Donald Douglas Wants To Kill My Hate Monkey

I don't believe this! What kind of a country do we live in where an "evil" neoconservative blogger like my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Power can openly and wantonly threaten the life of an innocent liberal-attack-hate-monkey like Thade in his post "Blacks as Monkeys? Even When Leftists Hit Bottom, They Keep Digging" and get away with it? That's not the America I grew up in, and I'm not sure if it's an America that I can continue to live in.

For those just joining us, Don saw a picture of Thade acting out his version of male simian dominance towards himself in one of my posts. Now while he originally took this as a threat of violence from myself I assured him that Thade was flexing his monkey nuts of his own accord and that if Don wanted to tussle with him (Don was also flexing his own human nuts in response) that Thade had insisted that they fight by "monkey rules" which...

OK, I'm going to step out of my comedic voice for a second to address the absolute absurdity of Don professing that I was actually threatening him with violence by a fictional hate monkey (whatever the hell that is) or that I would ever intimate that Don was indeed the monkey I was referring to. In fact, as someone who majored in Anthropology in college it has pained me to no end to even keep referring to Thade as a monkey rather than an ape but the word "monkey" is obviously funnier so I've done so thus far and have tried to use the word as much as possible for comedic effect. And when I myself imagine having to fight a monkey the funniest/scariest thing I can think of would be that the monkey would hurl his feces at me. Now of course it would never occur to me to hurl my own feces back at him as a defense, and neither have I suggested that Don would have done the same in his fictional monkey battle with Thade.

But this latest cry of outrage from Don also illustrates the inherent mindset of victimology and persecution that he has cultivated, and which I've decried, since the outset of our little spat. If someone photoshops a baby into someone else within the context of making fun of that person, to Don they're obviously making fun of the baby instead and therefore hate and want to retroactively abort all handicapped children. If someone makes a joke about a neocon who's puffing up his chest at the prospect of a fight comedically fighting a poop flinging monkey, they're obviously calling the neocon a poop flinging monkey instead and are therefore racist and want to denigrate all black people.

As explanation for those not in the know, Don has mentioned on occasion that he is of mixed race and most decidedly not white. OK, that's cool with me. Now, of which races is Don's racial identity composed? I have no idea. None. He seems to be saying that he's part black in his last post so I'll believe him (although he's given me ample evidence to doubt the veracity of anything he says up to this point). Personally, I always thought that he looked more Hispanic than anything else and the name "Donald Douglas" itself provides few cultural clues, so I've honestly never really given it much more thought than that. I just didn't care. Of course all of these points are rendered moot by the fact that I never called him a monkey in the first place, although he seemed to have no such compunctions about calling me (admittedly a white dude) a "hate monkey" before I created the fictional Thade to redirect the insult.

Don ends his post with the following:

Enough is enough!

This pissing contest has gone on long enough. I am again calling on James B. Webb to issue a full apology to me. I will publish it here in a new post. This debate began almost two weeks ago, when Mr. Webb attacked the "everyday stupidity of right-wing religious neoconservatives." Now it's time for him to have the last word. I confess honestly myself right here: Sure, I like to debate and tussle online, and I admit that I'm pretty zealous in defending against attacks as a "stupid" neocon extremist. And things have gotten pretty ugly too.

So, now James can show he's a gentleman. James B. Webb can end it here with a full apology for his "blacks as monkeys" slur (see, "Blacks as Monkeys? It's Time For An Adult Conversation"). I will accept his apology and we all can move on.

Actually, I only attacked the "everyday stupidity of right-wing religious neoconservatives" in response to Don attacking the "everyday demonology of left-wing secular progressives" first but I'm not going to split hairs. And that's really big of him to demand an apology for something I never said and then offer to graciously accept it. But here goes: I'm sorry, Don. I'm sorry that you seem to take yourself and the rest of the world so seriously that you have no discernable sense of humor to speak of. I'm also sorry that you can not grasp the concept that a handicapped person could be included even tangentially in a joke about someone else without that handicapped person being the butt of the joke, nor that you can not grasp that a black person who doesn't look obviously black by most objective measurements and rarely identifies himself as such could be included in a joke about fighting a fictional monkey without that black person also being called a monkey. I like handicapped people, neoconservatives, black people and monkeys and I call many from every group friends. I'm sorry that you can't view the world without confusing several of these hominids in your blindingly righteous indignation.

At this point I had originally planned to slip back into my comedic voice to continue my faux rant against Don for posting the New York Post editorial cartoon about police officers murdering a chimp, implying that he was now threatening my own fictional hate monkey with monkeycide but I've somehow lost my zeal for this whole war. It appears that in addition to being accused of being gay (yeah, snark Don; I get it...) I am now also apparently a homophobe and a racist, all because I made some jokes about an uptight neoconservative windbag. Readers can decide for themselves as to whether I'm a gentleman as well. You win Don, and you even finally got your apology. You got me [falling over dead]. Adieu.

[Update: Don has posted my "apology" along with a few emails from his readers insulting me and complaining about his posts about me. Apparently I'm being blamed for Don's obsession and inability to keep from writing about me. So be it. The people too blind to see what really happened this past week are already too far gone to waste time explaining it to them.

I'll say this: This whole encounter has definitely opened my eyes. I knew from the outset that Don had a propensity for ignoring facts and proven points but I never dreamed that he was capable of the levels of cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty displayed towards me over the course of this little war. I'm aware that I could probably win some arguments by employing his tactics as well but at the end of the day I would just feel like a damn liar.

I truly doubt his professed ability to leave this side of himself out of the classroom. How could someone who has convinced himself of the truthfulness of the things he's accused me of ever have the self-awareness to make that distinction? One of these sides of his personality is obviously far out of whack, I just hope for the sake of his students that the personality we've seen here today is that side.

On a lighter note: Can I get a "Hell yeah!" for that fridge door photoshop? It's one of my most favoritest things I've ever posted here and I thought that it was pretty fucking hilarious. Just saying.]

[Update II: I was just reading some of the comments on Don's post. Most of these people are as deluded as Don, it's like they were reading a whole other blog war. Sad, and a tad worrisome.]