SOAPBOXING
I am the greatest thing that has ever been, ever. I actually wasn't sure, but after I left the Boy Scouts, I did some highly advanced mathematical work at M.I.T. and conclusively proved that I am.
If it seems as if I haven't yet denigrated a Democrat in a very offhand way, well, chalk it up to this day's deep sorrow. Hmmm... let's see... Ted Kennedy fucks skunks, and his staff-members have to regularly hose off his genitals with a special enzymatic solution to let him function in politics. How is that? Seems all right to me. What? Oh. I know this quote has nothing at all to do with McCarthy, but it hits a Kennedy. And that's the point of this eulogy, after all. I pay my respects to the dead pile of flesh that once had the privilege of meeting me, by striking out at the people that I hate.
I'm sorry, you what? You don't think this shows respect for the memory of the senator? I feel nothing but pride in this column. It celebrates a great man and also makes reference to good old Eugene.
He was an intellectual, though not as smart as me, as I proved when I quizzed him about Yeats. He kept on looking at me blankly, asking "But what about my platform?" in a frustrated voice. I could tell he was out of his depth, so I took it easy on him. "Y-E-A-T-S is how you spell it, Senator. You'll do better next time." I patted him on the head, gregariously.
When I saw how the Boston Globe used this dear man's memory to editorialize on events happening in the world right now, I simply couldn't hold my tongue anymore. I needed to speak out. Dino would have been proud to have been affiliated with such a legacy.
What? Oh, right. Eugene.
Alfonse X. Smith, via email
GENE?RISES?FROM?THE?GRAVE
Russ Smith reminded me how much Gene McCarthy meant to our boomer generation in 1968. But who is today's McCarthy? Ah, but first things first. Who is today's LBJ? Not President Bush; he's a Republican. So who is the frontrunning Democrat who supports a war that is going south fast? The answer is obvious. New York's own, Hillary Clinton, is LBJ. And her Gene McCarthy will be whichever Democrat can take her out in either the Senate primary (there are two candidates running against her) or in the '08 presidential primaries. Forty years after Gene McCarthy finished off LBJ in New Hampshire in 1968, Democrats are not going to resuscitate him in the person of Sen. Clinton. It's going to get interesting.
Michael Jay Rosenberg, Chevy Chase, MD
Bareback Mountain
Somehow you expect homophobic bile to come from more informed sources. Armond White's review of Brokeback Mountain ["Gay-Cowboy Histrionics," Dec 14] is full of inaccuracies, making one wonder what is being reviewed-the movie or personal issues?
A few examples: The characters are described as sheep-herders, when in reality they are two kids taking a summer job, herding sheep.
White says the action takes place between 1963 and the present when in actuality the movie spans 20 years. That places the final scenes in the early 1980's. White wonders in amazement how come they don't get infected with AIDS. Assuming he means the HIV virus, we are talking about Wyoming during the early 80's and men of limited sexual experience. Plain ignorance? Doubtful.
Anybody has the right to decry the supposed infiltration of gayness into previously impenetrable bastions of masculinity like the mythical West or the military, but to use, for this purpose, this deeply touching mediation on thwarted love, is just down right hysterical.
White lists recently shown "niche " gay films that in his view are superior to Brokeback Mountain and "ignored" by the mainstream media, as a way, probably, to tout his unbiased disposition. They're small, mostly inoffensive entertainment geared to a limited audience, mainly gay men in big cities.
The message is so obvious: "As long as you keep your amusing lifestyle relegated to a diverting afterthought, it's all right with me." Probably he gets a kick out of those funny fellows on TV grooming style-challenged straight fellows.
Lots of conservatives have no issues with homosexuality that knows its place. Who knows? Perhaps some of White's best friends are gay.
"Just don't taint our sacred manly institutions with your little vice."
Sergio Santander, Manhatta
PINK?COCKPIT
Not bein' picky here, just helpful: it's not all visual for men. ["Ladies First," Dec. 14]. It's nice when women make some pleasure sounds, as long as they're not trying to out-sing Pavarotti or otherwise overdoing it. And for chrissakes, if she has to fake it once in a while, can she not be obvious? Every ad and article shows men as being retarded half- beasts who are attracted by a fast red cockpit. Got news for the girls: it's a pink cockpit we want to take for a spin. If you're driving us crazy, we don't care what you're driving.
Alan Levine, via email
AMERICA=PROBLEM
Sam Sacks' "The Fiction Machine" made valid (though familiar) points about the MFA creative writing machines, but in focusing all his attention on the silliness of certain craft issues, he neglected the real problem in contemporary fiction: the shallow, anemic, tepid, ignorant sense of story. ["The Fiction Machine, Nov. 30"]. Few writers seem to have big hearts or minds, let alone intellects. I don't mind stories with weddings (Eudora Welty did fine there) or funerals (ditto James Joyce) but the "something happening" has to mean something on more than one level and connect to circles of community that go out and out, beyond the self. Isn't the real problem just that American letters are, well, American?
Sandra Scofield, via email
RACIST?AND?CHEAP
Just when I, Southern-born and bred, get to the point when I think maybe I can stop my un-Godly generalizations about white folk-how they get on my damn nerves-the tired confession of Susan Crain Bakos sends me back to the cross. ["A White Woman Explains Why She Prefers Black Men", Dec. 7]
If her views weren't so damn unoriginal, I might be insulted. So this white girl is confessing to the world she likes black skin, black men and black dick-What else is new? The white's fascination with and fear of black sexuality is dated. As a 35-year-old black woman, I lost interest in this conversation when my next-door neighbor Bryan, a black man, went out with a white girl and her daddy shot him that same night. Or was it the first time I saw a postcard of a lynching: smiling white crowd pointing to strange fruit hanging from poplar tree, penis stuffed into his mouth. Yeah, I think that was it.
Susan, your confession/obsession is just another fantastic objectification of black people-incredibly insensitive, racist and cheap. All because you got turned out.
Yawn. Talk about nobody being surprised.
Karen Good, via email
UNLIKE?GUY?WHITEY
Susan Crain Bakos' anti-white testimony on why she "prefers black men." emphasizes their smooth, satiny skin. They make her feel like a lady, not a slut, or a sad "white bitch in heat." Bakos assures us that they, unlike Guy Whitey, are confident in their masculinity. And perhaps the most potent selling point of all: to feel desire for her-a woman of a certain age-they don't need Viagra.
Old stereotypes never die. They just go online. Ms. Bakos mentions the last date in her "White Period" (not even Picasso had one of those). It must have been dreadful. The poor schlup sounded like a desperate fat man in a suit, the kind who couldn't pick up anything except the tab for dinner.
Bakos assures us that she is still desirable. Fair enough. Presume that she's not a husky from Rome who shaves her mustache before vacationing in Kenya with attentive young blacks.
She also drives home the point of class. "My current lover, a handsome business man...." The singles bar she cites is apparently a black gold mine, where even an artist "knelt and kissed my knees."
In other words, she makes clear that she's preoccupied with sensual haute cuisine au noir--and not serving poontang to home boys (let alone snatch to working class whites.)
Keeping it simple helps the veneer of sophistication. Why complicate it with the bulk of reality and competing stereotypes, like Latins, French savoir faire, the Italian stallion, the Jewish Solomonic, the Celtic warhorse, not to mention the Arabo-Semitic, the Oriental, the Afghano marksman and the Kama Sutra Hindu? Lib is about black-and-white.
Overall, Susan Crain Bakos deserves good grades for an attempt at candor. You can't discount a lady's confession if it's truly from the heart, or even the vulva.
Dan Cameron Rodill, Manhattan
BUFFOONISH?BAKOS
I imagine you'll receive an outpour of outrage and indignation in response to Susan Crain Bakos' clumsy explication of her sexual proclivities; I'll also bet that most responses will miss the point.
True, Bakos writes like a buffoon; generalizes like a buffoon; and generally sensationalizes interracial interactions in a way that undermines them as possibly being the natural result of individuals being interested in each other as people. (Although disguised as a personal piece, she consistently stereotypes and generalizes about black males, and employs the term "we" instead of "I." Example: "But in truth, black sisters, we're after the sex, not the ring-and these guys aren't the marrying kind anyway")
That's fine by me. As an individual, many of us hold opinions-on race, sex and a litany of other hot-button issues-that may offend others.
However, New York Press' decision to publish Bakos' buffoonish views makes it complicit in advancing such nonsense. And the Press, not Bakos, owes its readers an apology for wasting space on her dull, dimwitted and offensive smut.
One has to wonder what purpose is served in publishing Bakos' warped notions? Is New York Press attempting to stir interest by piggy-backing on outdated, racist stereotypes? Or are you now in the business of publishing ramblings that seem better suited for a therapist than for your readership?
There are so many problems with publishing Bakos' shallow take on interracial relationships that it's difficult to pick out just one for analysis. Perhaps you can infer one of the obvious problems from this question: Will we soon be seeing a black male's opinions on "alabaster, satin-smooth, sweeter than condensed milk skin" and "white vaginas that just seem wetter and warmer" on your pages? Are there varying degrees as to what sort of racial idiocy is acceptable, and from whom?
Bakos does accidentally touch on the legitimate social question as to whether or not our economic class structure and the resultant behavior (emasculation, hyper-sexuality) frame some interracial relationships. But this aspect-which, in the hands of the appropriate, competent writer could be gold-is left unexplored.
