White Man Whining

For most of my life, I’ve had very little faith in Humanity. I struggle to even accept that other people truly exist (thank you Philosophy 101). However, despite my underlying existential dread, I had hope that humans were making progress. Agonizing and incremental, but progress nonetheless. Turns out I was wearing snow goggles over my rose-colored glasses while I sat under an avalanche. I could point to many moments that taught me this lesson, but I come back to one in particular. One that showed me that not only had I been blind, but I had not even been looking.

It wasn’t hard for me to walk around the world like that. Despite a few stumbles, like picking creative writing as a major, I had lived neatly inside my white middle-class bubble along with my amazing wife and expanded it to fit in a few children. How could I not be blinded by their light? Why look too closely at the world outside? Did I know there was war? Depravity? Poverty? Evil? Sure, but scenes of life filtered through books and television had given me a delusion of remove and control.

Some might guess the moment that changed me was 9/11. I sobbed in horror as the towers fell so far away but right in front of my face. No, maybe I wasn’t old enough yet. My moment of realization came later, even if it was still through the television. Why not 9/11? Because while the terror was real and palpable, movies had already conditioned me to accept that such a group of men, in their hatred, would do such a thing. They were just fulfilling their Hollywood destiny. My horror at the time was that they got away with it. No action hero had been there to stop them. I was not old enough to understand their hatred was a fire stoked by others in power, kindled with desperation for meaning. I do not excuse their actions. Many, under worse circumstances, have found beauty and a life worth living instead of martyring. But it is good to understand that we are not all paper puppets cut from different colored paper.

Looking back, the moment that shattered my glasses should not have been surprising. It was not a sucker punch, but a hammer being pulled back and swung straight at my face in slow motion. It’s the kind of moment that destroys your worldview, but only because you benefited from the world as it was. If I had been poorer, a minority, even a white woman, I think I would have just been saddened to be reminded the world remained the same. As it was, November 8, 2016, cracked my soul.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I truly thought that moment would not come to pass. That somehow, humanity (or the American equivalent of it) was better than that, able to rise above its baser instincts. That this evil was just so recognizably banal, surely only the most deplorable and delusional would proclaim this creature their messiah. But that moment showed me I was the delusional one. I had buried my head so deep in the sand that I had only heard echoes that the religion of my youth had put their faith in the devil, and I missed the monuments they were already building to this embodiment of the seven deadly sins. I missed how they were willing to lead their sheep into the maw of a fat wolf and proclaim it as God’s will.

Now, a mirror of that moment has come again, but it changes nothing. The wounds of that first moment never healed. There was no hammer this time. Just a patronizing slap on the cheek, reminding me that the moment had never left, just metastasized.

So, now we reach the Chapter 11 problem. I’ve laid out my issues. Now: how would I fix them? I don’t know. I’m an introvert, not an activist. I voted, both times, so I did the least I possibly could. And I’m not naive. I already indicated this was not a new problem; it is a ridiculously old problem. In the end, this…man who embodies so much of the darkness that is at the root of our species is no different than millions of other men and women. He’s just been given a bigger megaphone to spew his bilious hyperbole and call it the truth. Then he marketed his own brand of megaphones and got people to pay for the right to be his mouthpieces.

I’m not even sure where I want to go from here. This whole exercise has now become a stream of consciousness about someone with a lack of conscience in order to meet a word count. I know, I’ll do what any self-respecting parent does: expect their children to fix the mistakes of the prior generation, all while listening to that generation pontificate about just how much they all suck. I know, I know, such poetic words. I’m running out of steam and attention. Exactly what someone like the accidental architect of my moment wants, even as he craves attention. No, as he lives on it like a vampire.

Anyway, back to the kids who will have to fix the crack in humanity that has been exploited since the snake tricked Eve, and Adam was too much of a dick to stand up for his love and what was right. They would have still been punished, but I’d have a little more respect for him. It feels like all I can do is make sure they are more aware of the cracks in the world than I was, all while still showing them there is joy in the world, not just in the suffering of others. There is joy and riches in kindness, not just joy in accumulating riches. All while arming them against those who would exploit their kindness for their own gain. It all feels impossible. But it is better to be Sisyphus, rolling a boulder out of their way every day than let them be the ones crushed by the weight of such moments.