Douche Critics!

This is my rant about modern "movie critics." Who the hell do they think they are? I have decided to fully ignore, boycott and shun all movie critics.

Here is the jist of my beef. Most movie critics however hard they try, still have specific tastes. If they enjoy a good comedy over a drama that is fine but they will be jaded toward any other genre, and thus will give dramas lower ratings and label them "dull" or "boring." Likewise a liberal artsy douche-bag critic will only give movies such as "Black Swan" and "Brokeback Mountain" good reviews. So if there is a lack of dramatic, dark lesbian psycho sex, or an odd tale of homosexual cowboys, it is not deserving of good marks by the fore mentioned bag of douche.

I can see them all now rolling their eyes because the use of CGI is warranted to enhance the fantasy world of "Harry Potter" or "Avatar." Stomping their feet for the use of gratuitous violence, or pouting over having to sit through yet another installment of a story about a "Kung Fu Panda" bear.

So here is my message to all of you big bags of strawberry douche and your cohorts the infamous douche nozzles. Keep your grubby, nasty, ignorant, artsy-fartsy, uni-minded, one-sided, words off of my movie reviews! You are incapable of being open minded and lack imagination. Your parents are probably is to blame by keeping your head out of the clouds. You more than likely did not have much of a childhood.

I am off to see The Green Lantern, another of your supposed bombs!

Winner!!! Story of the month!

This comes to us from Steve Crisp and www.ihos.com

If you are unfamiliar with Steve and The IHOS. Please visit the link above.

The Steakhouse Incident

Now, I know that there is a lot of embellishment that occurs on this group and I am aware that a small number of things are perhaps sheer fabrication, but I have a story to tell that is the absolute truth. Funniest damn thing that has ever happened to me.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steakhouse for dinner. It was a Wednesday night which means that macaroni and beef was on the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served. Wednesday night is also kid's night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the Clown wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastards. It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment.

We went through the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat hot bar then sat down as far away from the front of the restaurant as possible in order to keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I started my move to the hot bar. Plate after plate of macaroni and beef were consumed that evening, I tell you -- in all, four heaping plates of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were shoved into my belly. I was sated. Perhaps a bit too much, however.

I had not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and such. By the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in real trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was having trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was building. At first, I thought it was only gas which could have been passed in batches right at the table without to much concern. Unfortunately, that was not to be. After a minute or so it was clear that I was dealing with explosive diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can make its way through your intestines far faster than the food which spawned the grease to begin with, but I digress...

I got up from the table and made my way to the bathroom. Upon entering, I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to the right of the sinks, and two toilet stalls against the back wall. One of them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good shit, but in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing I hate worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a pair of diagonal wire cutters is having someone walk in on me while I am taking a shit. I went to the normal stall.

In retrospect, I probably should have gone to the large, handicapped stall even though the door would not lock because that bit of time lost in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too long under the circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular stall, the pressure on my ass was reaching Biblical proportions.

I began "The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to explain "The Move." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any given second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of physiological events occur that can not be stopped under any circumstances. There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the toilet, beginning the body turn to position ones ass toward said toilet, hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the pants while beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid motion that, when performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion of shit at the exact same second that ones ass is properly placed on the toilet seat. Done properly, it even assures that the choad is properly inserted into the front rim of the toilet in the event that the piss stream lets loose at the same time; it is truly a picture of coordination rivaling that of a skilled ballet dancer.

I was about half-way into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor and saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of those little bastards attending kids night; it was mounded up in the corner so I did not notice it when I had first walked into the stall. Normally, I would not have been bothered by such a thing, but I had eaten so much and the pressure upward was so intense, that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex. And once that reflex started, combined with the intense pressure upward caused by the bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started coming up for a rematch. What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of events are a bit fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I can.

In that moment of impending projectile vomiting, my attention was diverted from the goings-on at the other end. To put a freeze frame on the situation, I was half crotched down to the toilet, pants pulled down to my knees, with a load of vomit coming up my esophagus. Now, most of you know that vomiting takes precedence over shit no matter what is about to come slamming out of your ass. It is apparently an evolutionary thing since shitting will not kill you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do not aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to death. My attention was thus diverted.

