The Illusion of US Meritocracy

By now you've probably heard about the young man who walked 20 miles to work and was rewarded with a car from the CEO.

This is not to be confused with the kid a little while back who rode his bike 6 hours to school and was rewarded with donations and a job.

We love these stories. And with good reason! They are the ultimate in that underdog, true grit, can-do spirit that Americans love. To sum up that second story, Fred Barley rode his bike 6 hour to register for college classes. Dorms hadn't opened yet so he set up a tent in some bushes. Cops came, heard his story, and paid for a couple nights in a hotel. After a few nights, one of the cop's wives put Fred's story online and it went viral, donations started piling in and the college allowed him to move in early. Soon he got a job at a pizzeria, because, as the owner said: "I guess I had a soft spot for anyone who is that determined to succeed in life.”

This is by all means a great story. Honestly, I am very happy for Fred and the other young man who got a car from the CEO. I'm glad that there are some bosses/administrators/cops that do care about workers/students/civilians.

The problem is, these stories are framed as if they are the natural outcomes of working hard. They are used to push the narrative that the US is a meritocracy. Look at the wording of the pizzeria owner's statement. Fred was "determined" to succeed. The message being put forth is that if you work hard enough, you will be rewarded. I don't fault the owner for saying it, and determination should be encouraged, but the reality is that many people work very hard and still find themselves underpaid, in debt, or even homeless. And let's be real here. Fred got a job at a pizzeria, it's not like he was made an executive at Google. Let's hope he doesn't have any medical emergencies in the near future.

The media often takes exceptional stories like these and uses them to moralize against the poor and working class. You're complaining about working conditions and low pay? Look at this kid, he walked 20 miles and didn't complain!

These stories are like the casino putting up pictures of the big winners on their walls, or making the slot machine's buzzer loud enough for the whole casino to hear when it pays out. They serve to create an illusion that this can happen to you. Technically, it can! You might win $10,000 at the casino! You might get a job offer or even a free car if you work hard enough! Or, you could lose all your money. You could work your ass off for minimum wage for years and then get fired when the boss wants to increase profits. Those things are actually much more likely, and common.

But we flock to the stories of the generous boss because they give us hope that our hard work will pay off. I believe that hard work "pays off" in the sense that if you work hard, you're more likely to put yourself in a position where good things can happen to you. People should work hard, but it's never a guarantee that hard work will be rewarded..

Yet, Americans are so determined to, or more accurately, shamed into working hard that they are literally working themselves to death. Our minds and spirits are so broken that there's a new trend at workplaces around the country of donating vacation time to new mothers. So, instead of demanding that companies pay for adequate maternity leave, we are giving our own hard earned vacation time to our fellow employees.

That's very noble, and it's great to see workers supporting each other, but we keep shooting ourselves in the foot. The real benefits of all this hard work go to a select few. Only the company really benefits from people "donating: vacation time. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, the richest man in the world, is worth $150 billion. His workers in Spain and Germany just went on strike to protest the horrible working conditions. Bezos could easily spread $50-100 billion around to his workforce and he and his company would still be fine forever. Same with the son of a South African emerald miner, Elon Musk. These guys benefit from shitty working conditions, yet they are still looked at as self-made, moral leaders for some reason. They have rabid online supporters that will attack you for questioning their billionaire idol's motives. People think guys like Bezos or Musk are gonna save us from Trump. The problem is...they are exactly the same! They benefit from keeping their workers poor. These guys are maybe not quite as racist or dumb as Trump, but business wise, they are all cut from the same cloth.

And we, average Americans, think it's some great honor if we can just touch that cloth for a second. So these stories get passed around with the subtext that this can all happen to you. Job doesn't pay you enough to buy a car? Take public transportation! The public transportation in your city is notoriously broken and shitty? Walk! Your job is 20 miles away? Start walking at midnight! You might get a free car out of it!

This messaging is so deeply ingrained in our society. It's the American Dream! That dream is used as a weapon to bludgeon the poor. If you haven't moved up, it's your fault because in America, if you work hard enough you'll always succeed. Except, we have extremely low financial mobility compared to most first world countries. If you're born poor in America, you mostly stay poor despite your education and "effort.".

Why did a college student have to bike 6 hours and sleep in some bushes just to get to school? Even with that effort, he was very lucky to have found cops willing to pay for his hotel room, a guy willing to give him a job on the spot, and a woman to tell his story online. There are so many factors involved with Fred finding success. It took a lot of hard work, sure, but it also took a lot of kindness from strangers and plain luck. Let's not act like this will happen to anyone who just "tries" hard enough. How many people out there are just as hardworking and determined as Fred but yet still fail?

Look at the discrepancies in education for the poor and the wealthy. If you grew up in Bridgeport instead of Fairfield, you'll have an entirely different and more difficult path to success. This "homeless teen goes to Stanford" shows how hard this oe student's journey to college was, and while she also deserves a lot of credit, this story pushes the same narrative as the others, with the added bonus of the "homeless person has actual talent omg!" angle that the media loves so much.

We hear about these stories because they are so unusual. Most people don't get this lucky, but we share the stories because they give us hope. We use them as examples of "hard work equals success" instead of examples of how high the chips are stacked against us. Using these stories as an example of how the system works if you just put in enough effort is like using Katniss as an example that the Hunger Games system is working for everybody, and you can be like her if you just work hard enough; knowing full well only one person will survive.

These stories are used to make us tolerate the intolerable. Don't show me a story about a young girl who started a lemonade stand to pay for her brother's healthcare and tell me it's inspiring. That's horrifying! What kind of country is this? These stories show the power of human determination, but they more clearly show the level of inequality and dysfunction in this country.

