Debbie says:

I knew that International Blog Against Racism Week was coming, but I didn’t realize it was starting today until after I had this post half written.

Now you might not ordinarily think that racism was a defining factor in the tearoom trade (a slang term for blow jobs in rest rooms and parks). But, as Josh Marshall writes, apparently, you would be wrong. Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R), Florida chair of the McCain campaign, has a unique justification for offering to pay to give a man a blow job.

Right on the heels of Giuliani Southern Regional Chairman David Vitter’s exposure as a serial user of prostitutes, [Allen] got caught in a Titusville park restroom offering to pay an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him.

“This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a “statistic.”

Well, of course, he is a statistic now–a “Republican official caught with someone else’s pants down” statistic rather than a “white man mugged in the park” statistic. I hope he’s happy about that.

When I saw this story, all I could think of was the horrifying tale of Susan Smith, who initially invented a nonexistent black carjacker instead of acknowledging that she had murdered her two children.

While there are very significant differences (a consensual behavior that should be decriminalized versus a genuinely intolerable crime; a real African-American policeman versus an imaginary carjacker), I see an underlying truth. It’s not a new truth, and at the same time it’s worth restating.

White America is so afraid of blackness, and in particular of black men, that it is culturally acceptable to funnel all fear, all anger, and all out-of-line behavior through our conception of them. This reverberates in all areas from our prisons to every American’s neighborhoods, schools, and homes–and, as seen above, to the lamest of all possible excuses for surreptitious semi-public sex. This is one major reason why it is never easy to be a black man in America.

It’s a safe bet that Representative Allen would have campaigned against anyone whose platform was “I suck cock and I don’t care who knows it.” So, since we know he sucks cock, the issue is caring who knows it. So, Representative Allen, should you ever read this: no one believes you. And without giving a damn whether or not you suck cock, I now despise you for using racism to disguise your own desires.

I found Josh Marshall’s post through JeffFecke at Shakespeare’s Sister.

ibarw, public sex, racism, tearoom trade, Bob Allen, John McCain, Susan Smith, Body Impolitic