I’m not sure how I let it happen, but somehow I got into a political debate with a staunchly liberal black friend of mine. I’ve navigated my social life very carefully to keep my political mouth shut when in the presence of ardent and stalwart liberals AND loyal and stout Clintonista’s. But, it was only a matter of time before one of the varied people with whom I associate would pop up and begin a bout of their own. Let me tell you, it was truly frightening.

Somehow Janine Garofalo came up and before we were done, I had found a video of her viewist rant where she accused ‘reasonable minds who differ’ of racism for possessing those differing views. Now, if you remember, there wasn’t anything on that video BUT the incessant prattling of a nasty little ugly chick. No facts, no quotes, no evidence whatsoever…simply the ridiculous drivel spouted out by a babbling idiot.

My friend responded immediately, “She’s right!” The enquiring nature of my brain quickly queried, “About what?”

“She’s right that they shouldn’t have thrown all of those tea-bags.”

How do you argue with a mind like that? I don’t know anything about tea-bags except what Garofalo said about them. The protesters weren’t “throwing tea-bags”…they were practicing their Constitutional right to assemble. DUH. Oh, and by the way, I had nothing to do with them. If memory serves, I said something negative about our local Tea Party People.

I tried to say that without laughing but I couldn’t. So, my giggling may have set a bad tone for a fluid and mutually satisfying debate, but I couldn’t help it. This guy was corroborating something that I had long suspected…there are some callow and obtuse sycophants out there. I decided to stop snickering and change directions.

“OK,” I said, “Say they DID throw tea-bags, what’s wrong with a little tea-bag tossing? Did you ever find out who cleaned the tea-bags up? Maybe they all picked up the tea-bags after they threw them in which case it seems pretty harmless to me.”

That probably wasn’t called for. I should have known that so much common sense would provoke a strong reaction from one of those ‘reasonable minds who differ’. But, the ebullient and boisterous nature of the retort DID take me aback…especially considering the banality of the new charges.

“How can you say those people aren’t racist?”

Beginning with that statement, each and every following baseless proclamation was made with ever increasing volume, bias and anger. “Go to the website to get a review of those tea-bag tossers!”

I’m really brave at times…even when chatting with a man so I said, “Why don’t we just go to the tea-baggers own web site and see what THEY say? Any other site would just be another person’s interpretation of their mission.” Well, that was all it took.

“They’ll lie on their own web site! Oh…and of course YOU didn’t see racism growing up, you were surrounded by white people!” I have to admit, he was right…but that didn’t change the fact that those white people never showed the slightest sign of bigotry to me. Maybe it was there…but I never saw it.

There was one black guy at my high school and 30+ years later, he’s causing me grief. He never did back in the 70’s…he was just a good guy. He and I were friendly enough that he signed my yearbook. Somehow that all came up and my current friend decided that he wanted to see the ONE black guy in my high school.

I got my yearbook and showed him where Jerry Schmid had signed so many years ago. I tried to find a picture of him but I couldn’t do it. I looked in every index that I could find and I couldn’t find another trace of Jerry Schmid other than the fact that he signed it, “To the White Yankee Doodle, From the Black Man!” (I worked at a fast food place called Yankee Doodle Dandy when I was a teenager. It was sort of like McDonald’s…except they had Dandy Burgers and Yankee Burgers instead of Big Macs and Quarter Pounders.)

Now, in high school, you usually get your yearbooks the year AFTER the year the annual is commemorating so that you can get the prom and graduation in the stupid thing. But, that logic didn’t matter one bit. My friend looked through every single page of that book and never found any sign of Jerry Schmid so he deduced that my high school went to all the trouble of eradicating any sign of “The Black Man”.

Of course that made me suspect and then he threw in this little gem, “I saw that window on your computer open to Fox News…come on, we know how you think!?” Once again, he was right. I did have a Fox News window open. But, in my defense, I also had the window to Papa John’s open and I didn’t have any pizza.

Well, once someone calls you a Fox News Watcher, the debate pretty much ends. There’s no great comeback for THAT! It’s sort of like when nit wits call a black person the N word…there’s nothing more you CAN say. The argument is obviously not worth continuing.

Oh, I looked and looked and I finally found that my buddy was right…protesters DID toss tea-bags but since we have no idea who tossed them, we can’t know what the heck they were protesting. Here’s the evidence that, indeed, tea bags were tossed:

The Offensive Tea Bags...not the Garofalo type although they're pretty offensive as well

By the way, if any of you know where Jerry Schmid of Bensenville Illinois is, please have him get in touch with me. I need to find out if he was expunged from the 1974 Fenton High School yearbook or if he moved to Bensenville during the summer of ‘74 and just happened to go sign yearbooks that fall when they were handed out.

Also, if any of you want to send me a pizza from Papa John’s, get your credit card out and email me at b.annie.wilson@gmail.com so I can tell you what I want.

Marietta Meg!!!