... but it doesn't seem to be much of an impediment:

Freepers refuse to apologize for calling Malia Obama 'a typical street whore':

The popular conservative blog Free Republic is facing intensified scrutiny over its reader comments policy -- and its role in the American political debate -- after the blog's moderators allowed vicious attacks on the Obamas' 11-year-old daughter to remain on the site for more than a day...

An article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun on Sunday described a thread entitled "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds," in which a discussion arose surrounding a photo of 11-year-old Malia Obama wearing a t-shirt featuring the peace sign.

Among the comments on that thread, according to the Sun, were: "A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."...

Some of the quotes in Free Republic's original thread, as reported by the Sun:

"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?"

"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps."

I was against going after Dubya's daughters, because you don't go after politicians' kids, period. but I will point out, the Bush daughters were 18 and adults by the time their father was treasonously anointed by the Supreme Court became President. We're talking about an 11 year old girl.

Via twistedcat

clipped from www.inquisitr.com At a keynote speech during New York's Democracy forum at Lincoln Center, Danah Boyd spoke of the racial disparity and possible reasons for mass abandonment of MySpace for the "more cultured" and "less cheesy" social networking site Facebook. Boyd, a social media researcher for Microsoft and fellow of the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society, stated: "We might as well face an uncomfortable reality - what happened was modern day 'white flight'." "The fact that digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban white flight should send warning signals to all of us. It should scare the hell out of us." Boyd also said that teens who use Facebook are more likely to condescend their MySpace-favoring peers. "Any high school student who has a Facebook page will tell you MySpace users are more likely to be barely educated and obnoxious - like Peet's is more cultured than Starbucks and jazz is more cultured than bubblegum pop. And Macs are more cultured than PCs."

Previosuly in O,DIKTO?:

-Quitting Facebook

-Class In America (both online & off)

-"What are you?

-I, Cracker

I was listening to the latest podcast of Bill Moyer's Journal yesterday, and Patricia Williams was discussing how she disagreed with people describing Obama as "bi-racial":

Well, so for me I suppose the notion of Barack Obama as our first bi-racial president is troubling. And it's troubling in part because, as you point out, African Americans have always been a multi-racial people, or at least for all of contemporary American history they have been a multi-racial people. But the other thing is that race is not simply about biology.

Race is, of course, socially and legally constructed. And at every point in American history Barack Obama would have been in the category of black. He would have been enslaveable under the slave codes. He would have been Jim Crowed in the context of the Jim Crow South...

So all of the moments of American racial political history hinge right around a space where multi-racial, sometimes much more sort of in appearance white-black people, have been a part of the story. So it's very hard for me to imagine that now, at the culmination of one part of the black political story, we would start to break that off and assign it to a group that simply does not exist as a matter of law, the bi-racial group.

Calling bullshit on that.

I understand if the older generations continue to think in those terms. They and their parents lived it, and one can't expect people to change the habits of a lifetime. And let's be honest, race matters in America today.

But from where I sit, Barack Obama looks like me.

White Mother. Dark-skinned father from another country.

While we mutts have always been here in America since the beginning as a scientific fact, we've in many ways been an even smaller minority because crossing the racial lines to produce a more vigorous hybrid offspring has been taboo for so long.

But more and more people are choosing love over purity. And there is a generation, like me, like my sister, who say "No, I am not one thing. I will not abide by the categories, I will not choose. If you had not choice, that is part of America's stained past and we have to come to grips with that.

"But every year, more and more of us half-breeds are are standing up and saying I am not one nor the other"

I understand if the older generations think thoughts of "What will happen to our particular strain of racial identity? How will we keep our identity if everyone intermarries and bloodlines get all mixed up and people stop identifying as one thing or another?"

I say "so what?"

I wholly and totally reject and will fight against replacing "melting pot" metaphor with "salad bowl" for American culture. Because everyone wants to be American, but they want to be this-or-that special kind of American. I'm a tomato-American, I'm a piece of lettuce-American, I'm a radish-American.

I am an American. And if the argument in the past has been "The pot hasn't made welcome all the ingredients that have come to these shores", that's a fair one. But to me, the answer is "turn the heat up and start mixing more".

I firmly believe that be be American is to give up what you once were. But here's the trick: what you surrender, you surrender to America as a whole. You children will grow up speaking English, but their cultural heritage becomes America's heritage. That is the promise of America.