Shame on New York Press for advancing negative stereotypes of black, male worth and of interracial relationships that have persisted for years despite examples to the contrary. As a society we need less of this sort of nonsense, not more.
Most people I've encountered in life lack real experience across racial lines. For that reason, it's disheartening to read something that reinforces old stereotypes instead of debunking them, or at least providing some realistic account of individuals of different ethnicities.
You know, as opposed to grouping everyone together under one "velvet" umbrella. Good grief.
Jason A. England, Assistant Dean of Admission, Wesleyan
CULTURCIDE
Please spare us your genocide article.
Thats what your propagating genocide of the European race. Sick ! filth!
White Americans are witnessing their own GENOCIDE and CULTURICIDE by people of color
One must necessarily be RACIST to protect one's race from GENOCIDE.
Regarding genocide of whites, they comprise only 13% of the world's population, and demographic studies indicate that that population is rapidly declining from interracial marriages, abortions and low birth rates, as compared with the other races.
Whenever politicians glowingly refer to America as a melting pot, they're promoting RACIAL MONGRELIZATION of the founding race and culture of WHITE WESTERN CIVILIZATION, which amounts to a GENOCIDE and CULTURICIDE of the WHITE RACE.
We are witnessing whites' GENOCIDE THROUGH ATTRITION, as white men must now compete with indigenous Negroids, Native Indians, and Latinos-and immigrant men of color pouring in from everywhere else for their own white women, and while Hollywood studios, television networks and ad agencies advance the cause of WHITE INTERRACIALISM by increasingly pairing white females with any type of man but a white one-to socialize/indoctrinate white females into accepting what once was a near- universal taboo in white civil society ( oh sorta like your article)
Charges of RACISM against whites are a clever ruse , who use that name-calling term to keep whites on the defensive and mask the on-going GENOCIDE of the WHITE RACE, as whites' racism is a SOUNDLY LOGICAL response-for protecting their threatened gene pool
Who is assimilating whom, as men among people of color choose to seduce and impregnate white women in every white Western democracy, and as pro- immigrationists IGNORANTLY tout the benefits of whites "assimilating" incoming waves of people of color; an ongoing genocide and culturicide of white Western civilization by people of color.
Non same-race Immigration into white nations leads to Genocide and cultericide of Europeans
From a White Nationalist.
Christinia Slater, via email
CHILD ABUSE
It's obvious that Susan Crain Bakos has a fetish for negroes, I've heard some people gush over shoes and cucumbers with the same gusto as she does for negro men.
I wonder if she realizes that she is encouraging other White women to have sex with negro men? Why would she do this? All informed people realize that on average negroes have a lower IQ then White people, therefore the offspring of an interracial couple would have a higher IQ then the negro father, but a lower IQ then the White mother.
What mother in her right mind would purposely retard her offspring by purposely mating with a negro that would almost guarantees a lower IQ for her child?
It would be no different then a White woman with a 100% White baby who put's lead in her child's baby bottle with the intent to reduce the child's intelligence level.
White women who have sex and children with negro men are guilty of child abuse.
Arthur J. Reynolds, via email
WE LIKE ASIAN CHICKS, TOO
Susan Crain Bakos' slide to the black side might be sexually satisfying to her, but why must she foist her raging concupiscence on the public-particularly to white men, like myself, who already struggle with such primordial inadequacies? I mean, our penises are limp pink shrimps, our bellies flabby, our wits dulled, our emotions regressed. We are a pathetic, anemic, squalid, horrific example of what education, capitalism, and mass consumption can do to the human body and spirit. Why must she throw salt in the wounds of the bleeding, the downtrodden, the wretched? Her rant reeks of sadism, malevolence, abject cruelty. She might as well disparage paraplegics for not being able to get up and dance, or blind people for bumping into walls. She?s kicking a sleeping dog (a white, plumpish, morose sleeping dog) as it lies. Speaking for other white men, just leave us alone. Just allow us to flick our Pavlovian drool at young women with shapely behinds who nod appreciatively at large expense accounts. Let us rub our beer-sodden stomachs with pride during football telecasts, and guzzle antidepressants when the market crashes. Let us vote for George W. and laugh hysterically at The Dukes of Hazzard, lumbering our way to Darwinian oblivion. Let us be white (so foolishly and unattractively opposite of black): flaccid, under-side-of-the-rock creatures, who guzzle Viagra and jack-off to Tommy Lee-Pamela videos. Just leave the self-flagellation to us-we know who we are. We?ve no ability or desire to sate her black-hole of need and relieved to consign this thankless task to the brothers. By the way, most of us are dating Asian women anyway-they have nicer skin.
Granpappy Schnicks, Astoria
JEWS VS. WHITEY
Your writer, Susan Crain Bakos is a jew, therefore she is not white... What filty you publish....To hell with your paper and your advertisers. I'm boycotting it all.
Al Haq, via email