For the past month, I’ve attended several open mics in several different SF bars.
Some bars have pool tables. But I don’t like playing pool. Pool strikes me as racist.
Pool is a game with sixteen balls. And the main ball, the cue ball — the hero of the game — is white.
The white ball is set far away from the colored balls, which makes the white ball very happy,
When the game begins, the colored balls are trapped in a triangular prison. Once the colored balls are released, once they’re free, the white ball attacks.
It fires a shot, and the colored balls scatter.
Altogether, there are fifteen colored balls. But the white ball’s nemesis is the evil eight ball, the tall strapping black ball.
Q: How does this racist game end?
A: When the white ball, the hero ball, sinks the black ball in one of six pockets.
That’s literally white supremacy.
However, if the white ball sinks into a pocket, that’s a scratch. The white ball loses. That’s affirmative action — at least, according to the colored balls.
It’s easy for the colored balls to call the white ball racist. The white ball’s outnumbered 15-to-1.
When the colored balls call the white ball racist, that’s called projection. Colored balls are racist, too — just racist toward each other.
The first three colored balls are all solids — yellow, blue and red. Those are primary colors. They are pure. They are proud. And they are proud of their purity.
But as they stand shoulder to shoulder, secretly sneering at one another, they collectively scorn the secondary colors: solid purple, orange and green.
Secondary colors are not pure. They are, let’s be honest, the embarrassing offspring of two primary parents. Those primary parents are not proud.
Still, all six solids can put aside their prejudice and find family fellowship as they all, together, despise the seven ball.
Officially, the seven ball is maroon or burgundy. But let’s face it: It’s solid brown. All the colors are ashamed of brown. Brown is the untold secret.
But one day, soon, all the balls will be brown.
Until that time, the brown ball is welcomed by its six solid cousins for a holiday tradition of hating the stripes.
Q: And why do the solids hate the stripes?
A: Because the stripes are all half white.
Bottom line: Racism isn’t a circle of hate. It’s sixteen balls on a green felt table.
That’s why I throw darts.
Papa Gringo 