Dean's World

It was all worth it, Dean, just to see Arnold do one of his sage "I've got more experience than all of you put together" pronouncements, only to have it proven wrong in mere hours.

No offense, Arnold, I just love to see smugness get its comeuppance. Even when it's mine.

When things like this occur they expose a whole host of issues, some of which are inter-related, some of which stand on their own.

It is difficult to be completely wrong on all counts, or completely right on all counts.
But it is good generally when things like this happen because they remind people of a whole host of issues which might have been ignored lately.

Imus opened a whole host of issues; from freedom of speech to the conduct of celebrities to the nature of manhood.
I don't expect anything to be solved by such discussions, but it doesn't hurt to have them.

As a matter of fact on a blog and on message boards it seems like it would be natural.

I personally see nothing to apologize for.

By having such discussions anyway views may change, become modified or refined. Just by having such discussions views may even alter radically. Maybe not, but maybe so. That means nothing in and of itself but it does mean that at least people are not stagnant, and are open to the modification of their views. And that just may be important in the long run.

One never knows, but that can't happen unless a thing is tried, right or wrong.

MLS, I think Don Imus will get his own show back, but it will be on satellite radio. There, he can say anything he wants, and not only get away with it, but grow an audience as well.

Anyway, as you can see from other material I have written, I'm probably the last white man in the world who would term any black woman a "ho". Because I not only like them, but respect them.

And more significantly, I have deep-seated grudges against well-placed white punks who try to take advantage of them. (On the other hand, to be perfectly honest, I would have those same grudges even if the punks had nothing whatsoever to do with any black woman.)

Why do have high regard for black women? Because around the ghettos of this country and their unique culture, it became obvious to me a long time ago that they and not their men all too frequently are the ones who carry the entire burden of raising their families.

Yet my friends in my early childhood years back in the late 1930s were frequently young black males. Because regardless of race, the boys clustered together and ignored the girls, and among the girls, it was obvious they did the same. That too was reinfored for me in the early 1950s, when about one-third of the men I lived with in the US Army were african-americans. And many of them were some of the finest Americans I ever have met.

All told, I'd seriously like this racist crap to stop. I don't think most of black America wants us to think of ourselves as their brothers. Too much shit has happened to them over the centuries for that to come about any time soon. But I think that if we meet them halfway, we can at least treat one another as fellow Americans.

In any case, as I've often preached to all of you, I am absolutely convinced that culture is everything and race is little or nothing.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI