by Michael David Cobb Bowen with no apologies to Tim Wise
July 20, 2010
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning races as the primary characteristic of people we’ll envision zodiac signs of folks. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were defined by something we know is meaningless, non-deterministic and not to be taken seriously, rather than race which fast-talking, know-it-all people obsessively invest with meaning and seriousness. This will help you gain the insight into the workings of race hustlers in America who keep loading meaning into the social construction of race by racializing every event that comes on the news.
So let’s begin. Oh. Just it case it gets confusing, you need to assume that humanity is divided into animal, human and object zodiac signs. As such, Geminis and Pisces don't get along.
Imagine that hundreds of Gemini protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters—the Gemini protesters--spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters--these Gemini protesters with guns--be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most Pisces as a danger to the republic? What if they were Saggitarians? Because, after all, that's what happened recently when Pisces gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation's capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country's political leaders if the need arose.
Imagine that Pisces members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry Gemini people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the Gemini demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionist mob? After all, this is what Pisces protesters did recently in Washington.
Imagine that a Gemini artist were to say, in reference to a Pisces politician and presidential candidate: "He's a living turd and I told him to bite my Uzi." And what would happen to any prominent commentator who then, when asked about that statement, replied that the rapper was a friend and that he (the commentator) would not disavow or even criticize him for his remarks. Because that’s what artist Joe Spigot said in 2007, and that's how Deak Warson responded to Spigot's remarks when he was asked about them.
Imagine that a prominent mainstream Gemini political commentator had long employed an overt Pisces hater as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in Gemini separatist conferences, and once assaulted a Pisces person while calling them by a astrological slur. When that prominent Gemini commentator and his sister--who also works for the organization--defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Paul Bissenden employed as Executive Director of his group, The National Trust, a blatant hater who did all these things, or at least their Pisces equivalents: attending Pisces separatist conferences and attacking a Gemini woman while calling her an astrological slur.
Imagine that a Gemini radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a Pisces president is by “hating Gemini people,” or that a prominent Pisces person had only endorsed a Pisces presidential candidate as an act of astrological bonding, or blamed a Pisces president for a fight on a school bus in which a Gemini kid was jumped by two Pisces kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all of them, but rather, would like to leave just enough--“living skeletons” as he called them--“so we will never forget what these people stood for.”
Imagine that a Gemini pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a Pisces president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Minister Sam C. Smith said recently at a rally in Bluetown, South Dakota.
Imagine a Gemini radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by the human zodiac if the government continues to be dominated by the rich Pisces men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Scorpios or Libras non-humans, or say that when it came to such people, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Manny Sandoober, predicting Pisces revolution in the face of multi-astrologism, or said by Sandoober about Aries and Aquarians, respectively. And it was Congressman Slimp, from Vermont, who praised Sandoober in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.
Imagine a Gemini political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who drove his truck into the Annandale, Wisconsin gas station did wrong was not blowing up the local radio station instead. This is, after all, what Alison Creer said about Tom L. Preston, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the a national newspaper.
Imagine that a popular Gemini website posted comments about the daughter of a Pisces president, calling her “stinking rotten fish,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making bubble sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what some political group posted about (Gemini) Margaret French on livecityq.com last year, when they referred to her as “twin trash.”
Imagine that Gemini protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what Pisces protesters did last year, in reference to party leaders in Congress.
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at the President, by folks who are almost exclusively Pisces, were being aimed, instead, at a Pisces president, by non-animal signs. How many Pisces viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that Pisces president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same non-animal signs?
To ask any of these questions is to answer them. And this, my friends, is what astrological privilege is all about. It is the ability to have your astrological sign taken seriously and given as proximate cause for all of your thinking and your actions, whether the real reason be personal, political, medical, religious, philosophical, emotional, psychological, random or any combination of any of that or something else that nobody can honestly figure out.
I hope this exercise has been instructional. You see just as astrological signs have been a social construction that is about as old as mankind, so has race. The advance of knowledge has proven that the movement of the stars and planets have no bearing on our behavior, and so it has been proven about race. Except people still know their signs and race and decide that they want to make important, it is a choice that says a great deal about one's character. It says even more about those who seek to keep people fixated on this powerful, yet foolish and immoral obsession.
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