I am a 59-year-old white guy and have had the liberty of saying and doing plenty of stupid things over the course of a rambunctious life mostly well-lived …
I’ve fallen down pretty hard but never once figured I couldn’t get back up. Please don’t mistake that for fortitude. It was reckless mostly. White guys have a helluva lot of latitude in this world to fuck up and un-fuck up and make it safely home for dinner, thank you. Or maybe you haven’t noticed who sits with a sonic harrumph in the White House.
I am proud to say I’m liberal as hell these days, but labeling yourself is pretty easy when you’ve made it this far in life and have a roof over your head, plenty of food to eat and a health care plan that is at least in the distant vicinity of something you might find in 90 percent of all those other free countries that make sure all their kids and elderly are taking care of. Too bad they just aren’t as great we are …
I have a couple of old cars that are paid for, decent credit and live in a safe neighborhood. But it isn’t bulletproof. Do you know that there is not one, single, solitary neighborhood in the United States that is? If only those other free countries were as safe.
While I am proud to be a liberal, it’s not doing me much good if I am content to live comfortably in my semi-safe place.
It was ’round about March of 2017, and I was still trying to shake off the shock of the election four months earlier. I was just another person running around screaming like some dude in those Godzilla movies. Like many, I found a place to hide in one of these political rooms in Facebook. And, yes, even I see the blinding irony in that.
There was pandemonium in that house. The indignant were everywhere. People had their hearts planted firmly on sleeves soaked from wiping away tears. What in the hell had just happened?! Why did we all have to be here when we had real lives to lead, dammit!
But lasting coalitions have been founded on much less. Turns out while we were licking our wounds we were also bonding and figuring out ways to make sure this never happened again. I’ll share with you, you share with me and then let’s meet each other in the middle. I take heart from many of the people I met following the blast.
I’m not sure what awful, heinous thing Trump did at the time, but I was tired and hurting and whiny, so I dropped into the busy place of ravaged souls and typed this:
“Sometimes I am just not sure if I can take this anymore.”
Then I waited for a hug.
What I got was a pointed elbow jammed directly between my blurry eyes.
“OK chill out, my white brother. Black people have been dealing with this kind of shit forever. Been a hard few months for you has it?”
Things haven’t been the same since.
There’s seldom a day I don’t think about this exchange, which I sheepishly answered, “Apologies. I guess I can be pretty damn pathetic sometimes.”
Well, she let me off the hook and we have become friends. Like I said, there was some good in hanging out on that jagged corner after all.
This weekend, we are watching Donald Trump’s lawyers spew bullshit as they try to turn a vile monster into a victim. We are hoping the Republican Senators won’t fall for it and will finally do the right thing.
But we know they won’t.
We know this, because they have been screwing this country for decades and decades. They have been stepping on the necks of black people and brown people … women and children … plants and animals. They don’t care if all our children eat or our elderly are cared for. They don’t care because they live in a white world where there are no consequences for their inaction.
- They do this because as far as they are concerned their kids will be fine, and to hell with yours.
- They do this because their interpretation of the Bible is just more pure than yours.
- They do this because they have gerrymandered us into suffocation.
- They do this because while you aren’t looking, they are suppressing your vote.
- They do this because not doing it would suck all the perfumed air from their turned-up snouts.
- They do this because they can, and because it pays really, really well …
Am I sick and tired of it? You better believe I am.
I am a 59-year-old white guy and have had the liberty of saying and doing plenty of stupid things over the course of a rambunctious life mostly well-lived …
Keeping a check on myself seems the very least I can do to help out.
