Danny glimpsed himself in the old burlesque mirror. The white greasepaint left behind in the crevices around his eyes gave him a ghostly aspect. The paunch in his jumper--he only now realized he'd fallen asleep in costume--was alarming. On the dresser in this image's foreground there cluttered make-up and brushes, scraps of wardrobe, notes, a half-eaten Soybar, a massive black dildo, a pair of masks, old show programs, unidentifiable things, yellow prescription bottles, something half consumed by fire; all piled there like temple offerings to his living portrait in the mirror. He sighed.
"I'm taking a walk." He pulled a moth-eaten raccoon coat out from under a pile.
His cigarette was lit before the trailer door closed behind him.
"Danny Boy!" A cowboy in chaps practicing with a lasso hailed him from across the muddy lane separating the rows of trailers.
"Morning, Tex." He waved. "Taking a walk."
The cowboy smiled and nodded. Danny started out as if he had a destination. Residue of the lifting pre-dawn mist hung about the corners of everything. He passed a surfer in a bathrobe loading beach scene props onto a cart. Most of the performers hadn't stirred from their trailers. A stray cat skittered past ahead of him. He liked when the camp was still asleep, when he could imagine they were anybody, anywhere.
The main tent occupied a slight hollow where the fog pooled like liquid, lapping at its edges. The pennants on its peaks hung damply limp. Its slanting support ropes vanished into the mist on the ground where he could see one or two figures moving about. Looking down from the slight rise, it looked smaller than when he first saw it years before.
"There's a system." The man had said. "We open with a short stand-up routine. Standard white-joke genre, lots of self-deprecation--do you know what that means?"
Danny nodded, lying.
"A little sexual inferiority here, a little intellectual inferiority there. It sets the tone." He spoke as if Danny understood. Danny's stomach growled. He had been promised a meal.
"Then there's a skit. We have five basic skits; one is the historical skit, involving a famous figure from Old America. He's a bumbling conniver, saved from some ill-fated and corrupt scheme by his dependent slaves or servants. It usually features his cuckolding by one or more of them. Sometimes he is hauled off by the Indians."
Danny was barely paying attention now. He wanted to sit; his sore feet felt as if they were melting into flattening blobs like putty on a hot sidewalk.
"We finish with a song and dance. Don't worry, you don't have to know how to dance. If you're called on to dance it's to dance badly, because that's the idea. You don't know how to dance, right?"
"Right." Said Danny.
"Good." He looked Danny up and down. "You'll have to learn some basic pratfalls, nothing serious. Have you done any stunts?"
"No." Danny said apologetically.
Yeah, well, that's okay. Normally I wouldn't take on someone without experience but," he nodded at Danny's red hair "a genuine ginger is a real rarity nowadays. Do you know you guys are like two percent of the under-30 population? A dying breed." He nodded approvingly; his tone was complimentary. "So what do you say?"
Danny's stomach contracted painfully. Over the man's shoulder he could just make out the lines of smoke rising from the homeless camp in a stand of sickly cedars nearby. He remembered a pact he'd made many hungry miles before, on a hungover first day of 2028; with a twinge he determined to forget it.
"Yes."
****
Laughter and Oppression
New York Times, July 6, 2033
by Janae Acharya-Ramirez She-Her Cohen*
Dr Cohen directs the Historical Rectification Program at Harvard University's School of Justice and Reconciliation
Every high school graduate knows the role of the minstrel show and blackface in maintaining white supremacy in Old America. That form's satirical representations of Black men rationalized the lynching and incarceration of generations, and their effects are still evidenced today in disparities in incarceration rates, mortality and wealth.
Thus the inherent problemicity in minstrelsy's resurrection as the popular "Cracker Show", which has become the single most popular tent show attraction in the North American Consumer Region (NACR).
This author, like most academics and public figures, has in the past praised these shows firmly in the tradition of political satire de-legitimizing white supremacy through exposure, trivialization and ridicule.
the Cracker Show as the next stage in the "restorative art" component of historical rectification. Yet, like everything it seems in our period of historical rectification, it isn't as simple as that.
