ugly parties

I have this cousin, g5t, who regularly emails everyone he knows jokes that he thinks are funny. These are almost always racist, homophobic, and sexist pronouncements. He grew up in texas, where he was cast predictably in the role of "indian" in every neighborhood game of cowboys and indians. he was raised by a racist abusive whitetrash stepfather

my mom--who's way more fierce than me--wrote him after the last homofobic joke and told him in no uncertain terms she didn't want to hear any more. me, i wrote a poem and then misplaced it in cyberlandia.

I have special filters set up, so anything that comes to me from g5t's email address automatically goes into "trash" or "junk."

Right now I'm between the old and new job email addresses, so I regularly check my trash and junk folders, to make sure i'm not losing anything important.

I made the mistake of opening one of his emails entitled "Why there was no looting in Texas." Surprise, surprise, it shows a picture of shotgun-toting redneck white men--and chicanos, of course, 'cause there's never no white man so lame and racist that some chicano ain't gonna stand right alongside him with the same shit-eating grin, like that's gonna make the chicano white all of a sudden, after 500 years of mestizaje). Next to this ugly party was a sign saying "U Loot, We Shoot"

(wake up, primo!)

More than anything, the crew in the foto looked like those horrible fotos from lynchings, when you would see white folk grinning next to a smoking corpse like it was the fourth of july picnic (and it might well have been).

and that's what it is, isn't it? like everything else tied to the racial scapegoating post-katrina, it's another glowing sign of white supremacy violence, armed, ready, and waiting.