Good quote, eh? I wish I could attribute it to some inspiring name from our past, but I cannot. It is a phrased used to teach typing, a variant of a typing drill used by a teacher named Charles E. Weller. It was chosen because it perfectly fills the 70-character line that I am assuming was some standard among typewriters. Talking about typewriters to me is like talking about those pneumatic tubes the banks used to use for drive-through service when I was a kid. I remember them, but bloody hell, that was a long time ago.
Now is the time . . .
A week ago from the night I type this, the United States turned itself upside down, in an election upset unlike any I ever imagined. Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. Donald Trump, who seemed to avidly court every possible villainy and deceit, every accusation of misogyny, xenophobia, racism. Donald Trump, who has spent not a single day in public service. Donald Trump, who has been splashing his lavish life across our newscasts, tabloids, and TV shows for four decades.
When Florida was called I posted something on facebook about being through the looking glass.
When Trump got the 270 electoral college votes, I posted this:
Fuck it then, let it all burn to the ground.
Maybe something worth a damn will rise from the ashes.
I am a racist. Bet that surprises you, but it is true. I am very prejudiced against Filipino people. It is something I struggle to remain conscience of and not act upon. But if you caught me in the right place and the right time, in the right frame of mind, you may very well see it on display. I'd be mortified if you did, but there is no denying the possibility exists.
Now, I could go on for an "Of Mice and Men" sized explanation of the why's and wherefores of this racism. It's an ugly story, one that reaches as far back as my pre-teens, spent with my family stationed in the Philippines; my father was in the Air Force at the time. The roots of this prejudice permeated every aspect of my life, and threatened to destroy our family at one time. There are people in my family I barely speak to now, and there is no question that animosity rises from those times. Every time I meet a new person of Filipino descent, I have to remind myself: "This person is not that person. This person has nothing to do with what you feel about that person. This person did nothing to you."
It is nothing less than work. And if I lived in an enclave of Filipino immigrants in a big city like L.A., I might at times get tired of doing the work that keeps those prejudices under the surface. I might at times say, "Fuck it, they are just gonna have to live with me being a racist prick today," Or even worse, be in a perfectly good mood, but something happens that causes me to lash out at a convenient target, my Filipino neighbor, just because they are standing nearby.
Now, there are probably some of you thinking "Well, at least he is aware of it and tries to mitigate it with reason," Let me tell you, as a liberal and progressive person, there is no solace in that notion. It feels nothing less than a scarlet letter emblazoned on my forehead, one that I am deeply ashamed of. The only thing I feel I can do to make up for this well of hostility that is always there, ready for me to draw upon, is to act wherever possible opposite the manner my feelings drive me. That's it. That's all I've got. The only thing that keeps me on this side of that line of racism is that my thoughts are not audible to the outside world, and knowing intellectually and morally that this prejudice is not based in fact, but in emotion.
Well, that's the ballgame, isn't it? That is all you need, from my experience. Want to dig deeper?
I am responsible for very little of what gives me capacity to think through these prejudices. My ability to empathize with those different from me is not some life choice I made. I am a product, as much as anybody, of my environment.
----
I was raised by a mom that absolutely would not put up with any form of racism in the household. She grew up in the 50's in an all white neighborhood, and had no direct contact with any black person until she joined the Marine Corps in 1966 and travelled to South Carolina from boot camp. The previous eleven years of racial unrest, brought to Americas' living room through a then still trustworthy press, had not begun to paint a picture of what it was really like to live under the regime of Jim Crow. She was shocked. It was alien to her.
I was raised on military bases from age 5 to 12, and was part of a military family my whole life. My father was an officer, and I regularly met professional black people throughout my school years.
And Hispanic people. And Asian people. And so forth.
I got an education. Despite my grades, I got a pretty good education from the schools I went to. I got college money from my time in the Army, and got a degree in History from a state school. It has afforded me a view of the world well past my own experience, and honed my empathy for others.
And finally, I have seen a lot of the world. I have lived in So Cal, the Deep South, the Beltway, The Far East, Germany, deep behind the Redwood Curtain. I toured through East Berlin mere weeks after the Wall had fallen. I lived for a time right next to acres of vegetables on the Central Coast of California, and drove by the Mexican migrant workers working those fields. I believe that is some of the hardest physical work done on this planet.