Licensed under arcane laws regulating "tent shows, circuses and carnivals" as old as the original tent shows of the late nineteenth century which they loosely parody, the productions operate entirely outside of Department of Inclusion regulatory purview. It might come as a shock to the average person, but the tent shows can virtually say or present whatever they want, without fear of penalty.
The new tent show is born out of similar necessity as the original: in the middle of the nineteenth century, before the advent of air conditioning, summertime heat made indoor entertainment unbearable.
Now it's the power grid crisis and electricity rationing driving people out of sweltering micro-apartments, away from the now unreliable electronic entertainments to which they're accustomed--and into a cultural and legal limbo, where much of the Universal Law on Hate Speech does not apply.
The long, hard-fought process of bringing the internet under hate regulation is being threatened by our inability to keep it running. Yet another reason the government needs to finally determine just why the power grid is failing despite resource prices falling as a result of the same government's aggressive selling off of resources.
Of course Interior Minister Happy Magoye-Kenyoba Bhe-Bhim's charge that racism motivates the accusations of his incompetence and corruption must get a full hearing before the initial charges against him can be addressed, but it's been two years, and with the increasing length Congressional investigations of racist intent take it will be another two perhaps before the charges against him can be addressed--assuming no finding of racist intent moots them and triggers legally-mandated counter-prosecution of his accusers, so there is simply no excuse for Congress' continuing delay.
In the meantime the Cracker Show needs to be brought under regulatory control.
You might ask--and virtually all of us have attended or seen one of the shows--what problem one could have with shows portraying supremacist era whites in mocking caricature. One problem is the characterizations have softened over time to become less caricature, and less mocking. It seems an inevitable process if audience and artist are left to their own devices.
Like the producers of the old shows, today's purveyors of the new minstrelsy deny any ill intent: before, the originals protested the shows did not dehumanize Blacks in Old America, today's insist they do not humanize the whites of Old America.
I contacted Michael Silver-Gruben He-Him, producer of "seven or eight" shows in addition the very popular "Genuine Old Cracker Show", to ask if the shows are guilty of normalization.
"I see our role as instructional and fun at the same time. I categorically reject the shows normalize whiteness or whitism. I fail to see how ridicule equates to normalization in any context. We've never sought to present whites or whitism in a positive light."
He's also quick to point out a fundamental difference between the new shows, in which white performers portray whites, and the old shows, in which white performers in blackface portrayed blacks.
"We realized it would be degrading for a non-white to wear whiteface in any context." He also rejected the charge the whiteface his white performers sometimes wear is a "violent re-enhancement of ghostly whiteness" in the words of the Reverend Foremost Coates Bhe-Bhim of the First African Methodist Church.
"I'm not sure what that means. Our performers wear whiteface only to complete the parody of the original." Silver-Gruben says.
But, the problem of equivalence was always there--if these characterizations of whites today have any validity, people may assume those of old had some, regarding their characterizations of Blacks.
Add to this the prospect, the inevitability some would argue, that any portrayal of Old America's norms and attitudes--the very stuff of white supremacy--eventually softens our view of them--familiarization is normalization, remember.
Any treatment of this subject that isn't informed by professionally licensed restorative justice experts is irresponsible and probably illegal.
This was demonstrated on these pages brilliantly last week by Professor Tanyika Balder-Dash Bhae-Bher** in bher essay "The Only Good Whitism...", pointing out the shows, despite their comedic and ironic nature, are no less educational history than a course given in school, and as such fall under Office of Civility and Acceptance (OCA) regulatory purview. Professor Balder-Dash's recommendation for assigning an OCA regulator to every show is a good start.
Despite their portrayal as dishonest, boorish or ignorant, the stock repertoire of white comic foils--such as the "yuppie", the "bro" and the "redneck"--become cultural figures of familiarity; and familiarity here breeds not contempt but a measure of fondness. We can't help it. The characters make us laugh. We chuckle and shake our head as if at the antics of an eccentric relative, and before we know it we've humanized whitism.
A recent study out of Yale examined the content of the four most popular shows over the last two years and found the same pattern affecting all, one of gradual softening of the shows' portrayal of whites. All began with material duly and unambiguously contemptuous in its portrayal of historical whites; all ended the period with material, while still presenting them as the comic foil, portraying them in a somewhat more sympathetic light.