To the people who want to come here and not melt, I say "Tough shit. Learn to be American. This is how we do it."

To the people who say How can all these immigrants with their foreign manners, weird languages, and disgusting food ever become American?, I say "Tough shit. Learn to be American. This is how we do it."

"But what happens if my particular ethnic group gets swamped and dissolved in the melting pot and it's no longer a particular thing within the soup?"

What happens is that your contribution becomes part of the overall flavor of the soup. It becomes "American".

I live in Oaktown, one of the most ethnically-intermixed cities out there. I'd have to bird-dog the citation, but while there are cities with more numbers of ethnic groups living within it, Oakland has some of the highest percentages of ethnic groups living intermixed. Me got mixed couples galore, and hordes of gorgeous cafe-au-lait children running around, keeping the dangers of inbreeding and genetic lassitude at bay.

I respect the older generation that says "Obama is the first black president, and we're not giving that up." They've earned that. My dad came to this country at a time when he could have gotten lynched in certain states for having sex my mother.

But simultaneously, Barack Obama is the first multi-racial president. If "multi-racial" wasn't the reality of the past, it is the reality of today.

And it is the future.

We, the half-breeds, the mutts, los mestizos, we are the future. We are the promise of America made flesh.

And we claim our fair share of Obama's victory as well.

So in honor of America's first true half-breed President, I present you what I consider the mutt anthem, Frankenstein*



Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-What is White Privilege?

-What Are You?

-What is it exactly that makes Barack Obama "Black"?

-I, Cracker

-It's like they're hippies, but they're also clowns and you're on mushrooms
">

---

* Yes, the irony of adopting as the Mutt Anthem a song written by a guy who is as white as white gets (Both the Winter Brothers, Edgar & Johnny, display albinism) has not escaped me. America, fuck yeah!

Back when black men knew their place and the community came together as one to make sure they never forgot, Toby Keith's grandpa knew how to keep the darkies down civil order.

Get a rope and pack a lunch. And bring the family.



I'm kinda sick that Willie Nelson appears in a song that promotes mob rule and lynching. I thought he was... well, he's from Texas. And I was raised in New York in the late 20th century by an parents in a ethnically mixed marriage (i.e. "The deep end of the Gene Pool").

Lots of kids grow up thinking "Cowboys" when they think of the Texas. I grew up thinking "Strange Fruit".*

Remember, every time you hear Toby Keith sing Beer For My Horses on The Colbert Report or any other of the late-night talk shows, he's reminiscing about a time when mobs murdered black men (and at least one Jew) with a rope in public, and did so with impunity (and photos for the scrapbook).

Hey Toby, would grandpappy call for the mob to string up a white man who opened fire on a church musical in progress because it was too liberal a congregation?

Or would grandpappy just have helped him reload? I'm curious.

And lest we forget, high school students have quite recently hung nooses from a "whites only" tree when local black students had the unmitigated gall to sit under it, rather than in the colored section bleachers.

Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-"Black man forgets his place, talks back to white man in public"

-I love it when morons go for a large caliber when taking aim at their own feet

-What Are You?

---

* And before any of my dear friends in Texas get bent out of shape, I'm not the one who put commercials on TV suggesting New Yorkers be hung for violating the Salsa laws. We leave violations of the Pizza God's will to him, we don't take the law into our own hands.

“…Spike Lee got really uppity with Clint Eastwood…”

That's how MSNBC described Spike Lee's criticism about there being no black faces in either of Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima movies.

Uppity: "Taking liberties or assuming airs beyond one's station; presumptuous"

No, I disagree with the blogger I linked to. Courtney Hazlett should lose her job on the air.

Whatever the merits of the argument, you just don't go on national television and, using more succinct language, say that a black man didn't know and keep his place in a disagreement with a white man, that he assumed a tone of indignation and independence above his station, and that doing so is offensive in the presence of his betters (i.e. white folks).

I can't think of a context where the adjective "uppity" has a positive, non-degrading implication. And it's not just racial.

I wouldn't vote of Clinton if she were a man because I disagree with her policies and politics on too many angles.* But, as Lexi points out to me, when people complain about her "tone" and things that are never brought up about male politicians, that's a woman getting "uppity" in the presence of men. She "doesn't act like she knows her place" and gets criticized for it.

Either way, it's using coded language to reinforce perceptions of what should be the proper hierarchical order**

Language matters. Because the words we use frame the discussion and affect the way we think on the neurological level.

