Iraq and colonized comnig back to haunt...wasn't Iraq...nevermind

[platypus91 at excite.com]

 Two quick pre-bedtime thoughts...1. Like the man in black said during an episode of the X-Files, Saddam is a very useful American plant. Saber-rattling when its expedient for the current Bush In Office. (A personal aside: a wonder who the Director of the CIA was when the Agency made first contact with Saddam...) 2. Any relation of the Two Towers to our current Iraqi conflict is incidental, at best. European (and consequently American) fear of "savage/heathen cultures" (extending to our "formerly colonized" subtext) goes back to the days of Hannibal sacking Rome. Conrad's Heart of Darkness applied just as well to Vietnam as it did the 19th century colonization of Africa. The Crucible translates just as well to our current Middle Eastern immigrant dilemna as it did to Red Baiting in the 50's. So to say that a book which seeks to establish an English mythology is racist is self-evident. Of course it's racist. But then, isn't most of any cultures' mythology? Us against them... Pesonally, I haven't read The Ring books since high school. As a "person of color" it bothers me when an author characterizes his/her heroes as white, pure, light skinned, etc., and her/his villains as dark, black, etc. Whether or not the author intends it to be racist, for one reading who happens to have more melanin in their skin than the rest of their classmates, it tends to be a bit disturbing.  In my experience people need very little ammo to perpetuate their prejudices.  A bit of a personal story to grind my point into the ground... some background - my mother is swedish/english/romanian and my father is toltec (mexican-indian)/spanish/french/itialian. my mother's mother is a descends directly from the first Europeans to settle in New Hampshire, while my father's father's family had been traveling back and forth between california and zacatecas for many years before there was a border seperating California from Mexico. my brother was born with blond hair and blue eyes, i with brown eyes and, well, burnt sienna skin. Now, on with!
 the story. For the longest time as a child i colored with the big eight pack of crayola crayons (dexterity issues and all - crayon had to be bigger than hand!). Later on as we move into the small crayon era  we stick with the eight pack of crayola crayons (responsibilty issues - kid kept losing the damn crayons!). we'd pile into the family car (a 1979 Ford Mustang Pacecar - the one with the stallions on the side) and cruise on down to the local Toys R Us. I'd see the big box of crayons and dream of the future: art in 50 ! distinct colors. On or about my seventh birthday the powers that be deemed me to be of age: big enough, in the context of the times, to keep track of and not lose 50 ! crayons. Up until now any attempt at a family portrait would be rendered in brown for me and my dad, with my brother and mother's skin skewing slightly yellow, with a bit of orange mixed in. So it is with great anticipation that i dig into my big box of 50 ! crayons to set about drawing a more colorful family portrait. First, i draw the outlines in black. Then i set about to add some of the wonderful 50 ! colors to our previously 8 colored world. Me and my father? No further need for dull brown. Now? Burnt Sienna. Cool. Burnt Sienna. My mom and brother next, obviously orange/yellow would seem proper. However, further exploration into the wonderful 50 ! yields... hmmm...flesh?  little, harmless things, like that crayon, perpetuate many of our harmful feelings of cultural/racial superiority/inferiority. its taken me 21 some-odd years to come to terms with that stinking crayon, and still every day when i look at my hands typing on the keyboard...burnt sienna. not flesh, but burnt sienna.     

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