january 9, 2004
A little piece from a new contributor that we will call "E" for now. Perhaps if she desires, she will be on the contributors page soon. Enjoy!

-- Citizen D
Steve Erwin and Racism
   Surely by now you have heard the bit of commotion over Steve �Crocodile Hunter� Irwin bringing his baby son, Bob, into the crocodile pit. You saw the video and you heard his perfectly rehearsed apology. For the most part, it seems we have forgiven him his lapse in judgement and we are now moving onto new stories about our beloved celebrities. There is something more amiss here, though, my friends, and it apparently takes a white girl from the Midwest to figure it out: This whole Steve Irwin thing proves that we are a bunch of racists.

    How is this, you ask? Well, let me point you to another celebrity currently in the spotlight for his activities with children: Michael Jackson. Now, when Steve Irwin, a white man, took his baby into a crocodile pit, we were a bit aghast and then we got over it. After all, he IS the Crocodile Hunter. It is just the kind of crazy thing we expect a man who refers to poisonous snakes as �beauties� and who brought us the cinematic masterpiece �Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course,� to do with his own offspring.

    Imagine for a moment, though, what the world would be doing right now if it had been Michael Jackson, a black man, walking in the crocodile pit with his baby, Blanket, tucked beneath his arm? People would be outraged. They would be re-playing the footage over and over again, with special emphasis on the part when the crocodile snaps the dead chicken from his hands. Other celebrities, like Cher, would probably be on �Extra� and �Entertainment Tonight� calling him a sick and demented man.

    Certainly the same excuses we make for Steve Irwin could be made for Michael Jackson. After all, wouldn�t this be just the kind of crazy thing we would expect a man who calls himself �Peter Pan� and who brought us the musical masterpiece �HIStory� to do with his own children? And better yet, we even know he has experience with baby-dangling. Just last year he dangled Blanket out of  a French hotel window, and we know that went pretty well. Blanket didn�t get dropped did he? No. In fact, he gave a few kicks of joy as he was held over the balcony ledge. Add to this the experience that Blanket has with these types of dangling situations, and we have a virtual Baby-Dangling Father-Son team the likes of which the world has never seen.

    But do any of these matter? No. Because Steve Irwin is a cool white guy with a penchant for dangerous animals and Michael Jackson is an introverted black man with a penchant for Macaulay Culkin.

    It is a sad day when not even our biggest black celebrities cannot receive the same treatment as moderately popular white Australian celebrities. Think about this tonight when you watch the news of Jacko�s legal proceedings on �Celebrity Justice,� and in your prayers tonight, make sure you ask forgiveness for all we have done to our darker-skinned brothers and sisters. Color is only skin deep, but racism goes down to the bone.

-- E
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