You guys, Black Pluots are so modern America. Think about it. They’re bi-fruitcial, raised half plum, half apricot, self-identifying as BLACK because, duh, if you’re mixed you get to be black. Yes, get to be. This modern America. Haven’t you heard? Black is the new white… well, minus the favorable employment chances and natural police invisibility cloaking and general institutionalized privilege. And well, white was never cool. And well, that seems like a really lazy metaphor, doesn’t it? So now that I’m thinking about it a second time, I guess not at all then? [Siya’s Note: Not at all then.] Right. Well. Regardless… Black Pluots, man. They might not be the new white, but they are the new metaphor.
Plums by themselves? Solid. Apricots by themselves? Also solid. Plums and apricots together? Also, also solid. So things change, but nothing changes. Where is this all going? Are we still talking about race? No, we’re talking about metaphors. What’s a metaphor for? It’s for distilling thematic elements into easily digestible images. The Black Pluot is digestible in a literal sense, obviously. See? Metaphor. For what, then? Don’t ask questions, me. But to answer you, me, for metaphors. The Black Pluot looks better representing other things than it does itself. For example, the Black Pluot is Potato Of The Day encapsulated into tangible fruit form. It’s real. But it’s not really real. Black Pluot is just a name for a man-made genetic anomaly, an unnecessary, albeit tasty, brick in the path to enlightenment. Could you live without ever eating a Black Pluot? Yes. Is your life better once you’ve encountered a Black Pluot? Also yes. Am I calling black people an unnecessary genetic anomaly? Fuck no! I’m mixing metaphors, which leads to dangerous and ambiguous paragraphs. Mixing can be good or bad, you see? Black Pluot. Again, metaphor.
Are you confused? You should be. This is nonsensical. Just like a Black Pluot. Which I’ve now accidentally turned into a simile thanks to my pesky friend, the like. Facebook uses likes in different ways than similes, but they both use them as symbolic connection, friendship vs. comparison. Just like you and I use Black Pluots in different, but similar veins. You consume Black Pluots to provide sustenance. I sustain Black Pluot metaphors to provide consumption. Different dominos, same table. That’s another metaphor. The English language is a Black Pluot. Do you see what we’re doing now? No? Me either.
Last paragraph. We need to bring it full circle, the shape of a Black Pluot. Being mixed or black or fruit has nothing to do with a thing’s ability to tell a story. But being mixed or black and/or fruit can result better stories. Neither a plum nor an apricot nor a pluot are truly better or worse than any of their shared sentence brethren. It’s how you, the modern person you are, consumes them that matters. Which is just another way to say that this all very complex, a mixed and delicate situation, a Black Pluot living in America. So lesson learned here? Choose your metaphors, your Black Pluots, carefully. Or, you might look like a racist.
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