At that very split second, my ass exploded in what can only be described as a wake...you know, as in a newspaper headline along the lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something similar. In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an enormous plug of shit the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of greasy liquid came flying out of my ass. But remember, I was only half-way down on the toilet at that moment. The shit wave was of such force and of just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the toilet seat that it ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the wall at an angle of incidence equal to the angle at which it initially hit the toilet seat. Then I sat down.

Recall that when that event occurred, I was already half-way to sitting anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you get beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you may be. Needless to say, the shit wave, though of considerable force, was not so sufficient so as to completely glance off the toilet seat and deposit itself on the walls, like what you would see when hitting a puddle with a high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at the puddle, the puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a puddle. There was a significant amount of shit remaining on about one-third of the seat rim which I had now just collapsed upon.

Now, back to the vomit...

While all the shitting was going on, the vomit was still on its way up. By the time I had actually collapsed on the toilet, my mouth had filled up with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed. OK, so what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One bends over. So I bent over. I was still sitting on the toilet, though. Therefore, bending over resulted in me placing my head above my now slightly-opened legs, positioned in between my knees and waist. Also directly above my pants which were now pulled down to a point just midway between my knees and my ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was wearing not just pants, but sweat pants with elastic on the ankles.

In one mighty push, some three pounds of macaroni and beef, two or three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls were deposited in my pants...on the inside...with no ready exit at the bottom down by my feet.

In the next several seconds, there were a handful of farts, a couple of turds, and the event ended, yet I was now sitting there with my pants full of vomit, my back covered in shit that had bounced off the toilet, spattered on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet, and still had enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my shirt with droplets of liquid shit. All while thick shit was spread all over my ass in a ring curiously in the shape of a toilet seat.

And there was no fucking toilet paper.

What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a complete maniac to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually asked if I was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I was crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet paper. When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but in no way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that there was no way I was going to explain what was happening in the stall, but that I needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask my wife to come help me. I told him where we were sitting and he left. At that point, I think he was probably assuming that I had pissed just a bit in my pants or something similarly benign.

About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom not knowing what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice. I explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words) that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I had laid down a small turd or something and just needed to bring the car around so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure she had no idea that she was about to go across the street and purchase me new underwear, new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time due to considerable leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new sneakers. And she then started to laugh herself since I was still laughing. She began to ask for an explanation as to what had happened when I promised her that I would tell her later, but that I just needed to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few dry ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he assured me that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned. Without giving him specific details, I explained that what was going on in that stall that night was far in excess of what I would expect anyone to deal with, what with most of the folks working at Ryan's making minimum wage of just slightly above. At that moment, I think it dawned on him exactly the gravity of the situation. Then that manager went so far above the call of duty that I will be eternally grateful for his actions. He hooked up a hose.

Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make clean up easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked up the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning myself up with the wet towels. Just as I was finishing, my wife got back with the new clothes and passed them into the stall, whereupon I stuffed the previously worn clothing into the plastic bag that came from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I finished cleaning myself off and carefully put on my new clothes, still stuck in the stall since I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out of the stall to get redressed in the event I happened to be standing there naked and some little bastard kid walked in. At that point, I had only made a mess; I had not yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.

When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up the entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the center of the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom. I had intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done, but when I walked out, three of the management staff were there to greet me with a standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I thought I was going to throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the car where my wife was now waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at Ryan's Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of any restaurant in which I have eaten.

Steve Crisp
crisp@ihos.com

Wanted! Superheroes, All Shifts Available!!!

Being a superhero fanatic, you would think all my posts would be pertaining to Superman or any of the latest caped crusader movies scattering the movie market. The fact of the matter is, comic book geeks and hero fanatics get crucified along with extreme right wingers and religious weirdos.

(Sarcastically) We must all be geeky nerds living in our parents basements eating hot pockets and masturbating to Internet porn. We are all overweight, have bad hygiene and play war craft till the early am hours. We sleep till we wake up hungry and raid the fridge late in the afternoon. We save our money for trips to comicon and startrek conventions. Everything we talk about centers on whether or not specific aspects of a superhero could be possible as well as lengthy discussions on things like time travel and what we think a girl-boob feels like.