Instead of just praising these individual students and workers and then using their stories to shame others into working harder, lets figure out how we can correct the conditions that led to these stories. Let's create a society that actually does reward hard work, but also supports people in ways that makes it more likely to succeed. I certainly don't have the solution, but acting like these stories say something great about our country (and not just something great about the individuals directly involved) is ignoring the deeper reality.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

America: Empty Dreams and Broken Promises

Sentient sack of warm rotten zoo garbage Paul Ryan recently said that what makes America great is the fact that "the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life." In essence, he was reaffirming the American Dreams. The only problem is, that notion, like everything that weaselly slime sponge says, is bullshit. The reality in present-day America is that where you are born and raised determines your success to a scary degree.

I know, Paul. It's very sad.

The American Dream was never meant for everybody. Our Constitution and legal documents all have language that seems inclusive and representative of the highest ideals of equality, but the reality has always been something different.

Actually, contrary to what I just said, even our legal documents often make exclusivity and bigotry very explicit. It's kind of our thing as a nation.

Race and gender have long played roles in who has access to the American Dream, and they still do. But the problem is not just unequal access: the problem is that the very idea of the American Dream is simply illegitimate. The fact is, we are born into a certain class, and we are more than likely going to remain in that class.

This triumvirate of class, gender, and race discrimination is America's dirty, open secret. In general, race and gender discrimination is frowned upon in respectable company. It still happens, as recent events prove, but most Americans know that open bigotry is unacceptable. (I hope?) Our president and the worst of his supporters are doing their best to change that and bring it back out in the open, but there seems to be enough of a pushback to stem the tide of outright hate. (I really hope?)

Poverty, on the other hand, is still something that "respectable" Americans can openly hate, or at least ridicule. Not poverty itself, mind you; people generally don't criticize or address the systems of inequity that create poverty. No, they criticize and often hate the people affected by poverty.

Many consider being poor a personal failing instead of an institutional or social failing. The notion that America is a meritocracy is deeply ingrained in our culture. This myth perpetuates the idea that our circumstances are a direct reflection of our work ethic. Most financially stable people feel that they deserve to be in the position they are, that they earned their status as wealthy or middle class. Therefore, they believe that anyone in the lower class also deserves their status. Our society links poverty with laziness: poor people simply don't work hard enough. We need to believe that our own success is deserved and not simply luck.

Don't get me wrong, many wealthy people work hard for their success, but luck and circumstance always play a part, as does inheritance. Wealthy people ensure that their children are wealthy. If you're born into a poor family, or even just born in a poor neighborhood, you are most likely going to remain poor (and of course, America's history of redlining also ensured that black people were more likely to live in poor neighborhoods despite their financial status). Our environment is a much bigger determining factor in our financial status than intelligence, work ethic, or anything else, which is a scary thought to people who build their identity on this idea that they earned everything on their own.

It is true that some poor people are lazy. Just as some rich people are lazy. I'd wager that overall, most poor people work harder than most rich people. There's a lot less leisure time, that's for sure, and being poor is definitely more expensive.

Despite the popular belief that we can just "pull up our boot straps," work hard, and succeed, that ol' American Dream of upward mobility is mostly dead: “The probability of ending where you start has gone up, and the probability of moving up from where you start has gone down.” That's true even for people with a college degree. Working hard and going to school does't necessarily improve your circumstances in America.

So what's the solution? Well, for many, the solution seems to be shitting on anybody in a worse situation to feel better about themselves.

Look at some of the reactions to the flooding in Texas. "Why didn't they just evacuate?" Well, besides the fact that Houston traffic is an absolute mess on its best days, and the fact that more people died in the evacuation during Hurricane Rita in 2005 than in the hurricane itself, a lot of these people simply can not pack up and go. They might not have a car. Or money for gas. Or money for a hotel. Or family anywhere in driving distance. Etc. But yes, blame them for trying to endure a horrific crisis.

It gets worse. Remember bum fights? Those were the wildly popular videos that featured...bums fighting. Literally, homeless men were given spare change or alcohol to fight other homeless men on film. Millions of these videos were sold. Yeah, they didn't even have Youtube yet, where any deprived video can get upwards of a million views. People actually bought physical copies, brought them home, put them in their dvd player, and watched homeless men fighting over Old English malt liquor.

America views the poor as playthings. They exist for amusement. It's nothing new, though. From 1955 to 1964, a show called Queen for a Day was a big hit on NBC. This was a game show that featured working class mothers competing against each other for worst life story. One mother needed a wheelchair for her son, another needed home repairs after her husband killed himself. The crowd would cheer for the saddest story, and that person got what they needed. Problems solved. How uplifting!

Most people say they want others to do well and they'll even cheer for the woman winning the wheelchair, but they'll be quick to condemn the woman if she still has financial problems afterwards. Why can't she get her life together already? She got a free wheelchair!

Most people don't really understand poverty. It's more than simply not having money for an item here and there. It's a long-term physical condition that has real, measured negative effects on mental health. Poverty is even associated with higher rates of dementia. The struggle is really real.

This misunderstanding or lack of understanding makes people look past the systems of inequity and blame individuals for their inability to escape poverty. That mentality allows the government to cut social welfare programs, remove protections for workers, and keep wages almost criminally low. Republicans are much more open about their contempt for the poor (they have been pushing the "bootstraps" propaganda for decades and attempting to cut any programs that even marginally help the poor) but it goes both ways. Mainstream Democrats have ridiculed the "pie in the sky" ideas of universal healthcare and free college, and they are complicit in cutting welfare programs as well.

There is a great contempt for the poor in this country. Not many recognize their own privilege; they think that if other people simply tried harder or pulled up their pants or SOMETHING they would be more successful. They fail to take into account how many of the people on food stamps and welfare are children and literally have no choice.

The 8 richest men in the world have more money than 3.6 billion people combined, yet a single mother gets more disdain for using her EBT card to buy food. Our economic system has created an ever expanding chasm between the rich and poor. Over a million Americans make $2 a day. The average CEO in America made $11 million last year, almost a 10% raise from the previous year. When was the last time you got a 10% raise in a year?