Was George Washington a traitor to his sovereign King and rebellious terrorist, or a freedom fighter and architect of liberty?

Language matters.


Previously in O,DIKTO?:

-Race in England

-I love it when morons go for a large caliber when taking aim at their own feet

-What is it exactly that makes Barrack Obama "black"?

-I, Cracker

-What are you?

---

* Okay, had Clinton been the Democratic nominee, I would have voted for her over McCain. Anyone over McCain. But just as glad she didn't get it.

** The monkey is not against hierarchies per se. Pirate thinks compassion is better than cruelty, and that a more expansive, open, integrative, embracing view of things is better than a contracted, limited, separate, antagonistic view. Strong, healthy, and athletic is better than weak, enervated, and unfit. Those are hierarchical judgments.

Anyone who argues against hierarchies categorically is arguing for mushy-headed relativism that collapses under the weight of its own contradiction, i.e. the hierarchical judgment that lack-of-hierarchy is better than hierarchy.

It's just power hierarchies based on things like reproductive plumbing and ethnic ancestry that Pirate calls bullshit on.

Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies:

RICHMOND, Va. - Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday....

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

As the child of a marriage you made possible, thanks.

Back when I was on the road a couple of weeks ago, I saw some TV show in my hotel room about genetics and African heritage amongst African-Americans. Fascinating stuff, especially when some people find out how much European ancestry shows up in their DNA, and the discussions about what it means to be "black" in America.

But Don Cheadle made the one comment that stuck most with me, especially as one who identifies as a mestizo:

"You are what you are forced to defend."

[EDIT]I think it was this program

Previously in O,DIKTO:
-What exactly is it that makes Barack Obama "black"?
-I, Cracker

Via Huffington Post



Ladies (and all those of a smaller physical build), note: When bum-rushed by a posse of violent bimbos intent on doing you harm, do not grab for the hair. That's a half-assed attempt to get them to stop beating the shit out of you. And it's as undignified as it is ineffective in keeping you from getting your ass handed to you on a plate.

-Never, EVER punch someone to the skull. You're more likely to break your own hand than deliver a solid blow. The reasons boxers tape up their hands and wear padded gloves are:

The hand wants to bend at the wrist, which robs the blow of strength

The tendons and muscles in your hand are lots of little shock absorbers

That whole breaking the hand on someone's skull thing.

-Palm-heel chin jab. Infinitely more stable than a punch, as it bypasses the wrist so there's nothing to bend and rob the blow of force. Imagine you are stuffing half a grapefruit under someone's chin. Just do it with as much jaw-smashing force as you can, repeatedly. When their jaw shatters, they will scream and break off the attack. They will certainly break off the 2nd time you hit the broken bones.

Also effective when delivered with crushing force to the nose.

-Gouge and claw and tear at the eyes. Use those nails to dig some furrows in their faces. Pull the tips of your fingers together into a spearpoint and stab straight into the eye socket. Also, keep your fingers spread apart when chin-jabbing and they will naturally find the eye-sockets. Tear and stab and gouge at the soft parts until they break off the attack.

-Headbutt. The front of your own skull, right along the hairline above your forehead, is the thickest, boniest part. Smash that spot into their face. Then palm-heel jab the spot you just smashed.

-Kick their shins and stomp on their feet like you're doing a Mexican Hat Dance. Of course, this is harder if you're wearing high heels victim footwear. In other words, don't wear these. Ever. Under any circumstances. Because looking stupid while getting served a beat-down is just... there are cameras everywhere, people. There's a reason "adding insult to injury" is a cliché. Speaking of knucklehead shoes that leave you with poor balance...

-STAY ON YOUR FEET AND OFF THE GROUND!!! If you think Pirate is over-reacting with his suggestions, remember: they were at least 3-to-1 against her (with police searching for another). The shod human foot is considered a deadly weapon in most jurisdictions, and kicking someone to the head is considered assault with a deadly weapon.

This is because the guest of honor at a boot party can get their skull cracked open if the attackers are going at half-speed, to say nothing of racial-epithet-spweing racists with anger in their hearts, attacking at full speed.

That reporter could have disabled her assailants easily and in succession. They didn't know how to attack properly or she would have been seriously fucked up. But the fact that she didn't do anything effective to defend herself means she was lucky that they were incompetent assailants.

Not something to rely on long-term.

