Why I Won’t Support Obama – or Hillary the White House Spouse – and Edwards is alright, as far as “alright goes.”
Posted in Michael O'McCarthy's Blog, Main Blog (All Posts) on January 24th, 2008 3:39 pm by Michael O'Mccarthy
by
Michael O’McCarthy
My mother was a waitress at a fried food joint just down the street from the Seaboard Rail Road station. She was what is called a “Georgia cracker – a hillbilly.” She came from a dirtfarm family of Euro-Americans, Scotch-Irish, English, and the Cherokee Nation. There were 12 kids and an alcoholic, wife and child-beating father who died early from the disease. She was racist. My Atlanta born dad, gone to WWII, was a plumber, an alcoholic and a racist. In other words I was one step above the stereotypical southern white trash, minus a trailer park – My mother would die in one. Lonely, old, of a self-inflicted bullet in her head.
In Miami, my best friend was Audrey. I was 5 and he was 8. His mother was the cook. They were black. He could play the harmonica and climb the one tall coconut tree in our yard. I was every kid with an older friend, envious. I begged and begged him to teach me how to play the harmonica. I was not adept enough to scale that tree no matter how hard I tried.
But I did love music. There was no TV to distract my ear. My mother yodeled me to sleep and the radio of the 1940’s carried the music of the thirties and forties, the swing and romance music of the war, the wild wailing of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline everyday. So the sound of Audrey on that harmonica was more than music to my ears, it could be my first attempt to create what I loved. But I could never get him to show me and he would never explain why.
One afternoon as Audrey and I played in the front yard, my mother sitting on her chair on our small front porch, he finally succumbed and blew into the instrument and said something to the effect, “you try that. Blow there,” indicating the holes into which I was to exhale.
There seemed an eternity from when he began to extend the harmonic from his mouth to my hand. As it traveled the few feet towards me I saw a flight of body move out of the corner of my right eye. Before my hand could grasp the instrument my mother had my hand and was yanking me to my feet. Dragging me towards the house she screamed something unintelligible at Audrey and he took off running with the harmonica in hand.
She screamed at me: “Don’t you ever put nothing in you mouth that belongs to a nigger. They are dirty filthy people. Their skin is filthy. Can’t you see that? You can get all kindsa diseases from them?”
The world as I knew it collapsed. I may have heard “nigger” before. I must have heard the daily mutterings of my white kin as they disparaged the African Americans so familiar to us Southerners. Not just the rag man, or ice man, but as they moved silently through out lives. But I had never been confronted with their insanity as I was on that day. And I knew. I knew in my gut, she was insane. Every white person who can think knows that shit is insane. But in the cultural redundancy it becomes Pavlovian, conditioned racism and/or a sign of great insecurity. That is what propels the overt racism at the heart of America. And I had resentment. How dare she take my best friend away from me when he had done nothing but liked me … befriended me?
I never saw Audrey again. My life changed.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
This artical makes it sound like only the whites area racist, sad very sad why don’t you all come out of that make believe world you call holly wood and come to terms with the real world
January 25th, 2008 at 9:29 am
An absolutely amazing article that encapsulates a American history lesson in a personal story of redemption and contribution. Michael O’McCarthy’s article should be in every grade 12 American history class in North America and in every Social Studies 101 class in our universities. It is a story that should be read 5 years after reading The Catcher in the Rye. It is another coming of age classic that explains why history repeats itself again and again in all states and provinces, just more so in the “South”; where the last 150 years is looked upon as yesterday; and entitlement is a social disease.1
January 28th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Who the hell is this Michael O’McCarthy idiot? First of all there’s no such surname, it’s either O’ or MC, you can’t have both. Second of all a simple google search on “O’McCarthy” shows that the guy is white, not black as he claims in this poorly written piece. Thirdly, I fail to see any relationship between this self absorbed claptrap of a story and his contention that none of the candidates are any good.
I used to visit this site regularly before this sad race baiter who calls himself Michael O’McCarthy took over. Somebody take away his keyboard and up his meds. Please!
January 28th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Bob,
He never said he was black…on the contrary he made it very clear he was white and had witnessed the racism first hand as a white-American. Did you read the piece? Or did you just start running off at the mouth because he dared talk of racism, maybe something you are uncomfortable with?
January 28th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Dear Boob - I mean Bob: Does this mean you are not coming back to HL? (Laughing) Jesus, Jospephy and Mary M, who died and made you chief of names?
This site is becoming the catch all for the semi-literate Ann Coulter blog rejects. Or has George W. finally infected you with his disease called “inabilitytoreadcomprehendorspeakmuchlesstype?”
Please, please, find another place to spew.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Bob you realy need to do some real looking in to just where names come from the “O” means “of the” ( O’Craig mean of the rocks but when they came to the states the droped the O, just a exsample for you ) do a little learning befor you open your mouth. and just where did you get the thing that mike was black. this is one of the few times i’ll defend mike- but man get a life
January 28th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Apologies for misreading this as somebody pretending to be black. I stand by my contention, however, that there is no such name as “O’McCarthy”. As an Irishman (born & bred) this is an absolute joke. (it would be an insult were it not so comical). O’ means son of, and is used traditionally in Ireland, and Mc or Mac is Scottish, meaning grandson of. Use your real name you pretentious windbag.
And stop whining about your pathetic life and using it as an excuse to not vote. If you don’t vote you have no business complaining about anything political. Dumbass.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
BOB your the idiot. But HL he made the same point that I did. You are losing people because of Mikey. I don’t need to see the hits on this site to know. All you need to do is look and the number of comments that are showing up. You used to get no less than about 4 comments on every post you put on here. Now you are lucky if you get one. To bad it was fun going back and forth with you.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I refuse to get into a “who’s the idiot with someone who can’t spell.
Anonymous is dead right in everything else he/she said though. To say that you don’t vote when you run a political blog is an untenable position to take.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Holy MaC O’damia nuts Bob - lets see if I can help sort this out for you….cause as an Irishman you deserve some help - I think you are suffering from PATSD (Post Anglophile Traumatic Stress Disorder.)
1- Think Nom de Guerre - or in a civilized world, Nom de Plume, (Bob, thats French.)
2- Aside from someone dying and making you King of Names, who died and made you the Prince Decider of defining what is and what is not “the political process?”
Aside from not buying into the absurd notion that voting is the only political act, Not Voting was a political act. I refuse to accept that electoral politics is the only/correct politique.
Secondly, describing why I chose not to vote for these corporate puppets was a poltical act. Political journalism, blogging, speaking of poltical things, is a political act.
Cheer up Bob, the British Empire will die one day and if you are still alive, you will feel a great moment of relief.
Up The Rebels.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
??????????????
Have you been drinking again Michael? I see when you lose an argument all you can do is lash out and accuse the other person of being an “ann coulter” reject, or, this latest nonsensical “Post Anglophile Traumatic Stress Disorder” categorization.
One does not need, as you contend, to be a “king of names” (whatever the hell that is) to know that O’ Mc is a makey-uppy name. O or ua is Irish for grandson, mac for son. You can’t be both.
Names aside, to say “Not Voting was a political act” is utterly illogical. This is a democracy Michael, most of us want to keep it that way, and, indeed, make it more democratic. The first step is to vote out the current incumbents of the White House who are undermining our democracy. You, my misguided friend, are merely helping them in this regard by not voting.
Anyway, looks like HL’s back now, hopefully for good. You bring nothing to political discourse Michael, so please step aside and quietly leave.