Note: this article is written in the style of and dedicated to the late, great Art Buchwald. Man, did he make it look easy. And I’m labeling it as “Part I” because I might make a series.
The other day, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it up, there was a guy in a full Ku Klux Klan outfit there. I was caught off guard, so my manners overrode my common sense. “May I help you?”
“Are you Jay Tea, from…” he consulted a note, then read it out very slowly, as if it was in a foreign language, “something called wiz-bang-blog-period-com?”
“I am — and the period is pronounced ‘dot.'”
“May I come in?”
I was still dazed, and instinctively stepped back. He entered, removing his hood. “Thanks. Can you hang this up for me? New Hampshire’s a lot hotter than I ever suspected.”
I took his hood and draped it over a chair back. “It gets that way sometimes. So, why are you looking for me?”
“That’s quite a story. Can we sit down?”
I took him into my living room, and we took our seats. “Thanks. I’ve been walking all day, looking for you.”
“You said you were looking for me. Who are you, and why were you looking for me?”
“My name is Grand Dragon Beauregard Byrd, and I just woke up a few days ago. When I went to sleep, it was 1926. Now here I am, 85 years in the future.”
I was stunned. “You’ve been asleep for 85 years? That’s amazing! But… why do you think you woke up now, and why were you looking for me?”
“I did a little asking around. I went to this college, and they told me all the ways the nigras’ lives have improved since my day, and how you right-wingers are all a bunch of racists and white supremacists and how you want to bring back the good old days before that polecat Lincoln went and freed them. So I’m here to see how I can help.”
I was now hopelessly confused. “You do understand that Lincoln was a Republican? And so was Calvin Coolidge?”
He glared at me. “I’ll thank you not to mention that race traitor’s name. We were looking for ways to get rid of him when I fell asleep. No, those folks at the college said that about 40 years ago everything went all topsy-turvy, and the Democrats — the Democrats!! — became a bunch of nigra-lovers, and the Republicans became my kind of party.”
I stared at him for a moment, realizing the task ahead of me. “You’re going to need a drink, and I don’t drink. Wait here.” I quickly scampered to the convenience store on the corner and grabbed a cold 12-pack of beer. (Sam Adams — I don’t know beer, but I know it has a good reputation, and is named after a great New Englander.) When I returned, he had the TV on. “Why the dickens do they call this ‘Music television?’ I haven’t heard a single lick of music since I started watching.”
“That confuses a lot of us, too. Here, let’s turn that off; you’re going to need to pay close attention.” I handed him a beer. “And you will probably need this.”
He popped open the can and tossed down about half the can. “That hits the spot, Mr. Tea. Keep that box handy.” He settled back on my couch. “Now, you were saying?”
“Yeah, I don’t think you’ll exactly fit in with today’s conservatives.”
“But those folks down at the college said I’d get along fine with those ‘Tea Party’ folks.” He paused. “Say, that’s your name. Any connection?”
“No, just a coincidence. I’ve been using the pen name ‘Jay Tea,’ off and on, for over 20 years, long before the Tea Party movement started up. Anyway, the Tea Party folks might look mostly white, but most of them just plain don’t give a rip about race — and welcome all kinds of people. In fact, they’ve gotten tired of being associated with… well, no offense taken, but folks like you — ” he gave a wave of dismissal as he finished his first beer, and reached for a second — “and have pushed back pretty hard against that whole image. They haven’t been entirely successful, I see.”
The second beer popped open. “Anyway, Mr. Tea, I’d like to do what I can to get things back to the way they ought to be. The nigras have gotten just too uppity, and us white folks gotta get them back in their place. After all, it’s our job as white men to take care of things that they just ain’t equipped to handle. It’s for their own good, you see.”
I figured I’d better humor him. “I see. And just how would you see this happening?”
He gave me a cunning look. “We used to talk about this all the time. We need to destroy the nigra family. Part of the reason slavery worked so good was it broke up the family. That all went by the wayside when that polecat Lincoln freed all the slaves. So if we can wreck their families, they’ll fall apart and practically be begging us to take care of them. Next, we’ll go after their education, so they don’t know how to be so uppity.”
“Hang on, I need something. I’ll be right back.” He waved as he downed the first half of his second beer. I quickly got my laptop and fired it up. Here, let me show you some statistics.”
He was amazed at the computer, as I quickly started navigating Google and Wikipedia. “So, you want to destroy the black family, and deny young blacks education? Look here.”
