The cacophony abounds; can you drown the sound?

The Iraqi quagmire terminates good-natured American volunteer soldiers before the unblinking hazel-green optics of twenty-four hour xenophobic voyeurs who couldn't spell 'Shiite' before September 11, 2001, and always mispronounce the proper noun. Lonely mothers, fatigued fathers, bawling brothers, stalwart sisters, screaming spouses, and furious friends mark the passing of their heroic loved ones in this misbegotten war with candlelight vigils, tearful prayer services, and improbable protests in the quintessential Southern machismo state, near the summer cottage of an aristocrat President so stubborn he visualizes a victory no one else can see. This naked Emperor cycles with Lance Armstrong, dodges rotting flag-draped corpses and whiny proletariat parents in his personal valley of the shadow of death, replete with Secret Service protection. He believes his actions are just. "These brave men and women gave their lives for a cause that is just and necessary for the safety of the country, and now we will honor their sacrifice by completing the mission," shouts President Bush. He convinces himself he does what he must to protect America. He fights the terrorists 'over there' to protect us over here. He knows we hate him for it.

The President is a victim.

A right-wing talk-radio pundit and hatespeech author who refers to Islam - the entire religion - as a "terrorist organization" waxes philosophical about political correctness and freedom of speech to convince you his recent firing by ABC Radio executives was unjust and unfair. Michael Graham, author of Redneck Nation: How the South Really Won the War, believes that his former employer acquiesced to a politicized minority group too sensitive or too backward to hear unpleasant truths about itself. In the hyperbolic, disaffected, infuriated, inflamed American sonic rash known as conservative talk radio, humanoid ideology irritations seep injurious innuendo and unchecked rumor about racial minorities, liberal politicos, immigrants, homosexuals, feminists, the secular, the educated, the poor, the weak, and the defenseless into curious listeners and die-hard reactionaries like so much acidic pus. Michael Graham, a minor, miniscule, unimportant conservative concept-assassin, G. Gordon Liddy's spineless alternative lifestyle, symbolizes both talk radio's shrill Howard Stern-Rush Limbaugh synthesis effect, where minor-league political pundits no one's ever heard of broadcast spiteful, sinister, dehumanizing commentary on expected minority groups into the nation's morning work commute to boost ratings, and the paradoxical coarsening of American political thought by the shock-jock streetwalkers bought and paid for by the party of traditional family values, one-man one-woman marriage, and compassionate conservativism, the Republicans. Ken Mehlman still has Michael Graham's receipt. Michael Graham realizes his firing was just, given advertiser anxiety and increasing public outcry; he just does not care.

Michael Graham is a victim.

Jeremy Parker, a.k.a. Tha Pumpsta, rocks nearly all-White New York City parties with his derived and passe blend of pornographic old-school Miami bass and exhorts his frenzied partygoers to "Kill Whitey!" in a conscious misappropriation of African American political culture. Drenched in cynical ignorance or cunning irony (depending on your tolerance for anti-Black behavior), Parker's monthly "Kill Whitie" parties in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the hip, trendy, and Caucasoid, appeal to apathetic youngsters so pale and hollow and cruel they justify their stereotypical MTV generation neo-blackface with a paltry reference to mainstream American cultural emptiness. Here's Parker's own words, from today's Washington Post:

"I'm throwing this party, and it's obvious that I'm white and I'm kind of appropriating this culture but in an ironic way," said Tha Pumpsta, whose name is Jeremy Parker. The 25-year-old takes his Pumpsta moniker from his high-top sneakers. "Kinda poking fun at myself and my origins and white people in general," he said.

"I'm trying to kill the whiteness inside," Parker added, although his blue eyes, milk-white skin and blond hair might suggest he has some work ahead of him.