NOT TRUE!!!

I am NOT overweight, I OWN my house and HAVE a beautiful wife. I have MANY friends with whom I socialize with OUTSIDE of work. I DO look at porn but who doesn't? I have NEVER been to a comic book or startrek convention. Although I might have had a few conversations with my friends about time travel and girls, but it stays within the realm of thought.

I like to believe that the idea of someone putting aside their personal desires to protect and defend those who cannot defend themselves is something that everyone can connect with. I have been a soldier and a police officer. I have stared in the eyes of people who want to do you harm just for breathing. We need heroes and they need people who support them.

Just because our real heroes come in the form of soldiers, cops, fire fighters, teachers, parents and other selfless roles doesn't mean we can't idolize the men and women in tights. They symbolize the real heroes.... We need more real heroes! As Kick Ass said, "Why hasn't anyone tried to become a superhero?" Well get off your asses and do something heroic!

-Anonymous Superhero Geek

Keep Your Hands off My Identity Crisis

I recently read an article about the horrible prejudices that still exist in the world. Remember the days of segregated schools? It seems like only yesterday that Rosa Parks was arrested for not moving to the back of the bus. Any black looking to relieve his thirst from the blistering heat sure as hell better find himself a colored drinking fountain or summarily receive a well-deserved beat down.

I used to think that those days were relegated to a dark and shameful past, but the venomous rage underlying society’s backward and self-righteous mores still poisons the innocent among us in daily life. There is an unfortunate minority which still has its face stomped into the dirt when it comes to a basic freedom. A fundamental right is being deprived of some of our fellow citizens while we sit idly on our hands and ignore the stark signs of oppression flaunted mockingly in our faces. What right is being undermined you ask – the right to go to the bathroom!

Racial and gender discrimination are institutionalized societal norms that often hog the spotlight from other equally abhorrent practices, such as biological discrimination. Requiring an individual to conform his/her/its biology to a specific restroom is discrimination of the greatest concern. Every person should be free to use the restroom without the impeding parameters of biological function. Sexual identity is what matters, not what sort of ‘equipment’ one has. Save your concern for genitalia for when you jack off to gay porn tonight. In the meantime keep your hands off my sexual identity, and let me decide what restroom is anatomically correct.

This discriminatory ideology has pervaded many aspects of life, just look at the public school system. Not only is it expected that boys use only the boys’ restroom (what is a boy, anyways?), but boys are prevented from girls’ sports and PE classes. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t get me started on professional sports.

Although I do not belong to this insular minority, I sympathize. In reaction to the suffering of my fellow citizens, I have compiled a short list of why I wish society was more understanding of the individual’s right to sexual identity freed from the constraints of an oppressive majority. Here are some reasons why I should self-identify as a female:

1) Girl bathrooms are cleaner.
2) I could have made the soccer team.
3) Naked girls instead of boys in the locker room.
4) Would have always gotten an A in PE.
5) In a room full of girls I would hopefully be the most endowed.
6) A pickle party would not necessarily be a bad thing.
7) I get all the emotional benefits of being a woman without the bloody mess.
8) I can buy all the shoes I want guilt-free.

I could go on and on and on. Is there any reason to limit use of bathrooms based on biology? Of course not. I hope that you will hold hands with me as I show my contempt for this discriminatory practice. I am going to show my support for the right to choose for myself which bathroom I want to use by using only female restrooms and locker rooms. But whichever bathroom you choose, if you are going to hold hands with me, please be sure to wash them.

John Mayer Tackles 800 Pound Gorilla

I used to have this theory about John Mayer and why he says the things he says. I don't follow his music or career, yet almost as soon as I heard about him, he was going on about pornography and masturbating -- neither of which is as rare as California condors mind you. Still, most people have heard at least one horror story of sexual or pornographic addiction destroying a marriage. At the very least, I would have thought Mayer would not advertise these particular hobbies if he wanted to make any headway with the ladies unless he was an idiot. But of course, tall, dark, handsome, and rockstar, probably seals the deal even when it is known there is sawdust in the transmission.

