Bananas and the Boston Police

The root of all evil isn't the love of money, it's jealousy. The lust to bring down those we're jealous of, those we think shouldn't have the things we deserve but don't have. We festoon those people with assumed attributes like arrogance and snobbishness so that we can pretend they look down on us for ugly reasons -- and all so we can do that to them.

The lower we are on the socio-economic scale the more we are likely to find reasons -- even absurd reasons -- to disparage the rich. The more we pity ourselves for how hard we have had to work to have what we do have, the more we have to hate those we feel have been given an unfair advantage -- and if a black man, our chosen bottom of the barrel, somehow has the money or prestige or education or position we feel better qualified for by reason of not being him, the more we have to invent things to make it seem unfair; to make it seem as though nobody really is smarter than, better educated than or more capable than we are: the more we need a scapegoat.

We have been in the midst of a populist crusade, perhaps since the beginning of this country. We revel in stories where the common man has more sense than the educated man, where the Gumps are more admirable than the geniuses and political parties are happy to provide us with the mythology to feed the delusion, but what part of real life is more offensive to the fragile self-esteem of a low-wage earning public servant who feels his common sense folksy wisdom puts him above degreed, tenured professors at the country's best schools than someone like Henry Louis Gates.

How do you look down on someone that much above the level of a hard working, self pitying Boston cop? You call him a banana eating jungle monkey and you e-mail it to everyone you know. What if you're identity is tied to a failed political cult? you call him a Communist. Whatever you do or you are, if the guy who is supposed to be the one we all feel superior to starts to rise above you, you create any life raft you can to keep your sodden self-esteem from sinking.

Of course if your intellect is truly at the simian level, like Boston police officer Justin Barrett, you even mail your tantrum to the Newspapers, where the Mayor of Boston reads it and has your ass fired, but of course that's only because your white, right? In a just world, a world without those PC Liberals, Officer Barrett would be president or a Harvard Professor and those n#####s would know their place.