Tag: Sarah Palin

Facebook Sideswiping & Superman’s Racist Alter-Identity…

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Sideswipe:

  1. A glancing blow on or along the side
  2. An incidental critical remark
  3. An unexpected criticism of someone or something while discussing another subject
  4. A character in the Transformers cartoon series known for acting hastily, often at the expense of the safety and/or happiness of others around him

I love Facebook.  I love getting on and seeing what everyone is up to and kind of checking in with my friends and family.  It’s one of the highlights of my morning and even makes me happy throughout the day to periodically check in and see what people are up to.  Lately, though, I’ve been a little less optimistic about hopping on Facebook without a sense of trepidation.  Seeing my stream open up on the browser, I scroll down a little slower than I used to.  I do this for two reasons…

Number one, I don’t want to see that someone I thought I loved (or liked) has posted something about politics and/or this whole chicken thing which shall remain nameless in this post.  It probably wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t so damn mean spirited lately.  I mean getting on Facebook used to be about friendship and camaraderie.  Now I can’t stand to see the opinions and comments of people who disagree with mine.  I didn’t used to be that way.  I used to be all about sharing and agreeing to disagree and even encouraged others to have their point of view and debate me.  Now…there is no debate.  Now there is righteousness and a real sense of anger and sometimes entitlement.  And this counts for both sides…I’m not just talking about people I’d consider to be on “my side” of the conversations.  I’m talking about everyone lately.

Number two, I don’t want to see people I respect highly post a remark or comment about something I’m passionate about changing.  I consider myself a smart guy…really.  I’ve been told over my life that I have a keen sense of seeing how things are and an even keener ability to affect change in the world.  But seeing people I’ve agreed to be friends with on Facebook post something that seems SO counter to what I believe, it literally makes me doubt my abilities to choose friends.  I mean when I see someone confusing this issue of free speech with an issue that is clearly about something else, it really makes me wonder how smart these people are that I once admired…even looked up to.  And it more than irritates me…it hurts.  I think to myself…how in the hell did I get it so wrong to think that they would be someone I’d look up to?

It’d be like if Clark Kent all of a sudden posted something on Facebook about being FOR “white” rights since it seems everyone else is getting rights except for the white people.  Clark may post something like “Nothing against the rights for blacks and Mexicans because I think they have a right to be brown or black…but I didn’t choose to be white so I think I should be entitled to the same rights as they get.  It’s not about White Power…it’s about power for all!”  This is totally how this whole chicken thing has occurred to me lately.  SOOOOO off kilter and ignorant with nobody doing any critical thinking about how this surely must occur to the gay men and women it affects.  Seriously?  Of course…Superman is for everyone’s rights.  But Clark has “different ideals.”

So I scroll down my friends posts a little slower so I can catch the hurtful things before they are thrust into my brain without any warning.  Kind of like porn flashing in front of your screen…you can’t get that out of your head for a while.  It sticks with you.  Sarah Palin holding a bag of chicken sandwiches in your neighborhood sticks with you.  Seeing people in line waiting to buy chicken to support a companies right to have opinions that seem so outdated and insulting sticks with you.  Seeing the people close to you post a “word-picture” of something that is so offensive, sticks with you.

So I scroll a little slower these days.  I don’t like to have to do that on Facebook.  And I don’t like to have to be forced to relive those days of not being accepted when I was younger.  Those days when I never knew who would be walking down the hall on my way to class and would scream out the word “faggot” and make everyone laugh or look at me.  My life is a little more evolved than that now.  I don’t put myself in those situations just like as a sober man I don’t go to places where they will be using crack cocaine or things that may hurt me.  But how do you do that on Facebook…the place that is supposed to be our world community of friends and family?  The answer is you don’t.  People are going to have opinions (like I have this opinion I’m writing about in this blog post.)  They are going to have opinions that differ from mine, no matter how outdated and offensive they may seem.  BUT.  I don’t have to be a part of it.  I don’t have to stay friends with these people to hopefully make a difference with them in the future.  My days of trying to be a good gay guy that would hopefully make people see that gay people are good and loving and contributing members of society are done.  I’m tired of empowering others to have their freedom to speech and different ideas.  There comes a time when ideas have to change.  When the line between your right to have your opinion and my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are crossed.  All men are created equal.  That’s what we all agree is our founding principle.  It’s now time for a change and I don’t know how to make that change happen but we are on the cusp of something here in America.  It’s only a matter of time before change happens.  We are all hoping, secretly, that all people really do have the right to be happy and love who they want and have the freedom to be who they want to be.  I for one am sorry I held my lips closed for so long about the people who don’t or who won’t.  Don’t let my lack of saying something about it make you think that I’ve supported it or that because I’ve been quiet about it means that it should stay that way anymore.  It doesn’t.

