The first time I pinched a loaf through this toilet seat I felt like I was on a ride at Magic Mountain. For the six months that I used it, it was all the reason I needed to eat that second burrito. I know, I know, I know … I’m not supposed to say or do anything that disparages the First President of Color. To do so would make me a bigot. I got the memo. The part that scares me the most about this whole conversation is that there are actually people out there who are dumb enough and tribal enough to buy that line of bullshit.
As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Ironically these well intentioned virtue signalers do more harm than good in their attempts at bubble wrapping entire communities of those they consider unfortunate people of color. If they had any sense, they’d realize the most helpful thing they could do is simply stand the hell out of their way and stop trying to help.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s tough. I mean, I was born brown into what some might consider poverty, but none of that kept me from busting my ass and working my way out of that dilapidated, single-wide trailer tucked deep in the woods of Louisiana. I can say with all the love in my heart that for every bigot who took a slap at my soul, there were so many more “people-of-non-color,” aka “honkeys” who extended a kind hand, not because they wanted to do me a favor, but because they could see I wasn’t afraid of working to better my situation. I earned my place in their studios and I wasn’t going to listen to one god damn person tell me it was impossible to succeed because of the color of my skin or what culture I came from.
When “rebel street artists” like Shepard Fairy were asked why they hadn’t created art that hit back at some of the atrocities that occurred during the Obama administration their responses were usually, ‘we didn’t creatively attack President Obama because we wanted to give the first black president a chance.’ Not holding Obama to the standards of his white predecessors simply because of the color of his skin was the very example of what President Bush called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” However I may have felt about President Obama or his policies, he worked hard and smart to get to where he got and I honored those efforts by knocking the hell out of him with my art the same way I would have done anyone regardless of their color or gender.
Hell, for his part, the great street artist Robbie Conal was squandering his time painting flowers and owls while Obama was dropping Hellfire missiles on wedding parties in Afghanistan. Pathetic!
Fact of the matter was, most “rebel artists” knew damn well to not criticize Obama, because they were well aware of the shit storm that would have rained down on them if they had.
It was a great disappointment realizing these weren’t true rebel artists, they were establishment artist who toed the party line, no matter what. And before anyone goes accusing me of doing the same … you’d be wrong! I’ve never been shy to go against the republican grain when I felt it was proper to do so. I’d give Banksy some love for his Disneyland Guantanamo Bay hit, but that was done in 2006 when Bush was in office. He, like the rest of them, shut the hell up after Obama was elected. Only two things changed regarding Guantanamo Bay when Obama became President, Jack and Shit.
Well I would be wrong in saying that, because one thing did change. When Bush was in office there was an anti-war protest every other weekend. The minute a democrat took office the protests immediately stopped. The wars continued to rage on, but the indignation of these fake rent-a-mobs magically went silent, which showed me that those were never anti-war protests, they were anti-republican protests, or as they call them today, “insurrectionists.” Like my Obama toilet seat, THEY WERE ALL
FULL OF SHIT.
