Contentment is Complacency

For all those who want to be a good person and yet feel hindered in their goal by their race, their gender, their sexuality, or whatever it may be that makes you think "but I'm not like that" in your head. I get it, I do.

Damn if I haven't gotten so angry for feeling like someone who doesn't even know me is using the supposedly safe space of their blog to express their pain and frustration in the general direction of folks who are like me in some generalized category.

Damn if I haven't wanted to give them a piece of my mind about how I may be privileged, sure, but I'm not like those other folks who've done all those bad things.

Damn if I haven't felt so worthless, like I was born a villain in some people's eyes and they'll always see me as bad all the while ignoring how other folks with the same characteristics being judged were doing and saying such horrible things that I myself kinda got used to it.

Damn if I haven't allowed it to happen and said nothing, done nothing.

Damn if I'm not confused more than half the time about what's okay to say or what topics it's helpful for me to comment on or if I should just listen or leave the space entirely or speak up or stand together or apart.

Damn if I know what an ally really is.

Damn if I'm even sure who I am or what the point is of all these boxes I create in my own head to judge other folks besides the ones society perpetuates with or without me.

Damn if I've done enough to really challenge my own thinking before I jump to argue with someone else.

Damn if I haven't poured salt on the wounds of so many hurting souls while nursing my own wounds and crying victim at the same time.

Damn if we're all not broken, bewildered hypocrites.

Damn if I'm not the worst.

I don't want to lash out at that which makes me uncomfortable anymore. Comfort hasn't taught me anything but how to be complacent, unthinking, and selfish. I want to learn from the new, the unusual, the different. If something is different from my experience, I want to be able to recognize that it's maybe completely normal for someone else. I want to learn from those who can teach me instead of just gobbling up the same old bullshit that led me to be so damn stubborn in my prejudice.

Damn if I don't want to be more of a loving, open-minded, hopeful, just human being.

This means that I want to say sorry. No disclaimers or qualifiers here about what I have or haven't done or how not all of us are like that or whatever. I'm simply sorry. I want to be different, but a sick person doesn't become well simply by pretending like they don't really need medicine. In the case of my prejudice and my bigotry, it's probably more a case of rebreaking and setting old injuries. I've healed wrong. I've been hurt and sought revenge on the wrong target. This has nothing to do with vengeance. This is about justice, and damn if that doesn't start in my own heart and mind. I'm so sorry.

Damn if I haven't been racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, classist, and countless other forms of prejudicial bitterness that has so much more to do with me and my issues than with any other one of us seven billion plus beautifully complex people.

Damn if I ever give up on you.

Damn if I ever give up. Thank you for your patience and love through which I have grown. Thank you for your hate and frustration through which I have also grown.

Damn if it's not hard to live with myself most days.

Damn if I ever want to live the same tomorrow as I was yesterday.
 
Damn if I'm not trying to do this, but I know we all are in our own ways.

I'm sorry. Thank you. I forgive you. I love you.

But let's not stop here, okay?

Let's tear down some fucking walls, because...

well

Damn.

Lovin' On Enemies

Your argument sucks. My argument sucks. Both sides have good intentions and faulty semantics. Everyone makes generalizations.

When you get hurt and lash out, the other side is going to feel threatened and won't immediately understand you're acting from a place of pain. Therefore, when we feel attacked, how 'bout we take the time to think about how the other person may be in pain.

If you're in a position of power/influence or align yourself with a group holding such power, recognize you have more responsibility for the pain you/that group has caused another than the victim of that oppression does to acquiesce to your comfort level.

However, if you are trying to introduce to a group the idea that you've been persecuted by them, it tends to be helpful to give them the benefit of the doubt that their ignorance supersedes purposefully malicious intent.

No one is saying you have to do anything for those who hurt you, but if you do choose to give them far more grace and patience than they deserve, you may just help them learn. The world will be a better place for it.

I certainly know that if folks had just assumed I was just another stereotypical part of an oppressive group instead of a human being, I never would've had the chance to learn from them and grow. I have learned so much and continue to grow.

It is not your responsibility to take the hard road and love your enemies, but hatred and vilification has only ever led to more hatred and vilification. Perhaps patience, forgiveness, and mutual understanding can lead to a new and brighter day.

We must stand together and at least try to be human beings together. Yes, this will mean that some mountains must finally fall; they must fall swiftly and heavily and with a mighty crash. However, this also means that the depths will be raised up into the light, into the central square, out of the filth and into focus. Let us see things as they are and stand in the common dust of our place in the meta-narrative of human history.

In saying all this, I recognize that I have come from and still bear the stench of my ancestors. I recognize that what I have had handed to me others have had stolen from them. I recognize that my pain and your pain do not look the same but that it is universal that we can both be in pain.
I hope I can help you in any way you may need me. I ask only for what I do not deserve: your continued patience.

And I still believe that the world can change.