I have seen abject poverty, in the mud streets of Angeles City and the lean-to tin shacks the poor would build against the walls of the rich estates in Manila in the Philippines, to the sprawling city of Tijuana, just south of San Diego.
I've seen 1500 year old castles in Europe, and I've seen the reserved, quietness of Europeans, especially when compared to my young Army drinking buddies and I in Bavaria.
There was just no room in my life for racism to grow. There was no one telling me "they" were to blame for whatever. When confronted with someone else's racism, it was, well, laughable. It was the first mark, in my experience, of being a rube. A redneck. Ignorant, uneducated, unwilling to see a world outside their own.
---
Oddly, my experience had left me with no empathy for someone caught in such a worldview. They were all about hate, and that made it okay to hate back.
This didn't just include racism. Misogyny, xenophobia, sexism, religious fundamentalism . . . there is no empathy for anyone expressing any of these things. There is nothing in my worldview that explains this. It appears to me as a choice to be evil.
---
I have a friend who was raised in Christian fundamentalism. He regards the Bible as the unerring Word of God. I asked him one time, What if you had been born to a Muslim family, to a father as devout as your own, but who believed in Islam? The biggest factor in determining what faith you ascribe to, I said, is what faith your father ascribed to. Is there no possibility, that however much a believer you might become, that it would not be in the Christian Faith, but rather the Muslim faith?
Alas, he could not conceive a scenario in which he did not find Christianity, the one true faith.
Just as I cannot conceive a scenario in which a racist honestly comes by his beliefs.
But I was not born in the South. I was not born to a racially segregated social network. I was not born to people who believed in racial superiority (or inferiority, as the case may be). I was not born into an environment where school was placed lower than providing for the family or learning a trade. I did not go to schools where student actually have to compete for learning materials. I was not born into an environment where college was out of reach. I was not born into an environment that placed faith above reason. I did not grow up, live, and die in the same county my whole life. I was not part of a world where I was told, by my family, friends, teachers, co-workers, the TV shows I watched, the news I saw, that those people were the cause of my problems.
---
Economic strife displays itself in a myriad of ways in our country. Fears that feed racism, xenophobia, sexism, etc, are exacerbated by economic difficulty. One wants answers for why things (things being all those things that are out of your control) are so difficult: why can't I find a job? Why can't I afford healthcare for my family, why can't I make enough money to pay the bills?
It's because of them.
This is what our mass media gives us. It is because those people are on welfare and your taxes are paying for their drugs. It is because those people came here illegally and took your job, used state-funded healthcare that you don't qualify for. It's because those people keep electing nimrods that just want to take more of your money, give more of your money to silly nonsense like the NEA or the Dept. of Education.
---
I don't hear much of this. I have another feed coming in, one that of course, fits the world view I'm comfortable with.
My mass media gives me a different list of people I should blame: It's because those people are uneducated and believe everything they are told. It's because those people are happy to eat the food that illegals put on their tables, but want to harass them while doing it. It's because those people keep electing nimrods that give more tax breaks to the rich. It's because those people insist on bringing a centuries old religious text into the conversation.
---
I thought I knew all there was to know about Christian fundamentalism and those who practice it. I just assumed they all walked lock-step with (fill in whatever preachers name). I thought they were much more a monolith.
They are not. My friend, whom I wrote of above, cannot stand the religious right's attempts to thwart gay marriage, and prayer in schools and a boatload of other right-wing "family values" issues. He thinks Christians trying to bring Christianity into government are missing a core aspect of what it is to be Christian. I had no idea of this until one day he caught me in conversation, using one of those beliefs as a starting point to talk about one of these social issues. He corrected me, and rightly so. I had assumed to know who he was, and in part, I did not.
