www.smalltimehacks.com

For us, the rich white elitist men who bring you this fine site, fairness is of the upmost importance. As such, this site remains relentlessly non-partisan. We welcome input from anyone regardless of their race, creed, nationality, religion, orientation or political persuasion. Except for women. We believe their brains are too small for the type of work we do here. Board member Neville Baxter Carlton presented a white paper at our last meeting that proved as much.

The diversity of our thought will be evident once we run our upcoming 15-part series on the flat tax followed by our birtday celebration for the guy who started the Free Mumia movement, who - I believe - is Mumia Abu-Jamal himself.

What I am trying to say is that if you have detected a certain left-wing slant in our writing it is simply because Bosie is a dirty Socialist. It has nothing to do with the actual direction of the site.

To prove as much, I would like to point out that anyone can be a hacky writer as Ron Jackson of The Daily Journal in Kankakee, Illinois proves. I honestly could not determine his political viewpoints by reading this article. It comes across as some kind of sappy, middle of the road, left-leaning nonsense you pick up after four years at, say, SUNY Albany. None of that ultimately matters though, because bad writing is bad writing regardless of the political bent.

The column gives you its alleged premise in the opening paragraph.

First impressions are forever. Wisdom teaches us that we only get one chance to make a great one. Be it a date, job interview, audition, or social acclimation, a first impression is the equalizer. There is no better example of this than how our own color consciousness is shaped.

From this, I fully expected a tale of how Mr. Jackson, assuming he is white, had his pre-conceived racial notions changed by a wonderful African American teacher in the eleventh grade. Or, assuming he is black, how his white college roommate insulted him on his first day of school, yet later became his best man. Basically, I am picturing him as one of those two annoying guys from Scrubs.

That would be a hokey column that has been written a thousand times before. Still, it would not get notice here. What gets notice here is the fact that the rest of the column never actually addresses first impressions on race.

Instead, he rambles on about boxing and Tiger Woods and movies that no one saw.

What is wrong in pointing out that Barack Obama is black? Nothing. The search for the Great White Hope heavyweight champ is legendary. America was so hungry for one that it had to go to Russia to find its hope. In this political heavyweight fight, Obama is the Great Black Hope similar to what white heavyweight boxers Jerry Quarry, Randall “Tex” Cobb and Gerry Cooney were to boxing in the 1960s and 1970s. Their color overshadowed their ability, and it was the awareness of their color that sold tickets.

This is certainly the first time that Obama has ever been linked Gerry Cooney. And it will be the last time unless Obama begins a career as a casino greeter.

I also have no idea what point he is trying to make. Cooney was a fraud of a heavyweight who was exposed by Larry Holmes. I don’t think Ronny is trying to call Obama a fraud; I just don’t think he understood the analogy he drew.

Color commands attention. Movies are made about color consciousness. “Road to Glory” told the story of the first college basketball team to win a national championship with an all-black starting lineup. The story was more intriguing because the black team beat the perennial powerhouse and white elitist University of Kentucky. “The Great White Hope” was an award-winning play and movie depicting America’s quest for a white heavyweight boxing champion since the early 1900s.

Apparently these are the first two movies with a black theme that came to his mind. Somewhere, Spike Lee weeps.

By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson” someday. I provide so much to my readers, don’t I?

It’s only wrong and harmful when race is used to elicit fear and divisiveness. We fear what we don’t know. If our only experiences or associations with persons of a different race come from television, we are susceptible to believe the racist stereotypes. It’s not far-fetched even today for a person to go through 12 years of school without ever personally knowing a person outside his or her own race.

Okay, we are almost back to the stated theme of the article with this profound revelation that we fear the unknown. Don’t worry. We get off-track in a hurry.

If we’re going to point out Obama’s blackness, it would be more accurate that he would be compared to the current God of Golf, Tiger Woods.

After becoming the first to compare Obama to Tex Cobb, Ron becomes the 15,000,000th writer to compare him to Tiger Woods. Did he really believe that no one had made this connection yet?

We now come to the paragraph where I become convinced that Ron is white guy who took at least one African Amercan Studies class in college. I am sure he is going to vote for Obama and that has gone to at least one jazz club in his life. Because any conservative would be utterly terrified to write this next paragraph. For Cal Thomas, this would be a career killer.

Should Obama win, there should be no fear that our national anthem will change from “The Star Spangled Banner” to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” that the annual White House lawn children’s game won’t change from T-ball to craps, that he will pimp the presidential limo, or that his weekly presidential addresses won’t consist of every other sentence being, “You know what I’m saying.”

Sweet merciful Jesus. Are you speechless? All that was missing there was a watermelon reference.

But Ron is a fair man. And he ends in a fair manner.

Furthermore, should John McCain win, we shouldn’t fear that he will cancel the Martin L. King, Jr. holiday.

Oh, well, thank goodness for that.

This is the kind of column that demands knowing the race, age, and politics of the writer. I will not rest until I know Ron Jackson’s bio. Because his background will completely alter how I read this. And I will read it many more times, because I plan on printing it and sticking on my fridge.