Jeremy Parker, a.k.a. Tha Pumpsta, reminds me of the 'pimp & ho' parties young White collegians adored during my Cornell years. Privileged, wealthy WASP scions dressed down into loud, comical player hats, sleeveless t-shirts, wavecaps, and (if they wanted to be fancy) their grandfather's zoot suits to accompany scantily-clad sorority sisters to parties saturated with piss-poor alcohol, rhythmless dancing, and DMX dance tunes barely popular years ago. All of those parties were quests for pure truth; elbow yourself onto the slippery dance floor at any White fraternity house in the Ivy League during a weekend party and I guarantee you DMX will be played there during that night, followed by every 50 Cent single you never need to hear again in your lifetime. Those children will play "Party Up" and "In Da Club" so often you'll think the iTunes was skipping at Quddus' apartment.

Inebriated walking trust funds bounce and shimmy and sway -- no, they stutter and slip and fall, oblivious to the booming Roland TR-808 drums and their revolting RZA-meets-RuPaul gangsta drag. Parker himself alludes callous awareness of this; the most insidious privilege is the ability to paint-by-numbers yourself into the walking, breathing Willie Horton of your private nightmares and public scorn, without remorse or pity or sorrow, utterly non-responsible for the prejudices and stereotypes you regurgitate and recycle about people you'll never want to know or need to respect because you can always regain your original ivory sheen with a quick shower and change of clothes. Call it transracial morphology. Jeremy Parker, Eminem's photo-negative, provides the sonic overlay for his Abercrombie & Fitch-sponsored Stepin' Fetchit block parties with forced humor, Al Jolson jacking off on the wheels of steel.



Jeremy Parker is a victim.

The antagonist is ego. President George W. Bush's ego will not allow the sensible retreat from the Iraqi butcher's bill the entire country desires. Michael Graham's ego forces him to weakly defend indefensible religious bigotry on mainstream media outlets like CNN's Newsnight with Aaron Brown in between second-round job interviews. Jeremy Parker's ego prevents him from begging the forgiveness of every Black person he meets for the remainder of his natural life. So these three upstanding American citizens embrace John McWhorter's Victimology to characterize their transgressions as steadfast leadership, counterculture insurgency, or good-natured fun. Notice the parallel to McWhorter's infamous attack upon the civil rights establishment: here, each individual Captain America redux expresses personal victimhood in public to exhort their constituencies - conservative Republicans, anti-Muslim neo-conservative reactionaries, and random White suburban college students - to embrace alienation from and resentment towards multicultural American liberalism, the cosmopolitan ideal of global peace through respectful international engagement (read: global trade) and domestic legal and social egalitarianism. The anti-war, Islam-tolerant, pro-Black Left requires of our nation a pluralistic inclusion these good 'ol boys despise, even when they realize their own cultural production atrophies as a result.

In truth, we're all left numb and unfeeling by current events. Anti-war protesters receive media coverage exponentially above and beyond their size and influence, but our soldiers still return home in flag-draped coffins its illegal to photo-document, or in IV-rigged hospital beds with major appendages conspicuously absent. Michael Graham's firing over his bigoted stance on Islam emerges as the best thing to happen to his career; the Right birthed a new media darling, Ann Coulter with lighter Revlon. And outside of a G-Unit beatdown replete with Young Buck's rusty shank, Jeremy Parker's "Kill Whitie" parties are too profitable to discontinue.

So we end where we begin. Powerless, de-democratized, barely conscious, eyes bloodshot, ears bleeding, awash in the disturbing decibels of white noise, we scratch and claw for the power to change our system, and go deaf in the process.

Who's the victim?

Update: The Pumpsta Speaks! Check the comments section for Mr. Parker's lame-ass excuse for his modern-day Jazz Singer parties. Also, if you haven't already, check out the esteemed HipHopMusic.com and Poplicks.com for more commentary on this foolish excuse for a hip hop fan.

For top-of-the-line deconstruction of The Pumpsta's idiocy, please check out Reappropriate.com. Angel knows what she's talking about.