This contempt for the poor runs deep, and it cuts across race, gender, and political party. I can't count how many times I've heard or seen self-described "liberals" complain about people using food stamps for seafood or some other food item that doesn't meet their own idea of what poor people "should" eat. Poor people can't eat shrimp? Bullshit. Besides, it doesn't matter what they buy, people will find a way to hate on them. They'll get dirty looks for buying steak, but when they buy fast food they get condemned for not eating healthy.

There's a ridiculous, and dangerous, stigma against state aid. The majority of people who are against it have never had to rely on it (although, remarkably, some who have benefited from social welfare programs argue against them once they are back on their feet). Too many people think that if they managed fine without aid, everyone else should be able to as well. Of course, most of these people are born into a safety net that poor people couldn’t even imagine. The privileged  don’t see their own privilege. They may have inherited their family’s business but they'll argue that they had to work to keep the business. If you just worked harder maybe you would have inherited a business, too!

Many people will never experience poverty, or even meet people who have experienced it, so they have no real concept of it. They hear about the “Welfare Queen” who’s living large off government aid (but doesn’t actually exist) and they imagine swarms of people eating gourmet dinners on marble tables in front of 60 inch 3-D tvs. All bought with your hard earned tax dollars! Or they see a poor person with a smartphone and they post a photo on Facebook with a long-winded rant about how people shouldn’t have a smartphone if they don’t have a job. This of course neglects how many people on food stamps do in fact have jobs. Not to mention the fact that in 2017 you need a smartphone (or another way to access the internet) to get a job.

Yet again, these same people who demonize the poor won’t blink an eye when an insurance CEO gets a $100 million check after resigning in disgrace, or when an entire industry gets a government bailout.

A handout to the rich is called an "incentive" but an incentive to the poor is called a "handout".

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) July 29, 2017

It's hard to see the big picture, but it's important to at least try. Instead of getting mad at individuals for being on public assistance, maybe get mad at the corporations keeping people on public assistance. Or get mad at the military industrial complex, which loses trillions of dollars and simply shrugs its shoulders then asks for trillions more.

But let's just stick to the corporations for now, specifically everybody's favorite corporation to bash publicly and use privately: Walmart. They run a nationwide food stamp scam. They lobby hard for the SNAP program, then pay their employees as little as possible (making it so they need public assistance to survive even though they work 30-40 hours a week) all while taking advantage of loopholes to avoid taxes. To cap it all off, they accept food stamps at their stores (taking in $14 billion in just one year) and encourage their employees to shop there.

Walmart's  majority owners are worth $149 billion. They could single-handedly end hunger in America. Get mad at them.

The system is so fucked up for the poor and working class that it's often more financially responsible to get public assistance than work full time. Of course, Tomi and Glenn will yell "get a job!" at poor people on state aid, yet when they do get a job and demand fair wages, the same assholes shout "you don't deserve that much!"

All workers deserve a livable wage. There's been a somewhat successful push for a national minimum wage of $15 lately, largely led by fast food workers. The service industry employs 30% of American workers (up from 13% in the last 60 years). With the continued trend towards automation, a lot more people are going to be forced into these low paying jobs. Unfortunately, the prevailing consensus around the country seems to be: "fuck those fast food assholes for trying to make a livable wage!"

People in other fields think they should be doing better themselves, so why should fast food workers, the lowest of the low, get more? Well, chances are, if you are an employee anywhere (and not the CEO) you should be getting paid more, too! Income equality in the US is at the highest level since 1928. (Why yes, that is the year before the Great Depression started, thanks for asking.)  Instead of knocking fast food and service workers, the largest growing sector in America, why aren't we looking to increase everybody's wages? Yes, teachers and EMTs should make more than fast food workers. So fight for it! Don't knock others for fighting for their worth. It helps us all when more people do better.
Fast food workers are the factory workers of yesteryear; there are still some 17 year old knuckleheads flipping burgers for beer money, sure, but its mostly adults supporting families. It's still one of the few jobs anyone can get. These workers used to be middle class. They, we, deserve the same livable wages middle class workers once made. Yet wages have not nearly kept up with the cost of living or inflation or CEO pay.

St Louis workers recently voted to raise the minimum wage, but then the state of Missouri capped the minimum wage at $7.70 (and its not the only state to do so). That's almost as low as the federal minimum wage, which hasn't been raised in 10 years. Thanks Obama? Almost a quarter of minimum wage workers in 2014 were over 40 years old, (an increase of 40% from 20 years ago) yet people still imagine all minimum wage workers as pimply teenagers. More than half support themselves; they are not still living with mommy and daddy. They'd deserve better wages even if they did!

Sadly, the wage chasm in this country will probably just get worse. And employers will continue to literally rob workers of their labor. I don't know the answer to these issues by any means, but I know that we have to at least understand how this system negatively affects us all. Trickle down economics does not work. It never has and never will. Workers are the foundation of an economy; when they are treated well, all of society benefits.

And when we take care of the most oppressed, the most marginalized, the most vulnerable among us, we move closer to becoming the society that we have always pretended to be.


I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

1 Bomb, 2 Bombs! Red, White, Blue Bombs!

One bomb

Two bombs

Red, white, blue bombs.

Black bomb blue bombs

Old bombs new bombs.

This one can blow up a car!

This one can blow up a star!

Say!

What a lot of bombs there are!

Yes. Some are red.

And some are blue.

Some are old.

And some are new.

Some are sad.

And some are rad.

But all are very, very bad.

Why are they sad and rad and bad?

If you don't know

Go ask your dad.

Some are thin.

And some are fat.

The fat one is yellow at that.

From there to here

From here to there

Fucking bombs are everywhere!

There are bombs that make you run

But leave you done

In the hot, hot sun.

