According to the Stuff White People Like blog, I am almost unbearably white in the left-leaning, educated, upper middle class coastal sort of way. How I got to be this white without grad school I have no idea- so maybe I'm just a poseur. Still my love of my Prius, David Sedaris, Wes Anderson movies, and "The Idea of Soccer" alone would seem to cinch my place in the halls of pretentious lefty whiteness.
I have another indicator of unbearable lefty whiteness this morning.
Yesterday at a party, my friend Tina said, "I have to ask you something, and I have to see your face." I gazed earnestly at her (or, as earnestly as I could, given the amount of rum and fruit juice coursing through my brain). She looked intently at me and said:
"Jesse Helms died. What do you think about that?"
And I am certain that I screwed up my face a bit as I tried to formulate a response. Because, as a person who fits so neatly in the category we're discussing, I have standards. I cannot take pleasure in the death of a human being. And I cannot speak ill of the dead (which is why we all love Hunter S. Thompson so much. When Nixon died, he alone could pen a an obit that refused to elevate a figure we all considered despicable.)
I have other standards, too. I love art, loathe racism (especially in its hateful mainstream form- something that Helms was exceptionally good at exploiting.)
My standards, in this moment, are completely at odds.
When Ronald Reagan died, I could acknowledge that he was the President, and give respect. I could say, honestly, that in his personal writings he seemed to be such a sweet person, such a good friend.
I cannot imagine having a friend like Jesse Helms.
I think I finally said something not quite witty, like what a tragedy for him that he died before realizing his dream of getting all the artists and uppity negroes into gulags.
But I didn't feel good about it.
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