XONSUX

Posted by David Roberts at 4:45 PM on 13 Jun 2006

Bruce Wright of the Conservation Science Institute sent us an amusing story. For six years, his wife has had a vanity plate on her car: XONSUX. She was surprised that the DMW let it past, but after six years she thought she was safe.

Not so! Not in Alaska. Apparently someone complained, and the DMV sent her a stern letter (PDF), instructing her to turn in her plates. It says, and I quote, "As the plate 'XONSUX' is or may be interpreted by persons viewing the plate as ethnically offensive or obscene we must revoke the registration and recall this plate."

The saga was written up in the Anchorage Daily News. Quel scandal!

Wright's wife has filed an amusing appeal (Word doc). I quote:

How can this plate be construed as "racially or ethnically offensive"? Preliminary results of a non-random sample of Alaskans, to assess the potential of the letters N, O, S, U and X to create a racially or ethnically offensive sentiment, indicate limited probability. However, I do believe that additional research of a qualitative and quantitative nature would produce similar if not the same results. I would be happy pursue this avenue of discovery if you think it will be productive and enlightening.

Anyway, this is clearly an outrage. Darryl Hannah must go to Alaska and sit in a tree until this unjust decision is reversed!

For story: XONSUX
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Other SUX stories

You know, this has happened before, not concerning Exxon. Back in 1993, a guy in Virginia had a license plate reading "GOVT SUX." The state tried to take it away from him, and he sued and won.

I'd like to post a link to the article, except that this was rather before the Internet was an archive for everything. (Wow, I can remember that. I must not be a teenager.) However, if anyone in Virginia wants to take a look through their local library, it's probably still there on microfilm, or whatever they've replaced microfilm with. I'm pretty sure I saw it in Daily Press, and it was 1993; shouldn't be too hard to find.

Now, if Virginia can put freedom of speech over a petty vulgarity issue... Maybe Alaska can put it above potentially profitable corporate ties.

by Pathos at 3:12 AM on 19 Jun 2006

Corporate insult

A regular citizen insulting a very special (exxon mob number one in market cap!) corporate citizen?

Free speech? Sorry people, with the new corporate friendly supreme court that won't do. Some things are sacred.

"The constitution is just a gaawd damned piece of paper" (GW Bush, presidential puppet).

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 5:31 AM on 19 Jun 2006

obscenity?

On the face of it, the Anchorage columnist seems to be correct: the suppression of the vanity plate was prompted by the SUX part, not the XON part. And although the Alaska DMV klutzily kept referring to racial and ethnic offensiveness, on an equal footing with obscenity, no doubt because those are the two legally established conditions justifying the suppression of a license plate -- and so the amused car owner in revenge got to drag around that red herring -- , clearly it is the obscenity part that matters here.

But why in the world is SUX obscene? Presumably this is a re-written form of a verb referring to a sexual act that falls under the category of "oral sex." That act is apparently associated especially with male homosexuals, and also with straight young women who hope to preserve their superficial virginity. Since it is straight men who have historically got to call the shots, evaluation-wise, in sexual matters as in many others; and since many of them have historically tended to show little regard for gay men and compliant women; it is no wonder that the verb in question has come into common speech as an expression of mingled loathing and mockery, and can be applied outside the sexual context.

It is so common, in fact, that by now surely it has slipped from the pedestal of the truly obscene, down onto the lower steps of the merely vulgar. E.g., we readers of AOL News are treated every Friday to a discussion-with-poll on a light-hearted news blog, with the regular title "It Sucks To Be Me"; the question is asked, about a small number of celebrities from various departments of public life, "Who has had the worst week?," and the loser/winner is awarded the ISTBM prize.

So, to return to this curious case in Alaska, we cannot help suspecting that the DMV's complaint, about the alleged obscenity of SUX, might be a legal smokescreen, obscuring the fact that they are obeying the hidden direction of a certain corporation that enjoys great power in that state.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:03 AM on 19 Jun 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

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