The demand for equality with Seneca is neither

By Frank Parlato Jr.

August 05, 2008

Niagara Falls Reporter

Some feel that it’s racist that I — a white man — should talk about equal rights with Seneca.
Let me start by being unapologetic: I have no “white” guilt. That idiotic, disgraceful, illogical, cowardly belief that I, by virtue of my race, am, somehow, responsible and should feel guilty for deeds done by people — who died before I was born — because they happened to have the same skin color as I.
I have no guilt whatsoever.
Of course, in the USA, there is racism. Some have hatred for others because of race.
I do not possess this.
And, of course, the U.S. government mandates racism: Formerly against blacks; presently, against whites.
Until 1964, one could legally discriminate against blacks. Since 1978, companies, universities, and the government legally discriminate against whites.
I’m just stating the facts: Affirmative action is the attempt to end racism with racism. Affirmative action is the legislation of racism. Affirmative Action seeks to reconcile atrocities like slavery and the denial to women the right to vote. But it punishes people who had no hand in it. People — in many instances — whose ancestors were not guilty of it either.
People should not be punished for the deeds of their ancestors.
In Niagara Falls, then, I wonder, are we accepting the unfair imposition of Seneca’s superior legal rights because we are acclimated to accept that in America some people should have more legal rights then others based on skin color or ethnicity?
Any white person, younger than 30, has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978, it has been mandated legally to discriminate against whites — particularly white men. This has had an effect on the way we view men.
I wonder then if another reason we do not manfully demand equality (Seneca men protest injustice by burning tires and blockading roads) is the new racism/sexism against white men.

IGNOMINIOUS INDEED: Culturally, we have traded heroic manly role models like John Wayne (above) for emasculated, henpecked and over sensitized wimps like Ray Romano and Hugh Grant (pictured below).

Men sometimes have to fight. But they are encouraged to be passive: Not only by government discrimination, but by the media’s sick culture.
How contemptuously men are portrayed on TV and movies. Turn on a TV for 30 minutes and see how men are portrayed as ignorant, stupid and lazy.
It’s permeated our sick culture: Let us cite examples: If men allow this, passively, it may explain why a handful of Seneca men rule our town:
• A TV newswoman told this joke at an event: A woman needed a brain transplant. Her doctor said a woman’s brain was available for $500 and a man’s brain for $5,000. Why the price difference?
Answer: The woman’s brain has been used. Most laughed. One man booed. “Just substitute woman, black or Jew,” the man said, “and tell me how the joke sounds.”
• American Greetings Co. launched a card that said: “Men are always whining about how we are suffocating them.” The punch line inside was: “Personally, I think if you can hear them whining, you’re not pressing hard enough on the pillow.” Would American Greetings print a card with men joking about suffocating a woman?
• On the “Today” show, former host Katie Couric asked a jilted bride, “Have you considered castration as an option?” Imagine if Matt Lauer asked a jilted groom, “Wouldn’t you like to rip her uterus out?”
• The 3M company published Post-It notes that read: “Men have only two faults: everything they say and everything they do.”
• Hallmark Cards produced “Men are scum ... Excuse me. For a second there I was feeling generous.”
• “All Men Are Bastards” calendars are on sale.
• And shirts that read, “Boys are bad, throw rocks at them.”
• When a school teacher made”Boys Are Good” T-shirts for boys in her class, female teachers objected. One was wearing a button saying “So many men, so little intelligence.”
An endless barrage, led by media, belittles the self-image of boys and young men: You’ve seen him on sitcoms: he’s dumb, bumbling, idiot dad, husband or boyfriend, useless at everything. The message: Men are dumb; women have to lead them.

It’s legal in America to discriminate against him, above, based on his gender and race, and culturally acceptable to make his role models idiots and fools.

Women are portrayed as superior in relationships. Male characters are portrayed as henpecked. (Yet the Christian Bible — which many wish their children to follow — clearly exhorts men to lead their wives, not vice versa.)
It’s funny how those who are hypersensitive about sexism (against women) are sexist (against men) at the same time. If females were regularly portrayed as jack-asses, however, imagine the uproar.
But then white men are a safe target. Any other group would address it through NOW, NAACP or similar organizations.
The attack on men, therefore, is relentless: Stereotyped as beer-guzzling, illiterate rednecks or emasculated wimps, one is hard pressed to find in the media the old-fashioned, John-Wayne type.
Wayne was tough. But in contemporary movies and TV, a 98-pound female can beat up a 200-pound male bruiser. Constantly depicted on television, commercials, even children’s movies: women hit, punch and shove men.
Consider: The testicle shot (or kick or animal bite, etc.) is a staple even in children’s movies. What does this say about our culture — that a blow to a (white) man’s reproductive organs is funny? The next time you see this, imagine a “vulva shot.”
In Hollywood, girls are made all-powerful, (white) boys are sex-crazed idiots. Yet if Hollywood made a show about boys being powerful, with girls and minorities portrayed as idiots, there’d be outrage. And, formerly a plot might consist of two or three boys on a daring adventure. Now there’s always a girl, who’s never just “as good” but “better” — more capable, more clever, more sensitive, more moral. What is this teaching our boys?
Read modern textbooks: Some University courses teach the “hating” of men. Or their marginalization. A famous 1896 picture of co-Nobel Prize winners Pierre and Marie Curie was presented in the textbook “SciencePlus: Technology and Society.” They cropped Pierre out, as if Marie did it alone. In “Creating America,” the authors identify “ten representative American heroes.” Neither Jefferson nor Benjamin Franklin was included. The list included Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, Queen Liliuokalani and Zitkala-Sa. Another textbook had five pages about Marilyn Monroe and five lines about George Washington.
Men also get bashed for unfair treatment of minorities and women. Still, I’m not sure they deserve chastisement.
Slavery, for example, existed prior to biblical times, and was rampant around the world until recently. In some places, it still exists with new names: In Communist China, hundreds of millions are de-facto slaves, with less freedom than the American slave had.
But consider: White men did not invent slavery. While there was still slavery in Asia and Africa, white men abolished it in America. And white men fought and died in a civil war, fought largely over slavery. White men also granted women the right to vote. In some countries, women cannot vote, yet the sexist buys oil from these to drive her car.
If not for dead white men who conceived this nation, built it, fought for it, protected it, developed inventions that brought a greater standard of living to more people than any civilization in history, America would be perhaps like many Third World countries — which haven’t benefitted from the marvelous inventions that white men gave to the world.
That there has been a shameful record of hatred, violence and greed — that some white men have done — is true. But that there has been with every race.
As there has been greatness in every race.
To the men of Niagara Falls, regardless of race: I wish we could stand together as friends, and demand equality with Seneca, who should also be our friend — for there is much to admire in Seneca.
If Seneca is tax-free, all men and women should be tax-free.
If Seneca can open a casino, Americans in Niagara Falls should open a casino.
And that my friends is not sexist or racist at all.

Frank Parlato Jr. can be reached at frank@frankreport.com.