I put myself in his shoes. If I could say whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and girls just thought (or acted as if) it was cute and still revered me; and it helped me wrap Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston around my little finger -- or my little whatever -- I would feel more potent than the atom bomb. While I may not have attained Charlie "The Machine" Sheen and Wilt "The Big Dipper" Chamberlain status, I am sure I would still feel invincible. I would step into the ring with "Punchout" era Iron Mike and not doubt, ne'er even for a moment, I would be victorious. And by all means, I would continue vocalizing any crass or crude thoughts that found their way to my lips.

While I am neither tall, dark, nor handsome, nor a rockstar, nor rich and famous, and definitely not in his shoes, I didn't think John Mayer and I were so different that he would react much differently than I had I been. Surely all the preferential treatment and panty dropping had an effect on his ego and he felt somewhat unstoppable too. How could it not and he acted that way at least. He carried on uninhibited, speaking cavalierly for quite some time and the bodycount only got higher. Well, this last month the unstoppable force finally met an immovable object: the "n" word.

Nobody survives unscathed from that encounter and most never really recover. The chances are probably as slim as me actually stepping in the ring with Tyson and the repercussions are just as ugly. It is the most counterproductive PR move anyone could consider, so I was extremely surprised to hear John Mayer took it for a test drive. I Googled "John Mayer" and came up with a healthy list of articles describing what he said, what other nobodies, celebrities, and wannabe celebrities said in response, and his emotional on stage apology. The headlines and captions were vague but very incriminating. I wanted to see exactly what Mayer said, however, and dug through all the commentary to find the actual interview transcripts. When I did finally read the interview and his exact words, I was disappointed. They definitely did not live up to all the hype and pretense.

One blogger, EbenGregory, for instance, said "John Mayer Tells Playboy He Has 'A Nigger Pass'". That is not at all what he said, but what he really said does not matter. And only part of the context matters -- that part being whether or not he was black or white when he was talking. People are distorting, misconstruing, and completely misquoting him because they react before they have even fully read everything he said. In his own words he explained the interview that caused so much controversy: "Re: Using the 'N word' in an interview: I am sorry that I used the word. And it's a shame that I did because the point I was trying to make was the exact opposite spirit of the word itself." I won't even bother dissecting and analyzing what he said in the interview because it is so obvious what he was trying to say.

I actually never liked John Mayer until he had this run in with the n word. Admittedly, I have only heard his songs that are on the radio and can only think of two altogether at this moment, but I did not like them. Those songs and his masturbation and pornography statements made me pretty much think he was a douche. After this recent press, though, I read through some old interviews with him to better understand him and indeed gained more of an appreciation for who he is in the process. I learned that my theory about him was ill conceived. He is not just some cocky dude who plays crappy music, says dumb things, chicks love it, and so he keeps talking nonsense. That was an unfair assessment on my part.

First of all, he does not really like his song "Body is a Wonderland". That is a big one for me. Actually, to be a bit more clear, he may like it, but it is not the kind of music he wants to be known for and not the music he wants to make. He wants to be known for the blues -- not mom rock. Second, he may be cocky, but that is not the reason he says whatever he wants. He says it because he is being open and honest. He is a rare bird these days. Some people once criticized him for going too far and being too raw in an old Rolling Stone interview. He responded to the critics by tweeting: "I say 'f--- it.' you can't go wrong if you tell the truth."

I agree. In general, you may offend some people by being brutally honest, but at least you have aired your dirty laundry and pulled any skeletons out of the closet before anyone else does. Being forthright can also get you in big trouble these days depending on the subject matter. Sure, Mayer could have made a safer choice of words in trying to make a point about race in America. Then he could have not followed up his daring word stunt with an extremely bad dick joke. But if you check the record, he did not say anything derogatory and he is consistent. He has been making bold statements and trying to be funny in interviews and even on stage attempting stand up comedy for years.

