When I’m lounging on the couch Sunday night with a copy of a decent magazine, even The New Republic, if the phone rings, I take a long, hard look at caller ID. But then I saw it was Jacques, my thoroughly French friend from La Sorbonne. Hell, talking to him is about ten times as interesting as reading any magazine I can think of:
Tom: Hello?
Jacques: Mec, is that you?
Tom: Mai oui, mon ami.
Jacques: Yes, yes, now I know it is you, my friend Tom, whose French accent is so horrible, like the âne, yes? The donkey? How is your lovely girlfriend, Miss Cherry?
Tom: Oh, you mean Cerise. She’s doing quite well. Did you receive her card thanking you for your Christmas gift?
Jacques: Yes, Mec, and I sent another thanking for hers. But it arrived late, you know, sometime in January.
Tom: That’s because we have started celebrating Christmas beginning on the Roman Catholic date of December twenty-fifth, but ending on Orthodox Christmas Day.
Jacques: Ce qui pourrait vous faire une telle chose étrange, mon ami?
Tom: Study the Schism of 1054.
Jacques: L’année un mille cinquante quatre? Il en est ainsi depuis longtemps. Quel intérêt pourrait choses si éloignées dans l’histoire pour nous en ce jour et l’âge?
Tom: You’d be surprised. To what do I owe the honor of your kind attentions, my froggy, froggy friend? Calling to gloat about the Euro, perhaps?
Jacques: Ah, Mec! I turn my pockets inside out for you, my big, juicy, slap-happy American friend, all full of the [expletive] and the vinegar, yes?
Tom: Thirty-five year old Tuscan balsamic vinegar, I think.
Jacques: Ah, Mec, you are busting my [expletive] with that Italian [expletive], you know. So, so, so – anyway, I am calling because I have important political instructions that you must follow in order that the entire planet Earth not be completely destroyed!
Tom: Okay, right, I know. You Europeans think Barack Hussein Obama is the best thing to come out of America since the Hubble Space Telescope, don’t you?
Jacques: Mec, with all due respect to the noble sciences of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology, to that, I would say no! Absolument pas! Despite it’s Herculean attributes, I would have to say, your hyperbole does not even touch how completely enthused we Europeans in general, and my fellow French men, and French women, too, I might add, are about this magnificent Negro your Democratic Party has nominated for President!
Tom: Um, ah… yeah… look, Jacques, here in America, we don’t, uh… we don’t talk about, ah, people of color…
Jacques: Who?
Tom: Negroes.
Jacques: Yes. What about them?
Tom: What’s about them is, we here in America, we don’t call our Negroes “Negroes.”
Jacques: Excusez-moi, mais je ne tu comprennent pas!
Tom: Well, don’t beat yourself up about it. We Americans barely understand it ourselves. True, the great founders of black emancipation, such as Frederick Douglas, back before the Civil War, actually demanded to be called “Negro.” But, just as you remarked about the Schism of 1054, that was a long time ago. Since then, they’ve demanded to be called “African Americans,” “Afro-Americans,” “Colored People,” “Black,” and, most recently, “People of Color.”
Jacques: All this, it sounds very confusing.
Tom: It is. And you realize, of course, that a lot of American people of color don’t consider Obama to be black enough to be President.
Jacques: Now, wait a minute here! You said “people of color” was the only acceptable thing you Americans can say now, but right after that, you said “black,” as in “not black enough to be President!”
Tom: I understand your confusion, old friend, but it’s… complicated. Look, Obama is half pure “person of color.” That makes him a mulatto. If he married a white woman, and they had children, those offspring would be quatroons. If one of them married a white person, and they had children, then their offspring would be octoroons.
Jacques: And then, if one of these ocotoroons married a white person and… “had offspring,” as you prudish, frigid Americans put it? Then what would happen?
Tom: That person would be a macaroon.
Jacques: Oooh la la! Now I am understanding! Perhaps my friend Tom likes the taste of this, no?
Tom: Indeed, my Gallic buddy, you know me well! Every time I visit New Orleans, I get me a beignet with powdered sugar and a macaroon with coke. That sure enough good, ay-ee!
Jacques: Now, I say, you have convinced me. Next time I visit America, I will go see those swamp French you have told me about in that Big Easy Town.
Tom: And I’m sure they’d love to see you, Jacques old buddy, especially those octoroon and macaroon ladies. Just be sure to bring plenty of Euros, okay?
Jacques: Now you are talking to the turkey in the straw, Mec! But there are many, how do you say, people who are not one of these designations, such as when the mulatto marries the person of undiluted African ancestry, or when a person who is three quarters African ancestry marries this octoroon person of which you speak, or when…
Tom: True, true. There aren’t any widely used terms for people who are seven eighths African and one eighth other things, for example. And despite the intriguing complexity of American genomes, we lack any nomenclature with which to designate, say, a person who is eleven sixteenths African, one eighth Native American, one sixteenth Greek, one thirty-second Chinese, one thirty-second Romani, three sixty-forths Irish, one one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth Hawaiian, one two-hundred-and-fifty-sixth Australian Aborigine, one five-hundred-and-twelfth Laplander and one tenth of one percent benzoate of soda. At the moment, we Americans call all of them “people of color.” And you must be very, very careful to use that term, and none other, when referring to them.
