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| Roy S. Moore |
But, I was seven years old at the time, not a grown man as Moore is pictured above. I didn't get the six guns or the cap, settling for a Whamo-O frisbee and occasional use of my sister's hula hoop.
But, getting past Moore's arrested development, uncomfortability with women his own age and Bible thumping, there is a scary lack of understanding of the world outside the Old South that even law school evidently can't erase.
In 1970 Nena and I got familiar with Carden Bottoms, Arkansas, a dying community of white sharecroppers, taking pride in their presumed superiority to "the Negro," quoting Scriptures many could not actually read, measuring things as "right smart," speaking in tongues, handling snakes, both men and women dipping snuff.
That holler was filled with Roy Moores, not lacking in native intelligence, just intellectually inbred, unaware of life beyond polk salad and grits, cotton and pigs, the antithesis of Anthony Bourdain.
That lack of awareness on Moore's part is almost as scary as his decades ago penchant for teenagers.
In July Moore was asked about the Dreamer program. Annoyed, he asked: "Who are the dreamers?"
Moore refers to native Americans and Asian Americans as "reds and yellows," believes some U.S. communities are under Sharia Law, feels 9-11 happened because "Americans had distanced themselves from God," and, of course, still believes former President Obama wasn't born in the U.S.
While the focus has been on Moore's sexual proclivities, we can't ignore the dangers his actual ignorance would pose as a U.S. Senator.
So me and my girlfriend were walking into Cheddar's as two older white couples were walking out. Being the ones walking in, we opened the door and let them walk out first. As they passed by, I smiled politely and one of the old guys looking like Roy Moore (minus the hat and pistol) throws me some shade with a look of disdain. So I says "what's the look for, Mister?" I expected some cop-out like "gout acting up" or "inflamed hemorrhoids". Instead, the old man smelling like a Dutch Master gets near my face and snarls, "your people screwed everything up!" I said "SNAP! Who's your people? And what did we screw up?" I followed them to his big truck. "Brownsville used to be a nice place to live, raise a family and retire," he says like he's remembering some old memory. "Now it's just a shit town. We kept it nice and orderly. There's too many people who don't belong here. Maybe Trump will close them again and get the border patrol to make it a nice town again." They got in the truck and drove off. I thought we had a nice town already. The old man was angry about something. My girlfriend said it was a good thing they're now in the minority otherwise who knows what they would do to clean up this "shit town".
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