Jack & Jill Politics

Wasup, mi gente? By way of quick e-ntroduction, I am the Jack of Jack and Jill. I am Jack Turner. We’ll have time to get to know each other over the next weeks and months. I’ll invite you over for some Xbox. You’ll take me on an all-expense-paid Mediterranean cruise. We’ll discuss why “Jack and Jill” over cups of chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side. But, for now, I’m gonna get on with my post, if you don’t mind (not that it matters, since I’ma do what I’ma do).

I want to talk about the difference between white people and black people. And, no, I don’t mean the Def Comedy Jam differences (“white people dance like this! black people dance like that! ha! steppenfetchit dawg! is that fried chicken I smell? gotta run!”). No. This is serious. Let’s talk about horror movies.

I was raised to talk back to the movie screen in a horror flick. It wasn’t so much adult advice, as it was what everybody did. We had to call out the b.s. The scene inevitably involved silly white person meandering through clearly suspicious, underlit-region-for-no-discernable-reason, despite the fact that several friends of said white person were noticeably not safely returned from said underlit-region-for-no-discernable-reason.

At every obvious sign of stupidity, my village would scream out, “No stuuuupid. Why you gonna go run upstairs for??” or “No stuuuupid. Don’t run to the scary noises. Get up outta there. Call somebody!”

Despite such sound (and loud) advice, white-person-in-movie stuck to the script, turning bad self-preservation choices into great cinematic ones. Meanwhile, white-person-in-theatre would attempt to stick to the script as well — the script of the passive movie watcher, shushing that incredulous black chorus. They would snap, “Shhhhhhh.” or “Please be quiet. You’re not supposed to talk in the movie.” Obviously, this was to no avail.

I always found it interesting that no one argued against the truth of what black folks were yelling. No one was like, “Shhh. Maybe there’s something the scantily clad girl needs to investigate in that moldy attic during a lightning storm at 3 a.m.” No, because it’s pretty clear, the loud black people were right.

So was I merrily reminded of this child-rearing lesson upon witnessing former President Bill Clinton scream out at the horror movie that is Fox News this past Sunday. He had to call out the b.s. he saw (the sandbagging idea that he caused 9/11 by not “doing enough” to get bin Laden). The resulting news coverage, predictably, is focused on the fact that Clinton didn’t play his designated part during that “interview.”

Everybody’s calling Clinton “crazed” and “furious” and “over the top” in an attempt to shush him, and no one is taking the time to listen and come to the inevitable conclusion that the man is “accurate” and “informative” and “right!”

The major points: at the time he was accused of being obsessed with bin Laden; people said his attacks on bin Laden camps were Wag the Dog-esque attempts to distract from Lewisky; he left office with clear advice to the Bush administration to keep up the pressure; they dropped the ball completely.

My plan was to embed a friendly YouTube video to share the glory of this disruptive horror movie moment, but alas, Fox has put the smackdown on such unapproved use of its copywritten material, and all such YouTube clips have been removed.

Thanks, however, to the good folks at Crooks and Liars, you can watch and read everything that happened (oh snap, Google Video has it!). Then check out my boy Keith Olbermann put some icing on the cake. See for yourself the reason I call him our first black president.

Once you do that, promise me you’ll start screaming at the horror movie that is the United States a bit more often. Enough is enough folks. Don’t let this script play out.

I am Jack Turner.