I took part of a rather disturbing conversation the other day, so I thought I’d share it with y’all. I moonlight at a race track where I work with a wide variety of people. The job description of one class of person I work with is “pee-catcher” - the go into a stall with a racehorse and wait for it to pee. Then they put a cup attached to a stick into the stream of urine and catch it. In between times in the stall, they sit around and gab. Since this is in a somewhat rural part of Indiana and entails working with large animals - the pee catchers are all white, rural, conservative, and ridiculously racist. I expect that part.
Last week someone mentioned that they received a phone call from somebody named Timothy McVie. We gabbed a little about the other, more famous, McVie and what his motivations where for bombing a federal building. We discussed that he seemed to honestly think that others would join his “cause” and revolt against the government.
Here’s the spooky part.
One of the pee-catchers [a guy who last year said the only person running for president who made any sense at all was Sarah Palin] said: “Thing is, if those kids hadn’t been killed, I think most people would have supported what he did.”
I was stunned, but told him that several veterinarians were killed in the explosion. That the folks who were murdered had families and where Americans. That seemed to surprise him. He amended it to if only judges and lawyers had been killed, then most Americans would have supported McVie.
That was a bad thing to say. But then again, the dude catches horse pee for a living. Did you really think that someone who works in that kind of menial and sort of disgusting job would be a genius with the soul of a poet?
I think most people in that sort of position in life have some resentment of people they see as keeping them in their position (whether it’s minorities or “the man”).
Yes, it is very sad that so many young urban black people don’t get to live out their dream of sitting around barns waiting for horses to urinate. I think that was really Obama’s first choice for a career and he had to settle for being prez. Someone needs to see if the UNCF will address this injustice.
I’ve never been in their test barns - but I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts that the tracks in Chicago and other urban areas have a much more diverse pee catcher population. I’d wager that the folks who work at race tracks pretty much reflect the demographics their geographic locations.
So, even though your concerns are valid and heart felt, I don’t think you need to contact the UNCF just yet.
He’s got it backwards. No one would have supported McVeigh under any circumstances, but children being killed made him hated far worse than he would have been if “only” adults had died.
I was going to say this in one of the many threads about the Lockerbie bombing, but I couldn’t fit it in. Thing is, it wasn’t Lockerbie that was bombed; it was Pan Am flight 103. But because this sweet little village was what was underneath the plane when it blew up, that adds an extra level of awful to the incident.
If flight 103 had gone down over the ocean, or an empty field, the bombing would still be tragic. People on the ground being killed, however, makes it outrageous. People don’t remember every act of terrorism, unless it affected them personally. But the whole world remembers the Murrah Building, because of that photo of the firefighter carrying the broken and bleeding infant. And they remember Pan Am flight 103, or rather, they remember Lockerbie, because of the family* that was killed by falling debris. It’s the residual victims who bring pathos. And that’s why people wanted to see McVeigh burn, and why this alleged bomber’s release is making so many heads explode. (Pardon the expression.)
*And the other victims. But most people just remember the family. Minus the one son who was at a friend’s house.
Unfortunately my dad is a bit like that. He once drunkenly told me that Adolph Hitler had some good ideas but he went about implementing them the wrong way.
Maybe it was just a half-baked utterance that simply didn’t come out quite right. I’ve gotten a lot of weird looks from people because I’ve said things like “I don’t entirely fault the extremists responsible for 911—I don’t condone what they did, but I understand their motivations.” I once really creeped out a coworker when we were talking about people who go postal. He said something like “I just can’t understand how somebody could be pushed to that point,” and I said “oh, I completely understand it, I’m just not down with taking out innocent people.” He didn’t talk to me much after that. It sounds like he’s just a dumb redneck who doesn’t really understand how things work and blames the government for his station in life. From his perspective, it’s a reasonable deduction. He doesn’t really know what money is or how it works, so the only explanation he can come up with for his limited income is that there are forces beyond his control which impair him, and that the government either is that force, or is an agent of it.
The not innocent individuals who provoked the reaction in the first place. Bear in mind that I am talking about an extreme and statistically unlikely set of circumstances. However, when dishonest people push honest people to the point of insanity and financial ruin, I can easily see why and how the Law Firm of Smith & Wesson becomes a viable option.
I am saddened by this person’s sentiment. Well, by that and the apparent fact pissing like a racehorse does not convey the same sense of urgency I’d always understood it to.
