Getting a Red Bull is one of my favorite past times, probably because I am completely addicted to the Taurine or whatever horrific heart failure causing agents are in it. I can’t resist. So, today I was in the local 7-11 (I say local like it’s Mr. Smith’s 2nd street deli and not a chain store that’s fucking everywhere) and, as usual, buying my 3 gallon can of Red Bull because the 16oz one won’t hasten my eventual meeting with Satan quick enough. While waiting in line I spied this guy in front of me who had several well placed tattoos embossed on his flesh. I happened to notice this peculiar tattoo on the side of his right calf. He had a tree with a long extended branch. From the branch was a Klu Klux Klan member who was hanging from a noose and quite dead. I thought, to myself, “what an odd tattoo choice.” I mean, I get the symbolism of it but it was one of those tilt your head and scrunch your upper lip in curious bewilderment moments. What would possess someone to get a tattoo like that, particularly a white guy? The movie Black Sheep with Chris Farley popped into my head and I imagined him with his 6 black friends at a college frat party, getting shit faced and double dog daring each other. The eventual outcome being, “Fuck you Jamal! I’m not a pussy!…wanna make a bet that I won’t get that tattoo?” My second thought was that maybe he was just sympathetic to the struggle for African American rights in America against the backlash of primarily white racist oppression. Naaahh… that’s too easy of an answer. I finally concluded that he MUST be a self loathing Klu Klux Klan member. It’s like when Ariel Moore in Footloose rebels against her uptight conservative father and goes dancing. He still hangs out with his Klux buddies during the week, but on the weekend he gets nuts and sheds the white robe and marches in NBPP rallies. On Sundays, he hosts a book seminar on the influence of "In the Name of Elijah Muhammad Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam" by Mattias Gardell, just for fun.
