From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: WARNING: Stealth African Marauding soc.motss
Date: 11 Oct 92 07:10:07 GMT
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <1992Oct11.000827.22450@wam.umd.edu> lovegod@wam.umd.edu (Donald Andrew Agarrat) writes:
>I sure wish soc.motss could be a more positive influence in my life ...

Whine.

>I am SO tired of reading the deluge of bitchy remarks here.  I'm really tired  
>of it.  I guess if that's what some of you feed off of, then so be it.

Says Miss Thing.  Let's see; I'm trying to recall your "oeuvre" here.
(Gosh, sorry about that elitist word--go look it up.)  Let see: self-
pitying remarks on how a gay man can't find love by fucking his brains
out, bitchy remarks, um, disappearance for a few months, more bitchy
remarks, a few funny remarks, disappearance for a few months, a few
angry-young-black-man articles, disappearance for a few months, followed
by some bitchy remarks.  Why that's an "oeuvre" anyone could be proud of,
especially the bitchy remarks--they fit in _so well_ these days.

>This newsgroup supposedly promotes a society of people who love members
>of the same sex.  I think if it continues the way it's going, it should
>be renamed continuous.catfight.  Just the elitist airs some of us put
>on is enough to turn plenty of Black or other people of color away
>because they just don't want to hear White people squawking over who is
>the best icon and who is more well-known and who should be remembered
>the longest.

You mean you don't like Billie Holiday or Ella?  What kind of black person
are you?  My God!  It's worse than white boys not caring about Marlene.
Kids!  They're all alike.

>Things that are all so  
>obviously objective and hopelessly immaterial.  Life is too short.

Um, the word is "subjective".

>.. and maybe that's why I took what John said out of context.

Or maybe you were just due for your next self-pitying article.
Why, you can set your watch by them.

Anyway, "John who?"  It was Roger Phillips who used the phrase
"stealth african" (which itself is a joke on an earlier coinage
"stealth lesbian") where both humorously refer to the precise issue
of their invisibility, both explicitly in greater society and both
implicitly and explicitly in an electronic forum like this.  And Roger
invoked this to satirize Melmon's incomprehension of what was said before.

So what's the problem, other than you don't like the Madonna/icon thread?

>I personally don't want to wade through all the hissy fits just to find
>a positive, uplifting and productive post that may contain information
>relevant to a Black man.  I propose that if soc.motss is, in the
>eternal words of James Brown (almost), A White Man's World, another
>newsgroup should exist that recognizes ALL gay people - NOT just the
>more intellectual, NOT just the (supposedly) more articulate, and
>definitely NOT just focusing on the desires of ONE race of people.

Well, there are a couple of things going on here.  First, there are
going to be discussions here at all sorts of intellectual levels.
If you don't think something's of interest to you, skip it; don't
expect the parties who are discussing something you're not interested
in to necessarily accomodate you by stopping.  That's how motss differs
from a cocktail party.  You can say something completely new and different
and other people will join in, leaving the others to themselves.

Secondly, this is a written forum.  People who aren't articulate are
going to be at a disadvantage.  For them, I advise 900 numbers.  Stay
away from some parts of the net where writing clearly is an advantage.
For the record, I don't think your problems involve your writing skills.

The third point is that I think your comment that what's discussed in
motss "focuses on the desires of ONE race of people" is both
preposterous and racist, and demeaning to everyone, including the
people of color other than yourself who seem to enjoy what is discussed
here.  _At the same time_, there is an issue of what I might call the
"tyranny of the majority" which is hard to avoid in any group, whether
it's the greater society or here.  We've tried to deal with this when
it comes to women's participation in motss (and somewhat successfully
these past few months, though that ain't the Sappho mailing list not
will it ever be.)  I am sure the same phenomenon of not really
reflecting one's own interests or sensing one's fellows' participation
might be true for many black people as well.  Soc.motss will never be
the same kind of forum as a black gay mailing list, but it is enriched
by the visible participation by people other than white men.  I think
this happens daily.  It probably doesn't happen as much as it should.
But if you try to tell me that because someone is discussing Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf that you as an angry young black man are being shut out of
motss, I'm going to tell you that you're full of shit.