[EDIT] Man, I know the following would entail a black man smacking some white women upside the head in the racist Hell I assume South Carolina to be. On the other hand, her cameraman did JACK SHIT to get those bitches off his partner.

HE could have dragged a bitch or two off by the hair, he easily out-massed them. Just grab a fist-full of locks with both hands and start walking running backwards away from the fray, drag them along the concrete. They can't get to their feet and their hands will be trying to get his out of their hair. That would take some pressure off his partner so she could START TO DO SOMETHING HALFWAY EFFECTIVE TO FIGHT BACK.

Previously in O,DIKTO:
-An English accent sounds so polite while teaching you how to crush a man's nuts in your hand

Elsewhere:
-Col. Rex Applegate's classic Kill or Get Killed

-Guided Chaos/"Ghostfist", the source of most of these defense recommendations.

His father is Kenyan, his mother is listed in his Wikipedia entry as "American", but the press refer to her as "white".

Okay.

So how come Barack is "black"?

He's half-"black", but he's also half-"white".

To me, that makes him a half-breed. A metis. A mongrel. Café-au-lait. "Swimming in the deep end of the gene pool". A mutt.

Like me & my sister. Dad's from the Philippines, Mom's from Ireland by way of Brooklyn.

I'm not Filipino, I'm not Irish. If anything, I'm a New Yorker living in California.

To my light, Obama is as much "white" as he is "black". Which is to say, not really either.

On the other hand, what exactly is "blackness" in America? Given that it's almost inconceivable that most if not all "black" Americans have a "white" ancestor somewhere, where's the line?

Reminds me of a Dave Chappelle sketch, "The Racial Draft". Blacks got Tiger Woods, Asians took Wu-Tang Clan.

Yeah, I think about these things.

Mutts, baby.

Because "purebred" is just another way of saying "inbred".



Previously in O,DIKTO:

I, Cracker

YOU BELONG IN A CAGE FOR DRUNK DRIVING AND MANSLAUGHTER, YOU OVER-PRIVILEGED, ENTITLED BIMBO!!!

Guess who's facing 21 years in prison — the drunk , rich, white one, or the sober, poor, black one?

Two cars collided last year on Cinco de Mayo.

Considering the date, you might assume that at least one of the drivers was drunk — and you'd be right. Laura Varker was 17 years old, and she'd been tubing down the Salt River all day with her eight best girlfriends. Their T-shirts all read "Cinco de Drinko." Even an hour after the accident, Varker's blood-alcohol level was 0.09, over the legal limit for adults. And, as an underage driver, she was in violation of the law by having any amount of alcohol in her system.

One of Varker's girlfriends, 15-year-old Felicia Edwards, didn't drink a drop*. But it was Edwards who died when Varker's Yukon Denali hit another car and flipped over and over like a tumbleweed before coming to a horrifying stop on the Bush Highway north of Mesa. Edwards was thrown from the SUV and pronounced dead at the scene.

When sheriff's deputies called Felicia's mother that terrible day, her first question was, "Was she wearing a seat belt?" She wasn't. Instead, Felicia had been in the back of the SUV holding down the tubes — a decision she paid for with her life.

That's a tragedy.

But only in its aftermath did the collision become a travesty. That's because, even after blood tests showed that Varker was legally drunk, and even after sheriff's investigators learned that it was she and another girl who'd flashed a fake ID and bought Coors Light and malt liquor for the group, Varker hasn't been charged with anything.

Not underage consumption.

Not drunken driving.

And certainly not manslaughter.

Instead of charging the affluent white girl, the sheriff's officers arrested the other driver, a black man, a guy who wasn't even legally drunk.

Bryant Wilkerson was a 28-year-old postal service clerk with nothing on his record worse than a fender-bender. That day, he was merely making a U-turn, in a place where U-turns are permitted, when a 17-year-old party girl in her daddy's SUV tried to speed around him.

Wilkerson's life has been upended. He's been charged with nine felony counts, including manslaughter and aggravated assault. He spent three months in jail because he didn't have the money to post bail, and he lost his job because of that. Now under strict curfew and random alcohol and drug screenings for the past five months, he has to get permission from the court just to attend his daughter's band concerts in the evening.

He's facing 21 years in prison...

The article goes on to point out that Wilkerson should probably take the hit for freaking out and leaving the scene of an accident. Fine.