He is not the first to learn, however, that some people are not allowed to make any bad jokes. You can talk for hours and even years, and one bad joke or one poor choice of words -- one drop in the overall ocean you have already thus spoken -- makes you and everything you ever said suddenly 100% evil. That is preposterous in and of itself but it is even more ridiculous and absurd when a double standard is applied. If a black man calls a woman a "ho" or a black man a "nigger", we give high fives and talk about how cool it is (or would be) to be G. It does not bother us if black people say it -- at least not enough to make the news. Why is that the case? John Mayer answered that question in another old Rolling Stone interview. He said he was tired of being expected to apologize for his unguarded comments. "Everybody right now in the world of entertainment is a pussy. A pussy," he said drawing out that last word. "They're all so sensitive. What the fuck happened?"

He was on to something. We should be asking the question: when and to what degree should we be so sensitive? By being so politically correct all the time, we are basically throwing egg shells in front of everybody's feet. How do we expect to not be offended so easily if this is the environment we have created? His conclusion after this most recent melee was telling but not as accurate as his previous conclusion. Continuing in his explanation of his n word comment, he explained, "It was arrogant of me to think I could intellectualise using it [the n word], because I realise there's no intellectualising a word that is so emotionally charged."

He is correct that there is no intellectualizing that word, but he is incorrect in assuming the word is to blame because it is charged. There is no such thing as a charged word; they have only the power people give them. We, the people, on the other hand, can be very charged, can be very sensitive, and we have been conditioned to be that way. We are victims of a calculated effort by those who purposely attempt to attach emotional and psychological anchors to words to serve political and financial purposes (one and the same really). It is much easier to control the masses through emotion than reason. Once the hook is set, it is almost too easy: someone says a word and the button is pushed -- we are under the mind control. We react in reflexes and conditioned responses. Not only did Mayer forget he was not black, but he also forgot he was talking to the mindless masses.

--If a half truth is the same as lying, what is a zero truth (something we refuse to even bring up)?

Incesticide

Incest is a word that carries a very negative connotation. The term, aside from reminding me of early Nirvana songs, brings to mind images of that crazy old Austrian bastard Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter captive for 24 years in a makeshift dungeon and fathered her 7 children. The word evokes such abhorrence that even some die hard pro-lifers are willing to make an exception for a child that is the result of an incestuous coupling. This is because the incest people usually envision is of the Fritzl persuasion – rape. Incest and rape are two different animals, but because they often occur simultaneously people have difficulty in distinguishing between them. Rape is inherently bad, but is incest? If not, what is the big deal?

Incest in the marital sense means 2 people wedded who are closer in relation than the law allows. If society has deemed incest such an unforgivable sin it must be because it is wrong for several reasons. Most people find incest (in the marital and/or sexual sense) understandably gross and absurd. Many people will argue that incest is wrong and that cousins should not be allowed to marry, let alone procreate. Before giving the subject much thought I would have argued that I don’t want cousins breeding and making 12 toed retarded kids, hence marriage between cousins is illegal in every state except Georgia (blame Deliverance for that jab). Wrong.

The truth is that 20 states still allow marriage between first cousins. That was news to me! Wow, must be some weird archaic laws in states that have not caught up with the times, like prohibiting women from wearing pants or some such nonsense. These states will come to their senses because surely there are scientific reasons why this should not be allowed, right? Wrong again.

The numbers I’ve read state that the increased risk of having significant genetic disorders or mental retardation are anywhere from about 2% to 4% higher in children born to first cousins. This does not seem dispositive as to why it should be outlawed. If that is the rationale, than women over 40 should not be allowed to have kids, nor should anyone with any inheritable genetic disorder. Taking this reasoning to its extreme, all marriages should be preceded by genetic testing lest anyone begat a tard. Hell, give everyone an IQ test too, because allowing idiots to reproduce is like opening a tard factory.

If we deem that cousins should not be married because they may have retarded kids, then the real issue is sex. Further, if the idea of marriage is antiquated and therefore irrelevant, the underlying issue still exists. Sex between certain people will result in an increased risk of complications with offspring. Is that a big deal? Is that a big deal only if you are cousins? Is the determination of what is right or wrong different in either situation?

