by Saab Lofton

“You can’t bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, Liz! It’s not about our well-being, our two cars, our TVs and your kitchen! It’s about our kids growing up in a shithole of lies. I’m angry! My life is fucked because of it. If you could see it that way, you’d see your life is fucked too.”-Oliver Stone’s JFK 

It’s time to play compare and contrast. After my award-winning column was censored in Las Vegas, my fans wrote in trying to save my job. Here’s a fan letter.

When you start censoring yourself and others, e.g. Saab Lofton, because you’re afraid you might upset some rich white assholes then you might as well give up any claim to being liberal and progressive because you’re not.
-MICHAEL C.O. WAGNER

Here’s some hate mail.

Now that your self-loathing white readers are done gushing about Saab Lofton and his overdue departure, I thought the other side should chime in. Although I haven’t read him in a long time -- because he’s like a broken record -- I know the gist of all his rantings, which is basically that everything bad is whitey’s fault... Maybe the new powers-that-be at Stephens Media just decided their money could be better spent on more reasonable writers that would appeal to their targeted demographic.
-STEVE RICHARD

For the record, I never once said “everything bad is whitey’s fault,” but letting the white-run military-industrial complex off the hook by pointing out exceptions to the rule like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice is wholly criminal in and of itself. As comedian Chris Rock so aptly pointed out, “Shaq [O’Neal] is rich, but the white man who signs his check is wealthy. Oprah is rich, but Bill Gates is wealthy. If Bill Gates suddenly woke up with Oprah’s money, he’d slit his throat.” Or to paraphrase Spider-Man, with little power comes little responsibility and with great power comes great responsibility.

When I interviewed Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project in 2003, he nailed it perfectly. “[White elitists] certainly are trying to maintain social, political and economic relationships much as they’ve liked them for the past couple of hundred years. Any little encroachment on their power and privilege is viewed as threatening.”

Any little encroachment, indeed! This doesn’t just apply to the white elite. Michael Moore stated right after the 2004 election, “88% of Bush’s support came from white voters,” and not all Republicans have money, so what’s the deal? It’s not as if all whites are devils, as Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam would claim, but since most whites have yet to be exposed to the likes of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, it could be argued they simply don’t know any better. And if that’s the case, then a MASSive amount of education is in order.

However, whenever I’ve tried to educate whites over the years, I’ve encountered censorship -- so much so, I can’t earn a living and still live with my mother at the ripe old age of 38. When dissidents in Castro’s Cuba are censored, it’s out of fear of a counterrevolution which could cost Cubans the economic gains they fought so hard for. In contrast, I’m censored because of a perverse desire to preserve the spoiled comfort level of white America. Any little encroachment is viewed as threatening.

I don’t approve of Castro’s censorship, but I understand his motives and safeguarding free, universal health care is FAR more important than ensuring the elite can maintain a mansion or making sure suburbia never has its feelings hurt -- and yes, the truth hurts: If it’s always a top priority to be polite/subtle around whites, how is that any different than the days of Jim Crow?

I’ve said for years we the people need a Greenpeace version of FDR’s New Deal that’ll combat poverty and pollution, but to afford such a thing, the military budget must be cut and the top one percent who own half our wealth must be taxed. Therefore, if those in mansions must move into a three bedroom/two bath and if those who profit from nuclear weapons must find new, ethical jobs, then so be it. Likewise, if those in the suburbs who wish they were John Wayne or fantasize about waking up wealthy one day must start dreaming of other, better things, then again, SO BE IT.

 As things stand, there’s a very slippery slope. Movies are denied funding because they’d alienate whites. Candidates like Dennis Kucinich are told they don’t stand a chance because they’d alienate whites. Protesters are told never to engage in acts of civil disobedience because they’d alienate whites. Solutions to the world’s problems are not put in practice because they’d alienate whites. Certain subjects can’t even come up in conversation because they’d alienate whites. Worried about fascism? It’s already here.

 I opened with that quote from JFK because it’s about time the heads of America’s ostriches be yanked out of the sand before it’s too late. The days of putting the feelings of the spoiled ahead of the rest of the planet are over.