Racism is hilarious. Often, in chit-chat with store clerks and telemarketers, I find myself injecting out of place racial slurs just to watch their horrified reactions. They stare at me like I just loudly shit my pants.
Truth be told, discriminating against retards is really funny too. I keep at least 2 gigs of high-res action shots of special olympians in brow-furled glory to browse through when I’m feeling glum.
Or have you ever tried just full-blown, out of the blue, pointing and laughing at a woman when she’s hysterical or PMSing? It makes your day, right then and there.
But these things are funny because they’re so absurd. If you expose yourself to something totally senseless, poorly conceived, useless beyond hope, and so self-destructive, it boggles the mind and you’re almost forced to laugh - it’s like high-brow slapstick.
Being a victim of discrimination is awful. It’s very serious, for the individual(s) involved, and sometimes exposure to huge quantities of this sort of abuse can be formative and evolve our perspective, turning us into squabbling, bestial, pack animals when cornered. Eventually you take enough of the same type of abuse and it becomes an enormous psychological burden, an enormous memory that gets dragged up every time it happens again. To defeat that pain, to end it, we mob up with fellow victims, and protest, and fight for our rights, and stand up for ourselves.
Amen, I say. Fuck dem niggas.
But here’s the thing, and I’ve come back to this enough times that I’m proud to be a hater - I’m sick of you parents. Just about damn near all of you. And your arrogant, outlandish ignorance and delusional hubris that prevents you from being worthy of the love and trust your kids put in you. Because unlike the victims of every one of those causes, those personal abuses, those individual violations - your life is no longer just your own. You have kids that look to you for guidance and answers, and you’re WAY too content. You can always be better. You can always improve. And you have the biggest possible reason to always be the ‘bigger person’ when it comes to ignorant discrimination or partisan argument.
I’m reading a single mom blog, (which I know is a bad idea, but I started reading it because at the time I just could not understand their position, and I am trying, vaguely, to practice what I preach and thus attempt to understand this culture of single parent blogging…) and it’s basically just an endless stream of:
“Being a single mom fucking rocks! I’m the best parent in the fucking world! Everything I do is right for my kid, because somehow, my buying his hot pockets and underwear makes me an expert on parenting. My ex is a fucking TOOL, just like everyone’s ex is a tool, but mine is worse. And I want to celebrate how I fucking rule by only ever listening to other SINGLE FUCKING PARENTS! That way, everything I fucking say will be validated, and in turn, I’ll validate everyone else! We could wish away gravity and global warming as well, if only we got enough single moms behind the cause!”
And I’m fed up. This shit is on par with soccer hooliganism, or gang initiations; you’re automatically cool and validated by doing what everyone else is doing. It’s the most irresponsible shit ever, and parents are the one demographic that I demand most of all must learn to handle responsibility! We live in the most complicated, diverse, multicultural, hypocritical society that this world has ever seen, by far! It’s only getting more complex and confusing every year.
I get that being a single parent is a lot like being a star pitcher, goalie, quarterback. Everything is riding on you, nobody’s there to help, you are the whole team. It’s almost impossible to do a good job in that high-pressure situation unless you bollocks it up, and fire yourself up, and headbutt a wall, and attack the thing with confidence, so you can teach your child about being tough and confident too. You gotta step onto the field every time like you’re the best goddamn parent that’s ever parented, and you know best for your kid. But FUCK, you still should show up for practice, and try to improve; you prima donnas, you pretenders!
And I get that the people that hate on the single parents, the happily married couples, don’t get them at all. They can’t imagine having to step up like that and take on that role that very few people ask for. They’re just a skater, another part of the team, another wheel in the cog. They don’t understand the ritual, and the process that goes into forming these people, so they get fed up watching the single parents try to tell them that they are just as good. In their mind, they did everything right - how on earth could someone, who obviously isn’t walking the same path, be just as far along as them, if they did everything right!? In the end, it has to do with protecting confidence, preserving it, keeping it safe and supported.
But really, we have enough type-A, ignorant fucks in this world. There is more you need to teach your kid than how to put their heads down and charge. Call me soft, but I find a lot more strength in tolerance, more defense in understanding moral and emotional relativity, and empathy. These are the skills a child needs to be able to maintain a sense of identity in an intellectually bombarding world, not bullheaded arrogance and contempt for their critics.
And these are the skills that the parents of today are lacking. Damn you all, every last close-minded one of you. You’re the best chance we have to improve this world, the brightest hope to bring value and colour back into the fray, and you’re dropping the ball because you can’t look in the mirror or shut up and listen for even the briefest of moments.
You honest to god bring me to tears, and I’m not joking this time. It’s not funny, it’s never funny when you’re in the moment - like anything we laugh about after the fact.
Tonight, and tomorrow: you bring me to fucking tears.
~ Driz