If that was the full extent of it, perhaps intervention wouldn't be necessary, but shows appeasing audience tastes have taken to introducing more subversively innocuous caricatures, such as "the cowboy", or "the explorer". Overtly positive characters can't be far away. Rumor has it one show is working on a character called "the astronaut".
Certainly the content of the shows will eventually be brought under control; even the producers seem resigned to that. But is control of content enough? Is content really the problem? Some forms are inherently exclusionary and can't be adapted to a modern view of justice. Isn't satire itself at the very least a potent form that cannot be left unchecked in any culture? Couldn't the same power it had to undermine Old America undermine New America?
Even the appropriately negative portrayals of whites have this unfortunate effect: without contextual guidance, people will assume there's some validity to those earlier caricatures of Blacks. Satire itself is the problem--if left unregulated.
The shows have the effect of bowdlerizing and trivializing the past, of implying Old America wasn't that bad. They encourage nostalgia. Nostalgia is normalization, remember.
Our experience with the new minstrelsy has revived Professor Balder-Dash's call for "an end to satire as we know it". I don't share that view, as yet--satire, in the right hands, remains a potent weapon against a revival of white supremacy. But I call on the authorities to establish a moratorium until we figure out what's going on. The new minstrelsy has demonstrated that.
The good news is the shows are no longer escaping notice. Pastor Coates assures me bhe's planning a national action soon to protest their continuing operation outside of regulatory scrutiny.
*Regarding the proper placement of the colloquially named "pronounerific", denoting "gender identity" (sex), introduced in the late teens and standard by the time of our story, appearing here as "She-Her": it follows the surname, unless the surname is preceded by a hyphenated pair of surnames, in which case the--properly named--proidentitatem follows the hyphenation and precedes the surname [Ed. from the future]
**"Bhae-Bher": specifically a black "She-Her" [Ed. from the future]
****
Danny twisted the burning coal from the cigarette butt. Out of habit he reached for the pill bottle in his pocket in which he saved them: his hand startled upon the unpleasant feel of the patchy, faux fur of the raccoon coat he'd forgotten about. Disgusted, he slung the remnant away. Lifting his gaze from the butt on the ground he saw them in the distance.
From the rise where he stood they were at about the same angle and distance on his right as the big tent, the focus of their attention, was on his left: a few dozen of them with stragglers still coming up the low hill, over which he couldn't see, leading to the temporary gate. One of them was carrying a bullhorn and wearing what looked like a bearskin hat.
He started walking slowly toward them. He had not yet seen protesters in real life--not the these protesters that is. He joined a group of performers standing nearby.
"Hey Danny." He almost didn't recognize Sheila the Slut out of makeup; she looked postiviely matronly in a housecoat, wearing old-fashioned curlers under a bonnet.
"Hi. Almost thought you were Alice, for a second there." He grinned. Alice the Housewife was not among them at the moment. Sheila chuckled.
"I'll take her gig any day."
"What's the big deal?" Danny asked.
"They want us out of town." Hank the Handyman interjected. For his part he looked little different from his character in costume or out; over time he had taken to flannel and jeans. His facial expression too had adapted gradually to his character, Danny randomly noted; it could just be his perception, but all the Show's veterans seemed to take on physical traits and characteristics of their characters. Him too, no doubt; he cringed imperceptibly.
"They say we're committing normalization. They filed against us with the local dice this morning."
"The what?"
"Come on Danny, the Diversity Inclusion and Equity Committee. Haven't you been paying attention?"
"I try to avoid it."
"Anyway, if the Committee deems us normalizers we're eighty-sixed from town in per-pe-too-ah-tee." He drew the last syllables out comically, mimicking the grandiose speaking style of the colorful and combative director of DIEC.
"Good. I hate Cleveland."
The protesters, about thirty yards off, paid them no attention. Danny wondered if they could tell they were performers. The protesters were setting up as if to assail the big tent, where now workers stood or sat around, watching.
The one with a bullhorn was a woman, and appeared to be their leader--there were no other clues as to who was in charge. He hair was teased out into an almost cylindrical tall afro (bearskin hat! Danny chided himself) that swayed limply away from the slightest turn of her head. He smiled, not really sure why he was amused, as it waved like grain in response to a breeze.