---
It is much too easy to pick the flaws out in someone we oppose, and make them all about those flaws. It is easy to grab hold of those shortcomings and erase all possibility that, if it weren't for a terrible strife, or a deep lingering doubt, or fear of being left behind by the world, that this ugliness, this racism or misogyny or bigotry or xenophobia would be just a thing in the back of their minds, a remnant of a world view once subscribed to. It is possible that progress in race relations we have made as a country have made an impact on these people before us, but that impact been replaced, temporarily at least, as a defense against their own uncertainty. It is possible these people feel powerless. Powerless to feed their families, keep them healthy, live in a crime-free neighborhood, send their kids to schools that aren't falling apart, and on and on.
I can tell you this: When I am cornered, exhausted, frustrated, broke, sick, or any other number of calamities befall me, I am not at my best. When these conditions last awhile, I can become downright intolerable, even to those who love me dearly. The worst in me rears it's ugly head. I make rash decisions and lash out at those who oppose me. I assign all manner of evil intent to them. None of it is anywhere near the whole truth of me. Or of them.
---
Even forums we appear to have control over, such as Facebook, serve to divide us into "special interests", "peer groups", "marketing targets". What we see is filtered by the things our friends "like", by the FB Groups we belong to, by the things we buy, food we eat, services we render and purchase. The only way I see a point of view outside my enclave is if I have a conservative friend that I am following, or a post by a friend of a friend. In other words, I have to go looking for it.
And of course, the Internet makes bravado a free and easy trait to display. I ruffle my feathers at the arrogance, the stupidity, the audacity of someone having a different opinion and daring to make it available for me to see. They are asking me to tell them what assholes they are. They like fighting with me, calling me names, they get to swell up their chests with indignation, spouting their stupid opinion louder and with more insults and sarcasm and hate.
Look at what Neanderthals they are.
Look at how easy it was for me to wind this joker up.
Look at how smart I am. I like fighting with them, calling them names, swelling up my chest in indignation, clearly and intelligently expressing my stupid opinion with clever insults and sarcasm. And hate.
---
I've said some terrible things to people on the Internet. I've lost friends on Facebook simply because I littered their page with cursing and condemnation of someone, friends with them, that I did not even know, all because they expressed a view different from mine.
This is not to say that racism is a valid point of view we should take into consideration. This is not to say that we should not step up and protect those who are victims of discrimination. This is not to say that when confronted with racism, we should cower and stay quiet because that person might be having a bad day.
This is also not to say that there are not some people beyond your reach.
This is also not to say that there are not some people beyond your reach.
This is to say that we, as a nation, are divided. We are divided by education, by faith, by economic power, by experience, by upbringing, by social environment. Is it possible, probable, even, that I might find a number of people among those who, for the sake of argument, voted for Trump, that I would get along with, enjoy their company, become their friends. But what stands between us now is his perception of me, and mine of him, all based on what we have been told the other person is all about. And to a greater or lesser degree, every one of us has bought into it.
---
In recent days, I have been preaching wherever I can on facebook posts, to my progressive friends, that their dismay and anger at the election results should not be focused on those who voted for Trump. That it is too easy to assign one of those -isms to them and then castigate them for being that -ism.
I have read a great deal of accounts from Trump voters in the last week, and I got to tell you, my story is not that far off from theirs. I am in debt, and it is difficult to get out of that debt. My girlfriend works a job, and has worked this job for nearly 20 years, and it is taking it's toll on her. We struggle to pay the co-pay for doctor visits sometimes. My teeth are a mess and I'm still paying off the last round of dental work, two and a half years ago. Housing in this state is absurdly expensive, and in fact the cost of living as a whole is a heavy burden here. I'm paying over a thousand a month for a one bedroom apartment that is maybe twice as big as my father's garage.
And I feel, every election year, that whatever promise goes to DC in my name, it is going to come away warped, compromised, corrupted. Little of everyday people's lives will have changed all that much, better or worse. For decades, the entirety of my life, we have been floating checks on an idea of America that is light years behind the days we actually find ourselves in. And to keep up the lie, every year, we leave more and more of those everyday people behind.
And I feel, every election year, that whatever promise goes to DC in my name, it is going to come away warped, compromised, corrupted. Little of everyday people's lives will have changed all that much, better or worse. For decades, the entirety of my life, we have been floating checks on an idea of America that is light years behind the days we actually find ourselves in. And to keep up the lie, every year, we leave more and more of those everyday people behind.
