Letters to the Editor
To: threeweeks.letters@umich.edu
Subject: Ann Arbor Uber Alles
You should print this. Because it's awesome. You know, Dead Kennedys - California Uber
Alles? I present Ann Arbor Uber Alles. It's funny how few lines I really had to change:
Ann Abor Uber Alles
-------------------
I am President Mary Sue
My aura smiles and never boos
Soon I will be governor
Proposal 2 will fade away
I will be Fuhrer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will mediate in school.
YOUR KIDS WILL MEDIATE IN SCHOOL!
Ann Arbor Uber Alles
Ann Arbor Uber Alles
Uber Alles Ann Arbor
Uber Alles Ann Arbor
Zen fascists will control you 100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face
Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro' on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay
MELLOW OUT OF YOUR WILL PAY!
Ann Arbor Uber Alles
Ann Arbor Uber Alles
Uber Alles Ann Arbor
Uber Alles Ann Arbor
Now it is 1984
Knock knock at your front door
It's the uggs/northface secret police
They have come for your uncool neice
Come quietly to the camp
You'd be a nice sweatfree team hat
Don't you worry, it's only a shower
For your clothes here's a pretty flower...
DIE on organic poison gas
Serpent's egg's already hatched
You will croak, you little fool
When you mess with Governor Sue!
WHEN YOU MESS WITH GOVERNOR SUE!
Ann Arbor Uber Alles
Ann Arbor Uber Alles
Uber Alles Ann Arbor
Uber Alles Ann Arbor
Peter,
Is it?
-The Eds
From: Gabe Nelson (gabenelson@gmail.com)
To: threeweeks@umich.edu
Subject: Story in the E3W
Hey,
I'm a news editor at The Michigan Daily writing a story for the
Statement magazine about students who can't understand the accents of
their GSIs and profs, what the University does about it, what the
underlying issues are, etc.
Anyway, I saw your story "North Campus Adopts Bloken Engrish As
Official Language" and since you're satirizing exactly what this story
is about, I figured I'd like to speak with either you or the staff
writer who wrote that piece.
Shoot me an e-mail saying who I should speak to, or call me sometime
during the evening.
Thanks,
Gabe Nelson
The Michigan Daily
(202) 486-6336
Gabe et. al.,
You know, we don't read the Daily that often because - what can we say? - the truth about racism hurts. It hurts so bad we dedicated most of this year's stories to it, from our humble, searching beginnings, "Whatever Happened To That Word, Mulatto?" to the fiery and impetuous "White Students With Black-Sounding Names Rejoice At Passage Of Proposal 2," to the tragic and elegiac "U-M Women Mourn Loss Of Black Dick..." and all periphera in between.
Ah, the memories...
And though your email sure sounded like it was pallin' around with us (we'll leave that for the people to decide), we were hurt when it turned out we'd be interviewing for an article that would end up indicting the very cause that we believe in: soft racism.
No, we here at the Every Three Weekly don't like hard stances on the issues. We're dodgy, subtle, difficult to pin down. We obscure, embellish, desanctify, recode. For whatever reason, we can't write real news. Our cause, as our staff shirts once put it, is mocking yours; it is itself completely without clothes. Thus, the nature of soft racism.
We've been to the meetings where the hard racists meet, and let us tell you, those people are sick! We'd much rather suggest our morally repugnant belief system through deliberate obfuscation than to declare it outright. Suggestion is soft. Cross-burning? Too hard! Much too hard!
That we represent all that is wrong with race consciousness in America (and gender, and psychosexual and metaphysical, etc. etc.), we thought, was patently obvious, but we thank you nonetheless, Gabe Nelson et. al. at the Daily, for devoting an entire paragraph in a Statement expose on it. We know that at the Daily, space is time is money. Why analyze what we're trying to say about the sensitivity of race relations when its meaning can be boiled and delineated and summarized in less than a paragraph? Why get to the bottom of something when the top will do? The answers to these questions are no, never, nothing, nada, nisch nisch.
Look, we're white. Like an eventual column in this paper has it: we're aware of our shortcomings. We'll never be able to completely empathize - as hard as we try, in as many mannered voices as we can manifest our imperfections - with the issues we lampoon.
But neither will you, will you? Until the Daily achieves a diversity holy enough to make God cry Almighty Tears, you're helpless to completely empathize as well, though, God love ya, you'll be damned if you'll let that not bother you!
With that in mind, we made this picture below in Microsoft Paint to further insincereify our apology.
Hurrah, hurrah for the Daily! The soft racists lay slain!
-The Eds
P.S. This is the last time the Every Three Weekly letters page will respond to claims that we are racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc. If you believe that, we've also got some land along coastal Bangladesh we'd like to sell you! Fa!
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