Monday, September 21, 2009

RTC: Dog Whistles and Golf-Ball-Stealing Monkeys

Is this a racist story?

The story is told of a golf course in India. Apparently, once the English had colonized the country and established their businesses, they yearned for recreation and decided to build a golf course in Calcutta. Golf in Calcutta presented a unique obstacle. Monkeys would drop out of the trees, scurry across the course, and seize the golf balls. The monkeys would play with the balls, tossing them here and there.

At first, the golfers tried to control the monkeys. Their first strategy was to build high fences around the fairways and greens. This approach, which seemed initially to hold much promise, was abandoned when the golfers discovered that a fence is no challenge to an ambitious monkey. Next, the golfers tried luring the monkeys away from the course. But the monkeys found nothing as amusing as watching humans go wild whenever their little white balls were disturbed. In desperation, the British began trapping the monkeys. But for every monkey they carted off, another would appear. Finally, the golfers gave in to reality and developed a rather novel ground rule: Play the ball where the monkey drops it.

It appears to have originally been told in a book by an Episcopal minister, and used a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks in a sermon at Cincinnati's First Congregational Church (UCC):
Needless to say, on Tuesday, 9-11, the monkey dropped the ball in the worst possible place in all of our collective memories.
Now Congressman Roy Blunt (R-MO7) has retold the tale to the Values Voters Summit over the weekend (Story starts at 1:13 if you want to skip the preamble):

Apparently, this story is an example of "dog whistle" racism. My ears aren't good enough to pick up on the racism. Maybe it's because I still remember eight years of George W. Bush being "Chimpler". Or maybe it's just because I'm not losing my fracking mind.

If there were any doubt that The Card is thoroughly played out, this should be it.
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]

5 comments:

  1. "Racism" is now meaningless. It has about as much bite to me as "meany!" does. Sorry (actually, not), but any claim of "racist" is now automatically discounted and ignored.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Doug, my youngest son calls me "meany" every time I make him go to school when he doesn't want to. It's becoming so that "racist" has about the same level of requirement to throw out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, by the time the Obots are done, the word racist will have as much impact as calling someone a jerk.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Less. "Jerk" will still be believable.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
    You linked to LGF!
    I used to really admire Charles. Now it seems that NO one is pure enough for him.

    ReplyDelete

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