Oh me! Oh my!

Oh me! Oh my!

What a lot of body parts fly by!

Sometimes two feet

And some times four.

Some times six feet

And some times more!

Where do bombs come from?

U!

S!

A!

We can shoot our bombs from a long, long way.

We send them off

We let them go.

Some die fast

And some die slow.

Some shoot high

And some shoot low.

Each one of them

Worse than the other.

Don’t ask us why

We killed your mother.

Say!

Look at those fingers!

One, two, three…

How many fingers do I see?

One, two, three, four

Five, six, seven

Eight, nine, ten.

I see eleven!

Eleven!

This is something new.

Man, I love bombs!

How about you?

I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

You Might Not Mean To Be Racist...

...but you are.

Nothing's funnier than watching a racist get mad for being called a racist. And if you let them talk long enough in an attempt to defend themselves, you'll see just how racist they really are. The denial always makes it worse.

The fact is, we all have subconscious or unconscious biases. Test yours now! Racism is and has been rampant in this country since its inception (and even before that). It is not just individual racism either; the most insidious form of racism is institutional. The pervasiveness of racism over time seeps in to everyone's conscious, somehow someway. Even the victims of racism can internalize racist beliefs. 

That's called "Uncle Ruckus Syndrome."

Having these unconscious biases is not wrong necessarily; even when we have good intentions, we often act on our unconscious biases. The problem is when we deny their existence and continue to act on them, consciously or unconsciously. If large groups of people are offended by what you say or do, figure out why, apologize, do better and keep it moving. 

Overcoming these biases takes a conscious effort. People need to acknowledge these biases first, and then consciously work through them. What makes me laugh/cry is when people deny the possibility that their views could be taken as offensive; they get offended that anyone dare to be offended and they completely miss the irony in that perspective. Or worse, they just deny that racism even exists, which takes a cognitive dissonance that I will never fully understand.

A lot of the actions I describe in the videos below are micro-aggressions. Taken as a single, solitary incident, a micro-aggression (an unintentionally racist/sexist/homophopic statement or act) is, well, exactly what it says: micro. Not that big a deal. But imagine being on the receiving end of these acts, multiple times a day, over the course of your entire life. Any single act could be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. That's why it is important to be conscious of your thoughts and beliefs and especially your actions. 

These acts in and of themselves don't make you a bad person. Ignoring or denying them does. You should understand or at least make an attempt to understand the reality of what you're doing. And if you still think you're doing nothing wrong, then yes, you are a bad person.

The purpose of this series of Vines is to bring awareness of those unintentional, subconscious moments of racism and discrimination. Honestly, it has turned into one hell of a social experiment. Check out the comments on some of the vines to get a better look at the mentality of "The Unconscious Racist." It's funny, sad, scary and pathetic all in one!

Actually, the real purpose of this series of Vines is to make me laugh and hopefully a few other people laugh, too. It's good, and necessary, to laugh at ourselves and at serious issues; that is, if we can learn from it and attempt to do better. 

Some of the acts or beliefs described are much more serious than others. For example, calling the children of immigrants "anchor babies" is way worse than saying, "I don't see color," but both stem from a similar mentality of reasserting the status quo. "You don't see color" means you don't see the realities of racism, which in turn means you must think people complaining about racism are liars. Calling people "anchor babies" is clearly more hateful, but denying the existence of the different treatment of people with darker skin in this country is insulting. 

Although I take this subject seriously, it's all in good fun and it's all love. Enjoy!

 
I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

Plato's History Recalled

The older I get the more I understand and accept Platonic epistemology, the idea that everything we know, we have already been taught; each soul existed before birth, so we aren't learning, we are relearning.

I don't really believe in reincarnation, per se (I believe in the tranference of energy; another subject for another blog post) but the part about learning what we already know rings true for me. I think humanity as a whole constantly forgets and relearns advances made in medicine, technology, engineering, and more, which affects our level of progress as a species. Entire generations forget or ignore the wisdom from previous generations, either out of stupidity or pride. We never learn from history, and as the saying goes, if we don't remember history, we are doomed to repeat it (I can just picture the elderly librarian who coined that phrase, looking down her nose past her spectacles at the arrogant little pricks that ignore the history section and only take out friggin Divergent books or whatever the equivalent was at the time). That's the pattern humanity has mostly followed. We don't remember history, so any improvements in society come very slowly (if at all) because we have to spend time relearning the same damn things over and over.

The ego of newer generations is often devastating. "There has to be a better way!" Well, not always. In Australia, bush fires have ravaged the land for centuries. Over the last few decades, however, they have become much worse, largely because officials have decided to forgo the techniques used by Aboriginal Australians.

There are countless examples of solutions to problems/inventions/structures that confuse modern generations because of the seemingly advanced technology or engineering involved. Some people go so far as to claim "aliens" must be responsible because nobody could have been capable of such achievements in the past. The pyramids are a prime example. How could they possibly be made by humans without modern technology? Even nowadays, such a project would take years! How could they even move those giant stones?

Turns out, pretty easily. Yeah. We should have figured that one out a while ago.

Medicine is another field that often ignores lessons from the past. There are literally books about "forgotten cures". So we discover cures for diseases, or ways to prevent diseases, and once they are almost eradicated, we get lazy and overconfident. When the diseases inevitably come back, we have forgotten how to defeat it. Let's hope that particular cycle doesn't continue. 

So much of humanity's knowledge has been destroyed, sometimes willfully, sometimes accidentally and many times out of necessity. There's no way to keep every document or record forever. Historical artifacts are lost or ruined. Entire buildings, societies, belief systems are all wiped from existence and our collective consciousness all the time. Data storage is a huge market and there's good reason why; maybe computers will one day be able to store, and therefore access, the accumulated knowledge throughout history and make decisions or create new ideas and solutions based on that knowledge. As long as the technology doesn't turn on us, which it might when it realizes how stupid we all are, we could have real progress.

