The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Well, it’s that time of year for Going Back to School sales, outfit the kids with notebooks and pencils, calculators and wardrobes, oh, and don’t forget the Kevlar backpacks. This year’s fashion statement comes with bullet proof fabric, available in hot colors, extra pockets, maybe room for all those books PLUS a first aid kit. Tourniquets, of course!

I don’t know if you’ve been in a school lately. Alarms, security guards, locked doors, notices at the entry for all visitors to check into the office immediately, cameras, drills for intruder alerts, everything but razor wire around the perimeter. Although I was just in Yakima, WA and saw an elementary school which did have razor wire surrounding it. Some communities want teachers to carry guns, some probably want the kids to carry em too. I don’t understand either why the tots are stressed.

The more modern schools, meaning the ones with money, are hiring high tech outfits to monitor Facebook and social media, eavesdrop on cellphones, run an algorithm or a million to determine potential mayhem from maladjusted students, forget about privacy rights, they have the safety of the entire school at risk. Big Brother is now the School Board and the Principal is the Warden.

Now we have Kevlar backpacks. That should reassure the children. Maybe use a frontpack too. And wear military grade steel helmets. I’m pretty sure I’m getting a clear picture of what kind of education our youngsters are getting these days. I remember duck and cover drills for atomic attacks in third grade down in Georgia not too many miles from Cuba missile sites. Get under your desk and hope the blast isn’t real close. Fear is a great teacher, you bet.

Schools must feel like war zones now. Barricades, blast barriers, security details, lockdowns. I assume they still teach math and science, but I suspect the real education isn’t readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmitic, it’s Dread. Course, to be fair, I always dreaded school and we didn’t even have mass murderers lurking in the hallways. Just bullies.

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Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the least racist one of all?

Well now, let’s see… is it Adolph Hitler? Could it be Pol Pot? What about David Duke? Maybe George Wallace? Hmm, tough call. But wait! I think it has to be Donald J. Trump! At least D.J. thinks so. And with that very big brain he has and an IQ right off the charts, he must be right. Oh, I know, he called the Mexican immigrants rapists and carriers of disease, criminals and gang members. But that isn’t racist if it’s true, is it?

And okay, he has a bit of a bias against Muslims. Mostly terrorists, but hey, he’s against their religion, not their race. Different, right? Doesn’t make him a racist, just a religionist … or something like that. Okay, he told those 4 Congresswomen to go back where they came from, maybe he didn’t know they were women of color. Being color blind, how would he know?? Those folks down in Charlottesville, all he meant was there were good folks on both sides. White supremacists and those who don’t like Nazis. Why pick sides? We got a big tent Republican Party now, no need to exclude folks for their beliefs.

So what if he called Baltimore a rat-infested mess? Just means he doesn’t love rats, not black folks. And this week he blamed the white supremacists in the same tweet he blamed liberal protestors and the mayor of Toledo, does that sound like a racist? Sure, he questioned Obama’s birth place? So what, he just wanted to see a birth certificate. And okay, when they produced one from Hawaii, he probably didn’t realize Hawaii had been part of the United States. History isn’t his strong suit, but … does that make him a racist?

The man is the least prejudiced man in America, at least White America. Not a racist bone in his big Mac super-sized body, near as anybody can prove. He pretty much dislikes everybody equally. I gotta tell ya, though, if Mr. T is the least racist guy in the country, and I think by now you’ll agree with that fact, I feel like turning myself into the NAACP as a thought criminal. If I’m more racist than this guy, I’m definitely a danger to myself and the neighbors. I don’t want to speak for you, but I think we both know we ought to join the KKK and quit kidding ourselves.

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You got to love the Republican Party, the one they themselves like to refer to as the Party of Lincoln, the Grand Old Party. Old, for sure; grand, not so much … unless you mean grandfather. Lincoln? Lincoln would roll over in his grave. The last black guy in the House of Reps just announced he won’t run next term. You could almost hear the applause from out here on the West Coast. Time for the token black to hit the road, return the club to an all white country club set once again. Making America Great Again, yah shure, you betcha.

Me, I’m old and I’m a white guy. Angry too a lot of the time. But I don’t think returning to pre-Civil Rights is going to make this country great again. I guess it’s only a matter of time before the dogwhistles become Jim Crow attacks. Racism never really went away, forget Obama being elected. It’s part of our national DNA and slavery is part of our history, shameful and inexcusable, I don’t care what the cultural norms were for the times. Send em back!? What, in slave ships?

I’m not sure where I stand on reparations, but I’m pretty sure where I stand on racism in this country. And I’m very sure what I think of this President’s pivot toward racial insults, dogwhistles and a nod to the so-called ‘Base’ who wouldn’t recognize a racist if he had a noose in his hand for the next lynching. The Confederacy never really died and slavery didn’t exactly end. You don’t think so, go down to rural Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, check out the indentured servitude still there, ask around about the local KKK, see who runs the county, the city, maybe the entire state. Tell me then who owns who.

The Republicans who enable this, the white boyz who avert their eyes and quiet their disagreement over every tweet and bully baiting, welcome to the time when the Reichstag let the Jews be stigmatized, then singled out, then gassed. Blame Hitler, sure, but the others stood silent, afraid of losing office or power, but never afraid of losing their morality, eventually their souls. No, I don’t think Donald plans to set up camps. I don’t even think he plans to send em back. He just wants to win another four years of narcissistic spotlight, and if playing the race card works, Mr. T will stoop to conquer.

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