I came away from this election deeply disappointed. In the results, yes, but much more so in the leadership of the DNC. I feel betrayed. I feel like, for the first time, I can see with stark clarity the ways in which those in power, Dems and Repubs, play us all like pawns. I never attributed such villainy to my own party, but it is so clear to me now: I've been had. I feel exactly like so many working class voters have felt for years: the people in DC are not in it for us. They are there to amass power, influence, and riches, and they do not care what lies they tell, whose hands they shake, or what deals they sign, so long as it advances those goals.
---
There is going to come a time, I believe, in this Trump presidency, when the big con is revealed. Those who voted for him are going to see that he is no more in the game for them than any other politician before him, and they are going to be pissed. Some of them, more than you or I imagine even, are going to have these same moments of self examination. They are going to look at what they have been told and what they see in the world, and realize they too, have been played.
When that happens, I don't want to be one they point to and say "this person has already decided I am not worth knowing." I want to be one they come to and say "I want us all to do better, and I think you do too." My party has done wonders to alienate the working class. They have done wonders to castigate them, belittle them, make fun of them. They have welcomed the wedges that the Republican party has offered up to divide us into smaller and smaller groups, and offered up more than a few of their own.
And as long as this strategy is successful, the political and economic elite will maintain their grip on the levers of our lives.
I want to get off this merry-go round. I want to put aside the differences I have been told that I have with this person or that, and find out what he or she is really about. I want to hear the stories that make being pro-life a core belief. I want to know why you think your guns will protect you. I want to know what really happened to your town when the steel plant closed down.
I want to know, what was it about that local union that seemed like a rip-off? I want to hear about your veteran son who can't get the care he needs. I want to understand how devastating it was when your daughter came out to you as gay.
Not to judge. Not to tell you where you are wrong. Not to dismiss you as backwards, living in the past. Not to confirm my false superiority over you.
I want to understand. I want from you what the media refuses to give me: Understanding. I want what the politicians actively discourage: Understanding. I want to know who you are and what makes you tick. I want to know what is really going on behind the endless, countless, limitless stream of memes we generate like digital trash to poke each other, hit each other, hurt each other. Have you ever stuck to a belief simply out of stubbornness? I have.
I believe there is going to come a day when we either buckle, permanently, under the weight of our plutocratic oppression, or we break out of it and return to the dream: of the people, by the people, for the people. I believe we are rapidly approaching the point of no return on a whole host of issues: infrastructure, climate change, government spying, gun control, wealth disparity. Are we going to roll up our sleeves, ditch our comfort and our pride, and get to know the people down the road? Are we going to re-friend that person we irritated with our political posts? Are we going to admit that letting go of our own prejudice must be the first step to reconciling with our fellow countrymen and women?
When Rome began to fall, many wealthy Romans took their riches elsewhere, setting up little fiefdoms to hide and maintain their lives of luxury, taking with them the resources that Rome needed to survive.
This may be America's fate: When all the resources and labor and power has been drained, and all that is left is a shell, balkanized like the Balkans and rudderless like Iraq, the only remnants: a broken people tearing each other apart for the scraps that remain.
Written into our Constitution is the power to overthrow the House every two years, the Senate every six, the Presidency every four. Our political parties and their ideologies have failed, repeatedly. They have become something other than a representation of the people. They fulfill some need other than that of our Republic. They answer to someone else.
Exercising that power will never happen if we cannot put aside our judgment of each other and join in condemnation of our masters.
---
When Rome began to fall, many wealthy Romans took their riches elsewhere, setting up little fiefdoms to hide and maintain their lives of luxury, taking with them the resources that Rome needed to survive.
This may be America's fate: When all the resources and labor and power has been drained, and all that is left is a shell, balkanized like the Balkans and rudderless like Iraq, the only remnants: a broken people tearing each other apart for the scraps that remain.
Written into our Constitution is the power to overthrow the House every two years, the Senate every six, the Presidency every four. Our political parties and their ideologies have failed, repeatedly. They have become something other than a representation of the people. They fulfill some need other than that of our Republic. They answer to someone else.
Exercising that power will never happen if we cannot put aside our judgment of each other and join in condemnation of our masters.
Now is the time.
