for your reading pleasure, another of my brother's articles. this one's more liberal: it's about gun control, in which he firmly believes. last time, stef asked me incredulously if we were from the same family (because her family is entirely composed of tree-hugging AIDS-activist queers). this one should establish that we're clearly siblings. see how he references movies constantly too?

in a different, ironically wonderful vein, Black people love us! an old friend directed me to this site during a discussion of how a swattie went in blackface to the halloween party. he "apologized" to the campus as a whole and defended himself at the same time. huge deal, of course. most of the people i heard talking about it condemned the action (and the kid) in the strongest possible terms. others, more privately, have shrugged at me and said the kid was just naive. but how could someone never have heard of blackface? never seen pictures of al jolson, or bamboozled, or shots of amos and andy? if he was just naive, how dangerously naive did he have to be to think black students -- or anyone -- would not mind him stereotyping black people just because he didn't mean to be insulting?

most everyone has a moment here when you realize much of what you thought about racism and systems of oppression is wrong, and that you can't live in a merry oblivious state of colorblindness. this poor idiot's moment happened to come in one of the most public spaces on campus; he infuriated a lot of people who had no qualms about letting him know then and there. but i don't think him concluding that now he has to be conscious of race or careful not to offend is such a tragedy. he should have that responsibility. anyone in a position of privilege does.