To look at this on a micro level, have you ever helped a child with their homework? How much of it can you do from memory? It's the idea behind Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? It's not that they are smarter, they are simply being actively taught; the knowledge is fresh in their minds. Adults forget most of what they learn in school, and once most people are out of high school or maybe college, they don't do much active learning. Many simply become stuck in their ways and content with their level of knowledge. Of course, the world moves on and they are often unable to adjust. These people become Conservatives (jk kinda).

Entire generations are like stubborn little kids, insisting on doing everything their way and not listening to elders trying to teach them. Sometimes this leads to great breakthroughs and new, more effective, creative solutions, but it often leads to new, unexpected problems. Don't get me wrong, I'm a postmodernist and I love tearing down old structures and systems, especially when those systems are corrupt or broken, but we can never be so arrogant to think we can not learn from the past. 

It doesn't help that some people go out of their way to erase or rewrite history for their own benefits or warped reasoning. When people in positions of authority sincerely claim the Holocaust never happened, or that Iraq was behind 9/11 and had Weapons of Mass Destruction, or that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, it's hard to progress as a civilization. 

History is ugly and brutal, and we only learn from it when we face it head on. We can't attempt to bury it to make ourselves feel better. 

Own it. Learn from it. And do better. 

Also, save everything on a flash drive. 


I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

The Persistence of Racial Hatred

The last year or so has been rough. Paying attention to the world and caring about fellow humans is truly exhausting. For many people, ignoring racism and discrimination in the world is easy because it doesn't directly affect them in negative ways. If I really wanted to, I could choose to shut it out, ignore it, because I benefit from white privilege. I can choose to not get involved, to not talk about the effects of centuries of institutional racism. I can even choose to believe a problem doesn't exist. I can choose to believe that all the horrible events occurring all over the country are isolated incidents.

It's comforting to think that the horrors of the world have been dealt with and left in the past, but the hate has never left. Hate and racism are embedded deep within the fabric of our country, and although we have progressed greatly, the hate and racism have not vanquished. People are better at hiding or disguising it now. And the best way to disguise it is to convince others it does not exist.

And like that...it's gone.

Over the past 2 weeks, many people have been looking for any other reason than racism for the murder of 9 black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white man known for his love of the Confederacy and segregation. Instead of focusing on the racial hatred he harbored and why he did so, instead of looking at his family and friends who must have stoked these fires, instead of investigating any organizations he belonged to or looked up to, instead of questioning roommates and friends about why they thought it was acceptable for someone to make plans for a civil war, we jump to the typical, tired talking points:

There's too many/not enough guns in this country.
Yes, guns are a big issue. I'm clearly on the side of having less weapons, but many people I respect disagree. The real issue is that people who don't value all human lives are always the loudest, making it impossible to have a reasonable discussion by blaming the victims for not having guns. Dylann Roof got a gun as a gift from his father. In most states you don't need any background check for private sales or gifts. That's a problem.

It's mental illness. 
Also a big problem, but not in this case. Racism is not a mental illness. It is a learned behavior. It is ignorance and hate. Most people with mental illnesses don't act out violently. Granted, most racists don't act out violently on their racism either. Nowadays, many racist acts are very subtle; casual racism is the dominant form. Something as simple as sharing a meme or liking a post on Facebook can be an act of racism. As President Obama himself said, it doesn't take saying "nigger" to be racist, despite what Georgia high school principals would have you believe. When racism is blatant and acted upon, it may look like crazy behavior to non-racists or even latent-racists, but it is not a mental illness.

It's a hateful, learned behavior with deep, horrific roots.

It's the drugs we use to treat mental illness. 
Ok, this theory is only coming from Rick Perry, and I normally wouldn't entertain anything he says, but the man was elected governor of a very populous state several times, and he has decent support for his Presidential campaign, so his ideas are not isolated to his puny armadillo brain.

Guns and mental illness, more specifically our ridiculous access to guns and our piss-poor treatment of mental illness in this country, are definitely problems that need solutions. But the issue here is race. We have never honestly dealt with race in this country. I don't know if we ever will, but this one time it would be great it we tried. I'm going to anyway.

Another white male to the rescue!

I believe in the power of symbols. When people (or entire states) glorify a symbol that is historically associated with hate, I associate those people with hate.

The license plate, not the Hyundai symbol. Then again...damn it, I need a new car now. 

I believe in the power of words. When somebody says hateful things, I believe that person to be hateful.

The roommate is also quoted as saying that Dylann didn't often make racist statements, but he told a lot of racist jokes. Pro-tip: If a person constantly makes racist jokes, they are probably racist. Oh, also, if they say they want to kill black people and start a civil war, THEY ARE PROBABLY RACIST!

The immediate descriptions of Dylann included "quiet" and "shy," the mandatory words used for white mass murderers. That and "mentally ill" of course. It took Twitter and independent media outlets to finally get the discussion focused more on his blatant racism. The fact that photos like this surfaced definitely helped:

Because he surrounded himself with the Confederate flag, and because of the power and importance of symbols, the discussion then focused on why the Confederate flag still flies in so many states. That's an important discussion to have, and thankfully, it seems as if the flag flying at the South Carolina Capitol building might finally come down soon. Not soon enough.

This is the casket of Rev. Pinckney, murdered by Roof. This is shameful.

The conversation about the traitorous, hateful flag is necessary, but it also allowed mainstream media to avoid talking about the more complex realities of systemic racism.

Then again, it led to this image...

Systemic racism is ingrained into the foundations of our society and we see its effects played out in the real estate market, the justice system, education, and basically every major institution in America. That is what people are referring to when they say "whiteness" or "white privilege." It doesn't mean that white people don't have our own struggles and nothing shitty happens to us, it just means we get the benefit of the doubt in many situations that affect our chances to succeed. We are more likely to get a job with a "white" name. We are more likely to get a fine or community service rather than prison time. And on and on.

