My take on the Everlast song “What It’s Like” continues to drive a good deal of traffic to Fishkite. It’s a pretty lengthy post that deconstructs the song and reveals the absurdity of Erik Schrody’s lyrics and shows how they don’t even come close to meaning what he thinks they mean. The intended message is that we shouldn’t judge people until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes; it’s a Biblical concept, as Casey pointed out, and in fact Jesus commands us to walk not one mile with someone but instead two (that’s why we call it “going the extra mile,” I suppose). The Wikipedia entry describes the song this way: “each character [is] presented in a sympathetic light as something of a victim of circumstance and as being an object of derision.” But Schrody muddles the message by failing to maintain a consistant standard for all the individuals in his song, and what we at first assume are stereotypical victims in need of understanding and support turn out to be entirely more sinister characters.

The poor man “beggin’ for your change” isn’t looking for a hot meal or a warm place to spend the night but is instead a bold alcoholic who’s simply looking to score another 40oz bottle of beer; the pregnant teen isn’t just a desperate girl crying out for help but rather a foul-mouthed hoodlem who is prone to violence — threatening to mutilate her boyfriend’s genitals and deciding to abort her unborn child; and finally the “kid named Max” isn’t an at-risk youth just trying to get by but is actually a grown man with a wife and children who prowls the streets at night selling drugs, getting “sh*t-faced,” talking smack and threatening people with handguns.

According to Schrody’s morality tale, we’re expected to feel guilty for the way these three protagonists have been treated, so that next time we’ll just give a handful of cash to the dude at the liquor store, simply turn our heads when the promiscuous teen takes the life of her baby and blame ourselves each time some drug-dealing thug gets killed in a midnight shootout. This, instead of caring enough to offer treatment to the alcoholic instead of perpetuating his self-destructive habits; offering counseling, adoptive services and/or medical care to the pregnant teen and speaking up on behalf of her unborn child; or reclaiming our streets from the drug dealers, pimps, thugs, gangs and criminals — and making them safe for children, families, local businesses and places of worship.

Quite by accident, I recently found something that adds an extra little twist to the mix. According to a Wikipedia contributer, the character “Max” is actually a reference to Max Green, described as “a Jewish Australian lawyer who embezzled millions of dollars and was later murdered in Cambodia” the same year “What It’s Like” was written. If true, the song’s point becomes even more bizarre: the “kid name Max” who sold drugs on the street and was killed in a shoot-out is now a 42-year-old man who committed some pretty major white collar crimes and ended up getting killed by some of the people he screwed over; I’m supposed to feel sorry about that? Hmm… I don’t know. Somehow it doesn’t add up for me — why exactly do we need to walk a mile in this dude’s shoes?

On another, somewhat related, topic, I’ve got an “enclave” update:

On Friday Polar Donkey posted a demographic map of Shelby County showing where all major banking locations are in relation to the area’s concentration of African Americans. It’s a sobering reminder of how polarized the city is, and it’s one small way to see how black families in Memphis are at a disadvantage when it comes to pulling themselves out of poverty and investing (quite literally) in their future.

But it also caused me to wonder where our friend at the Memphis Flyer lives in relation to the map. The “Gadfly,” as you’ll recall, wrote a column in which he assailed my criticism of an earlier editorial of his and wholly discounted my points in part because of my (former) place of dwelling:

I also wrote his attack off to the fact the author apparently resides in Germantown, Tennessee, the local conservatives’ equivalent of Lake Wobegon, a lily white enclave on the outskirts of Memphis which owes much of its popularity to the desegregation of the Memphis public school system 30 years ago, and is most noteworthy, hereabouts, for its overzealous speed limit enforcement.

Imagine our surpirse then, to find that the Gadfly, aka Marty Aussenberg, himself lives in a “lily white enclave,” no less segregated than anything you’ll find in Germantown, East Memphis or Cordova:

Man, this guy is the gift that keeps on giving.

But the real question is this: can’t we look past such trivial things as in what part of town people live and how silly they may or may not look in a Mad Hatter costume… and work together to solve the real problems in our community?

And, further, can’t we make a difference in the lives of our neighbors without abandoning our moral principles, as Everlast would have us do? Why would we say, “live and let live,” when we know that the true solution lies in speaking to the heart of the matter and demanding that people take responsibility for their lives and stop pretending to all be victims?

God didn’t tell Jonah to go to Ninevah and say “I’m ok, you’re ok.”

Instead, God had a harder message to deliver.

God said, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

Maybe Jonah thought it was too harsh, or too scary, or that the people there didn’t deserve to hear the word of God, because he didn’t want to go. Instead he tried to hide from God and hide from the people there. But God brought him out and Jonah eventually agreed to obey. Look what happened:

The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Later, Jonah is upset that God saved the city from destruction. But God said, “Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

It makes me wonder what would have happened if Jonah had spent his time there handing out gold to drunks, cutting welfare checks to thugs and fluffing the pillows of prostitutes instead of speaking the hard truths of God. Would the city have remained in sin? Would the city have been destroyed?

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says this to his doubting brothers:

“The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.”

Which example will we follow? Will we condemn all the evil in this city? Will we stand up for the poor man, the orphan and the widow, or will we remain hidden in the enclave? Will we demand honesty and justice from our elected officials, or will we just whistle the Tennessee Waltz and continue to re-elect all those indicted politicians?

This city will be redeemed not by “Planned Parenthood” but by real parents who obey God, get married and stick together. We need to educate people so that they stop panhandling and learn to get a handle on themselves. And we need to stop offering excuses and start offering solutions. And those, I believe, come only from God.

But what do I know? I live in a “lily white enclave” of the “51st state.” And I’ve never stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.

UPDATE: Our new lefty friend Bob at 55-40 has posted a response. For some reason the trackback didn’t come through. Bob, here’s some background on Fishkite’s temporary header image and tagline. I’m not sure that will answer your questions about it, but it might help.

AS IF ON CUE: Look who came overnight bearing glad tidings of comfort and joy, then left as soon as he appeared — Jolly Ole Saint Rob. I guess he’s having a hard time getting the point of the song… go figure.