After all, either hope is worth the risk of shifting paradigms or nothing is worth living for anymore.

Heroes and Villains

Yknow you guys. I understand calling folks out on their bullshit. However, is there really a need to jump on the bandwagon of bullying folks with good intentions especially hard when they slip up and say something regrettable?

We get off on knowing we're part of a group of like-minded folks bashing some celebrity or newsperson or activist or even just your average OP for saying or doing that one thing that one time we find so immensely deplorable while completely forgetting how we were in-fucking-love with them like half a second beforehand. Do we not get how people work, that we're fallible?

To completely ignore all the good that someone has done simply because we were clever enough to catch how they slipped up or misspoke one time is NOT the same thing as recognizing that we're not all perfect. We should hold our heroes to a high standard, sure, but I would question the wisdom of making heroes out of humans without recognizing that they still are human.

It is the good that we do in spite of all the crap that we do, it's that we're still growing and changing and our views may differ by the hour, it's that life is more a dialogue than an inaugural address--these are measures of how we should talk about people. Turning an actual real-life person into our scapegoat. for whatever personal social justice crusade we're on is a pointless exercise in shaming.

If we wanna make a real difference for whatever cause we think they offended, we should do more to promote the good being done, growing those roots deeper and those branches higher. Jumping on the hate train may make us feel better in the moment, but it probably does less to help than we realize.

What do you think?

First Impressions

Hey there Internauts, been a while.

I remember being told--probably as early as kindergarten--of the incomparable weight of first impressions over all other interaction I may have with another person.

"First impressions are very important," they would say, often with the implication that a bad first impression could ruin everything. Everything.

Upon further reflection, it becomes quite obvious why we instruct our children with this bit of social advice. They need to know as early as possible how little anyone else will care about them. Oh sure, mommy and daddy love you (maybe, if you're lucky enough to have both a mommy and a daddy and even if they love you they might not love each other, so...), and certainly their teacher loves them (or at least has to put up with them for more of the day than anyone else, but yknow there are so many students in the class and which one are you again...).

We must learn early that other people won't give you the benefit of the doubt. They won't take the time to get to know your story, much less let you merge into their lane on the highway. They certainly won't imagine all the complex reasons why you didn't greet them with eagerly pleasant servitude and jump right to meeting all their needs when they were truly just too busy caught up in something much more important than your whatever-it-is. They don't care. They won't take the time to care.

Be important, right away, because first impressions matter. This is what we teach our kids. And whether consequentially or coincidentally, it ends up seeming quite true. You will become a utility of society's needs for you, we tell them, because we recognize the weight of our usefulness or lack thereof. We can feel it on our back when we clock in at work, pay our taxes, pull up to the gas pump, check out at the grocery store, or answer the phones with that same rehearsed line for the billionth time ("Hello, thank you for calling Cogs in a Machine Incorporated, how may I assist you in a task you could perform easily online but still felt the need to call and hear a human voice trained to sound like a computer?"). That is, of course, if you can get a job.

We're all doing what we need to just to get by. Life or death is hoping that the check won't bounce, that our card won't be declined, or that the coupons we put in a drawer somewhere haven't expired yet. Then one day, you realize your entire life is spent living within a system where you're just shoving numbers back and forth.

You're sitting at work, essentially a warm body in a chair, and your memories float back through all those first impressions--every step, every handshake, every missed and made opportunity that led you into this place of routine, of mediocrity, of fitting into a society that doesn't really care about getting to know you beyond a first impression. Applications and interviews and a dusty diploma somewhere are just stand-ins for report cards and a red letter at the top of a pop quiz.

First impressions are very important...

...because when I pressed the button to unlock that door and let him into the lobby, I was doing my job. My first impression was that he was just another guest who didn't have their key card or one of the two reservations left to check in that night or maybe someone looking to see if we had any vacancy.

First impressions are very important...

...but then he pulled out this big, silver revolver that looked like something out of the movies, and at first I thought it was fake; but of course it wasn't fake, and so when he asked me for the money, I did as I was told. And when he told me to kneel down on the ground. And when he told me to give him my wallet (empty as it was). And when he told me to lay down on the floor. He looked so very angry, but I don't really remember his face or much besides the gun, because...

First impressions are very important...

...but I have no idea why he did what he did. I don't know the series of events that led up to that night. They're pretty sure this wasn't his first robbery, which was pretty obvious if you'd been there. I have no idea who he is or what he cares about or why he felt like this was the best option for how to spend his Friday night.

We teach kids that first impressions are very important because we know they'll be faced with a lot of people who don't ever go beyond a first impression. We know that they'll be used and cheated and objectified and passed over in this society, and so we hope to give them a fighting chance. However, I would propose that the best way to do that is to exemplify how to be someone who does care about more than the first impression.

1) Of course, it was his choice to use violent means that night when there were most likely many other options.

