That said, here’s the deal as I see it. When you grow up, the son of political activists steeped in the civil rights era, a black person calling a white person a ‘racist’ is tantamount to a white one using the ‘N’ word. It’s that simple.

What appeals to me, or has in the past, whether it is with PegasusNews, the DMNews Views Editorial blog or FrontBurner, is the variety of formats to join in a political debate/discussion nationally (DMN) or flippantly make cracks regarding things pegged locally (FB, Pegasus). As someone quick on my feet, self-employed, a home-based writer, it’s like taking a break to interact with others. No less than taking a break walking the dog in the adjacent forest before resuming a project. Compare it to a coffee or smoke break.

That said, the amount of anonymous vitriol that has become an oozing new norm is disturbing to me, and has lately…in fact this past weekend…found me talking with friends and other editors about my concerns that one only plays in that sandbox is at the risk of personal assault. And when one is known on whatever level, but the attacker remains closeted in cyberspace, it is no longer a playground but a minefield. Who wants to make a minefield a playground?

Oddly, I intended to write a commentary on this subject on this but there again, we live in a two-fold world where half the listeners are completely unaware what a ‘blog’ is while the other half is someone who cannot relate to my concerns because they correctly feel that no one is forced to contribute. So the point central to any opinion piece becomes dead on arrival since it is not relevant to most persons who are anonymous even if they used their true name.

As trey Garrison learned when he wrote the Op-Ed I book-ended in the piece I linked to in this thread, it is irrational how readers seize on a word, a phrase, a line. There is always a predatory reader ready to react. I was particularly impressed with ‘D’ publisher Wick Allison’s post a while back, where he succinctly listed his observations of how nuanced postings were decimated, etc. Wick is a thinker and his thoughts were that of someone who, like me, has a point of reference as to what once was normal and what is now the name of the game.

Me? I just like being irreverent or funny or insightful or dueling with words. It’s what writers and independent thinkers do, and at its best what the blogs offer. A free-form forum democracy of humor, snipe and snark opinion. But without some standard of decorum it’s no place for a writer to sharpen his craft. It just becomes a place where anonymous predators sharpen their claws.

You’re A-No.1 in my book, Rawlins. And you’re too much of a class act to get that bent out of shape over one vicious jerk. Have a drink, for Christ’s sake.

I received what was called the MLK award in 1976 in Alabama when I was there serving as the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. It was given to me by (ready?) outgoing racist-turned-redemptive old man George Wallace for my work going in the course of my residency to rural schools. It was not a big deal. But it was a big deal to anyone who really cares about people of color when they themselves have so much privilege handed to them.

Lately I have been asking myself what happened to the blogs…and Wick Allison himself posted recently asking that. Where not so long ago we could have fun and be snarky, we now risk professional harm and personal attack. And for what? And, I might add, by people whose name we never know. Only some moniker or half name.

I don’t take true offense from rude strangers. But I don’t need the grief. I do however need to have some fun. I used to find it here.

Me? I’m running late for dinner…ready? At a friend in Oak Cliff’s house. A Mexican American woman and her African American DJ husband. PS: She tied her tubes. And so did my mother, like Daniel’s. Adios.

Actually, wouldn’t Rawlins’ Theme be sexist — since he doesn’t chant that the men should get a vascectomy (or when he does, at any rate, his attempts at gusto are unconvincing)? And wouldn’t that make Bethany a self-loathing toadie to the patriarchy?