>A newsgroup that allows people to say something stupid once in a while  
>without being relentlessly clobbered into never posting anything ever again.

You mean like some of this article of yours.  Or do you mean some of
your earlier postings?  Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to work.  All
of us have said stupid things in the past here.  Get over it.

>Now, don't mistake this post for me saying "Can't we all just get along?"  
>because I feel that that's bullshit.

Gee, that's the first line I've heard I'd agree with.

>I don't want to get along with you if you, as a White person, think
>that you're better than me and think that you are doing something for
>me by "gettin' along" with me.

Who would?  Do you really seriously think this is a phenomenon going on
here?  Frankly, Donald, no one gives a flying fuck about anything about
you other than that which you present here.  That's all there is.
OK, OK, a few of us might have been put off by your dumb logname "lovegod",
but that's small potatoes compated to the guy with the name "picard"
a year or so ago.

>And that goes double for you all because most of you are Gay.

Hey, Donald, what's your opinion of BWMT or MACT?

>I go to a historically White college and  
>I see the kids who will be you in 8-10 years.

This sounds like a historically White grammar school for many motssers.

>They are ignorant, but when approached with the proper information,
>they become "tolerant" because they feel like it's the fashionable
>thing to do.  Meanwhile, their views don't change; my views just become
>"tolerable" to them.  Then they think that they're doing the world a
>big favor by "tolerating" me.  I'm never really accepted, but their
>"tolerance" deceives you into thinking that I am.

Well, this sounds familiar in a gay context.  What constitutes "acceptance"
by your standards?  As far as "acceptance" on soc.motss goes, what would you
want?  What would change your opinion?  Or to be more frank, Donald, what
would it take from us or any individual here for you to kwitchur whining
and feel like a part of the contributors here?  Or is that even possible?

>Over the last couple of months, my hatred for the average White person
>has been quite difficult to handle.  My rage continues to grow
>astronomically, because I know that race relations in this country are
>either going nowhere or getting worse.

Yeah.

I saw Anna Deavere Smith's _Fires in the Mirror_ this week and it was
one of the most depressing evenings of theater I've ever sat thru.
As some background, this is a one woman show where she recounts _in their
own words_ and mannerisms about 50-60 (I lost count) different individuals,
Jews and Blacks, who were affected by the riots in the Crown Heights section
of Brooklyn last year, after a young black child was hit by a car driven by
a member of a Hasidic Jewish sect.  The chasms of language, culture, history
and economics seem like an impenetrable barrier to any kind of understanding.
There was no happy ending there.  There was no ending.

>Last night, I beat up a white boy with a baseball bat because he said
>to me, "Hey Black Boy, suck my dick!"  I swore to God, I was going to
>kill him, because I didn't let the bat stop.  I keep swinging trying to
>swing it all the way through him.  I may be end up getting kicked out
>because of it, but I'm not worried.

You may have to be worried about more than being kicked out.  Beating
someone with a baseball bat is a good way to be transferred into one of
our institutes of lower education and cell rape.  Anybody who does this
has more problems than anyone on the net can solve, regardless of the
outrageousness of the catalytic event.  I think a good shrink is in order.
Seriously.  _Not_ because you're fed up with white racism, but because
you've got to do something more constructive and focussed in response
than bash people with baseball bats.

>I warned the RA that this would happen, but he chose not to do  
>anything.  He shouldn't have left it up to me ...

This is frightfully short on details.  Warned him of _what_?
Were you being harassed previously and you took it up with the RA
who did nothing?

>I'm not expecting you to patron me exclusively,

Um, I thought you _didn't_ want to be patronized.

>but if I feel that the only way I can exist here on soc.motss is by
>never posting anything of value or importance

Like so far?

>while simultaneously wading through the usual White diatribes,

Snort.  White diatribes my white ass.

>I won't have a very nice attitude when I do.

When you do _what_, Donald?  "Stop me before I whine again?"
Or is is "Stop me before I bash again?"  Or both?


-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: soc.motss