LET’S GO BRANDON

In the modern woke era, it is all too easy to say “something” that someone else will consider to be racist. It is the unfortunate nature of our times. One of the problems with this is that there is the potential to downplay or ignore genuine racism. But at other times, this become, well, amusing. The best example of that is “Let’s Go Brandon.” What happened is that following a NASCAR race the crowd began chanting “F Joe Biden.” Brandon Brown, who won his first NASCAR race was being interviewed by NBC Sportscaster Kelli Stavast.  The crowd erupted in the “F Joe Biden” chant. She pretended that the crowd was really saying “Let’s Go Brandon” because she didn’t want to admit what was really going on. It was absurd and even Brandon Brown thought it was absurd.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/let-s-go-brandon-the-backstory-of-this-joe-biden-meme-that-s-all-over-the-internet/ar-AAPoMt1

I am sure Ms. Stavast was just trying to be polite, but instead she accidentally created a great new way to insult Joe Biden without actually saying something vulgar. People all over the country have adopted the “Let’s Go Brandon” chant and everyone knows what they really mean. The problem is that it is ridiculous to claim that “Let’s Go Brandon” is somehow vulgar, because there are people named Brandon and it is hardly a crime to cheer them on.  In retrospect it would have been better for Ms. Stavast to just ignore this, but that ship has sailed.

This reminded me of something I did years ago. While visiting us, one of my nephews got frustrated and used a couple of swear words. He turned beat red and immediately turned red and apologized. His parents are deeply religious and did not find that sort of vocabulary to be remotely acceptable. I just laughed, but in a moment of weakness, I introduced him to “Christian swearing.” I explained that he really shouldn’t use these kinds of words, because they are definitely offensive to someone. But he could choose other words, more acceptable, to use in the event of frustration. Afterall, there is a reason for swearing, it is definitely a stress release mechanism. I suggested using books of the Bible as a substitute, since no one could complain about repeating books of the Bible. He loved the idea and almost immediately developed a whole new vocabulary of words, using books of the Bible, as an easy substitute for what he really wanted to say. The result was that this spread among his friends and relatives. For example, when he was very frustrated he would say “Oh Genesis.” I knew exactly what he meant, and I suspect his parents were less than thrilled at this new creative use of vocabulary.

The point being that saying one thing and meaning another can be great fun. There are other examples of this. For example, I was asked for a reference regarding a former employee who was, well, worthless. I didn’t want to trash this person, but I also didn’t want to lie. So, I remembered a joke about this and said: “Nobody could have done a better job.” I meant that we would have been better off having no one than this person. But the person hearing this probably thought this was a complement. This was not exactly my finest hour.

So, “Let’s Go Brandon.” I am, of course, referring to Brandon Belt, who just got a huge, qualified offer from the San Francisco Giants. If you were thinking about something else, well that is not my problem.

TDM