Her skin was creme-colored with a tint of grey. Her features were sharp, a narrow head with pointed chin and nose, no hint of African ancestry. He couldn't help thinking she would be perfectly cast in as a colonial American Puritan in a skit the show used to perform, what with her sharp, severe Anglo features and the windswept African locks--her pride, he could see--tucked under a pointy hat. Under stage lights the skin tone would pass off just fine, and he was sure she was at the moment using a "darkening foundation"--he hated his acquired expertise in makeup--to veil the extent of her white parentage, as was common. But those features--permanently cast in a pained expression they have some part in--would not be escaped.
She attempted speaking through the bullhorn to no avail and, exasperated, called to someone in the midst of the now thickening crowd--Danny figured now there were around a hundred of them. Someone emerged, a white man it appeared; he took the bullhorn from her extended hand and began fiddling with it. The white man handed the bullhorn back to the Puritan and slunk back into the mass.
She put the bullhorn to her lips and started, stopped, lowered it and turned it on, then began:
"Whitism is No Joke" the horn blurted out.
The crowd responded: "Whitism is No Joke"
Then, with a little more confidence:
"Whitism will not be revived here"
"Whitism will not be revived here"
And:
"Normalization is Death"
"Normalization is Death"
Danny noticed a pattern, he thought: the darkest among them took up the front rows but didn't seem to lead; a few pale Blacks--such as the Puritan Princess--doing that. After them were the cream-colored people who were not leaders. Then came the white people, or mostly white, chanting louder than the rest, out of greater enthusiasm or the necessity of their position in the back. Ironically they were the more colorful section, as the darker ones all dressed in black red and grey while the whiter ones wore bright colored, slogan-bearing clothes or costumes. Just as Danny noticed a clown costume among them Hank said:
"Hey look that guy's here to audition for your job Danny!"
"Fuck you." He responded good-naturedly. The group laughed.
They went on chanting for five minutes before lapsing into an enthusiastic cacophony of jeers and slogans, still not taking notice of Danny and the group of performers. They might as well be invisible there, he thought with relief. The gate and temporary chain-link fencing around the camp could be pushed over easily by the crowd and the show had no security--private security being illegal, of course.
Danny figured the protesters were harmless. There was nothing stopping them after all.
Then the crowd parted up front. Through the breach came the pale protesters from the back, and they set to work on a section of the fence to topple it, by rocking it back and forth, struggling to set a steady rhythm.
"Oh no, don't do that." Danny said to no one in particular.
"Here come the drones." Hank said dryly. "That was fast."
They appeared from over the hill, a diamond-formation of four on either flank of the crowd of protesters. Seeing the drones most of the group backed away from the fence, individually taking up "the posture"--the standard down-on-one knee posture, identifying oneself as harmless and compliant to a law enforcement drone, which everyone knows, of course.
Those at the gate kept up their assault.
One of the drones broadcast over a loudspeaker:
"Desist. You are engaged in unlawful activity. Assume a non-confrontational posture. Desist, you are--"
Someone among the rabid dozen assailing the fence turned and threw something at the nearest drone. The group of performers groaned a little together, as if watching a bad turn in a sporting event.
"Oh no, don't do that." Danny said again.
The drones deployed their anti-riot lightweight percussion grenades, which weren't seen until they flashed around the feet of the defiant protesters, who all collapsed before their smoke rose. The rest of the group, maintaining the posture, hissed and wailed. More drones appeared and laid down a red, pulsing laser grid pattern, the "shock fence", all about them.
"Peaceful protest!" Someone shouted, and they took up the chant.
By the time the robotic paddy wagon arrived and lowered to the ground, its garage-style rollup door already open, they had run out of energy. The protesters lined up to get on board as if ending a work shift. Those knocked out by the percussion grenades were lolling about and coming around, a few sitting up, a few still lifeless on the ground.
Danny saw the Puritan Princess, lining up to board the wagon. She looked back in his direction. He couldn't tell if she was looking at him, but he thought she was.
The robot paramedics, the "medicals", appeared, two of them, attending to the remaining incapacitated protesters, moving them into the wagon one at a time.The event had taken little more than an hour, Danny figured.
"Well shit." He said.
