My dad was found in an overgrown field in Katy, TX in early September of ’98, his body ravaged to such degrees by Texas fire-ants and the Texan sun that the coroner could pinpoint his exact time of death only to a 48-hour window. It is a miracle I can ever string together sentences at all, with memories such as this in my repertoire. But if people want or need to destroy themselves, let it happen. That’s a very different thing from any variety of sanctioned killing, because they are making the choice for themselves. Respect that and step aside.
His mom was half-black although she denied it all her life, and as a child her family were actual millionaires, until the Great Depression. She was the most bitter person I have ever encountered to her dying day, with her little tin of worthless bonds. But supposedly that money originated from her paternal grandpop, a freed slave who was such a rockstar the people who once owned him, having lost their own patriarch to a self-hanging over the prospects of losing his labor force, signed over half their business to him to keep him in their lives to save the farm. As a full partner he grew the business like they never could.
As an adult I have spent more of my life homeless than not, and that familial origin story of historical curiosities kept me thriving just enough on thousands of nights to still be here, present and accounted for. When I was mature enough to think to ask certain questions, those who might’ve been able to provide assistance with answers had themselves long gone. Get to know your family while you can, or you will regret the questions left in their place.
Suffice to say, I have denied stereotypes all my life, as stereotypes exist exclusively for those who are incapable of wrapping their heads around the given reality of another. I see no reason in labels when we already possess names. I do not tell people what labels I think I am or what labels I wish I were, instead allowing my words and actions to define my character. For others, what they claim to be or what they wish to be absolutely never proves to be who they truly are. Despite not encountering everybody in existence, I do not believe that everyone is racist, or sexist or homophobic or anything else of the sort, but I do believe that everyone lacks empathy, which reveals itself by those fetishes. Nobody wants to view the ego as the root however, because everyone insists on rationalizing their own, or rationalizing the ego of whoever they want to be, to befriend or to fuck. Appealing to ego is no more difficult than goading it, because nothing is more predictable. Nobody in the world today has the depth to note how there will always be someone somewhere who has had it worse in life. It’s all about you, Mr. Trump.
These protests filing headlines, timelines and feeds are 99% about the blacks of our population being able to exist with no more obstructions in life than the whites. It’s that simple. Deflections in whichever direction originate from egomaniacs addicted to the profits generated by that distinction’s continuity. Obviously the greater majority of voices in the USA consciously or not are Capitalists and have no desire whatsoever for any change beyond surface levels, but these protests do greatly appeal to anti-Capitalism ideology, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and in the end we both want and desperately need the same hopeful epilogue. But refusing to see what’s at the root of all which ails this society assures us that no change will happen in our lifetimes. Financial restitution only changes the beneficiaries of exploitation and extortion without ending either indulgence. It requires empathy to see that, just as it takes understanding to address how the entire framework needs not a remodeling but a demolishing. Descended from slaves and slave-owners, I never found reason to become either one.
No protest feels legit until passive Buddhist monks douse themselves in gasoline and burn alive. Happened during the Vietnam war, but also earlier during the Korean war with a particular incident inspiring Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Antiwar and civil rights protests in the 1960s raged for months. Now, after only a few weeks of protesting and only a few million selfies shared, where are the visceral changes? Where is the personal sacrifice? I know these socials are downplaying hashes for ongoing efforts, but ironic necessities of opposing lethal force aside this is an actual battle to the death. I think when the Patriot Act failed to ignite a civil war, the real story was in how it revealed no civil war could ever happen here again. Degrees of indentured servitude rendered feasible if it means others taking all responsibility. Americans have so many guns because they don’t know how to fight anymore. Culturally we have learned to reserve arguments for this digital ideaspace where we can unfriend, block and report holders of dissenting opinions like free peoples do.
I’m not saying I want to see suicide vests anywhere, but for all our purported craftiness, where is Turk182? Where are the hackers redirecting all funds from the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the DNC and the GOP, to the Red Cross, the NAACP, etc? There was a homeopathy conference in Germany a few years ago, that went haywire when attendees were dosed with some variant of acid. Poisoning a water supply is comic book super-villain shit, but it’s not impossible, especially if we’re still talking non-lethal tactics. The enemy faced ultimately wields nukes and controls the tech. It has the biggest and most expensive army in world history. David whooped the ass of Goliath by not letting him get close enough to use his strengths. We need guerillas and mad scientists, not guns or Facebook fan-pages. And not people selling albums or running for reelection. But one thing Sunday school omitted was that after David became king, he ordered for all the nut-sacks of all enemy combatants to be collected into bags, which he used as cushions in his harem. Nobody needs that either. Revolution should not be a matter of new hands on the whip. Preaching outside the choir, stepping outside ourselves, is where change begins, but not when these platforms are built to cater to gated communities, empowered muting and blocking of anything impairing the blessed safe space. As futile as taking up arms against the biggest military apparatus on the planet, it signs off on the threat defining the outcome. Canceling the argument only enlivens its opinions to flourish unobstructed.
These points are yet to be commonplace only because there’s no profit in it for those entitling themselves to all profits, backed by an army with nukes and the costliest, most advanced tech. I think ethically and morally this country was done before any of us were even born. Our best moments are undoing laws that should never have been conceived in the first place, our proudest accomplishments just barely catching up with reason. Singularly or collectively, humanity will never get ahead when its participants cannot stay abreast. They become bitter people, upset by who they might prove to be so placing their bets on whatever may carry all burdens on their behalf. They become who everyone is today, you yourself being no different from Trump or my dad’s mom in this respect. Identifying with nothing and no one, I avoided the stereotype all my days and some of my nights.
No American sincerely wants to be judged by the content of their character, because if their characters held any content they would not be consuming so much mass-marketed horseshit triviality to fill the void in the first place, lost in the crowds behind branding and flags. We all know that anybody who can manage being left alone with their thoughts for even 5 minutes must be crazy. What on Earth could they be getting from the experience, the realization that the modern soul is a ghost? There is a time and place for nude selfies but baby let me read your 3000 words debating the ideological inconsistencies aplenty inherent to Capitalism, because it’s harder to Photoshop that level of reveal. Merits? Have you seen this lion’s mane head of hair, these lashes that could whip it good like Devo from across the drunk tank?