dear nobel peace prize concert: get that dude who sings about lynching to perform!

this morning on the huffington post there's an article called "toby keith racist?"

the country singer was in norway for the peace prize concert and while dancing along to will smith's version of "rapper's delight" he pulled his eyes back when will smith said "yellow."

the asian american justice center is pissed, and released a statement saying "Toby Keith embarrassed himself and his country, denigrated the Nobel Peace Prize and offended Asians and Asian Americans by using a crude, racist hand gesture."

um, i completely agree. but here's my question: is anyone surprised?

it actually makes me feel sick to my stomache that toby keith was even allowed to perform at the peace prize concert.
remember his song about 9/11?

"Now this nation that I love is fallin' under attack. A mighty sucker-punch came flying in from somewhere in the back. Soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye, Man, we lit up your world like the fourth of July."

america certainly did light up people's world like the fourth of july when they used 9/11 as validation for waging an illegal war that killed countless civilians--all the while lining the pockets of their contractor friends.

or that other song, 'whiskey for my men, beer for my horses?'

"Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son A man had to answer for the wicked that he done Take all the rope in Texas Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys Hang them high in the street for all the people to see"

right, because "back in the day" in texas, it was alright to LYNCH people. the whole point of the song is that drunken vigilante justice is the only true justice but honestly, if people think him pulling his eyes back in a crude representation of "asian eyes" is offensive then maybe they should consider the history of lynching in america and how it's so NOT peace prize concert material.

you know what? we're jumping on this bandwagon.

everyone and their dog will be writing about this, but fuck it. we're going to write about it too.

and the nobel peace prize goes to....

barack obama!!

sure, he's great. he's an alright president and he knows how to pull out the rhetoric when he needs to.

this isn't a blog about why he shouldn't have gotten the prize, although there are a lot of reasons.

the point of this blog is that there are people in this world who do extraordinary and rare things that promote peace on a global and individual level. and the prize is a chance to recognize these people, who often face extreme danger in their work, for doing what they do.

like dr denis mukwege. dr. mukwege is basically the only gynecologist in the DRC who treats injuries resulting from rape-- and in a country where rape was an accepted and widespread tool of war, this isn't a small task.

as of october 2008, dr. mukwege had treated 21'000 women. he founded the panzi hospital.

this year is the 50th anniversary of china's official seizure of tibet, so a lot of people speculated that any one of a number of chinese dissidents would get the prize.

or maybe it could have been piedad cordoba, the leader of colombians for peace and a senator. colombians for peace facilitates negotiations between the government and the guerrilla groups.

afghanistan has been a pretty hot topic this year, and maybe if the world was as serious as it says it is about "helping women" in afghanistan they would have given the prize to sina samara, a human rights activist, leader of the afghanistant independent human rights commission, and is a U.N special envoy to darfur.

people like these don't ever expect any recognition beyond making people's lives better. that's what this prize should be about.

maybe, in a few years, obama will do something that really warrants the nobel but i think that probably right now he should say "thanks, but no thanks" and see that it travels to someone really deserving.