Everybody in Heaven is a White Male or Inappropriate Things to Say at the Funerals of Oppressed Minorities

And then there was that time when a street corner preacher nearly beat the crap out me with his Bible. He was spewing the gospel and then he saw me and he said, “You better get right with Jesus or he ain’t never gonna make you walk!” What the hell kind of insulting comment was that? He might as well have walked up to me and kicked me in the balls. So I said to him, “You better get right with Jesus or he ain’t never gonna make you white!” That really pissed him off. I thought he was going to beat the crap out of me with his bible, right there on the street corner. Wouldn’t that have made a helluva headline?

But I couldn’t help it. I’d had enough. I wanted him to see how it feels. People say stuff like that when cripples die too. They come to the funeral and say to the cripple’s loved ones, “Well at least he’s not suffering anymore. He’s in heaven, where everybody can walk. He left his burdensome wheelchair behind.” Does anybody say that kind of stuff at funerals of other oppressed minorities? “Well at least he’s not suffering anymore. He’s in heaven, where everybody is white. He left his burdensome dark skin behind.” Or what about when a woman dies? “Well at least she’s not suffering anymore. She’s in heaven, where everybody is male. She left her burdensome vagina and mammaries behind.”

Or what about when a woman died in America a hundred years or so ago, before women could even vote? And suppose that woman was a suffragette. I wonder if anyone said to her loved ones at her funeral, “Well at least she’s not suffering anymore. She’s in heaven, where everybody is male. So she finally has the right to vote.” Now I know they probably don’t have elections in heaven. Or if they do God probably runs unopposed, like all good dictators do. Or maybe there are competitive elections for lesser offices like angels. I don’t know but please humor me on this one because I’m trying to make a point, okay? My point is, isn’t that a pretty fucked up concept of divine justice? God rewards you by homogenizing you, by transforming you into the superior other you failed to become in your mortal life.

If I was a praying man, my prayer wouldn’t be, “Dear God, when I get to heaven, please reward me for enduring all the shit cripples are forced to endure by making sure I’m no longer crippled.” My prayer would instead be, “Dear God, when I get to heaven, please reward me for enduring all the shit cripples are forced to endure by making sure I don’t encounter any more creatures like that street corner preacher.”


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