Jacques: But what about “black?” I cannot call them “black?”
Tom: No, as a matter of fact, you can’t. The rules for using the word “black” are extremely arcane, not to mention subject to multiple interpretations, and the whole affair is fraught with pitfalls that could, depending on their occupation, bankrupt a white person, ruin their career, or both. People of color can call other people of color “black” any time, anywhere. Furthermore, they can argue about who is more or less “black,” or whether someone, like Barack Obama, is “black enough to be President.” Now, these days, according to those abstruse and unwritten rules, provided that more than three sufficiently famous persons of color have used the term “black” in a particular phrase on television within the last five years, then it is acceptable for whites, and everybody else, for that matter, to use that phrase in conversation, correspondence and public speech without penalty. So a white TV news anchor can say “black community,” “to be black in the United States,” “black middle class,” “black Americans,” “black entertainer,” “black political candidate,” and so forth, but they can’t say “Bob, ask that black over there, holding the McCain placard, what he thinks of the senator’s speech.” If they did, a week later, they’d be working as a greeter at Walmart, if they were lucky.
Jacques: So I should be careful, then, and say only “colored people?”
Tom: No, no, no! You should never say “colored people!” In contemporary American society, to do so is considered extremely racist! You should only say “people of color!” That’s it – nothing else. Sure, you could risk saying “African-American,” but it’s just not worth it. If you did it in the wrong situation, you’d be in terrible trouble. And, I might note, you made a very common mistake, too, due to the similarity of the phrases “colored people” and “people of color,” but you can never, ever make that mistake while speaking in the presence of person of color. Remember that, even though the oldest and most prominent civil rights organization in America is called “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” you must not, under any circumstances, refer to the members of that association as “colored people.”
Jacques: So, they have their colored people advancement association, but I must be careful, all the time to say “people of color?” What happens if I say “colored people?”
Tom: Legal action. Also, you have to be very careful not to say “you people” to them, no matter how many times they might say it to you. Otherwise, our courts will make you pay them huge damages.
Jacques: Mon Dieu! Why the hell is that?
Tom: Ah, well, uh… um… you see, Jacques… ah… ahem… yes… well, our… that is, American persons of color are extremely sensitive about the issue of racial discrimination, and, frankly, because of that, they use the issue of racial discrimination to avoid legal punishment and obtain economic reward through the tort court system every chance they get. It’s called “playing the race card.” But you must never, ever say “playing the race card” while in the presence of a person of color, because that’s even worse than saying “you people” in front of them.
Jacques: Incroyable! But this – it is totally insane, n’est-ce pas? For your society to make such differences? Is not the whole concept of the United States, the one which our Statue of Liberty stands in your New York harbor for, holding her torch aloft for the world to see, that if you are black, or white, or brown, or yellow, or, I don’t know what… blue, like the smurfs, yes? That none of it matters one way or the other? Is not that the Big Idea all you Americans run around the whole [expletive] world with, like it was going to solve all the problems of the last seven [expletive] thousand years, so eagerly shoving it up the unwilling fundaments of the people in places like Cuba, Vietnam, Chile, Liberia, Granada, and Haiti?
Tom: Ah, yeah, that, and the concept of democratic government, orderly and fair elections…
Jacques: Orderly and fair elections? Now, you have my leg, my friend Tom, and you are pulling on it like the spotted sheep dog with the duck sausage who has rolled in the tanner’s back yard. How can you talk about fair elections when you and I and everybody in Europe and probably even some people in America know that this George Walker Bush, he has stolen two elections in a row, like he was Robert Mugabe or someone!
Tom: Or Charles de Gaulle or someone.
Jacques: Now you are pulling my leg right out of the socket!
Tom: Sorry; it’s what it do. But tell me, my dear, beloved, un-bathed foreign friend from the land of ten thousand reeking cheeses, to what do I owe the honor of this transatlantic telephone call?
Jacques: Oh, yes, yes – that! Thank you Tom, for not letting me chew the bacon with you all around the pickle barrel, as you Yankees say, until my telephone bill is so huge, my wife beats me in the head with the proverbial rolling pin, yes?
Tom: I rather imagine she’d use a crêpe pan.
Jacques: Yes, come to think of it, she probably would. Now, what I am calling you for, is that you must elect Barack Obama President of the United States, that is what!
Tom: An why, pray tell, must we Americans do that?
Jacques: Because to elect McCain President – ce serait une grande catastrophe!
Tom: Really? How so?
