RingoToday I was going to write my feelings on my first month trying to live more minimalist and stoic. However something else has brought itself to my attention and I need to get it out. I Didn’t do my nightly wrap up with Seneca’s questions last night but I did wake up thinking about were my actions just?
I think I can add an unqualified no. That said I’m gonna qualify it. I’ve been reading my GrandFather’s autobiography, A Letter to My Grandchildren. He wrote it before Alzhimers destroyed his mind as a way for us to get to know him. It will always be one of my largest regrets that I had to get to know him via a book and stories when I had plenty of chances to know the man as flesh and blood. Most of my other large regrets revolve around my other relatives I’ve lost the chance to get to know…and as I write this I realize another action I need to do is put some more time into reconnecting to them…Time to set up some travel and skype sessions.
But that’s not the point I wanted to talk about. My GrandFather talked with some…interesting casual racism. He was a progressive through and through, even a socialist. He wrote at length about how one of the things that mars America’s greatness is “the plight of the blacks.” But that’s delicacy with which he handled other races. And he talked about people’s race alot. It was clearly important to him. He also made note of a number of times when a Black man or woman showed character beyond his, courage, intelligence, etc. It wasn’t that he believed White people were inherently superior, but he was enough affected by his time that the moments that proved they weren’t stood out.
A quick note. My Granddad was an experimental physicist at Argonne Lab in Chicago. He worked directly as peer and colleague with Nobel prize winners. So while he did have many opportunities to meet smarter people than him, it was rare to do outside of work context. And I don’t think I need to spend time talking about why a govt lab in the 50-70’s would have few black people working at it. So…it really was a rare experience for him to meet people who fell into those categories. Its still weird, sitting here in 2019, that it was noteworthy to him, though not when I think about cultural context.
Anyway, I’ve still not gotten to the point. Sorry bout that. But this is important. See reading about this has been getting me thinking about how much I’m missing of my own actions that are fucked for disadvantaged people today. A quick example. At New Years I wore a dress on a lark. We all laughed. A man in a dress with a big mustache. How funny. How Quaint.
I’m a Rich White Male. I can put on that dress and then hang it back up in a closet and face no questions. Worst I get is maybe a really really shitty job gives me a disapproving look in an interview and I move onto another. I don’t face threats, violence, a loss of rights, persecution from it. However there are lot of people that don’t have that luxury. An actual drag queen. A transitioning Woman who doesn’t look like the cultural definition of “A Woman.” A transitioning man who still wears dresses because of family or societal expectations. A few dozen other examples. I put on the costume of what these people live with and I don’t know how I feel about that. We laughed at the humor of a man in a dress, which in turn might be laughing at them?
No one there is anti-Trans. We are all “Allies.” Good pro LGBTQ***** peeps. But Then My grandad was pro integration. He didn’t think there was a difference between blacks and white…but reading it now I see the casual racism that pervaded his generation. Hell that’s one I’ve noticed in myself for a long time and actively worked on. But then I wonder if he did too. It certainly sounds like he did.
So I sit here wondering how my actions will look when I’m 90. Wondering how much I’m contributing to a persecution culture without even realizing it. And I read a passage that strikes me far more. He talks about his time on segregation buses. He gives 2 examples of black people standing up to white aggression…and he does not mention helping or supporting. In fact his first mention of segregation comes when talking about moving from Chicago to Virginia to work in DC. “Segregation in Virginia was a shock to us. Alas, we weren’t inspired to do anything about it but some private grumbling. A more active irritation was the fact Alexandria had only appallingly bad restaurants within walking distance.”
Yeah. A lack of good eating, within walking distance, was more important than the very very visible unjust suffering and discrimination of his fellow men right in front of his face. Now I get that is a reason why. We can’t care about everyone all the time. There is too much injustice and suffering. Otherwise we would be constantly unable to do anything but think about the 800 million(literally 2X USA pop) people who live in extreme poverty. Most of us can’t do anything about that and thus being frozen by it is not exactly productive. Still…We do need to care and work about some suffering. We do need to try to at least fix what’s in our face(and ideally fix what we can for the world too as that’s far more important). Point is humans focus on little injustices, personal problems, instead of systemic ones, because they are too large for our brains to contain. Even large scientist brains like my Grandad’s apparently.
This isn’t a post about my Grandad’s failings. He was a good man, just also a man of his time. Likely significantly better than many if not most men of his time. This is a post about me. And how I know enough to not want to be a man of my time. About how I know I can do better. And yet….I’m pretty sure I’m not.
A friend who is trans(no I’m not naming them) made a post saying essentially, don’t message me if you support Trump and think my life and rights are worth less than tax breaks for billionaires. Now I don’t do either of those things. So I thought about messaging her just to discuss those issues and how I don’t think its really that simple, that cut and dry…And then I thought about my Granddad. I thought about caring more about walking to a restaurant than marching for civil rights(to be fair to him I haven’t gotten much into the 50’s let alone the 60’s yet, so I don’t know his thoughts or actions regarding the marches) and I wondered…does it matter? Maybe I’m right. Maybe there is more nuance there. Maybe its not quite that bad. But it’s still bad right? It’s still injustice on a systematic scale. Its still attempts to reduce or prevent people from having rights. It’s still the start of an attack on a people for no valid reason….And maybe…Maybe its much worse. Maybe it is exactly as bad as she is saying it is and I’m just blinded cause I don’t have to live that life. Cause I can put on a dress as a costume one day a year and she wears a dress every day.
This should end with an action plan. A thought on how I help…but honestly Honestly? I think I may still care about the lack of good restaurants. I could post that I’ve come around and that I plan on going to rallies, condemning trump for every action, joining the impeach movement. But that would be a lie. I thought this would give me clarity. Instead I’m still very confused and conflicted. The one thing I’m sure enough… I don’t know nearly enough and I’m very very likely blind to some big issues. And the longer I stay blind the less I can do. I guess the first step is being less blind. So…time to read more? Sigh…this should be easier. I wish I had more certainty in any fucking action I take.
I guess let me end with slightly more conviction. Fuck Trump. I wish there were something solid to impeach him on, even with Pence being an evil cunt behind him. I wish I knew of a way to effectively make changes in policy…Best I think I can do right now is try to convince people that being trans isn’t a fucking problem and if you have a problem with it, you are the fucking problem…but I don’t even know the right way to do that.
Fuck man.
I’m sorry.