Profunksticated

Democracy. Profunksticated’s starting to wonder if this system is all it’s cracked up to be.

Joan Walsh, the editor in chief of Salon, had this recent piece asking whether white racism will hurt Barack Obama’s chances to be elected President. Please don’t laugh.

Predictably, Ms. Walsh’s column set off a torrent of nearly 1,000 comments. I’m posting an excerpt from a letter, signed by someone called “Independent Liberal Contrarian,” that disturbed me. Maybe it shouldn’t have. I think that coming of age in the post-civil rights era has colored (no pun intended) my view of how white folks view African slave-descended black Americans.

In short, I’ve wanted to believe their view of us has improved since Jim Crow. But sadly, it hasn’t. Here is the excerpt (if you want to read the entire letter, go to page 30 of the comment thread, which is now closed):

I don’t think the Democrats could have chosen two worse candidates for president if they wanted to be competitive in the South. But since, we are talking about racial prejudice, I will I will reserve my remarks to the (any) black candidate.

I know southern whites who intentionally voted for Obama in the primary just so they would have the pleasure of seeing him go down to defeat to a Republican candidate in the general election this fall. In the 20 years I have lived in the south, I have yet to see a southern bigot change their thinking. It is like part of their DNA. It also cuts across all socio-economic classes. There are of course exceptions but they are almost a statistical anomaly.

First off, why does every candidate for president have to appeal to this region of historically evil knuckle-draggers? I mean, did Ronald Reagan know what he was doing when he opened his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the murders of those four civil rights workers? Or better yet, did he really believe he was doing the right thing or was it just a crass political move? Did Reagan sleep at night?

But what what struck me was the “secession” comment. We know Abraham Lincoln, who was no saint when it came to viewing Africans as humans, left no stops unpulled in trying to keep the southern states from seceding from the Union.

Just for laughs, say Obama’s elected and the white southerners go berserk and renew their ancestors’ calls for secession by the old Confederacy.

I’d love to see a President Obama say, “OK, I’ll see your secession call and raise you a constitutional amendment to KICK YOUR SORRY ASSES OUT OF THE UNION. After all, that’s what you’ve wanted for more than 140 years, right? And once you’re gone and we seal your borders, good luck in finding the money to get your government going again.”

I love “what-if” scenarios.

Profunksticated’s Memorial Day weekend was a’ight. The highlight was finally assembling the hand-me-down bunk bed set for my younger son, who is eight. My brother’s two sons, my nephews, had used it.

Younger son was thrilled. So was I. With the help of my 19-year-old son and a 21-year-old cousin, the job was finally over.

Speaking of my younger son, I noticed on Saturday he was on the computer and clicked out of the window he was viewing when I came up behind him. He clicked a little too fast for old Pro, whose spider senses started tingling.

“What were you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“I saw you looking at something.”

“It was nothing.”

“Show me what you were looking at.”

(Stammering, fidgeting and otherwise continuing to stall) “I’m in really big trouble.”

“I’m gonna ask you one more time to show me what you were looking at.”

Finally, he Googles the words “Naked women,” clicks on the first link and up pops a sexuality explicit video, complete with naked women doing things with naked men.

“How did you think to Google naked women?”

“I just thought of it.”

“When would you normally look at this stuff?”

“When no one’s around.”

There you have it. My eight-year-old son likes looking at porn. I’ll be honest. It was all I could do not to bust out laughing, but I had to maintain that stern Dad demeanor. I told him never to look at such sites again, they were inappropriate for boys his age to look at and that Dad has ways of finding which sites he was on.

Filled now with the Fear of Dad, the younger son promised not to view porn. Nonetheless, I’m now gonna have to figure out a way to block that stuff from his curious little eyes.

I told The Spouse, wasn’t angry and surmised that his Googling “naked women” was a logical extension of his watching the Naked Brothers Band on Nickelodeon. I tend to believe he got the idea where most kids get their initial sex education — on the schoolyard. Whatever.

I could understand it if he were 12 or 13. I was 13 when I discovered my dad’s Playboy magazine stash. But eight? I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.

These kids today really do start early, don’t they?

Peace.

Help out Profunksticated, folks! This week marked six months since I started with the social services consulting firm. This means they can hire me outright without buying out the contact from the agency that placed me.

My agency now tells me that my manager told them they’d like to keep me on through an open-ended contract. I don’t know for how long. I realize there’s a lot going on with this firm, not the least of which is that they sold the building we’re in and moved us in with all the other wage slaves at the corporate headquarters 10 miles away.

This news was disappointing. I’m not sure what to do. Do I stay and hope they will hire me on? Or do I stay true to my convictions and start looking for other contracting opportunities now that health insurance doesn’t seem to be an issue (The Spouse can buy hers, but for a few bills a month, assuming she resigns from her school district). I have insurance through the agency, my youngest can get it through our state’s SCHIPs program and the older two are covered by college policies.

I just don’t want to get caught flat-footed again. “Sorry, Pro, we don’t need you any more. Thanks for your service.” I’ve heard that a few times before.

I feel like I’m up in the air. I’ve talked to my manager about my status on a number of occasions, and says he’d like me to come on board full time. But he has no power to make things happen for me. Meanwhile, I’m hearing through the grapevine that a higher-up VP has gone to bat for a desktop publisher who came through the same agency as I.

