There are moments in life that crystalize your sense of identity and other moments that make you question whether your tongue functions and whether you've remembered your name correctly. Some people are more prone to these affirmations and lapses, people like me, and Barack Obama. 

I mean who is Barack Obama, really? And for that matter, who am I? Once upon a time in the West, these questions were easier to answer: colored or not colored. This was the case in Ohio, too, and elsewhere I'm told. So, please, I'm not singling out the West. As far as aggressive discrimination goes, I regard it much higher, in its discrimination against gays and non-celebrities, just so we're clear. 

Those were simpler times. Frightening and nationally embarrassing times, but simpler. You knew who you were, or at the very least, what you were told you were. Shades of gray were found only on film and in George Wallace's suits. We are no longer provided the luxury of distinction between black and white. 

As you may recall, a Presidential election in which the candidate's race was a famous issue, of famous for not being an issue, depending on who you talk to, was recently held. Not in dispute is the national catharsis we all felt when the results were announced. For a moment we all knew again, who we were and why we cheered. All of us sincere, all of us different. Those were simpler times. 

Al Qaida is a terrorist organization of some note, famous for, among other things, being very difficult for Republican's to catch. After Barack Obama's election, their second in command called our President Elect a "house negro". This is a loaded term. Malcom X, Al Qaida and the Huffington Post so inform me, used the term to describe slaves that lived in their master's houses, implying that they, and by extension contemporary  black leaders that got along with whites, were more servile than the slaves in the field or the foot soldiers of the speaker's movement. The terrorist said the term should be applied to Secretary of State Rice and General Powell, as well. 

I doubt anybody's feelings were particularly hurt by the terrorist's insult. Sticks and suicide bombs, after all. I recommend taking his words with a grain of salt. He's not know for being fair minded. 

In fact, I shouldn't be writing this story, or even discussing his diatribe, because, by doing so I give him a platform. So please, forgive me. I trust that you won't be influenced. If I'm wrong about that, about you being influenced, please don't tell me, and don't for the love of god tell anyone, ever. In fact, just kill yourself, and do something good for someone else, for once in your life. 

I shouldn't be writing this story, but it's frankly got something stuck in my craw. The terrorist used that slur to point out his affiliation with oppressed minorities of color. He said Barack is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans", which, apparently the terrorist counts himself among. Again, forgive me for printing that. 

That terrorist is a white man. He's a white. Osama bin Laden: white man. Saddam Hussein: white man. Andy Rooney: white man. Steven Van Haren: white man. My Indian mother: white. She's the kind that might have ridden an elephant, during childhood, had she not been so adorably short. 

Believe me, I understand that classification of people by race is arbitrary, socially constructed, and unscientific. We've all got a lot in common. But, the last, if ridiculous, categorization of race places Middle Eastern terrorists, and for that matter, South Asian and Oklahoman terrorists, firmly in the caucasian branch of the vastly overgeneralized tree that is race. 

This is  a stupid reason to be mad. I should be mad that anyone would give this wacko a stage, and I am. I should be mad that anybody could talk that way, and I am. I should be mad about a lot of things, and I am. 

I just want you to know that racially, you (most of my readers are white) are more closely related to Al Qaida terrorists than our President. And so am I. And if I ever hear a white person call someone a house negro, again, I am going to find them and take away their Mac Book Air, then make the watch as, one by one, I delete all of their Feist tracks off of iTunes. Also, if you are from Al Qaida, I will kill you without discretion. You have been warned.