In yesterday’s Star Tribune, Renee Lavoi attacked evil African drum beats, misguided multiculturalists and wayward heathens in an advertisement meant to help her Minneapolis school board campaign. I have a feeling it backfired.
The ad is drool made print. The first paragraph makes this clear: “(The missionaries) would tell us about this pagan people (Africans) who wore rings piercing the strangest parts of their bodies and heads … They wore very little clothing, immodestly exposing their bodies … Their music was full of evil, pounding drum beats.”
I don’t know where to start picking apart her rant on pagans and God and her role as savior. It is poorly written and full of arbitrary, subjective opinions clothed in self-righteous piety and supported by straw columns fashioned from skewed history.
I should know. A while back, I wrote an editorial about Columbus. I was too lazy to do any research and too arrogant to think I needed to. Needless to say, the editorial was full of drivel. Every time I see the word “Columbus” in any form, my stomach cringes, and I am filled with shame. I learned my lesson.
But as a college student, I have the luxury of being able to make a mistake and carry on. An aspiring politician such as Lavoi should have already learned a little bit about history and society. She should know that there is nothing better than shaking your butt to a thumping African beat.
Unfortunately, she remains a fool lost in an alternate reality where Jesus was white and Satan either red, black, yellow or all of the above.
But it’s not the fool that matters; it’s the fools who follow her.
It’s the fact that Lavoi represents somebody that worries me. There are people out there who view multiculturalism as the death of America and American values and so on. White America and God are under siege, they scream. Our children are shooting people, and it’s all because of non-Christian influences!
So much for research.
I had a conversation with a man last week who lamented the influx of nonwhite immigrants. They were having an influence on the very fabric of America, he said. They were doing what the Visigoths and Vandals did to Rome. Every empire that fell deteriorated because of the influx of foreigners, he said. It’s a historical fact.
The man’s grandparents are part of a state-less ethnic group that has been persecuted for hundreds of years. They arrived in America, worked and made a place for themselves — but only after they endured the wrath of the English and the Germans who were “American” first.
I want someone to show me the orgies that occur in the Somali community. I want to see the lazy Mexican. Show me, other than good food, what the Thai and Hmong have done to destroy our society. I hear so much lately about the devils of immigration and its effect on our precious white youth, yet I don’t see it.
Every Mexican I know works his ass off doing something most people don’t want to do. Isn’t that an American value?
There seems to be a backlash against multiculturalism, or globalization, or whatever you want to call the compression of the Earth in terms of contact and communication.
This backlash calls for a return to God (usually the recognized Lord of the West, Mr. Christ), a return to traditional American values and the elimination of “free rides” for those who don’t fit.
Politics these days are built on fear and apologies — fear of what will happen when the world of color moves in and apologies for what the white people will do to stay on top.
Lavoi’s stab at the world is feeble and forgettable, but she’s just one of many who would love to see this country continue as a land divided and easily conquered. United we stand, and today in the elevator of City Hall, four of us joined in mutual disgust at Lavoi’s piece.
All we had in common was red blood, and that’s pretty much all we needed.
Sascha Matuszak is a Daily staff reporter. He welcomes comments to [email protected].