(continues)
*************************
Licensed under arcane laws regulating "tent shows, circuses and carnivals" as old as the original tent shows of the late nineteenth century which they loosely parody, the productions operate entirely outside of Department of Inclusion regulatory purview. It might come as a shock to the average person, but the tent shows can virtually say or present whatever they want, without fear of penalty.
The new tent show is born out of similar necessity as the original: in the middle of the nineteenth century, before the advent of air conditioning, summertime heat made indoor entertainment unbearable.
Now it's the power grid crisis and electricity rationing driving people out of sweltering micro-apartments, away from the now unreliable electronic entertainments to which they're accustomed--and into a cultural and legal limbo, where much of the Universal Law on Hate Speech does not apply.
The long, hard-fought process of bringing the internet under hate regulation is being threatened by our inability to keep it running. Yet another reason the government needs to finally determine just why the power grid is failing despite resource prices falling as a result of the same government's aggressive selling off of resources.
Of course Interior Minister Happy Magoye-Kenyoba Bhe-Bhim's charge that racism motivates the accusations of his incompetence and corruption must get a full hearing before the initial charges against him can be addressed, but it's been two years, and with the increasing length Congressional investigations of racist intent take it will be another two perhaps before the charges against him can be addressed--assuming no finding of racist intent moots them and triggers legally-mandated counter-prosecution of his accusers, so there is simply no excuse for Congress' continuing delay.
In the meantime the Cracker Show needs to be brought under regulatory control.
You might ask--and virtually all of us have attended or seen one of the shows--what problem one could have with shows portraying supremacist era whites in mocking caricature. One problem is the characterizations have softened over time to become less caricature, and less mocking. It seems an inevitable process if audience and artist are left to their own devices.
Like the producers of the old shows, today's purveyors of the new minstrelsy deny any ill intent: before, the originals protested the shows did not dehumanize Blacks in Old America, today's insist they do not humanize the whites of Old America.
I contacted Michael Silver-Gruben He-Him, producer of "seven or eight" shows in addition the very popular "Genuine Old Cracker Show", to ask if the shows are guilty of normalization.
"I see our role as instructional and fun at the same time. I categorically reject the shows normalize whiteness or whitism. I fail to see how ridicule equates to normalization in any context. We've never sought to present whites or whitism in a positive light."
He's also quick to point out a fundamental difference between the new shows, in which white performers portray whites, and the old shows, in which white performers in blackface portrayed blacks.
"We realized it would be degrading for a non-white to wear whiteface in any context." He also rejected the charge the whiteface his white performers sometimes wear is a "violent re-enhancement of ghostly whiteness" in the words of the Reverend Foremost Coates Bhe-Bhim of the First African Methodist Church.
"I'm not sure what that means. Our performers wear whiteface only to complete the parody of the original." Silver-Gruben says.
But, the problem of equivalence was always there--if these characterizations of whites today have any validity, people may assume those of old had some, regarding their characterizations of Blacks.
Add to this the prospect, the inevitability some would argue, that any portrayal of Old America's norms and attitudes--the very stuff of white supremacy--eventually softens our view of them--familiarization is normalization, remember.
Any treatment of this subject that isn't informed by professionally licensed restorative justice experts is irresponsible and probably illegal.
This was demonstrated on these pages brilliantly last week by Professor Tanyika Balder-Dash Bhae-Bher** in bher essay "The Only Good Whitism...", pointing out the shows, despite their comedic and ironic nature, are no less educational history than a course given in school, and as such fall under Office of Civility and Acceptance (OCA) regulatory purview. Professor Balder-Dash's recommendation for assigning an OCA regulator to every show is a good start.
Despite their portrayal as dishonest, boorish or ignorant, the stock repertoire of white comic foils--such as the "yuppie", the "bro" and the "redneck"--become cultural figures of familiarity; and familiarity here breeds not contempt but a measure of fondness. We can't help it. The characters make us laugh. We chuckle and shake our head as if at the antics of an eccentric relative, and before we know it we've humanized whitism.
A recent study out of Yale examined the content of the four most popular shows over the last two years and found the same pattern affecting all, one of gradual softening of the shows' portrayal of whites. All began with material duly and unambiguously contemptuous in its portrayal of historical whites; all ended the period with material, while still presenting them as the comic foil, portraying them in a somewhat more sympathetic light.
