Your municipal tax dollars at work, and an idea

Tens of thousands of your municipal tax dollars are being paid to help bring a man to League City who has referred to a mixed-race person as a "mongrel".  

Screengrabbed from a New York Times article titled "Candidate for Texas Governor Stands By Outspoken Musician". Usually a headwaters of liberal expression, the NYT was surprisingly, almost inexplicably, reserved in this piece.  "Outspoken"?  Are you kidding me?!  This man used a derogatory term to refer to a person's race.  In my books, that is not "outspokenness" - that is racism.  

To do a reality check on what we are dealing with here, let's evaluate that term "mongrel", shall we?

From Merriam Webster online.  

A quick etymological review confirms that "mongrel" has never been applied as an objective descriptor at any point during its use in the English language.  It's a pejorative term intended to convey a declaration of genetic inferiority deriving from breed mixture as opposed to breed purity, which is considered superior.  In Nugent's application, it has every appearance of being a declaration of genetic inferiority deriving from racial mixture.  Once again, that is racist as I define racist.

Screengrabbed from Google (emphasis mine).    

Because of the nature of some of the people who will be reading this post and my expectation that they won't be familiar with constructs such as etymology, I find it necessary to include every applicable reference for clarity.  Here is the definition of pejorative, screengrabbed from Google.  To denigrate someone is to "treat or represent as lacking in value".  When you associate that act of denigration with a person's racial make-up, you're basically saying that they lack value by virtue of the racial make-up to which you are referring.  Which, again, in my books is racism.

Am I making my point about my opinion on this one??

So this is what your tax dollars are doing for you and for League City - bringing the likes of this man into our midst under the guise of "promotion".

And as the public objection to Nugent's "outspokenness" continues to build, with Governor Perry issuing a long-overdue censure yesterday, I can predict the kind of statement that League City's City Council might issue in its own defense.  So let me preempt that particular PR strategy:  

"Oh, well, we did that deal with the hotel occupancy tax back in December.  Nugent didn't call Obama a mongrel until January.  We were unaware that Nugent is this extreme."

Uh, Council. guess what??  You are a tangible part of what is helping to create this monster.  You knew he was "outspoken" in very questionable ways before you shoved a bucket of our money at him and his fronting organization.  When you do things like that with a person of this type, you further validate him in his own eyes.  And the more he gets validated, the more "outspoken" he becomes.  Hello!!  Rather than being able to claim an innocence defense, you are one of the government entities who is helping to further embolden this guy, duh.    

Political denigration is bad manners, but it's fair game.  Ideological denigration is fair game.  But denigration that invokes a person's race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability status, or any other involuntary and unchangeable facet of their being is off limits.

Highly unflattering and propagandizing - but nevertheless publicly acceptable - Obama meme from an unknown source.   

So what should be done in response to this Nugent situation as it affects us here in League City?

I suggest a peaceful public protest be organized for April 12, 2014, which is the date of his concert in League City.  A nonviolent demonstration involving a bunch of mixed-race people holding signs that read "I am not a mongrel".  Equally importantly, the loved ones of those people participating by holding signs that read "I am not the friend of a mongrel" or "I am not the co-worker of a mongrel" or "I am not the cousin of a mongrel".  In my case, I would need to hold a sign reading "I am not the mother of a mongrel".  

And what could Nugent's response to such a public gathering possibly be??  Could he step out in front a protest like that and say "Oh, when I called Obama a mongrel, I didn't mean to suggest that every mixed-race person is a mongrel"?  Sorry - that just would not ring true.  It simply wouldn't be convincing.  That would not be much different from someone saying, "When I called so-and-so an N-word, I didn't mean to suggest that every black person is an N-word."  Yeah, right.  

Think about it.

Collage from Google image search for the term "mixed-race people".  Each and every one of them is a beautiful and unique person in their own right, with not a single mongrel among them.  The little Cheerios girl in particular is my personal hero.  She's awesome.