But the drunken, underage white-girl who uses her daddy's SUV TO KILL HER FRIEND is is all lawyered up and posting to her MySpace page while her friend is rotting in the ground and the sober, brown-skinned working-guy with a daughter making the legal U-Turn is facing 21 years?

Fucking worthless, sack-o-shit, terrorist-loving SUV drivers. It's bad enough that they hate America and want our troops to bleed and die half way around the globe. Chalk up one more dead, mangled innocent on their slate.

Remind me NEVER to go to Arizona for any reason. The jungle-half of my genes are a bit melanin-laced, and the amount of sun down there would only make it worse.**

Via the_urban_monk (although with a monk-like lack of vitriol).

---

* Studies show that it's the non-drinkers who suffer the worst in car accident because they tense up for the hit while the drunks remain loose and fluid.

The lesson seems to be "Don't get into a car as a passenger if you're sober".

** OTOH, the most menacing "Leave this bar, or we will beat your café-au-lait ass down" gaze I ever got was in Lynn, MA, outside Boston. But that's what one gets for going into a local corner bar in a town you're not familiar with.

Fuck it, maybe just don't leave Northern California. I know what neighborhoods and bars to avoid 'round here in the Bay Area.

I am so fucking SICK of the phrase "The Greatest Generation of Americans".

They beat fascism.

They also interned Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, set dogs and fire-hoses on civil-rights marchers, set up separate drinking fountains for whites and coloreds, built suburbia, and pretty much set us up for the environmental havoc their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will inherit.

Life is complex that way.

That is all.

In case you're still on the fence about that "straight-speaking, bring-the-troops-home doctor" and what he stands for, he's basically an unrepentant racist.

"Devastating quotes from Ron Paul"



The original quote from the RON PAUL NEWSLETTER, written under RON PAUL'S BYLINE @ DailyKos.com

"A message to Ron Paul Supporters" (after they freaked out about having their messiah's reputation tarnished with... um, the messiah's own words.)



Remember, Ron Paul is not some benevolent, small-government conservative, he's a full on Ayn Randian, a committed fundamentalist Libertarian whackdoodle. One who makes no move to distance himself from the fascists, racists and corporatists who flock to his banner.

You wanna support Ron Paul, it's a free country (for now).

But read what he has written and espoused (and never disavowed in any meaningful way).

Know who and what you're supporting. And who's standing with you in that support.

Sunday, lexica510 & I had the most surreal interaction with the SUV driver who almost plowed into her on her bike. And what started out as a perfectly normal oblivious-sack-of-shit-cager-almost-kills-bicyclist moment got taken someplace racial in a rather inappropriate (and amusing) manner.

Lemme 'splain...

Sunday afternoon Lexi & the Monkey (sounds like a 70s sitcom) were coming back from opening weekend at the new Trader Joe's over on Lakeshore (W00TITY-MOTHER-LOVIN'-W00T!). My collarbone being still injured and my bike still trashed, I was on foot. Lexi's foot being on the road to recovery but with strict instructions from her acupuncturist to stay off it, she was on her bike, pedaling along at the monkey's walking pace, panniers full of groceries.

Here's a map of where we were. Lexi & I were on the SW corner of E 18th St and 3rd Ave, proceeding in a generally SE direction along E 18th.

Now here's an important part. Lexi had a GREEN LIGHT to cross 3rd Ave when she started across. How do I know this? Because I learned to cross streets in New York City and have felt an annoying wait-for-the-light tug on my sleeve for the past 12 years. She crosses at green lights. She just does.

Lexi pedaled out in front of me as I entered the crosswalk. So we have a bicycle AND a pedestrian in the crosswalk with a green light with a "walk" signal at the same time.

Still not sure about the green light part? S'okay, I'll get to that part.

As Lexi is pedaling out in front of me, this massive, black, shiny, gas-guzzling, V8 I-hate-American-troops-&-love-terrorists-passenger-shuttle SUV that was traveling in the opposite direction on East 18th begins to turn left, across 2 oncoming traffic lanes, and attempts to head SW on 3rd Ave.

And the oblivious-sack-of-shit-cager ALMOST PLOWS INTO MY WIFE ON HER BICYCLE AND COMES WITHIN INCHES OF KILLING HER. And Lexi was giving him this look of "Dude, I'm in the crosswalk with a green light. Hello?"

And he kept rolling forward.

Me? I stepped forward, looked him right in the eye with bright-eyed-fury, pointed directly at him, and bellowed at the absolute top of my monkey-lungs, with as much diaphragm and projection as I could remember from my high school musical days...

"HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!!!!!!!"

Between the two of us trying to get his oblivious-sack-of-shit attention, he stopped INCHES from making contact with Lexi. We were both, as you might guess, rather put out.

Lexi said something on the order of "Hello? Crosswalk, green light."

I heard him reply something on the order of "Oh you did not have a green light." At this point, I remember seeing the signal change from "walk" to "don't walk" as Lexi and he are having this exchange (remember this moment as well, when we come to the discussion of green lights and right-of-way).

As the sack-of-shit-cager continued his turn onto 3rd Ave, as he passed me, I continued bellowing in the most chastising top-volume baritone I could summon.

"CALIFORNIA!

"CROSSWALK!

"LEARN! STATE! LAW!"

And he stopped. And looked at me. And said "Are you telling me that a crosswalk overrides a protected left turn?" (I swear, the "green light" issue is around the corner.)

The monkey-bellows continue pumping. "YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT DOES, ASSHOLE! LEARN STATE LAW!"

At this point, he makes a second turn into the Walgreens parking lot and rolls up on me in a huff. He starts shouting indignantly back at me about how he had a protected left turn and Lexi's light had to have been red...

BAM! Here's the crux of the issue. If you look at the map, E. 18th runs basically NW/SE at this point. He was heading NW on E. 18th, turning left (across 2 lanes of oncoming traffic) onto 3rd Ave. There is no protected left turn signal where he was turning. There is a left-turn-only lane with arrow painted on the asphalt, but it's just your basic 4-way traffic light.

Not only have I been frequenting this part of Oakland for around 10 years, I went and looked again this afternoon, just to make sure I wasn't insane.

Before he started his turn, Lexi & he were traveling on the same street, in opposite directions. They shared the same green light.

And California State Law is quite explicit on the subject: left-turning vehicles yield right of way to ALL oncoming traffic, even those making right turns. And that DEFINITELY includes bicycles, pedestrians, and combinations of BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!

So the oblivious fucking cager, who evidently took exception to the arm-pointing and top-volume public chastising I was bellowing his direction, suddenly comes at me from out of nowhere with:

"You white motherfuckers think you own the world. I'll kick your cracker ass." And he makes to open the door to his SUV like he's going to get out of it and square off on me.

Immediately, I cocked my hand to my ear and said "What did you say to me?"

"You heard me."

Now, my first reaction was to get all worked up because, well... he took it racial. This was a perfectly normal piece-of-shit, gas-guzzling, environment-polluting, American-troop-hating-cager vs. law-abiding bicyclists & pedestrians interaction, happens every day.

And he took it racial.

But after a second, I thought "Cracker?" That may have actually been the first time I've been insulted that way. Being Filipino/Irish mestizo, I have been in LOTS of situations where I was too dark for my own good. I've gotten "the eye" in Boston bars and informed my party that it was time to leave, and have been told not to mention my Irish half out loud by more inbred pure-strain children o' the sod. (OTOH, when I was in Hawaii, people gave me the benefit of the doubt of possibly being Samoan, and they had a kick-your-ass reputation so I didn't get much hassle).

But this was the very first time I've been called a "cracker".

And I think something else registered subconsciously: this dude was lighter than me, and between the two of us, my sister T-Bird is the dark one. This guy could have showed up at lexica510's family reunion and no one would blink. You could tell me the name on his license read Eston Hemmings and I wouldn't be surprised.

But I'm some cracker ass, keeping him down?

Dude, you're making dangerous, illegal turns while driving alone (technically known as "Osama is my co-pilot") as in an unpatriotic, polluting gas-hog that costs more than my annual take-home pay including tips, while Lexi & I live car-free and get around on foot, bike, and public transit, all the while obeying the traffic laws.

But I think I own the world?

Cager, please! I'm not the one driving our oil wars forward just so I can get my groceries, you lazy, oblivious fuck.

And one more thing. If you come close to running down a man's wife in front of him, do not subsequently make like you're about to exit your weather-shielded, toxin-spewing ego-cage with an aggressive posture, uttering threats.

Because at that point, I will fucking U-lock you into next week.

Bloods and Crips.
Skinheads and Black Muslims.
Juggalos and suburbanites.
And Team-Vader with the plexi-shields & jackboots.

Insane Clown Posse shows that in fact we can all just get along.

Let's go all the way: