arab-face

went to a bar called the ginger man the other night. for dallas, it's a relatively cool place to hang out. relaxed ambience, comfy couches, wide selection of international alcoholic beverages, etc. what's not so cool is this massive french orientalist poster proudly displayed along the staircase:

wearing a sheepish grin, the caricaturized arab (algerian, i assume) submissively serves a bottle of liquor to his charmed snake (the french?). the title of "le fakyr" is a francisized version of the arabic word meaning poor person, or beggar, which has a significant mystic/religious connotation as well.

googling "le fakyr," i found racism sold at a number of online vintage poster stores, fully accompanied with whitewashed sales descriptions such as "this circa 1920 poster created by Mich, the master of whimsical posters, is linen backed, measures 45" x 62" and is in excellent condition."

after bewildering the white clientele with my fascination with with the poster, i sat down with nicky and two of her friends from high school. one of them was training to be a rescue swimmer, he told us, and this caught my attention almost as much as the poster.

in my partially drunken stupor, it brought to the surface that conflict that has been lying latent within me, furrowing its eyebrows in the background of my conscience. that conflict between doing goody-two-shoes volunteerism type work, and working towards radical change. let me clarify, by goody-two-shoes volunteerism type work i mean feeding people fish rather than teaching them how to capture the shark. i mean mother teresa vs. malcolm x. i mean reforming, and ultimately reinforcing an oppressive system rather than challenging that system. in short, and for dramatic measure, we can call this the conflict between alleviating poverty and destroying capitalism.

my latent conflict has never been much of a conflict because i've always been one for destroying capitalism rather than alleviating poverty, as enumerated above. however, lately, as i am finding it hard to make inroads towards destroying capitalism, i am wondering if i should just settle for alleviating poverty instead. after all, i think it is quite hard to draw a paycheck for "destroying capitalism," but the last time i checked, there were quite a few NGOs "alleviating poverty."

and as i listened to nicky's friend, we'll call him AP, talk about becoming a rescue swimmer, i started to become enamored with the job, the same way i get about the idea of running a marathon (just the idea), in my partially drunken stupor. i'd have to lose the 35 pounds i've packed on in the last year, i thought. as well as gain another 100 of pure muscle. could i do it? jumping into oceans and seas to save drowning people, rather than "changing the system." seeing as how i'm not making much progress "changing the system," why not? but still...i was having trouble coming to a final decision in my partially drunken stupor...

bruce springsteen started singing to me through the speakers,

you can't start a fire, you can't start a fire without a spark
this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark

and life seemed to be full of possibility again, opportunity seemed rife, perhaps i had come to a crossroads.

for a moment, i tried to ignore springsteen and make out some more of AP's words, as he seemed to still be talking to me. and then it occurred to me to ask a rather pertinent question. "wait," i interjected. pause. "is this, like, part of the military or something?"

"i'm in the navy," AP answered.

"oh," i replied, as i thought, fuck that. decision made. i'll stick with "working towards radical change," even if i'm just dancing in the dark.