It's possible (and common) to not even be aware of the benefits of whiteness and systemic racism and still receive those benefits. Individual racism is a little easier to spot. Systemic racism fuels individual racism; people absorb racist views from the society in which they live. Family, friends, teachers, classmates, neighbors, the media, music, sports. All of it informs our views. What was Roof learning at home? We know that his father gave him a gun as a present. Did his parents know about his affection for the Confederate flag? What was he learning from his friends? We know many people heard him talk openly about his ideas of segregation and killing blacks and didn't think much of it. What was the community teaching him? Well, we know that South Carolina has a bit of a...sordid relationship with race.

In addition to the horrifying fact that some of their recent politicians have ties with the Klan (or its PC reincarnation, the Council of Conservative Citizens) there is also the fact that South Carolina has 16 certified white supremacist groups. We know this because they all came out to denounce the actions of Roof. According to them, they had absolutely no connection to, or responsibility for, the crazed gunman; however, they want everybody to know he had some really cool ideas and legit grievances.

That's the community in which Dylann Roof was raised. He comes from a place where a racist judge remains on the bench and starts a hearing with a plea for the well-being of the killer's family.

He comes from a community where a black church that was once burned down after a slave tried to revolt stands on a street named after staunch defender of slavery.

 

He comes from a country where at least 5 black churches have burned down since the shooting.

Roof comes from a community where a white police officer shot a man in the back 8 times and would have gotten away with it if not for a random cell phone video uploaded to the internet. That same police officer is currently in the cell next to Roof.

That's right. The cop who shot Walter Scott in the back is in the cell next to the Charleston terrorist.

This is South Carolina. This is America.

The history is ugly, and painful, and it's all coming to the surface because we have never properly dealt with it. (I should add here that plenty of people have talked about it, more brilliantly than I could hope to, but as a society we refuse to adequately address these issues.) Instead, we attempt to ignore the problem, while naming streets and erecting statues to honor Confederate soldiers, claiming its to honor the heritage of the South. Unfortunately, that particular heritage is racist and hateful. There are many things the South should be proud of, the Confederacy is not one of those things. The statue of John C Calhoun, pro-slavery politician and all around horrible person, stands in the heart of the city. It was erected during the Jim Crow era, so blacks in the city could do nothing to prevent it. Meanwhile, proposed memorials to slaves have always been met with massive resistance. Odd that they are so willing to honor one side of their heritage and not the other.

Similarly, the Confederate flag, which was largely retired to museums after the Civil War (because they lost and most of the actual soldiers accepted it) regained popularity in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a symbol of opposition to the rising Civil Rights Movement. It was a sign of open defiance to the idea that all people are equal. So no matter how you personally want to define the flag, it represents hate.

The group that helped revive the flag, the States' Rights Democratic party, was led by Strom Thurmond, who ran for President in 1948. "States' rights" is often code for wanting to legally treat minority groups like shit. Politicians are already reverting to the states' rights argument to defend the use of the flag; watch how many use the same argument to deny gay people their rights now that the Supreme Court declared gay marriage legal.

Ironically, South Carolina State Senator and Strom Thurmond's own son wants to take the flag down. When Strom Thurmond's kin can no longer defend the flag, it's time to remove it.

Yet that is only one small step to the larger goal of equality for all. When prominent white voices proclaim angrily that racism doesn't even exist anymore, it is clear just how difficult that goal will be to reach.

It's a popular theory that the younger generations will be automatically less hateful. Dylann Roof put an end to that myth. There is still a need to actively educate the youth about past and existing inequalities in order to battle the misconceptions and misinformation passed down from older generations and currently being spewed on major media outlets. Roof became radicalized and obsessed with the idea that black people are ruining America and need to be taken out after the Trayvon Martin case. The death of a black 18 year old at the hands of a white/hispanic man and the complete acquittal of said white/hispanic man convinced a young white man that blacks are dangerous and need to be "put down."

That is the psychosis of white supremacy. The very idea that a young black man's life mattered enough to be in the news and in social media for an extended period of time, and the fact that he was occasionally portrayed sympathetically, was enough to threaten his sense of superiority. This is the same mentality that led to the increase in the number of domestic terrorist groups and white supremacist groups (often the same thing) immediately after Obama's election. Any progression towards equality is perceived as a threat from those who benefit from the status quo. It's a mentality that believes brown skin foreigners are a bigger threat to the US than white US citizens when the exact opposite is true. It's a mentality that accuses Obama and liberals of taking away guns while ownership and sales have steadily risen since Obama took office.

There is a theory that a black kid started dating a girl Dylann Roof liked and that set him down the path of hatred. His feelings of rejection mixed with inferiority made him search out a villain. In America, there's no more typical villain than black men. Trayvon had recently become a powerful symbol of an unjust justice system, but Roof knew he was really just a thug who got what he deserved. The black guy who took his girl was probably just like Trayvon. Once he gave credence to those feelings, there were plenty of people willing to encourage him.

Everybody needs to come to terms with their own identity. Some people accept their heritage, some people reject it. As white people in America, even if we never personally oppressed anyone and our ancestors never owned slaves, we have benefited from white privilege. We need to understand and accept that. It's nothing to feel guilty about, it's just a matter of life in America. Benefiting from white privilege doesn't make you racist, but denying it does. Unfortunately, some white people are defensive about the idea that they benefit from anything, which leads to this idea that they are the ones being persecuted whenever the idea is brought up. Giving up the status quo is a scary thought. A large part of their identity is built upon the fact that whiteness is inherently superior. Poor whites are often the ones most resistant to this idea of white privilege because they don't see the direct benefits. However, those same poor white people are the ones fighting against minority groups (blacks, gays, immigrants) receiving equal rights. That's white fragility. This white fragility manifests in many ways. It can be claims of reverse racism or as simple as tuning out of the conversation of race entirely because it is uncomfortable. It can also manifest in dangerous ways if given the right (wrong) motivation and in the right environment, as seen with Roof.

