04.12.07
Macedoine des fruits
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”
– Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Mother Night
Ad astra, Mr. Vonnegut. Thank you.
-=-=-=-
Recently there has been a huge billboard over I-95 just south of downtown Baltimore, an advertisement for bariatric surgery (gastric bypass) services at a local hospital, showing a young woman in a tank top, her arms spread as if she’s about to take flight, with the rubric “Trade pounds for possibilities.” This billboard infuriates me every single time I pass it. I have to say that even though I have a horror of heights, and this thing is on one of those incredibly tall hoardings that goes up way high above an interstate freeway, I have been fantasizing about going up there with some sort of gigantic paint sprayer thing and crossing out the word “pounds” and stencilling in the word “self-hatred” in huge red letters.
Please tell me I am not the only one whose road rage fantasies involve the political defacement of advertisements.
-=-=-=-
My mother has fallen in love. Recently she met a man about her own age through friends in her religious circles (my mom is, following a long career as a public school teacher from which she retired after thirtymumble years of service, enjoying a second career as a Spiritualist minister and medium who, among her other responsibilities, teaches at the Lily Dale Assembly in New York State every summer), and then in March, when she was spending a month in California and Arizona teaching and so on, she got the chance to spend some extended time with him… and the rest is about as adorable as a basket of kittens. The California Gentleman, as I am wont to call him when talking about him to people, is a semi-retired lawyer and judge, and while I haven’t met him yet, he sounds like a great chap and he seems to be making my mother exceedingly happy, which to me is the most important thing. Also, I have to say that getting to see my mom be so completely slackjawed loopy for someone is a treat. Her life has not been the easiest, and she’s always been one heck of a trouper. It’s great to see her getting to just bask in the fun stuff for a while. Though I must admit that it’s a little weird to suddenly have my mother — who has for most of her life displayed about as much interest in flying places as your average penguin — jetting off on a regular basis to go see her beau!
-=-=-=-
I’ve been thinking a little about this whole idiotic Don Imus flap. Beyond the obvious (why were people surprised to hear him be inflammatory, racist, and sexist in the same sentence, when he’s been inflammatory, racist, and sexist for so long he’s built a career out of it?) (and isn’t it indicative of at least some kind of cultural gangrene that we hire people as entertainers on the basis of how snarkily and nastily they can be inflammatory, racist, and sexist?), one of the things I have to admit to thinking, in the recesses of my hindbrain, is “God, thank you for not making me a heterosexual white man. I mean, it’s so easy to be a jackass anyway, I’m glad I wasn’t given that particular leg up.”
Before you start, stoppit. Yes, I know and you know that not all straight white boys are jackasses. I am not whacking them all with the same tarbrush, except insofar as I am: without exception, all the ones I’ve ever known who weren’t jackasses had to learn how to not be, whether by dint of being raised with explicitly anti-sexist/racist/etc. parenting, through some form of intensive educational intervention imposed on them later on, or simply because some kernel of uncommon decency caused them to stop and question the own top-of-the-food-chain upbringing that so frequently infuses straight white boys with a sense that they possess, as a birthright, a sort of metaCalvinist irresistible grace.
Which is not to say that the straight white boys who manage to overcome this training don’t deserve kudos, they do. That’s not easy work. Taking steps toward understanding the arbitrary and impersonal nature of your own privilege (let alone trying to renounce or redistribute some of that privilege) requires some radical readjustment of one’s sense of self. But they don’t deserve any more kudos than anyone else does for doing essentially the same work. Everyone who is not a straight white boy who likewise reaches a point of realizing that their privilege, or lack thereof, or social acceptance (a form of privilege) or lack thereof, or [fill in the blank, it's early and my tea water isn't hot yet, do your part] or lack thereof is similarly not inherent to them personally and is instead due to a complicated array of other external, systemic factors… everyone who gets there deserves the same props, in my book: Congratulations, biped, you’ve achieved social self-awareness. It’s a big scary world, and you’re naked. C’mon over by the fire. It’s warmer here, and we have caffeinated beverages. Here, have some.
All of which is a long roundabout way of saying no, I’m not going to go out of my way to cosset the straight white guys who might’ve gotten their fur rubbed the wrong way by my characterizing them as jackasses. Because frankly, straight white boys kinda do get handed the Acme Brand Super Home “Li’l Patriarch” Jackassery Kit (”Impress your friends! Oppress your enemies!”) the instant they spring forth from the womb. I’m glad some of them manage to get the hell over it. But as for the rest of ‘em, if the word “jackass” rankles, perhaps figuring out where all that guilt is coming from would be fruitful, hm?