“Inheriting the ignorance and hate of earlier generations may have been somewhat out of our control, but it is now our responsibility as individuals with agency to educate ourselves and each other, challenge past wrongs and stop the cycle.”
Michelle Yang
“History is written by the rich, and so the poor get blamed for everything.”
Jeffrey D. Sachs
I tend to use my journal less for self-promotion and more for ridding myself of mental clutter, and because I feel a personal sense of responsibility to bear witness. In the past month, my attention turned to long overdue oral surgery to remove three impacted wisdom teeth that were causing chronic problems I didn’t fully appreciate until weeks later. During spring break, I focused on home. My husband and I did a lot of reorganizing, and I repainted several rooms to create a more peaceful, less chaotic environment. Sometimes I need to clear my space of physical or visual clutter in order to create, too.
What that means is I haven’t blogged as much, but the world spins on. And yet there’s nothing new to say, not because things have improved, but because the same dreadful things keep happening. I’m not sure I have anything new or useful to add to the conversation(s). I can only continue to show my support.
Last month, people were shot and killed at massage parlors in Georgia. Most victims were Asian women, but many people denied racism and sexism were motives. Instead they made assumptions based on racist, sexist tropes (see articles by Nancy Wang, Michelle Yang). I grow weary of people who project guilt onto victims to minimize crimes against them in cases of everything from rape to mass murder. I feel like little has changed since The Accused came out when I was little. If alleged or known perpetrators are presumed innocent until proven guilty, don’t victims deserve at least that much consideration?
That particular story moved quickly out of the news cycle as there have been several more mass shootings, including the first school shooting since the pandemic, and more incidents of police brutality, including the murder of a thirteen year old. On the bright side, such as it is, a man we all saw murder someone on camera was found guilty. Of course he was as surprised as any of us because he knows the system is broken, or working as intended, and he expected it to work in his favor.
All these real nightmares, and the usual suspects still find time to bemoan an imagined boogeyman collecting unemployment instead of servicing people who don’t think they deserve a living wage. People who look down on the services of others should not act put out if they don’t want to provide those services anymore just to get dumped on and belittled, or worse. For all anyone knows, maybe they’ve taken all that kind, helpful advice to look for “real” jobs, never mind all the women pushed out of the work force due to the pandemic.
I hope nobody wants to shop or dine out during school hours or after bedtime once so-called “menial” labor is just for high school students. Oh darn, they’re lazy, too. And it’s been such a cushy gig, especially during the pandemic. Or do people want to do away with those pesky child labor laws, too?
Nowhere I go is hurting for staff, but you can’t tell people to leave a job they don’t like for a better one, and then get miffed when they do. Stop punching down. All it does is empower the most abusive, exploitative people at the expense of the most marginalized. It’s almost like some people want to make sure other people stay poor and can’t improve their situation so they have someone to look down on to feel better about themselves.
It’s just so damn tired and predictable. Sometimes I’m less bothered by casual cruelty than the lack of originality, and that’s wrong of me, and I’m sorry. It’s like when people complain some old movie couldn’t be made today because it’s offensive when a) of course it can, and b) we’d rightfully complain because…why do we need yet another remake, let alone word for word?!
Find some new material!
And don’t pretend Breakfast at Tiffany’s – love it! – wouldn’t be better without a certain performance that was as bad as it was insulting. Bad acting or writing is not redeemed by throwing bigotry into the mix. It just makes the badness and the bigotry more vivid. I remember a Twitter thread about writing tips to avoid clichés or misrepresenting and stereotyping people. Some people saw the encouragement to become better writers as a threat to artistic license (because clichés are such a hallmark of creativity), but if someone is writing a book about dolphins, and you suggest they learn more about dolphins, or the publisher hires someone knowledgeable about dolphins to assist with editing, nobody bats an eye. So why does it become a problem when it’s people?
Things like racism and sexism don’t offend me. They do make me angry or bored, and worried for the safety and wellbeing of others, as they so often lead to something worse, like…I dunno – mass shootings?!
Now, unoriginality – that offends me. And flatulence. Oh yeah. Cancel culture’s coming for all your gaseous emissions.
“Somewhere out there, there’s a tree whose single purpose on earth is to replace the oxygen you waste. Go find it and apologize.”
overheard on Twitter