All white individuals are not a problem, whiteness is a problem. The whiteness inherent in denying the existence of a problem. The whiteness inherent in being safely detained and given a proper trial for murdering 9 black people versus being choked to death on the street for selling cigarettes.

Dylann Roof wanted to start a race war because he was afraid of blacks taking over the country. This idea, this fear that blacks are going to rise up and kill whitey is nothing new. This was the exact plot of Birth of a Nation in 1915, and this mentality is still pervasive in many parts of the country (and in many media outlets) in 2015.  The number of groups coming to the defense of Dylann's views, making sure that his "important" ideas are not lost in the tragedy, is frightening. They continue to warn about a race war, but the only people who want a race war are racist whites who can't come to grips with a changing reality.

There will never be a race war because, as Rachel Dolezal proved (despite how awful she is as a person) race is a social construct and fluid. Which side will multiracial people be on? Which side will Eminem be on? Which side will Asians and Latinos be on?

Race is a social construct that has real effects on people's lives. Facing it head on is how we deal with it. Acknowledge your privilege as a white person. Acknowledge the realities of racial disparities. When black people protest with #BlackLivesMatter, resist the urge to reply back with #AllLivesMatter. You are silencing an oppressed minority group, which is the problem in the first place. Yes all lives matter, but historically and currently, it has been proven time and time again that black lives don't matter as much as white lives in this country. Raising black people up, or any people of color, is not taking white people down. It is lifting everybody up. When I see my black or Latino or Asian brothers and sisters being treated poorly, it doesn't improve my status because I'm white. It lowers my status as a human being.

Acknowledging whiteness and the negative effects of whiteness does not implicate every white person. If and when a civil war does break out, it will be about principles. One side's principles include freedom and equality for all, the other side's principles focus on the superiority of a few. The sides are largely divided by race, but there are plenty of minorities who will fight for a racist, oppressive establishment. Many Polish Jews helped the Gestapo round up other Jews. African slaves in America did the same for their slavemasters. Harriet Tubman always said she would have freed thousands more if only they wanted to free themselves. That is the power of the establishment. And it works the other way, too. In any fight for equal rights, the Civil Rights Movement, the Gay Rights movement, there are always people from the oppressive majority group that break rank and fight for equality for all. Many white people gave their lives in the Civil Rights Movement. Many straight people put their lives and careers on the line for the Gay Rights Movement. It's a matter of principles, not what you look like or who you sleep with.

I'm a straight, white, 35 year old man from a middle class family and I recognize that I have benefited from all of those aspects of my identity. I recognize injustices towards minority groups exist and I stand for equal treatment of all races, classes, genders and sexual orientations.

What do you stand for? Now is a good time to decide.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

Belated Memorial Day Rant

Memorial Day. The beginning of the Summer Blockbuster season! At least, it used to be. The real reason behind the holiday, of course, is to pay tribute to fallen American soldiers.

It's important that we honor the past and the people who sacrificed their lives, and we generally do a good job of it. We glorify soldiers who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We tell stories about them, some true, others not so much. We make movies about them. We love honoring the dead. I just wish we'd do a better job honoring the living.

It's almost cliche at this point to talk about the poor treatment of veterans in this country. Their healthcare sucks. Their mental health care is nearly non-existent. They oftentimes can't get jobs, or at least ones that compensate them for their abilities. They make up a staggering percentage of the homeless population, especially veterans of color.

This inadequate treatment of vets is nothing new of course. From Vietnam, where many Americans harassed veterans in a misdirected expression of justified rage at a bullshit war, to today, when we basically act as if Iraq and Afghanistan veterans don't even exist.

It's really pathetic and hypocritical for a country that prides itself so much on its military strength and dedication to freedom.

I was always fascinated with war stories, especially those told by veterans, because war brings out every facet of mankind. It's a fascinating topic for sociological reasons, and for entertainment reasons to be honest (Vietnam movies are the best!). War says so much about the human spirit, for better, and largely, for worse. In my AP US History class in high school, we delved into the Vietnam War. One day, two Vietnam vets came to talk about their experiences. One thing they said has always stayed with me, and heavily influenced my outlook on Vietnam and wars in general.

After telling us where they were stationed and what their particular jobs were, they told us their current views of the war they fought so long ago. They said if they could do it all over again, they would fight for the Vietcong. This was a little shocking, to say the least, but I was an avid reader and I already had a good amount of skepticism about wars and the government. Hearing such a denunciation of America from the voices of people who served simply helped solidify my views. The vets said they were always impressed with the way the Vietcong fought; moreover, they believed the reasons why the Vietcong fought were the most noble and reasonable.

Not to get too much into the history of the war (you can and should do that on your own) but many of the Vietcong were local Vietnamese protecting their families and their land. They were associated with but separate from the North Vietnamese Army. Most were not Communist, although many people believe the Vietcong were just a tool of the NVA. Regardless, they fought against the South Vietnamese Army and therefore, the US. They also committed their fair share of atrocities. Nobody is innocent in a war, but there are legitimate reasons to fight, and their are completely asinine, and often blatantly false, reasons to fight.

The veterans talked about how much they loved their fellow American soldiers and would never betray them or turn their backs on them, but they simply believed the Vietcong had the most legitimate reasons to fight. Plus, the veterans felt completely betrayed by the US government, as many war vets do, and looked back on the war with a lot of bitter regret. It may not be something we want to hear from our vets, but nobody can take those feelings away from them. They earned those feelings of bitterness and anger. And I'll say this, as speakers, they did a wonderful job convincing me to never join the military.

