Mark Steyn: Lightening up

It was a good start to the year for Sgt. Leslie Turner, who was awarded 30,000 pounds in an out-of-court settlement after suing Scotland Yard. Sergeant Turner was the first black officer in London’s Metropolitan Police to be made a royal bodyguard. It was his job to guard HRH the Duchess of Cornwall — that’s Camilla, the Prince of Wales’ new missus, though in some sort of Britannic Teresa Heinz–type arrangement she doesn’t use the moniker “Princess of Wales.” Anyway, Sergeant Turner ceased being a royal bodyguard last spring and subsequently brought his suit for “racial discrimination.” Here’s the wrinkle: He claims he was over-promoted only because he was black.

If he’d been a white copper, he’d have been given a job commensurate with his abilities and he’d have done it fine and been happy in his work. Instead, because he had the misfortune to be a black copper, his politically correct superiors singled him out for a job for which he was unqualified, thus leading to misery and dissatisfaction. In discriminating in favor of him because he was black, they in effect discriminated against him, also because he was black. That, at any rate, is what his lawyer argued, and it worked.

With hindsight, it seems amazing that no such case has yet been brought in this great Republic, where “affirmative action” is so much more advanced. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow-PUSH could have a sister Rainbow-PULL organization: twice the shakedowns! One week you’re jumpin’ up and down outside Texaco or Wal-Mart shouting, “No Justice, No Peace,” because they’re not promoting enough blacks. Then, a month later, you’re back demanding they cease over-promoting blacks: “No Demotion, No Peace.” And the settlement wouldn’t be a footling 30,000 quid, either.

So racial discrimination has now reached the blissful state of global warming: As the eco-crowd solemnly warns us, if it’s too hot, that’s a sign of global warming; if it’s too cold, that’s also a sign of global warming. If you’ve got too few blacks in senior management, you’re a racist; if you’ve got too many blacks in senior management, you’re also a racist.

Occasionally I get asked by a reader what it will take to finally scuttle contemporary Western progressivism. And, having mulled it over for a few years, I’m convinced the Left will be done in by its humorlessness. Aside from those employed by the grievance-mongering industry, I don’t believe there’s many people who can read a report that affirmative action discriminates against black people without having a massive guffaw along the way. And that’s the problem: There’s gazillions of people who are pro–affirmative action, pro-abortion, pro-environment, pro-“peace,” pro–pretty much the entire lefty agenda, but they’re also pro–having a laugh, and that’s increasingly difficult when the Left requires you to take everything so seriously.

For example, the other morning I found a ton of e-mails in my in-box from aggrieved lefties citing a small Associated Press story called “Bush Awards 9 Purple Hearts to U.S. Troops” as evidence of how much neocon draft-dodging chickenhawks hate the troops. It seems the president had a visible scar on his forehead and made a throwaway self-deprecating reference to it. “As you can probably see, I was injured myself,” he said, “not here at the hospital but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won.” “I continue to fail to see how any soldier, anywhere, can stand this man, who repeatedly trivializes who they are and what they do,” huffed the blogger at No Capital. “To his sociopathic mind, that brush scratch = an injury sustained in Iraq,” raged another.

It’s a good rule of life not to get stuck in the role of the guy saying, “That’s not funny, okay?” I picked up a copy of the Globe and Mail in Montreal a week ago, and found a big story headlined, “Why Are Liberals Laughing? Brokeback Mountain has unleashed another round of lame — and homophobic — jokes, writes Liam Lacey.”

And he does, exhaustively. He doesn’t like Jay Leno joking about Sir Elton and his new groom honeymooning on Brokeback Mountain, or Craig Ferguson in cowboy get-up describing one gun as “great” and the other as “fabulous,” or the Saturday Night Live synopsis of the film (“For once, the good guys get it in the end”), or Letterman’s Top Ten Signs You’re a Gay Cowboy (“Instead of a saloon, you prefer a salon …”), or Nathan Lane’s musical version (Oklahomo!).

Read ’em and weep along with poor Liam Lacey. “A tragic love story about the consequences of bigotry, Brokeback Mountain is a liberal cause célèbre … Here is the movie that affirms the entertainment industry’s reputation for tolerance and social progress. But it’s followed all-too-quickly by the side-of-the-mouth wisecracks.”

And we can’t have that, can we? I’m reminded of Dean Martin’s old gag, “How do you make a fruit cordial?” Wait, never mind … Whatever their merits, these jokes aren’t “homophobic.” They’re not “afraid” of gayness, they just think it’s a hoot. If I were Camille Paglia, I’d argue that the very lameness of the gags is in a sense subverting their intent, transforming them into an ironic comment on the lumpen insecurity of hetero-defensive male culture.

But, as I’m not, I’ll just say that, a few years ago, the idea that the Left could make homosexuality as plonkingly earnest and solemn as feminism would have seemed incredible. If Cole Porter came back today, he’d be straight. For the culture to exempt certain groups from being the butt of the joke is one of the cruelest things you can do to anyone. If I were gay, I’d get Sergeant Turner’s lawyer and sue over it.

LOL! The best reaction to this flick is to laugh it off. If they give it Best Picture, the joke will be on Hollywood.

Occasionally I get asked by a reader what it will take to finally scuttle contemporary Western progressivism.

It will be when progressivism is no longer tax deductible. 501's and 327's create too much employment opportunities for the politically mischievous.

When donations to the ACLU, PETA , MoveOn.org and etc. are not deductible, as are donations to the NRA, then "progressives" will have to look for a real job or agitate on their own dime.

If they give it Best Picture, the joke will be on Hollywood.

It won't be "if", but when, and they certainly are unable to "get" the joke...

the infowarrior

9 posted on 01/18/2006 1:08:53 PM PST by Chickensoup (The water in the pot is getting warmer, froggies.The water in the pot is getting warmer, froggies.)

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