I am left to conclude that society has determined incest is bad because society believes it to be bad. The larger implication is that much of what society has determined to be good or bad may have no real basis other than that is what society believes. The status quo is often accepted because it is the status quo, and not for any other reason. I doubt society will ever get to the point where its cool for consenting adult siblings to hook up, regardless of whether they make 12 toed retarded babies or not. I will never spearhead the movement for equal treatment of incestuous relations, but I will open my eyes a little wider when the values imposed upon me are not my own. The masses may not need more than a consensus, but I do.

-Kissing Cuz

Blood Quantum Leap

The Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian once had an exhibit where a wall of television screens flashed a number of different and diverse faces while asking the question: what makes someone Indian? Perhaps the exhibit wanted to make people think and come to their own conclusions because it did not answer the question in black and white terms but it definitely circled around one particular idea:
there is no blood quantum that makes someone Indian, instead rather, it is someone's culture that makes him/her Indian.

This falls in line with a widely accepted school of thought within science and academia that "race" is merely a social construct which has more to do with the perspectives and cultures learned from parents, family, friends, and society in general, than it has to do with genetic heritability. Scientists have found that there is more genetic variation within one race than there is between different races. There are of course some identifiable phenotypical and genotypical differences between certain groups of people, but the underlying lesson learned is that even though we may think we are different from others and may even look different, we are all really far more alike than different -- so alike in fact, that it is pointless to make genetic racial distinctions.

Let's try this out. What if an Indian child was adopted by a non-Indian family and raised by loving parents oblivious to any Indian culture? Would he be Indian? According to the social construct theory, no. What if a non-Indian child was adopted and raised by a loving Indian family? Would he be Indian? Absolutely. What if the adopted Indian child, later in life, became interested in going "back to his roots" and embraced some if not all of his biological parents' culture? Would he be Indian then? Of course. In both examples we still see that the person is defined by the culture he embraces and not what is in his blood line.

On one level, this simplifies things: we are all basically the same but simply choose to live according to different cultures. However, on many other levels, this muddies the water. According to the social construct school, "race" has historically been used by one group to either justify mistreatment of another group or to maintain political power over another group. Therefore, it is seen in a negative light in the past and is seen as something typically used to justify racism. We see traces of this throughout our history in things such as the one drop rule, Jim Crow laws, and countless other historic examples of legalized racial discrimination. So, if separating people into races was such an evil practice in the past, why is it still so widely accepted and utilized today? It is no longer used to keep people from voting or using particular drinking fountains, but is used nevertheless and is every where you look. Every application or form that needs to be filled out, government or not, asks about race. People discuss why this demographic is underrepresented in such and such.

Many will say racialism today is used to try to make up for injustices of the past -- Indians were wronged when their lands were taken, etc. They will also say that even if racism against minorities is not legally institutionalized today, it is still an undercurrent present in most of society that can only be remedied through government intervention. That is another conversation altogether, but even if we accept it as true, how do we "level the playing field" or give "equal oppurtunity" to minority races when race does not exist? As in the past, race exists when it is convenient. Regardless of whether or not it is justified in certain instances, no one can deny it is still used as a political tool and is oft considered wrong only when it is being used by the "other team".

If we assume distinguishing people by race is a necessary evil to make restitution for the past, we can focus again on the narrower issue of race and Indians as a microcausm of society as a whole and see that the waters are still muddy. For a tribe to be officially recognized as a tribe by the federal government, it has to initially meet several requirements, one of which is proving descent from a historical Indian tribe -- a blood quantum of sorts. After the tribe is officially recognized by the government, however, it can then determine its own rules for who is and who can become a member of the tribe. This is logical in one sense because the blood lines of tribes have changed and are changing considerably. When a tribe might have first come into existence, it is very possible that all the members were full or half-blooded tribal members. Now though, many tribal members are far from that because of mixing and migrating that has naturally occurred. Some tribes require someone to be one quarter, one eighth, or maybe one sixteenth blooded to be a member; while other tribes only require that someone prove direct descent to become a member. I have a friend who is a card carrying member of a tribe and is only 1/232nd or so blooded. What are his other 231/232nd's? Probably mostly European and this is where things get confusing. Is he deserving of any benefit from a governmental-tribal treaty created years earlier with the intent of benefiting Indians?