Jacques: Now, Mec, you are playing the dumb jack in the box with me, are you not? How can you ask such a question? You must not have McCain for your next President because he is, how you say, the old dinosaur, yes? He is living in the cave of your Flintstones! We Europeans, we keep an eye peeled on you Americans, you know, because America is so big and so dangerous, and causes so much trouble. And for eight years, we have had nothing but trouble from you, with this big monkey-faced baboon, George W. Bush, and his troop of butt-scratching, nose-picking little baboons, all jumping up and down, beating on the chest, yes? Slinging their merde, yes? Slinging their merde all over everything, everywhere, screwing up the whole world, making everybody mad! When the terrorists, they blow up your World Trade Center, they blow up your Pentagon, everybody felt so sorry for America, everybody got on your side! So, le Roi Bush le fou, what does he do? He invades Iraq, and now he is there longer than it took to fight World War II, and, what do you know, Mec, nobody likes America anymore! And because of this big baboon Bush, your economy, now it is all falling down, looking stupid, like the bad soufflé, yes? And the baboon bankers, now they are all busy throwing everybody out of their houses, so they can live in the street like it is all something by Victor Hugo! And because of all these monkey businesses done by all these baboons, now oil costs one hundred thirty, one hundred forty dollars a barrel, and yes, as you said, the dollar is worth maybe half a Euro! And now you have another hairy-chest baboon, this McCain, saying he would rather win wars than win elections! Saying he wants to stay in Iraq! Stay there for one hundred years! Saying the baboon economy is good, go sling more merde around on everybody, put the dollar on the merde standard, and, and.. oh, damn it all Mec… I am so upset, now I am losing my English… et fabriquez une grande serre chaude à partir de l’atmosphère ainsi toutes les fontes de glace et ours blancs se noyer!
Tom: I got to hand it to you, mon ami, that was certainly one exquisite European rant about US politics.
Jacques: Merci. We do our best, at least, but I think sometimes the effort, it is not worth whose side of the bread the butter is on.
Tom: At the risk of upsetting you further, I think McCain would make a very competent and successful President…
Jacques: L’aide de Dieu le monde, ce qui est arrivée à vous des Américains?
Tom: … but I probably won’t vote for him.
Jacques: That, at least, is a relief to hear. So you will vote for Obama then?
Tom: I’m considering it.
Jacques: “Considering it?” What is this you are saying, that you are “considering it?” What is there to consider?
Tom: Well, I know you Europeans are very fond of Obama, but has it ever occurred to you guys that if the Average American finds out that Europeans think he walks on water, that might actually cost him a whole lot of votes in November?
Jacques: Oh, come on! For Christ’s sake, why?
Tom: Because Americans know that you Europeans all speak a dozen languages, set clothing styles, pipe classical music into your parking garages, take food seriously, read ten times as many books, have at least one and usually two well developed artistic or cultural talents, get to take six week vacations, have universal medical care, make love better and more often than they do and; besides that, they know you learned more before you graduated from high school than they did after four years of college, and, what really gets their goat, you still remember it all, too. And on top of that, you’re not fat and you’re all disgustingly healthy and contented and live a long time, even though you drink like fish and smoke whenever you feel like it.
Jacques: They hate us.
Tom: Exactly.
Jacques: So, you are saying that if we Europeans want Obama to win, we should pretend we don’t like him so much?
Tom: That would be good. And get started on it right now, okay? Lucky for you, Americans have such short memories, if you start souring on him in August and have him relegated to an object of your supercilious disdain by October, ninety-nine percent of the voters will have completely forgotten how you fawned all over him in July.
Jacques: Meaning victory in November?
Tom: Right. But only if you guys start working really hard on despising him, and get started on it as soon as possible.
Jacques: Okay, okay, now I see what you are talking about. I will spread the word about that on this side of the Big Pond, then. And you, Mec, you will help Obama?
Tom: All I can do is give his campaign twenty-three hundred dollars, maybe give some 527 organizations that shill for him a few grand more. But I’m not doing anything until I find out who he picks to run with him for vice-president. If he screws that up, I’m giving my bucks to McCain instead.
Jacques: What do you mean by this, he screws up?
Tom: As in, for instance, he chooses Hillary Clinton. He does that, I’m voting for McCain, and so are a lot of other people, I imagine.
Jacques: So, then, I get the picture, my friend. But, now, I see my wife coming into the room, and she is looking at me very sternly, so soon I must go. But before that, I must know, since you are obviously still undecided, why would you vote for McCain?
Tom: He’s a sincere, qualified man of acceptable integrity, even if he’s a completely sexist pig, a bit of a war monger and a total ignoramus on economic policy.
Jacques: All right, I can live with that. Now, tell me, why would you vote for Obama?
Tom: Well, frankly, I figure if we put a person of color in the White House, maybe at least some of the rest of them will finally stop complaining about everything all the time and quit blaming all their problems on white people.
Jacques: I swear, if I live to be one hundred years, Mec, I do not think I am ever going to understand Americans.
Tom: That’s how we like it.
Jacques: Now my wife, she has left the room and returned, as you said, with the crêpe pan. Au revoir, mon ami.
Tom: Do yourself a favor Jacques. Tell her it was all my fault. ‘Bye.