2) However, I recognize that as a white working class man who grew up raised by two white middle class parents, the amount of options open to me are significantly higher than the amount of options open to a young black man in this country no matter how he was raised. I am benefiting--even now after everything that's happened--from an oppressively racist system that deprives people of color from having the same amount of options. For more on what white privilege is for those of you don't know or need a refresher, check here.

3) I do not know his story and wish I did, but I do know that I cannot simply blame someone else for the harm they have inflicted upon me without asking the question of why. What can I do to examine ways in which I'm participating in systems of class and/or racial oppression? How am I benefiting from or in any way a player in cultural constructs that lead folks to think they don't have any other options but to commit violent acts against another?

As far as I know, I never personally attacked this young man, but I do know that in my life, it's very likely I've been given more opportunities to move past first impressions and him less.

I don't know the events in his life that led to us meeting the way we did that night, but I'll be damned if somewhere along the line, someone taking the time to get beyond a first impression of who this young man is couldn't have changed things for the better. 

Anyway, here's some live music: WATCH HERE.

To the Top

Just met a cab driver named Solomon.


Tall, crooked teeth, one missing in the front.


Moved to the states from Somalia fifteen years ago.


We talked about Nashville and the tourist season.


He told me about how folks like to immigrate to places that “give handouts".


He said he can’t stand that and people shouldn’t just sit around, having kids, not looking for work.


He asked if I agree, and I said, sure folks maybe shouldn’t be having kids if they can’t afford to, but it is pretty hard to find work sometimes.


"What you mean?" he asked, critically scanning my uniform.


I told him about when I first moved down here, living in my car, trying to find a job, stuff like that.


He said, “but now you’ve made it to the top" and laughed.


Guess so, I replied with a shrug.


He asked me my name and we shook hands, revealing a second degree burn, undressed, on his right arm. He’d gotten it making tea, from the steam. Even as he told me how it hurt, gazing down at the pink splotches, the jagged smile from when he first mentioned his house a few blocks from here full of family and love, it did not fade.


Soon, a large group of white North Dakotans, part of a church or a school group or something, bustled in, loud and anxiously grumpy.


Their leader smiled at me as she checked out, grabbing a brochure for a souvenir and letting me know how many times their flights had been canceled or delayed.


I wished her safe travels, and they all piled into Solomon’s yellow van.


My mind swims back to earlier this evening when the drunk man in the pink polo called me an asshole ‘cause I didn’t have a lighter. I’m pretty sure he thought he was whispering.






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Hey Internauts!



For those of you in the PA/DE/NJ/MD area, I'm playing a show with Whitney McCombs and New Shields on July 16th to Benefit the Bridge! Check HERE for more info!

Polytix: A Poem

politically, I guess I’m independent.
and not just because of how much I so resent that
whenever someone subscribed to a party tries convincing
me of their rightness, I can’t help but start wincing.
see, it’s not necessarily your strongly held ideals
or the way that talking ‘bout them gives you all those feels
but that if your ideals were all there were, then that would be fantastic
‘cept instead we get reality and the actuality is drastically
unacceptable in an ignorant, us-vs-them, and kinda racist sorta way
at least its mad classist so don’t ask me to be okay
with how you can say the state is far too big or far too small
or how it’s doing too much or not nearly enough at all.
because for all your talk of liberty and all your talk of community
the talk builds up to naught but talk and binds with such disunity
that i don’t give a single thought to what you say it’s all supposed to be
‘cause what is is what is and that’s all that matters much to me
to love the most those who are loved the least
justice and hope spread through the whole like yeast
and give rise to a revolution of the heart and the mind
and throw aside the privilege that makes those in power so blind
and turn guns into shovels, so we can finally bury the hatchet
and turn bombs into classrooms, and cigarettes back to matches
and take all that paper we used to use to write our bills
and make a planet-sized canvas, until all the color spills
and then wipe down our souls, and pay reparations with a smile
till justice flows like lemonade and there’s a place for every child
around the dinner table of ingenuity, and the human creative spirit
says to mother earth and father sky and anyone else around to hear it
i’m sorry.
i love you.
let’s eat.

What Do You Expect Me To Say

You come up to me, with your multiple nights in an expensive hotel room

What do you expect me to say

Tell me there's some folks driving round asking for some help

What do you expect me to say

I try and do my job and listen respectfully and tell you something proper

What do you expect me to say

Tell me their request for spare change made you uncomfortable

What do you expect me to say

Said she had a "real nice story" like the world's out to get you and it might be too

What do you expect me to say

Tell me they were "panhandling" like it's a secret curse word 

What do you expect me to say

You just wanted me to know, since the customer's always right

What do you expect me to say

So I turn to you and shake my head with an understanding smile

What do you expect me to say

"Well, ma'am, yknow everybody's in need sometimes and just trying to get by the best they can.

What do you expect me to say?"