This is not going to make me popular during this current outbreak of Black Lives Matter, but it has to be said. This will also highlight just why I really am not interested in participating in any of the protests or demonstrations that have come flowing out of the murder of George Floyd. First of all, I am in complete agreement with the protesters, and I also support an end to discrimination, brutality and prejudice against people of colour, and for the full inclusion of everyone in society who is marginalized for whatever reason. And I also look forward to the complete dismantling of White Privilege. Even if I don't believe the postmodernist nonsense that says that being born Caucasian automatically endues one with that privilege. You have to be already part of the affluent middle class in order to qualify for said privilege, and all the students getting brainwashed by postmodernist drivel in our universities all happen to come from well-off homes, hence their tendency to believe that everyone who looks like them is going to automatically share in their privilege. I was born white and for a whole laundry list of reasons I have not benefited from any of this privilege. But I have never known middle class privilege. On the other hand, even if I was American, I would never in a million years vote for President Dump.
However, there is one reason why I am not participating in the protests, and this is the same reason why I no longer attend protest demonstrations. It is the lack of nuance. Everyone has to think exactly the same way and everyone has to say exactly the same thing, and woe betide anyone who strays even one single nanometre from the dogma of the day. Yes, black lives matter. So do Asian lives, South Asian lives, aboriginal lives, queer lives, disabled lives, your life and my life. Sloganeering breeds black and white thinking. I am not going to subject myself to that. I am not drinking the Kool Aid.
Today I had a brief altercation with a young man of colour. He was riding his skateboard on the sidewalk from just behind me and came within centimetres of running me over. So I said to him, thanks for the warning, you nearly ran me over. His well-bred response? Telling me to shut up. I replied that telling me to shut up isn't going to change anything. Then he displayed to me his lovely middle finger. I said, neither is lifting to me your finger going to make anything better. We all have to treat each other with respect. And then he disappeared into the local liquor store.
Now, I have had several experiences of being victimized by angry black men: when I was robbed at knife point by one in Amsterdam, when two black visitors from Seattle pulled the bandana off my head because they thought I had no right to wear it, by the fellow who swore aggressively at me for holding my breath on the sidewalk so I didn't have to inhale his cigarette smoke. by the black yuppie who came back to threaten me when I mentioned politely that he was monopolizing the sidewalk when he decided to go jogging with his kid in a mammoth size stroller and also walking his large dog. And now this incident today.
I refuse to politicize any of those encounters. I have also had difficulties with violent, aggressive and complete dumbass white people, if you must know. But what I read into these situations, is that regardless of the politics and the history of political oppression and social inequality and police brutality there still remains one simple thing. Regardless of our skin colour, we are all equally capable of being angels, or complete assholes, and I would like to add here that the good, kind and loving black people I have known far outnumber the douchebags I have just mentioned here.
But I have chosen to go colour blind, at least as far as race is concerned. And my one message to all of us here is this: we have to begin treating one another with kindness and respect. No excuses. No rationalizations. We all need to do this. We all need to be this.
All our lives matter, Gentle Reader. If you want to lynch me for writing this then I will happily provide you with the rope.
All for now, duckies!
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