He gazed intently at the screen, absent-mindedly sipping at the beer. I was glad I’d sprung for the 12-pack. “First up, here are some numbers. They’re from six years ago, but trust me, if anything, it’s even worse now. 56% of black women never get married. 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock. And they’re the lucky ones — in some cities, as many as 60% of black babies are aborted. Between 30% and 40% of black males never graduate high school, and those that do are often functionally illiterate even though they have a diploma. And even though they only make up about 13% of the population, they make up 70% of the prison population.”
A smile crept across his face. “Damn, they didn’t tell me any of this at that college! How’d all this happen?”
I sighed. “A bunch of people convinced them, and a lot of other people, that it was for the blacks’ own good. Hell, they might have even believed it themselves. They declared a ‘war on poverty’ that rewarded single parents and punished fathers who might have wanted to take responsibility for their families. They practically destroyed the public school system, making the diplomas they issued virtually worthless, and did all they could to keep parents from choosing private schools, starting up their own alternatives, or teaching their children at home. Then, when these young black people started figuring out just how badly they’d been prepared for life and lashed out, they didn’t try to fix it. Instead, they told them that it wasn’t their fault and they needed to be taken care of. And when some of them didn’t take the ‘help’ and instead lashed out, they threw them in prisons.”
His smile got even bigger, and he polished off the second beer and let out a truly impressive belch. “Damn, now that’s what I like to hear! How’d you do all that?”
“Wasn’t us, Mr. Byrd.” I called up articles on Lyndon Johnson, the War on Poverty, the decline of urban public schools, the fights over charter schools, school vouchers, and home schooling, and ‘gang outreach’ efforts. “These were all done by Democrats.”
“Now THESE are my kind of Democrats! Why didn’t those folks at that college tell me about this?”
“Because they’re part of it. They actually believe a lot of the same things you do. But they don’t come at it from the same angle.”
I was losing him. Either that, or that third beer he’d just started was slowing him down. “Huh?”
“You think that whites are innately superior, and therefore have an obligation to take care of blacks and keep them from getting in over their heads with all those freedoms they just aren’t equipped to handle. They, on the other hand, have what we call ‘white guilt’ about… well, no offense, but people like you and what you did,” he once again waved off any offense while drinking, “and have convinced themselves that they ‘owe’ it to the blacks to give them this kind of ‘help’ to make up for what you folks did.”
He smiled contentedly, then suddenly got suspicious. “But wait a minute. You got a nigra president right now, and he’s a Democrat. How do you explain that?”
“Well, for one, he’s not what you think of when you use that term. He’s not a descendant of slaves — his father was from Africa, who came here as a student. Here are a few more black political figures who are more what you’re thinking of.” I called up pages on Condoleezza Rice, Allen West, and Herman Cain. “For another, remember that whole ‘white guilt’ thing I mentioned? That was a big part of it. Finally, have you seen what kind of a job he’s been doing? He has no idea what he’s doing, but he hasn’t let that slow him down in the least. He’s doing more to set back black politicians than you could ever hope to do.”
Beauregard settled back on the couch and finished off the third beer, then let out an even louder and more contented belch. “Sounds like things are going just fine, Mr. Tea.” His eyes suddenly grew cunning. “You don’t think that some of the Democrats from my day got smart and figured all this out? That they might have just changed their tactics, and stayed inside the Democratic Party? That they realized that if they just fine-tuned their message, they’d pull off all we spent years and years fighting for? That they’d actually get the nigras and the nigra-lovers to actually cooperate in keeping the nigras down?”
I shrugged. “There’s an saying I like that says never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but this one really stretches it. Instead, I’ll toss out another thought — ‘a difference which makes no difference is no difference.’ That seems to cover it.”
With that, my guest got up off the couch and turned for the door. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Tea — and the beer. Mind if I take the rest with me?” I assured him I had no use for it. “I better get down to the local Democrats’ office and tell them I wanna do all I can to keep ‘helping’ the nigras.”
“Give them my regards. But you might want to drop that term. They prefer ‘African Americans’ or ‘Blacks,’ not that one.”
He looked back over his shoulder, confused. “You mean as long as I call them what they like, I can get away with doing all that? What difference does it make?”
“I don’t understand it, either, but it seems to make all the difference in the world.”
And with that he lurched down the street, the remainder of the Sam Adams 12-pack under his arm, hood tucked into his belt, chanting “Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!”
I shook my head. I hadn’t even had the chance to tell him about how the liberals treat Hispanics.
