For Christmas I got The Book of Survival, third revised edition by Anthony Greenbank. This has got all the good post 9/11 stuff, and the first chapter tells you how to amputate one of your trapped limbs (A guy in Nebraska slammed his finger into a car door in the woods, dropping his keys. The door being locked, he used a bottle cap to cut the finger off, but it slipped with all the blood so he had to break the bottle and use the glass to cut it off.) Interesting stuff.
Anyway, here is an excerpt from page 42 about urban survival entitled “blend with the wallpaper”
That’s complete and unedited. I had thought about putting this in GD, but I don’t think it’s quite up to it.
Yup. I sleep with a monkey mask on every night, and never in my life have the negroes stolen my wallet. They are even nice enough to lock the door behind them when they leave. From the inside.
You know, it has occurred to me most negroes don’t even have monkey mask wallpaper (it’s a FACT), so I am beginning to question how thoroughly the author did his homework.
This is the greatest book EVER!.
Here, I’ve been shooting natives when they fire poison darts at me all these years. Now I understand that pisses them off. Who would have guessed?
(I’m kind of thinking that this is where I need the monkey mask)
I’m thinking long and hard about this, and I think it’s possible that there is another meaning to this passage.
The question we should be asking is why wearing a balaclava or a ski hat would also elicit the response of “One of us…a Brother.”
I think it’s possible that the “us” in “one of us” refers to petty criminals and burglars in general, and not to a racial group. The idea here being that the person in question, by wearing a balaclava, ski hat or monkey mask, is disguising himself as a burglar or criminal, since these items are things that burglars and criminals are stereotyped as wearing - and as such, the burglars would be reluctant to steal a wallet from a fellow burglar (“brother.”) The reference to the monkey mask may not have any racial connotations here. It may simply be a joking example of one kind of mask that a burglar might wear to disguise his identity.
I think it’s equally possible that this is a racist joke, and if so, it is in very poor taste. But I think it’s worth considering the other option here.