 - 20:05

 

thanks. i'm with you on that. would that we saw this as the same opportunity that i believe we squandered after 9/11, the opportunity to not hate, not lash out and not 'revert to form'.

timbyrnes

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