I really need my own business. I gotta look out for me and mine. Any ideas, y’all, on what Pro should do? Thanks.

Peace.

Yo, remember this post from last November about how this 40-something is slipping behind the parents? Well, an interview with an author over at Salon seems to validate what’s happening.

The financial maladies of the so-called middle class involve wide structural changes to the American economy and are not just the fault of individuals. (Yes, this was obstensibly written for a suddenly insecure white audience to whom all this is news. But damn, even I as a post civil rights African American, was optimistic just like the white folks. Guess I should have known better. LOL.)

Follwing is a letter posted in response. The second paragraph of this statement validates what I’ve suspected:

There may be no fixing it. Already it is too late to prevent the decline of the US middle class. From here it’s mostly a matter of how little the average American will settle for, and experience suggests Americans may be prepared to settle for very little.

The last time the country was in this situation it required the desperation of the Depression to motivate change. This time, that may not be sufficient, because the wealthy and powerful who profit from this situation are likely to be able to prevent those kinds of reforms.

Then there’s this:

The so called Greatest Generation as well as the Korean War Generation right after it are in fact anomalies. No where else in the history of people was there an entire generation that voted and awarded itself such an enormous bag of free stuff. From SSI to early retirement to rich union plans to subsidized healthcare, IRA’s, 401Ks, the GI bill, massive tax breaks, to the greatest long run surge in property values from 1955 to 1995, Medicare, Medicaid, and long slow retirement where expensive and extensive travel is the norm not the exception and it goes on from age 55 to age 85. Not only did those generations not take care of their own parents, outsourcing them to nursing homes, but they didn’t take care of their children’s generation either - letting them take out loans for the their college or letting the government pick up the tab, so long as they got out of the house at 18.

Yeah. And we all know that African Americans were largely excluded from grabbing from that goody bag. At least until much later.

As I commented before, my father asked me if my last employer offered a pension. I almost told him he should join Steve Harvey, Cedric, and D.L. on the Kings of Comedy circuit because he had jokes. You see, my dad was able to get into an electric utility in 1971 and get out 30 years later with a pension. Hmm, a pension? What the hell is that?

Happy reading.

Peace.

Profunksticated met with fellow bloggers Hostess and Honest at a spot in D.C.’s Capitol Hill late last week, and it was fun.

Hostess definitely could be a Gen-X talk show, well, hostess, with a great sense of humor. Honest is a bit more reserved, serious and world-wise.

As we talked, there was a young brother sitting to Hostess’ right at the bar, who kept sneaking glances over at us. Hostess mused that dude was wondering why these two young women are talking to this older, bald, slightly overweight guy (description mine, not Hostess’). He eventually worked his way into our convo, which I found kind of amusing.

We spoke about how we found each other’s blogs (I found Hostess though K, I recall). Hostess also told me some readers e-mailed her to criticize my comments on her blog about my not-so-great attitudes about having children early on in my marriage. More than a few didn’t like what I had to say about that topic.

Please, I ask you all: If you don’t like something I have to say, either on this blog or someone else’s, please tell me. My comments contain a link to this blog, where you can comment in turn. I can handle your criticism. I want the feedback.

Now, meeting these two 30-somethings makes me realize I occupy a unique space in this African American blog circle, one of a middle-aged married black man who’s made quite a few mistakes. I don’t know of many others in my situation that blog. If there are please tell me. I did a lot of stupid things, but my overarching transgression was failing to prepare for life’s inevitable speed bumps and head-on collisions.

I realize I do a fair amount of ranting on this blog, but it’s a form of therapy. And as I told Honest and Hostess, I’m hoping I’m providing help to my readers. I mean that in the sense that folks will look at my situation and avoid making similar errors, so that people will be in a much better position as they push 50.

Peace.

Well, what’s gone on in the life of Profunksticated since last we talked?

The Spouse has finally gotten her workers’ comp case settled and in the mail arrived a check for a relatively paltry amount for all the aggravation, but I cannot complain. At least it helps us to bring current all those overdue bills. Now we gotta try to keep ‘em current and that means a closer watching of the pennies.

Let’s see, what else? The Spouse’s godfather, Uncle F, whom we visited last fall in a nursing home, passed away. Seems Uncle F was kind of angry with his 50-something son (something about the son not wanting to follow Dad into the family auto repair business) to the point of cutting the sone out of the will and leaving everything to The Spouse, Mom-in-Law and Spouse’s sister. I can’t wait to hear how that plays out.

Pro’s still hanging with the social services consulting firm. It’s been nearly six months, at which point the company could hire me without paying my agency a fee — or not, thus keeping this current temporary proposal specialist arrangement going indefinitely. In the meantime, I’ve reached out to a higher-level person in the company, an African American female vice president who works for one of the divisions that actually brings in the money. She said we could do lunch or dinner this week. Look, I’m not trying to stay stuck in some functional department for another six years like I did at my last company. I’m trying to get into the game and I’m hoping this woman can tell me how.

Hmm, what else can I think of? Oh yeah, my younger brother is still dealing with his wife’s death in March. Since he works days, my mother and sister have been taking turns traveling to his house to be there when the 13-year-old arrives home from school. There are days we still can’t believe she’s gone.

Daughter is still recovering nicely from being struck by a car. She’s moving into off-campus housing with several roommates, which is good since the prices this university charges for on-campus housing are outrageous.

I guess I have to say that life these days is grand.