If that was the full extent of it, perhaps intervention wouldn't be necessary, but shows appeasing audience tastes have taken to introducing more subversively innocuous caricatures, such as "the cowboy", or "the explorer". Overtly positive characters can't be far away. Rumor has it one show is working on a character called "the astronaut".
Certainly the content of the shows will eventually be brought under control; even the producers seem resigned to that. But is control of content enough? Is content really the problem? Some forms are inherently exclusionary and can't be adapted to a modern view of justice. Isn't satire itself at the very least a potent form that cannot be left unchecked in any culture? Couldn't the same power it had to undermine Old America undermine New America?
Even the appropriately negative portrayals of whites have this unfortunate effect: without contextual guidance, people will assume there's some validity to those earlier caricatures of Blacks. Satire itself is the problem--if left unregulated.
The shows have the effect of bowdlerizing and trivializing the past, of implying Old America wasn't that bad. They encourage nostalgia. Nostalgia is normalization, remember.
Our experience with the new minstrelsy has revived Professor Balder-Dash's call for "an end to satire as we know it". I don't share that view, as yet--satire, in the right hands, remains a potent weapon against a revival of white supremacy. But I call on the authorities to establish a moratorium until we figure out what's going on. The new minstrelsy has demonstrated that.
The good news is the shows are no longer escaping notice. Pastor Coates assures me bhe's planning a national action soon to protest their continuing operation outside of regulatory scrutiny.
*Regarding the proper placement of the colloquially named "pronounerific", denoting "gender identity" (sex), introduced in the late teens and standard by the time of our story, appearing here as "She-Her": it follows the surname, unless the surname is preceded by a hyphenated pair of surnames, in which case the--properly named--proidentitatem follows the hyphenation and precedes the surname [Ed. from the future]
**"Bhae-Bher": specifically a black "She-Her" [Ed. from the future]
****
Danny twisted the burning coal from the cigarette butt. Out of habit he reached for the pill bottle in his pocket in which he saved them: his hand startled upon the unpleasant feel of the patchy, faux fur of the raccoon coat he'd forgotten about. Disgusted, he slung the remnant away. Lifting his gaze from the butt on the ground he saw them in the distance.
From the rise where he stood they were at about the same angle and distance on his right as the big tent, the focus of their attention, was on his left: a few dozen of them with stragglers still coming up the low hill, over which he couldn't see, leading to the temporary gate. One of them was carrying a bullhorn and wearing what looked like a bearskin hat.
He started walking slowly toward them. He had not yet seen protesters in real life--not the these protesters that is. He joined a group of performers standing nearby.
"Hey Danny." He almost didn't recognize Sheila the Slut out of makeup; she looked postiviely matronly in a housecoat, wearing old-fashioned curlers under a bonnet.
"Hi. Almost thought you were Alice, for a second there." He grinned. Alice the Housewife was not among them at the moment. Sheila chuckled.
"I'll take her gig any day."
"What's the big deal?" Danny asked.
"They want us out of town." Hank the Handyman interjected. For his part he looked little different from his character in costume or out; over time he had taken to flannel and jeans. His facial expression too had adapted gradually to his character, Danny randomly noted; it could just be his perception, but all the Show's veterans seemed to take on physical traits and characteristics of their characters. Him too, no doubt; he cringed imperceptibly.
"They say we're committing normalization. They filed against us with the local dice this morning."
"The what?"
"Come on Danny, the Diversity Inclusion and Equity Committee. Haven't you been paying attention?"
"I try to avoid it."
"Anyway, if the Committee deems us normalizers we're eighty-sixed from town in per-pe-too-ah-tee." He drew the last syllables out comically, mimicking the grandiose speaking style of the colorful and combative director of DIEC.
"Good. I hate Cleveland."
The protesters, about thirty yards off, paid them no attention. Danny wondered if they could tell they were performers. The protesters were setting up as if to assail the big tent, where now workers stood or sat around, watching.
The one with a bullhorn was a woman, and appeared to be their leader--there were no other clues as to who was in charge. He hair was teased out into an almost cylindrical tall afro (bearskin hat! Danny chided himself) that swayed limply away from the slightest turn of her head. He smiled, not really sure why he was amused, as it waved like grain in response to a breeze.