One superficial answer might be that even though he and perhaps many other tribal members are no longer genetically tribal, they have kept the tribal culture alive by maintaining its sovereignty. First, this reinforces the thought that race is merely a social construct and is cultural rather than genetic and there should therefore be no blood requirements to join a tribe. Second, is this really preserving the culture? Perhaps, but I am sure my friend would not have been so interested in his distant and minute cultural heritage if it did not get him an extensive graduate school scholarship reserved for minorities. Are he and the many others like him keeping the culture alive simply by registering with the tribe and using that distinction as a tool for some type of personal benefit?

Certainly most cultural activities do not need any official sanction or immunity to be practiced under current laws (peyote, clitorectomies, human sacrifice, and the like might be a different story), so official tribal recognition is not recquisite to preserve a culture. I had Indian friends and neighbors who did not live on the reservation, were only loosely if at all involved in tribal politics, and yet were quite active in hoop dancing and other Indian cultural activities. They did not need the protection of the tribe to do these things. My point is not that we should get rid of tribes. Treaties were created and they should be honored. My point is that any issue involving race is sticky and impossible to define in any clear terms and only becomes more difficult as time passes. As a tribal blood line becomes diluted, the tribe is revealed for what it is: a political body trying to maintain political potency. Even tribes whose populations are fairly homogeneous today still alter tribal membership requirements -- basically gerrymandering -- when it serves political or financial ends.

Is governmental interference any easier to justify and implement when we expand the dialog outside Indians and include other "minority" races? Not really. Africans were wronged when they were brought here as slaves and still for many years after supposedly being "freed". How do we right these wrongs? Do we give certain people tax breaks or money? Do we set up a quota system to ensure that all races are equally represented in every school and every job? Or do we make the quotas proportional to each race? What if the demographics differ from area to area? Do we do it locally or across national averages? What if someone is half minority? Do we set up a point system so they only get half the points as someone who is full minority? Do all minorities get the same points? Chinese worked in horrid conditions on railroads and Japanese were put in internment camps, but neither of those groups were slaves. Many of the original slaves in the new world were from Ireland -- how do we distinguish the Irish slave descendants from the non-Irish slave descendants? Latins were neither slaves nor put in internment camps and may or may not have worked on the railroads. Should the government intervene on their behalf at all? They have probably been victimized by the unofficial and conspiratorial racist undercurrent, so maybe that is reason enough the government should intervene. Of course, gays have been discriminated against by societies, religions, and the Boy Scouts of America. It would not be fair if the government turned a blind eye and failed to intervene on their behalf as well. Would gay blacks get more points than straight blacks? What about fat people and ugly people? I know they are discriminated against as much as anyone else. They are probably more underrepresented in Hollywood than Asians and blacks. It is difficult to determine where to draw the line on government intercession when there is no hard line between those who have been discriminated against and those who have not. Discrimination and injustice is experienced in a gradual spectrum of degree from brutally severe to the ridiculously absurd and the line is usually drawn by those who are the most adept at playing power politics.

I am not sure how to rectify all the injustices that have occurred throughout history (to be honest, it is not possible), but continuing to separate ourselves in archaic racial classifications only divides us to be conquered by a smarter and more organized political foe. We must delve deeper than the superficial skin-deep differences that divide people. We should be inspired by these new scientific discoveries that we are practically the same regardless of skin color and are all related. Studies such as the National Geographic genographic project have traced all human migration back to one common ancestor. There is no genetic cut off or blood quantum determined by some government or tribal council, there is no social construct, there is no question: we did not partially come from the same ancestor; all people in the entire world are wholly descended from a common ancestor some 60,000 years ago. We should make our voices be heard by proclaiming this common heritage whenever and wherever we can. When any job or school application, census, anybody, or anything asks you to to check a box to distinguish your race, check the box that truly recognizes and honors humankind's shared heritage: African.

-Box-Checker