ug… just got home… bout 4 hours after i left.
😛
needed to go out to montgomery mall to get some things. (is the mall in Bethesda… dont remember if we ever went). So i get out to Medical center metro station. stood there for maybe five minutes when i realized I didn’t have any cash on me… no bus fair. So being too stubborn, I started walking in the rain, the mile or two up to the grocery store above where my uncle lives… near the Hamburger Hamlet. Was the closest ATM, and a place to get change.
finally from there i caught the bus to the mall. they had an antique show, which i usually like… but all they had today was jewelry… mucho boring to me. but i got what i needed. bought a alarm clock and a moustache trimmer. my old alarm clock didn’t seem to appreciate 5 years of being dropped, kicked, and slammed. but it makes a good wall clock now. as for the moustache trimmer… dont laugh at me till you’ve tried trimming your eyebrows with a pair of hedge clippers.
anyyyways…
made my way back from the metro through the average assortment of beggars and bums. they asked for cigarettes tonight. I pretty much never give to the beggars. Too many people that I see sitting on the same corner, day after day. Never actually trying to get off the street… if they’re actually on it. but on the reverse side, I also try not to ignore them. Initially, I just didn’t want to annoy them into a confrontation. But it occured to me, it would be pretty rough in their position, to be ignored. When someone walks by without even looking, they’re trying to ignore the existance of a PERSON. no matter how lowly they may live, they are a person. And the idea of having people ignore my existence is pretty damn scarey.
god my apartments a mess. all the packages arriving and going out in the last week took their toll. personally i cant deal with it in this condition. I tend to start acting like my surroundings. When my place is a mess, my life gets terminally unorganized. Being organized makes it easier to get anything done, not just physically, but mentally. And when things like cleaning get put off, I start getting really lazy. Never a good thing. Would be all to easy for me to just go to work, come home, and watch TV till I go to bed.
be back later…
……………………..
okay… we wont even go into the race thing here. I wholeheartedly agree that racism exists, and that it’s a stupid, awful thing. But I just got done watching one of the most annoying shows ive ever seen. was one of those low budget, public access shows. “Black Women on the Light Dark Thing”
They claimed the ‘oppressors’ where teaching children as they grew up, that european, and only european features are beautiful. And this is causing undo self-hatred in all black women.
There are so many things wrong with these ideas, its scarey. these women have he wrong end of the stick. they are saying that because black women in general dont fit a popular idea of the perfect female image, that black women are feeling bad, and that we need to change that image. We dont need to change any image. And you cant. If this many black women really are feeling cheated and have such a low self-image… they need to work on that… their self-image. I hate psychobabble personally, but even i will agree that you have a problem if you spend your time trying to change yourself to fit in. We need to be teaching people to be happy with themselves. Wanting to change is a normal, good thing, in my opinion, as long as it is towards improving yourself in your own eyes.
I have been watching a woman very close to me change over the last couple of years. Her color doesnt matter. She went from being a fairly typical college freshman, to an very special lady. She learned she didn’t need to make other people happy. She learned she needed to do things to fufill her own dreams. She is finally starting to see her own beauty, inside and out. She knows she is in charge of her own life. That’s all anyone has.
I am also personally offended to be considered an oppressor because of the way I was born. why is it nearly blasphemy if i insult a black person on the basis of their skin, but the color of mine means that I am responsible for all the sins of my fathers. the person claiming to be fighting one form of racism, is using her own prejudice to support her arguments. I think clinton was a moron for apologizing to ‘the black community’ for american slavery. If I was a black person, I would have been offended. Almost no person alive today has ever experienced that slavery. To think that you can lessen todays troubles, or make a modern person happier by apologizing for something you had nothing to do with, and no control over, and directly affected no one in your audience… just doesn’t make any sense, and has no meaning.
And for gods sake… let me smack the next person that uses the term african american, or talks about the african culture among american blacks. Same goes for most jewish and some chinese people in the US. to 99.9% of you out there, I say “WAKE UP” … look around… notice… almost no resemblance to that whole other continent across the sea. You are an american. I am an american. That is your culture. kaput. thats it. any claim to africa or israel or wherever… is an INTEREST. I dont care if your great grandmothers aunt did come from there. If scientists are to be believed, we all did. Its a matter of timing. You cannot and will not make a place for yourself in this culture until you admit you are a part of it. If you want an african culture, you should be looking in africa. but watch out… ive met enough africans to know that a lot has changed there in the last 150 years. your going to find a culture more american that the fake one you’ve set up here.
having said that, I also want to say… im not asking anyone to abandon their past. By all rights be proud of your families history, and origins. But pull your head out of the past, and realize where YOU are right now. Take those wonderful ideas and actions you find so inspiring, and apply them to the current situation. Because if you refuse to progress with this culture at the same rate its going… well… take a look at the mennanites and such. they have their ideals.
this case in the news recently, of two white men, dragging a black man from the back of their truck until he died, has just been… ridiculous. These two guys committed murder. An awful, disgusting one. On that basis… throw em in jail, hang em from the yard arm, whatever the jury decides. But I dont think the racism issue should have ever been allowed to enter this case. I think the idea of hate crimes and giving stronger punishments on the basis of the biases of the offenders is wrong, and too close to totalitarianism. It is a simple act of legislating morals. It trys to tell people what is and is not RIGHT. and this is not something you can teach people by forcing their hands. The murderers with the truck… I personally dont wanna see em in public ever again. And I hate racism down to my very core. But I would defend to the death their right to have a different belief, even one so contrary to my own. This country is founded on freedom to live your life as you want. I dont think you have a right to do one thing to a racist (or such) until they put their beliefs into an illegal action. and at that time… judge them on that action and that action alone. you dont cut a murder slack for believing in god wholeheartedly, why do you further condemn the same murderer for their other beliefs, no matter how offensive?
I think Ive pissed off enough people for now.