Here’s my
unpopular opinion/stream-of-consciousness rant to you . . .
and you . . .
and you . . .
(and for sure, you . . .)
but not Tim . . .
because (a) he gets enough at home
and (b) it’s not that we agree, but I get
him—and I don’t freakin’ get you, or maybe I do get you, but I think you’re
screwing things up.
Man, YOU ARE SCREWING IT UP.
I didn’t even try to post this on a
church blog, though I’ll attempt to hold back on my cussing nonetheless—resorting
(unhappily) to freakin’—but I’m going
to be rude, just you wait. As for the heathens or secular humanists or
whatever-the-freak we’re calling people nowadays, I’m sure they’ll be mad at me
too. I already said that this will force me into early retirement, by which I
mean, I’ll retreat into fiction. I’m
a freakin’ awesome fiction writer.
Rant time. Basically,
I’m, like, guys, girls, you’re blowing it, collectively blowing it, colossally
blowing it. I’m floored and devastated and angry and I want, from my pedestal,
my place on the couch before my dog and big screen TV, to tell you how so very wrong
you all are. You may never read me again or blow me off or stop inviting me to your
endless soirees and cocktail parties. But don’t take out the bad taste I leave
in your mouth on members of my family who try and restrain me but fail
miserably and love me still.
MLK, first.
Like, you realize, Libs—that’s what
I’ll call you (identifying myself as a moderate, but usually thought of as a
lefty), you would’ve hated Martin Luther King, Jr.!
He was a freakin’ Christian!
His whole premise rested on a
belief in Jesus!
You seriously think you guys would
go for that?
But before the
Christians get all puffed up like they do, I sincerely doubt you’d all like him
either.
Inevitably, you’d get hung up on
one phrase he said. Like he’d say, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. And you’d go, Is this All
injustice or some injustice or anywhere or somewhere? Is
this Marxist? Revisionist? And is he suggesting that we cut the
drinking fountain industry in half? Like if we get rid of the Blacks Only
drinking fountains, won’t the drinking fountain industry lose 50% of its business?
I mean, I think that’s what he’s suggesting!
What I’m saying is that, if I see
one more freakin’ article or social media proclamation on the dangers of saying
Black Lives Matter, I’ll probably sink to my knees and start wailing.
Okay, Boomer.
This is what the kids meant, after all.
Do you not understand that the mantra, the riot garden, the panic
attack, the peaceful stuff too comes from pent-up, longstanding hurt, a hurt
like a head wound you inexplicably survived, from pain so deep that our random
heartbreaks that still make us comatose pale in comparison . . . and yet we
have the gall to stop, to draw attention from the hurt, to question the
verbiage?
But, libs, not so fast.
Just because the Christian folk are stumbling over your slogans, don’t
think for a minute that you’ve got this. Because you so obviously don’t. I
mean, really. The Christians will, like, never, ever, not in a
thousand years, stand behind the BLM movement. It’s that whiff of Marxism,
the anti-family scent. Listen, I, Double-Agent, can work my way around your
verbiage. I can do it, having been trained up in the secular humanism at major
universities—but you’re gonna lose some good people. I also gotta tell you a
dirty little secret that I will utter and then resort to silence because I HAVE
CHOSEN MY BATTLES. I think it has done People of Color a disservice by
combining systemic racism with sexual/gender politics. The enemies are not the
same; the battles are different. I am NOT saying that one is more or less real
than the other; I am saying that there is a distinction.
By the way, say it again, MLK was a pastor, a praying man, a
Bible-thumper.
Nonetheless, I can and will say, Black Lives Matter.
If you’re not confused yet, let me carry on vigilantly, tirelessly,
brazenly, before my husband—the saner one—tries to shut me down. Libs, guys,
the systemic racism stuff? You’re so right, of course you’re right, but
if that’s true—and it is—why are you going after the police?
The police are symptomatic, if racism is systemic.
I mean, yeah, I get the need for reform (I’m reading The New Jim
Crow, I’ve read Just Mercy, and I just watched a week of TV on the
Central Park Five—and I am utterly convinced that the legal system is MESSED
UP, undoubtedly, mortifyingly, and I’m sure I couldn’t live with myself, like I
really couldn’t live with myself, if I were involved in the prosecution
of those five boys)—but this dismantling of police is so symptomatic, so
short-sighted, so self-defeating. We freakin’ need the police!
And I just saw Hamilton for the second time, but this time I
actually understood it—and I once tried to read Ron Chernow’s book, but I was,
like, I don’t think so. But Hamilton! Surely, Lin-Manual Miranda
is a genius. Are we going to hold him responsible for portraying history
incorrectly? Libs, it’s going to get crazy.
Don’t ruin a good thing.
But I guess we’re being forced to consider history . . .
Mount Rushmore?
All of the freakin’ Confederates?
Ugh.
I get the sense that the Libs are trying to dismantle stuff they don’t
really get and the Christians are backing off because they’re all into the
Greatness of America and Such—and so we’re all going to end up, well, screwed.
First blatant use of profanity.
Christians, come off the Make America Great Again Train.
I mean, seriously.
It’s like throwing salt in wounds. Who says that if one has actually
read a book?
I mean, really!?!
But, Libs, do you get the idiocy of shredding history as if it’s
somehow rectifying past wrongs—because it’s so not?
Besides that, I think there were some intriguing messages in that Hamilton
knockout. I don’t really know the hearts of the Founding Father Dudes, but I’m
tempted to believe because I get the writer-vibe that Hamilton and others gave
off, that they might’ve felt the weight of history upon them, the unprecedented
nature of their work . . . and they, flawed—so deeply and horribly flawed—still
managed to create a nation founded on amazing principles.
Artists, I’m talking to you now, aren’t you sometimes stunned by
your own work? Like you know you suck in your heart of hearts—but you just
created this freakin’ Work Of Art—despite your own flawed humanity?????
I wonder if the Founding Father Dudes, while they were talking out of
both sides of their mouths on slavery and cheating on their rich-ass (second
blatant use of profanity) wives, were sometimes stunned by their own genius
that led to the founding of the United States of America?
I mean, they were just lousy human beings who created something revolutionary!
Which leads me to the second-to-the-last point in my rant. I’m
thinking, and I’m not really being cautious here, that SO MUCH OF ALL OF THIS
is due to a failure in education, the decline of the Liberal Arts.
Now, before I carry on, I gotta acknowledge that Christians love to
rail against liberal education immediately after they rail against Black
Lives Matter.
I mean, when I brought this up with my pretty “woke” husband (I still
don’t know if I’m allowed to say this or if I just committed a grave sin), he
immediately wanted to deliver a tirade against liberal education. Christians
love—and I mean, love—to rail against Higher Education. I know this
intimately, being a product of its unruly agenda. Liberally educated, right
here, folks.
I have problems with education. In the last two decades of teaching
college kids, I’ve been positively heartbroken by their reading habits (which
are nil), their artlessness (basic illiteracy in things like recognizing Renoir
or Monet), and their disinterest in history. At this point, I’ve met eons of kids
who never go to museums. Kids who aren’t sure about the difference between
World War One and Two. Kids who really aren’t sure if Edgar Allen Poe or Alfred
Hitchcock wrote “The Raven.” Lib kids and Christian kids alike.
Dire consequences, either way.
Monuments get destroyed.
People freak out about Hamilton.
Artless people—people who have never stood before the quietude of a Van
Gogh or people who have never felt their jaws drop open upon hearing Nina
Simone or people who have never taken deep breaths after reading a passage
written by Fitzgerald or people who have never been in awe of the epic nature
of Lin-Manual Miranda’s work—cannot really empathize with struggles outside of
their immediate experience.
Read a freakin’ book.
Learn some history.
Would someone ask Donald Trump if he ever went to the Met for fun?
Oh, Trump. I just don’t get it.
It would be a bit easier if all of this wasn’t happening in the midst
of a global pandemic (that only Trump could SUCCESSFULLY make partisan—good job
on that!) and an election year. I mean, yeah, I’m, like, Biden is the best
you can do?
Poor Biden! I don’t dislike him. I just think, well, he’s too old for
this shit (I lost count of my profanities).
But Trump? Are you serious? Has the man ever said, I’m wrong? I
was wrong? Forgive me? I made a mistake?
No, rather, it’s this: Make America Great Again, which
translates into this:
I DON’T SEE YOU.
I DON’T HEAR YOU.
Rant over. I loved Hamilton.