Posted 7:40 PM by Angie Schultz

Colonialism and Oppression

Big Arm Woman brings us word of another Tunnel of Oppression post at Critical Mass. (See there for previous tunnel posts.)

A "tunnel of oppression" is apparently a bit like a Fun House, except it's a No Fun House. It's an exhibit set up by Professional Scolds for the edification of the sheeplike mass of college students, who apparently have never cracked a book or fingered a newspaper or glimpsed a TV news report, and are therefore unaware that other people on the planet don't spend their lives swaddled in cotton and fed honeyed cream from golden spoons. See Critical Mass link for all boring details.

Well, I got yer tunnel of oppression right here. [WARNING: color pictures. Safe for work, but not for dinner, especially if you're having cannelloni.] This is a link to the Colossal Colon Tour web site. The CCT is a travelling exhibit of a giant colon---40ft long by 4 ft high---meant to show in graphic, disgusting detail the various problems that can arise if you do not bow down to your colon's every whim.

The thing is, the Colon-ialists seem to be a lot more fun than the diversity-worshipping Anti-Colonialists. The website makes visiting a giant poop pipe and seeing its many disgusting malfunctions seem like loads and loads (har!) of fun for the whole family. For example, this page describes the ten "stations" of the colon tour, of which Station Three is "Check It Out. Your Colon. Your Rectum. What They're All About!" That would make a swell cheer, wouldn't it? Another one might be, "Give me a one! Give me a two! Give me a three! Give me a colonoscopy!" Feel free to make up more of your own.

And how fun is this picture? You've got to have a sense of humor to allow yourself to be photographed popping (almost wrote "pooping"---bad Freud!) up out of a giant colon like a prairie dog. Not that any prairie dog would do that.

After its triumphal city tour, you can arrange for the colon to come to your event. I think it should be taken to college campuses. Imagine this conversation:

Heather: So, you guys want to go to the Haunted by White Guilt House, the Oppression Tunnel of Love, or the Colossal Colon?
Jessica: We saw White Guilt last semester. What's the Tunnel of Love?
Heather: "Come witness the ways in which the vagina has been---"
Jessica: Colon.
Ashley: Colon.
Brittany: Colon.
Heather: Colon it is, then.

There are more pictures here, including one captioned: "Darrell Green (ex-Washington Redskin) speaks out against colorectal cancer at the DC Colossal Colon Tour Press Conference". Who do you suppose they got to speak for colorectal cancer?

The Colon will be in Houston this weekend, which is how it came to my attention.