Our hypocritical praising of the military while ignoring veterans has always bothered me. Fuck the American flag car window decal. Fuck the Facebook posts. I'm all for hashtag activism, but unless it's backed up by monetary support or a push for real change, through legislation, hiring practices, housing policies, whatever, it doesn't accomplish much except make people feel better by showing off their undying "support."

Here's an idea: how about we honor the heroes while they are still here? And not just on Veterans Day. Let's honor them by providing proper health care, jobs, housing. Honor them by not sending them to bullshit meaningless wars. Honor them by prosecuting or at least not voting for the politicians who send them to bullshit meaningless wars. I'm sure veterans will appreciate any of that more than a lame ass parade.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

"A Christmas Story": Ralphie vs. The Nanny State

What you see above is a representation of America: a white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed mid-Western boy dressed as a cowboy holding a shotgun.

You might recognize him from America's 2nd favorite ignored-and-forgotten-then-resurrected-as-necessary-yearly-viewing Christmas classic, A Christmas Story.

But underneath its simple, heart-felt, charming mid-Western veneer lies a scathing social commentary on America's obsession with guns.

Here's looking at you, America.

Thanks to TBS' crippling holiday season addiction to the movie, everybody knows the plot: it's Christmas time and young Ralphie is devising a way to get his dream gift, an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.

Ahh the good ole days of ultra-realistic toy guns in the hands of 8 uear olds.

It only became obvious to me this year, however, that the movie is in fact a biting critique of America's gun culture.

Let's start from the beginning. The opening scene involves the innocent boy longingly staring through a department store window at the toy gun. Within the first five minutes, the rifle is referred to as the "Holy Grail of gifts." Gifts have taken the place of religion on this supposedly holiest of all holidays, a common underlying critique contained in holiday movies. Here, a gun is the main object of desire, and the connection between guns and God is established early on.

Soon after, when his mom first asks what he wants for Christmas, Ralphie mistakenly blurts out that he wants the gun. He knows what she will say before she says it, the refrain which has become synonymous with the movie: "You'll shoot your eye out." Ralphie takes the rejection, telling her it's ok, "even though Flick is getting one." His first argument for having a gun is that someone else has one, so he needs one, too; a statement often heard in defense of gun ownership. This is also the first time we see the representation of the anti-gun lobby and the so-called "Nanny State": Ralphie's mom. 

Other people also represent the Nanny State (specifically, everybody who tells Ralphie he will shoot his eye out: his mother, his teacher, Santa) but the mother is the most obvious and foreboding. She is also the most competent family member. The father is in a never-ending, losing battle to the furnace and the neighbor's dogs. She knows the answers to the crossword when he struggles (in fact, her knowledge is the reason that he receives the controversial leg-lamp). She is simply more aware and competent as a parent all around, instilling the proper punishment when Ralphie swears, getting the boys ready for school, preparing all the meals, and everything else a mother (or nanny) is "expected" to do in the "golden era" of America. In the end, she is the most understanding and forgiving: after the fight with Farkus, she takes Ralphie home and tends to his wounds. She doesn't tell his father much about the fight because she doesn't want him to overreact ("Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie!"). Ralphie seems to finally appreciate the mother's wisdom and her concern for his well-being. And the audience realizes she was right all along: the gun is dangerous and Ralphie hurts himself.

On the other side, representing pro-gun people, such as the NRA, is the bumbling, lamp-ogling, almost-absentee father. He even looks and sounds a little bit like Charlton Heston. Despite the mother's protests (and the protests of the majority of characters in the movie) the father still gets his son the gun. He argues that it's tradition, claiming "I had one when I was 8 yrs old." Again, upon closer viewing (aka 24 hours in a row for the past eight Christmases) it is obvious that this movie is a thinly-veiled allegory for America's failure to regulate guns despite the overwhelming majority of Americans who want reasonable, logical gun regulations. 

Self-defense is often used in defense (ha!) of gun ownership, and the movie memorably presents a constant danger that terrorizes Ralphie and his friends. 

This asshole.

Scott fuckin Farkus. This hideous creature is the bully of the block and a sincere threat to the boys' safety. 

And Ralphie takes him out with his bare hands. When he finally stands up to the bigger, seemingly stronger kid, he is able to defeat the bully on his own. And everybody lives another day.

Ralphie conquers the real villain, and his fear, without a gun; of course, as a "red-blooded American," he still wants a gun to defeat his imaginary enemy: Black Bart. 

Black Bart. The imaginary dark criminal of white America's nightmares. 

The dream sequence where Ralphie takes out Bart's crew even has the movie's two lone black characters, thugs that Ralphie shoots dead with no remorse to the sound of his family cheering. This is the fantasy of the average American.

Merry Christmas, America!

When Ralphie finally gets his gun, in reality, the first thing he does is shoot himself in the face. The second thing he does is lie to his mom about it. His mom believes him, as most Americans believe gun myths, and she takes him in.

Not surprisingly, Ralphie still loves his gun, despite not really needing it for self defense and almost blinding himself. So in the end, maybe his mother wasn't exactly right. He didn't shoot his eye out (she may have exaggerated a little to get her point across out of concern for her child) but her foresight was pretty damn accurate. That doesn't matter to Ralphie, though. Even shooting himself in the face and breaking his glasses won't dampen his love for his gun. 

Indeed, no matter how many times you tell Americans they are more likely to get hurt by a gun when they own a gun, they just don't listen. The last scene of the movie shows Ralphie sleeping soundly in his bed, with a smile on his face and his gun in his arms, completely oblivious to the fact that he's more likely to blow his own head off then ever save his family.

In fact, they made A Christmas Story 2, and the plot follows Ralphie to middle school where he shoots himself in the balls and asks Santa for a new testicle.

As always with sequels, the guns are bigger and more people get shot in the scrotum.

Maybe. I never saw it, and I'm sure you never did, either, so let's just say that's what happens. 

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.