Round-up

1. This is just too strange to comment on, so I'm going to simply post the first few paragraphs of this story without comment:

Vague allegations of racism in and around Dallas City Hall have turned into very pointed personal attacks questioning the racial intent of individuals.

The controversy swirls around one four-letter word used by a planning commissioner during the debate over whether to rename Ross Avenue for Cesar Chavez. Last week, city planning commissioner Neil Emmons said, "I, speaking only for myself, believe there are dark racist forces in this building."

On Wednesday, a Dallas resident who addressed the council said something similar: "I am here to ask this city council to help us dissipate this dark cloud of racism."

The use of the word "dark" twice in one week was too much for Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway. "You can just call it racism, but I would appreciate it if you would take the 'dark' portion out," Caraway said during Wednesday morning's council session. "And Mr. Emmons from last week should have had his mouth washed out with soap as far as I'm personally concerned."

Yes...

2. An interesting piece about black-on-white racism:

A monsoonal storm descends on Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, as I make way home through the district of Bole. It is a cold wet season evening. Addis sits at 2300 metres above sea level, and the chill of the damp air finds its way into my bones. Pushing ahead, the ground receives my attention in order to avoid the deepening puddles. But my focus is suddenly shattered by a voice calling out to me. Looking to my left – I see that the voice belongs to a young, male taxi driver. When we make eye contact he repeats himself.

‘Babylon!’ he says, with a mocking facial expression; an accusing finger jabs in my direction.

His statement may seem a little strange to the reader. Why would an Ethiopian taxi driver be shouting the name of an ancient Mesopotamian city to a rain soaked foreigner? The answer lies in the fact that the taxi driver wasn’t using Babylon in its literal sense; he was using it in its metaphorical sense. Babylon is also a Rastafarian term, metaphorically linking the biblical imprisonment of the Jews in ancient Babylon with the more recent experience of African slavery in the New World. In its Rastafarian sense, Babylon refers to oppressive political establishments and the police, as well as European oppression of Africans. The term arrived in Ethiopia through the Jamaican reggae music which is popular in that East African nation. Many Jamaican Rastafarians also live in Ethiopia, given the fact that it is their Holy Land – Zion.

The taxi driver’s taunts still astound me. I’m cut off by at least a generation from the colonial era, and countless more from that of New World slavery. But in the eyes of that taxi driver my white skin still represented an evil history draped in chains and shackles.

Could the taxi driver’s labelling of me be considered an act of racism? The politically correct viewpoint here would be that it wasn’t - that a history of subjugation excuses the taxi driver from being racist. I must disagree. That taxi driver’s taunts hurt me and made me self-conscious of my skin colour. What could I do about what my ancestors may have done to the African people? Such are the joys of so-called ‘reverse racism’.