The Patriot Post® · The Black Tail That Wags the Dog

By Burt Prelutsky ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/81242-the-black-tail-that-wags-the-dog-2021-07-17

If you merely went by how much attention is paid to 12% of the population, and then factored in their presence in movies, TV and, especially, commercials, you might assume that black Americans constituted at least 50% of the 330 million inhabitants.

As it is, they enjoy the status of sacred cows, and any real or imagined slight of them is regarded as a hate crime, as close as it gets to being a capital offense in today’s political climate. A climate in which a charge of “racist” can short circuit a career, especially that of a politician or a member of the media.

What makes the situation all the more confounding is that, in 2021, blacks are deemed to hold the deed to the moral high ground, even though they are responsible for most of the street crime, whether committed by individuals, gangs or the BLM mob.

What’s more, they play a major role in every anti-American movement in the country, ranging from Antifa to the cancel culture and the fraudulent 1619 Project.

Then, for good measure, 95% of them are the numbskulls who regularly go out and elect or re-elect the putrid, moronic likes of Joe Biden, Maxine Waters, Ayanna Pressley, Bill DeBlasio, Hank Johnson, Andrew Cuomo, Keisha Lance Bottoms, Gavin Newsom, James Clyburn, J.B. Pritzker, Lori Lightfoot, Phil Murphy, Ralph Northam, Muriel Bowser, and eagerly line up behind weasels like Al Sharpton and Stacey Abrams for photo ops.

All that’s required of these nincompoops is that the schmucks identify as Democrats.


Speaking of the 1619 Project, it is a false history of America that is being passed off by Communists, its contention that America was racist from the moment the Pilgrims landed and that every advance made in this country was on the backs and at the expense of black people.

It is an obvious lie, but as people like Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler pointed out, if you want to make people believe a falsehood, be sure to make it a real whopper.

It’s true that there were white people who treated blacks badly, but we are long past those tragic days of slavery and Jim Crow. In 2021, it’s the race hustlers, both black and white, who refuse to let the nation heal. Instead, they pick and pick at the scab because it’s in their political or economic interest to keep the wound fresh and bleeding.

It has led many of us to fervently wish that Southerners had picked their own damn cotton.


For years, it seemed like every time I’d hear or read about Vietnam vets, it was to let me know how many of them came home as drug addicts. It always struck me as a slander or a libel that unfairly tarred the majority, who weren’t addicts, and so many others who never made it home at all.

I have no doubt that a lot of the vets wound up strung out on heroin, meth or some other poison, but they were guys in their late teens and early twenties, and it was the 60s. I always assumed that if there had been no war and they’d all stayed home in Chicago, Fresno, Atlanta, Newark, Frisco, Des Moines and even Bedford Falls, there was a good chance they’d have wound up on drugs.


After I took a few pot shots at Gwen Berry, the black Olympian who gave the U.S. the finger by insulting the flag and our National Anthem, I heard from Stephen Hanover. He pointed out what I had neglected to mention: “Burt, you might have added that this butt-ugly, blue-lipped hammer thrower not only disrespected our country but deprived the two women who beat her of the attention they had earned. But of course they were white, so it didn’t concern her.”


After I went after the left-wing despicables we hire to brainwash our kids, one of my readers who prefers to remain anonymous reminded me that those who can, do; those who cannot, teach; and those who cannot teach, teach teachers.


After I mourned the decline of common sense in the world, Ralph Barnett observed that if common sense weren’t as rare as lips on a chicken, men would ride horses sidesaddle.

Having only ridden a horse once, after which he and I parted amicably but with the understanding that it just wasn’t meant to be, I hadn’t really thought of that. But in my own life, it had always seemed absurd that bicycles built for boys and men have a straight steel bar right in front of the seat, whereas bikes made for females had a low curved bar that had horse sense written all over it.


After I wrote about the 10 worst Americans of the past 80 years, C.A. Meschter, let me know he thought John Kerry deserved to make the list. Actually, I believe he made the list I wrote about, but I neglected to mention him.

In any case, as I wrote to Mr. Meschter: “He’s pretty bad, but since he never got to the Oval Office, I’m not sure I’d include him among the top 10 villains. He wouldn’t even beat out Anthony Fauci.”


After I wrote disparagingly about those who have become generals and admirals over the past quarter century, I heard from a former naval officer named David Evans. He was commissioned back in 1956 and had every intention of devoting his life to the military. The problem was that in 1960, he was assigned to serve on an Admiral’s Staff. “It was there that I realized I could not pay the ‘brown nose’ points necessary to make the USN a career.

"It was that year that I departed the Service and have never regretted the decision. Too many times, higher rank loses touch with reality and evokes a God-like mentality. This is not true 100% of the time, but Gen. Milley definitely qualifies.”

My response: “Thank you for confirming what I could only assume, never having served in the military.”


Apparently feeling I might not be getting enough irony in my diet, Jay Lehr sent along a selection of freshly picked puns and word plays.

“I have a few jokes about unemployed people, but none of them work.”

“How do you make holy water? You boil the hell out of it.”

“Will glass coffins be a success? Remains to be seen.”

“The first windmill asks the second, ‘What’s your favorite kind of music?’ The second replies, ‘I’m a heavy metal fan.’”

“Hear about the new restaurant called Karma? There’s no menu, you get what you deserve.”

“Is it ignorance or apathy that’s destroying the world today? I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“Need an ark? I Noah a guy.”

“Sleeping comes so naturally to me, I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“What do you call a super articulate dinosaur? A Thesaurus.”

Hey, I’m just the messenger. It’s Jay Lehr you want to beat up.


You can email Burt directly at [email protected].