July 18, 2017
Source: Bigstock
There’s a short story I read in my youth, but for the life of me I can”t recall the title or the author (if any readers can place the tale, I”d be extremely grateful. As you know, doing a favor for a Jew is rather like earning the gratitude of a leprechaun, except instead of being given a pot of gold, you”re loaned one at usurious interest rates). In the story in question, an enlightened European visits a white friend who’s living in Haiti, and the friend, in an attempt to demonstrate the power that voodoo holds over the primitive locals, takes him to meet a native who has been cursed by the village voodoo priest. The Haitian is so convinced that he’s going to die”so strong is his belief in the power of curses”that he refuses to eat. He sits unmoving in his hut, slowly starving to death. So, the friend explains, the man will indeed die”not from the curse, but from his belief in it.
The visitor proposes a wager. “Give me that native for two weeks, and I”ll have him right as rain.” “Impossible,” replies the friend. “I”ve lived among these savages for years. They cannot be reasoned with when it comes to their superstitions.” Agreeing upon the wager, the men meet again two weeks later. The native is fat and healthy, eating everything in sight (if I recall the story correctly, he even downs a live bullfrog). “Amazing, old chap. How did you do it?” asks the friend. At that point, the story closes with a description of the lobotomy scar on the native’s forehead.
To prove that the curse was all in the native’s mind, the white guy simply removed the dude’s mind. Problem solved.
Vodou may never have caught on as a widespread faith here in the U.S., but a new kind of superstitious hokum has taken a viselike hold on the minds of leftists, black and white. I”ll provide a recent example: Over the past three months in San Francisco (and throughout the entire Bay Area), roving gangs of teens have been robbing and terrorizing passengers on the BART subway trains. Last week, the BART board of directors announced that it is refusing to turn over surveillance video of the attacks because, as the thugs involved are black, releasing the videos would create “racism,” which would lead to terrible consequences for the black community.
Now, to anyone with a decently functioning brain, that heaping plate of nonsense is impossible to digest. If the general public has a fear of black crime, it’s because of black crime, not footage of black crime. I mean, that’s obvious, right? How fucking elementary can something be? Because of the board’s refusal to release the surveillance videos, the marauding hoodlums will most likely not be caught (or they will not be caught as quickly as they would have been if people were given the opportunity to, you know, identify them from the footage). They”ll commit more crimes, thus leading to more people having “negative experiences” with black BART riders, thus leading to more suspicion directed at all young black men on the trains. By helping the criminals avoid capture, BART will only make things worse for law-abiding blacks who ride the subway. So why is BART acting in such an illogical and self-defeating manner? To answer that question, one has to view “racism” through the eyes of a leftist. Leftists see racism as an evil spirit”an otherworldly entity, conjured by whites and made manifest on an earthly plane, a “duppy” that, once brought into existence, flies around the world inflicting harm on black people, like a curse. Should the BART footage be released, it would summon demons, “racisms” that, once manifested, would sow destruction in the black community, causing crime sprees, absentee fatherhood, unemployment, drug use, and school truancy.
When the BART directors proclaimed that fear of black crime is not caused by black crime but by images of it, they might as well have said, “Our crops failed due to demonry and spells! We must suppress occult symbols and incantations; then shall the harvest be bountiful.” It’s magical thinking, pure and simple.
“Bobcat” Goldthwait is a failed 1980s “scream comedian” whose act became stale right around the time he first performed it. These days, he’s reinvented himself as a crusading social-justice-warrior filmmaker, a brazen advocate of political correctness who once expressed pleasure that his far (far) more talented contemporary Sam Kinison had died (because Kinison was a “racist” and a “misogynist.” Also because he was actually funny). A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless for the sake of her career) worked on Goldthwait’s 2011 flop God Bless America, a pretentious turd of a film in which a couple of forward-thinking liberals slaughter Christians, conservatives, and rich people in the name of “civility.” It’s ostensibly a comedy, if one defines comedy as “something that creates zero laughter.” In fact, the only funny thing about the movie is that even though Goldthwait presents himself as a zealous proponent of “diversity,” there are no black leads in his film! As with pretty much all of “Bobcat’s” motion-picture flops, the main roles are lily-white.
I asked my friend about this. She explained that since “Bobcat” enjoys exploring the “dark side” of human behavior by creating characters that are vicious, violent, or immoral, he doesn”t like casting black actors in roles that might create “negative images” of black people. To put it in voodoo terms, Goldthwait is afraid that if he were to cast black leads, terrifying demonic racisms would be released into the world, spreading pestilence across the land. Goldthwait is a typical smug Hollywood atheist. Except not really. He does believe in spooks, just not of the Abrahamic variety. “Bobcat’s” afraid of the Goofa Man. Like so many leftists, he believes “racist” images can conjure up evil spirits (music too. He once accused the band Guns N” Roses of summoning racism through its lyrics). He’s as superstitious as any Catholic or evangelical.
Now, Goldthwait is an insignificant gnat, to be sure. But I bring him up as an example of the voodoo mind-set of SJW anti-racists. By casting blacks in substantial roles, Goldthwait could have put money in the pockets of black actors. But he didn”t, because it was more important for him to save their souls than feed their bellies. Same thing for the BART directors. They could have helped prevent working-class people from being robbed of their possessions, but it was more important to ensure that no malignant spirits were conjured by the release of the occultish footage. In Sweden, it was recently announced that the police will no longer report the race of wanted criminals, because providing detailed and accurate descriptions of fugitive rapists and murderers, many of whom are “people of color,” might lead to people having racist thoughts. The Swedish authorities are acting more like popes than cops; better that they allow their citizens to be raped and murdered, if the alternative puts those same people at risk of committing a mortal sin. After all, what does it profit a Swede if he gains his life but loses his soul?
