The formative years of the future Commander-in-Thief.
“Hail, Comandante Idiota!”
While rummaging through a bin of old journals in a used book store, I stumbled upon a 1959 camp diary authored by a kid named “Donnie.” As I read the entries I began to wonder whether this might be the literary product of the current occupant of the White House. It is just too amazing a coincidence…but then again, maybe not. You be the judge. Here are a few excerpts:
June 3, 1959 – What a lousy day this is. My Dad sent me to this camp in upstate New York and now I find myself in a cabin with a couple of Mexican guys, some poor white guys here on camp scholarships and a colored guy. This all makes me want to go down to the lake, jump in and drown myself. Well, maybe I won’t. I heard they are serving hamburgers and chocolate cake in the mess hall tonight.
June 4, 1959 – Things didn’t get any better today. I had a talk with the Mexican guys. I said: “I know you Mexican guys are always trying to steal stuff. So stay away from my bunk. In fact, let’s pretend there is a big wall around my bunk and you can’t crawl over it.” Fat chance they will obey that rule. They don’t even know they are Mexicans. They say they are from “Nicaragua.” I tried to explain to them that they are Mexican because they have brown skin, black hair, and speak Spanish. Nicaragua must be some little hick town in Mexico and these guys don’t even know what country it’s in. It’s sad how ignorant these people are.
June 8, 1959 – Okay, so now I’m really confused. They gave all the campers an I.Q. test, and I can’t believe it. I got the lowest score in the camp. Guess who got the highest score? It was Andre, the colored kid in my cabin! There must be some mistake here. I need to do something about this. I know. I’m going to say I have the highest I.Q. and that Andre got the lowest score. If I say it often enough everybody will believe it. I know I really believe it. I even told Andre: “You are a very low I.Q. individual.”
“Nicaragua must be some little hick town in Mexico.”
June 9, 1959 – This I.Q. thing is really bothering me. I tried to talk to the camp psychologist about it, but he only wanted to talk about my dreams about having a really big tower. After I left his office I still had to get to the bottom of this I.Q. business. So when Andre was at the archery range, I went through his stuff to look for clues. I found a big stack of papers written by professors at a place called “Howard University.” Who is this Howard guy anyway, and what’s his last name? I read through all of this stuff, and concluded that the long-term enslavement of America’s African population, though devastating, did not succeed in crushing the spirit, intellect and culture of a people blessed and sustained by a God of justice and love. The evidence is found in rapid advances Africans made in the areas of politics, literacy and commerce during the Reconstruction era. The savage attacks by southern whites and various acts of terrorism by the Klan and others succeeded in the destabilization of an emerging black nation within a nation. Subjugation has been, and remains the order of the day because of a sophisticated system of Jim Crow segregation which in 1959 is being resisted by an ever-growing Civil Rights Movement. Query the ultimate value of this movement. Can it - even if fully successful – deliver liberation? Is it not more likely that the Negro who will be fully able to vote and exercise other political rights through the end of this century and into the next one will in many ways be like an enslaved African on a plantation who is given the opportunity to vote for his master? He will be able to vote for a white man who will give him a nicer shack, better food and an extra set of clothing, but this white man will not give him his liberty, even if he wants to because it will be against convention. In fact, because of these norms and unwritten rules, even if a Negro were to become master, he would not set the slaves free. It makes more sense for the enslaved African to run away from the plantation or burn it down. By extension, it makes more sense for the 20thCentury Negro to leave for Africa to fight for the freedom of his homeland, or to burn America down.
WHOA!!!! WHAT AM I SAYING? WHAT AM I THINKING??? If this is what comes from reading stuff written by professors I will NEVER – I repeat - NEVER read anything like this again! I will get my information only from television and stuff my buddies tell me. Sheesh! I need to take a nap. That made my brain hurt.
“The poor white guys love me now.”
June 14, 1959 – I have no friends here. Even the white guys in my cabin call me “rich boy” and won’t hang out with me. They actually seem to identify more with colored kids and other guys whose families come from those God-forsaken poop-hole countries. I’m going to change that. I have a plan…
June 20, 1959 – My plan is working like a charm! The poor white guys love me now. I explained to the white guys that Andre has been appointed “Junior Director” because the camp director thinks he is so “intelligent.” But I told the white guys that Andre is inferior to us, and they know as well as I do that an important job like that should go to a white kid because…well, just because. They also didn’t know that Mexicans are all thieves and murderers. The white guys thanked me for setting them straight about that.
June 22, 1959 – Am I wonderful, or am I wonderful? Everybody loves me now – even the coloreds and the Mexicans. As a gesture of respect, the Mexicans came up with a title for me. They call me “Comandante Idiota.” They said it means “most wonderful leader under the sun.” Now, everywhere I go in the camp, everyone salutes me and says “Hail, Comandante Idiota!” They all then collapse into joyous laughter. I love it! Yes, things are looking up!
Mark P. Fancher is an attorney who writes frequently for Black Agenda Report. He can be contacted at mfancher (at) Comcast.net.
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