Her skin was creme-colored with a tint of grey. Her features were sharp, a narrow head with pointed chin and nose, no hint of African ancestry. He couldn't help thinking she would be perfectly cast in as a colonial American Puritan in a skit the show used to perform, what with her sharp, severe Anglo features and the windswept African locks--her pride, he could see--tucked under a pointy hat. Under stage lights the skin tone would pass off just fine, and he was sure she was at the moment using a "darkening foundation"--he hated his acquired expertise in makeup--to veil the extent of her white parentage, as was common. But those features--permanently cast in a pained expression they have some part in--would not be escaped.
She attempted speaking through the bullhorn to no avail and, exasperated, called to someone in the midst of the now thickening crowd--Danny figured now there were around a hundred of them. Someone emerged, a white man it appeared; he took the bullhorn from her extended hand and began fiddling with it. The white man handed the bullhorn back to the Puritan and slunk back into the mass.
She put the bullhorn to her lips and started, stopped, lowered it and turned it on, then began:
"Whitism is No Joke" the horn blurted out.
The crowd responded: "Whitism is No Joke"
Then, with a little more confidence:
"Whitism will not be revived here"
"Whitism will not be revived here"
And:
"Normalization is Death"
"Normalization is Death"
Danny noticed a pattern, he thought: the darkest among them took up the front rows but didn't seem to lead; a few pale Blacks--such as the Puritan Princess--doing that. After them were the cream-colored people who were not leaders. Then came the white people, or mostly white, chanting louder than the rest, out of greater enthusiasm or the necessity of their position in the back. Ironically they were the more colorful section, as the darker ones all dressed in black red and grey while the whiter ones wore bright colored, slogan-bearing clothes or costumes. Just as Danny noticed a clown costume among them Hank said:
"Hey look that guy's here to audition for your job Danny!"
"Fuck you." He responded good-naturedly. The group laughed.
They went on chanting for five minutes before lapsing into an enthusiastic cacophony of jeers and slogans, still not taking notice of Danny and the group of performers. They might as well be invisible there, he thought with relief. The gate and temporary chain-link fencing around the camp could be pushed over easily by the crowd and the show had no security--private security being illegal, of course.
Danny figured the protesters were harmless. There was nothing stopping them after all.
Then the crowd parted up front. Through the breach came the pale protesters from the back, and they set to work on a section of the fence to topple it, by rocking it back and forth, struggling to set a steady rhythm.
"Oh no, don't do that." Danny said to no one in particular.
"Here come the drones." Hank said dryly. "That was fast."
They appeared from over the hill, a diamond-formation of four on either flank of the crowd of protesters. Seeing the drones most of the group backed away from the fence, individually taking up "the posture"--the standard down-on-one knee posture, identifying oneself as harmless and compliant to a law enforcement drone, which everyone knows, of course.
Those at the gate kept up their assault.
One of the drones broadcast over a loudspeaker:
"Desist. You are engaged in unlawful activity. Assume a non-confrontational posture. Desist, you are--"
Someone among the rabid dozen assailing the fence turned and threw something at the nearest drone. The group of performers groaned a little together, as if watching a bad turn in a sporting event.
"Oh no, don't do that." Danny said again.
The drones deployed their anti-riot lightweight percussion grenades, which weren't seen until they flashed around the feet of the defiant protesters, who all collapsed before their smoke rose. The rest of the group, maintaining the posture, hissed and wailed. More drones appeared and laid down a red, pulsing laser grid pattern, the "shock fence", all about them.
"Peaceful protest!" Someone shouted, and they took up the chant.
By the time the robotic paddy wagon arrived and lowered to the ground, its garage-style rollup door already open, they had run out of energy. The protesters lined up to get on board as if ending a work shift. Those knocked out by the percussion grenades were lolling about and coming around, a few sitting up, a few still lifeless on the ground.
Danny saw the Puritan Princess, lining up to board the wagon. She looked back in his direction. He couldn't tell if she was looking at him, but he thought she was.
The robot paramedics, the "medicals", appeared, two of them, attending to the remaining incapacitated protesters, moving them into the wagon one at a time.The event had taken little more than an hour, Danny figured.
"Well shit." He said.
(continues)
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