America 1982-Chapter 199 - 73: Angels and Demons_5
"Believe me, no one understands Black people better than I do; after all, your state has never been as clean as Rhode Island. When a hip-hop artist composes a song using Black stereotypes like Jim Crow, alligator bait, Mandingo, blackbuck, to mock their own race, those Black people happily pay for it, feeling that the artist is helping them remember history. Those fools even take pride in calling themselves ’nigger’ as if it’s a privilege to flaunt before white people, rather than a disgrace. Have you ever seen another race with such a failed evolutionary symptom of cerebral palsy?"
"Your words... convince me that you’re unlikely to sympathize with Black people, Tommy. I don’t even need to hear the rest from you. Gentlemen, I believe this brother," another voice said, then stood up, carrying the candle from in front of him to Tommy’s table and placed their own candle down.
Then patted Tommy on the shoulder and slowly returned to their seat.
Another unfamiliar voice spoke up, "Tommy Hawk, do you have any views on Black people aside from what your grandfather or your forefathers have instilled in you?"
"Of course, I do. In addition to the impressions of ugliness, violence, rudeness, lechery, and criminality that my grandfather imbued in me, now I have to add that they’re skilled at exploiting the status of the underdog for welfare and public support, are cunning and crafty. Stanford Law School already has 32% of students with Black ancestry, and perhaps even more at other schools. These Black people are smarter, and I think after they acquire an elite status, they definitely won’t abandon the ’underdog’ label. Then a scenario will emerge, in a debate contest, you and a Black opponent in a debate. If he wins, he can proclaim ’I am the first Black person in the college to defeat a white person in a debate, it’s a glory for Black people.’ If he loses, he can complain that white people suppress Black people, he was treated unfairly, the competition was rigged, and they can’t accept a Black person’s victory. In the future, this kind of thing will become extremely common. It’s not alarmist talk, but the inevitable result of the current bad development in America," said Tommy, without a second thought.
Charles Salmon’s voice rose: "In this terrible environment, how do you think SSD should avoid involving Black people?"
Tommy took a deep breath, "Americans all know that SSD is about white supremacy. I think the best method, starting now, is to fade the stereotypical label of SSD. We must, through action, change SSD’s label to honesty, innocence, diligence, devoutness and patriotism. Swap racism for nativism, replace the exclusion of people of color with the exclusion of foreign immigrants. That’s my view; no one can wear a white robe to burn a Black person without any consequences anymore, nor can they use Black children as bait for crocodile hunting and then tell the newspaper that the death of either is harmless to America. Times have changed, and if you don’t want to be left behind, you need to change with them."
"Were all those vicious ideas the product of your father’s education? Brother, your viciousness surpasses everyone present," a voice asked with a light laugh.
In the candlelight, Tommy’s face was stern, mysterious, and sacred as he intoned, "The Bible tells us that God said, ’By covetousness, they’ll exploit you with deceptive words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction does not slumber.’
...
Van Stan picked up his water glass and took a sip, observing Tommy Hawk, who had maintained the same sitting position since sitting down and hadn’t touched his water glass once: "Do you think what Mr. Mitch Kapor said about the free distribution of OSS by Actor Corporation is to safeguard their revenue model is true?"
"Wouldn’t the best way to safeguard Actor Corporation involve staying away from Lotus?" Tommy smiled and then shook his head:
"The establishment of Actor Corporation wasn’t about becoming a software company. Its initial purpose was simple, to help women enter the workforce. Opposition lawyers, investigators, my lawyers, and teachers can all testify. I bought the five or six most popular computers on the market, dozens of office software. I studied them, thinking about how to use the existing market software to help these women. Unfortunately, these software programs were too difficult to operate, and the jobless women all had high school diplomas. If they could memorize an entire dictionary-thick manual, they wouldn’t have dropped out of high school in the first place."
"The main issue was the price was too high. Even if the SSD Fraternity organization I belonged to wanted to support my charitable acts, they couldn’t do anything because SSD also didn’t have much disposable income. I don’t know if a 495-dollar floppy disk exerts financial pressure on everyone here, but those women simply couldn’t afford such software. Even the initial 49.99-dollar price of OSS was enough to scare many off until we allowed them to pay after finding a job, and then they started to trust us. If the founding of Actor was purely for software development, I’d definitely develop something I liked. I’ve always wanted to develop a chat software so that sitting in California, without needing to call, sitting in front of the computer, I can chat with my brother back home, ask him how the weather is, or if my father got hurt dismantling ships lately. How does that sound? At least to me as a young person, it’d be much more interesting than OSS. Aside from talking to family, I could chat with a long-distance girlfriend, without paying expensive interstate call fees. I say this to tell you all, Actor Corporation isn’t lacking in creativity, doesn’t need to emulate others. The reason we developed OSS, which all professionals criticized as lacking brilliance and new ideas, was never about self-aggrandizement. It was about charity, allowing those we helped to quickly master a computer skill, find a job, adding one more smiling face in America."