So the next time you are sitting at your desk, or on your couch, and you pull up your Facebook page, don’t be alarmed if you don’t see my posts in your feed anymore.  And don’t be surprised if you can’t post anything to my wall or comment on my posts.  The only way to affect change at the moment is to empower myself and not let any of that negative BS live for long around me.  No offense.  I’m just tired of you driving in my lane and sideswiping me.

By the way, meet Foreskin Man.  He fights for the newborn baby boys who don’t have the power to fight for themselves against their enemies.

He’s a blond, blue-eyed superhero out to protect newborn boys from a menacing, hook-nosed rabbi named Monster Mohel, for whom “nothing [is more exciting] than cutting into the penile flesh of an eight-day-old infant boy.”

Enjoy your day and thanks for reading!

@downtownharold.com

Of Chicken, Shadows and Roger Whittaker…

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I think I’m beginning to get a little better understanding of what is happening on the planet at this time.  All of this talk of gay rights, Christianity and chicken got me so upset over the last week that I seriously began to doubt that we, as a species, would ever really find a way out of this.  It felt hopeless.  I have never felt the level of despair and hopelessness I’ve felt recently.  As bad as it has ever gotten for me and my life, and believe me I’ve had some rotten times mixed into the great stuff, I’ve never ever lost hope that it could get better.  Until I saw how people treated each other this past week.  The things that were said were hurtful on both sides.  All of a sudden you either believed in Jesus Christ and his selected bible passages…or you were a total heathen and deserved death, hatred, or at the very least, to be vilified.

I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life for the most part.  I didn’t have the same experience of coming out as a lot of teenagers and others have had.  My parents accepted me the minute I told them I was gay.  That was at 11 years old.  At 9 years old I remember telling my dad that I was different than the other boys.  I didn’t know why I was different…I just remember liking my boy friends and loved being with them.  My dad and I sat on the floor in my parent’s bedroom and talked about it.  He assured me that there was not a thing wrong with my feelings nor about my feeling different.  He told me it was normal and that it may change, but not to worry about it…just be myself.  Then we listened to music together…Roger Whittaker to be exact.  The song I remember from that time is New World in The Morning.  The lyrics went like this:

Everybody talks about a new world in the morning.

A new world in the morning so they say.

I, myself don’t talk about a new world in the morning.

A new world in the morning, that’s today.

And I can feel a new tomorrow comin’ on.

And I don’t know why I have to make a song.

Everybody talks a bout a new world in the morning.

New world in the morning takes so long.

I’m very appreciative of my parent’s love and acceptance of me.  Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t experience that kind of love like I did.  Whenever I did experience being called a fag or other hateful words intended to hurt me, I paid no attention.  I embraced it for the most part.  If you were going to call me fag or gay, then I’d be the best fag or gay you’d ever met.  It was the ultimate in revenge really.  In Junior High and High School I went so far as to wear makeup to school and dress in crazy clothes.  Luckily it was the 80’s so you could pretty much get away with crazy stuff like that and everybody thought it was cool….mostly.

So here we are in 2012 and arguments are being started, wires are being crossed and a few people are stirring the pot for whatever reason.  It reminded me when I read Plato’s Republic.  The metaphor of the cave in particular, I believe, applies to this situation.  There are a group of people in a cave.  (cave could be interpreted to be life here).  The people inside the cave can only look upon the shadows cast upon the wall of the cave before them. Light comes to them from a great fire burning behind them, higher up, and at a distance. Located between this fire and the people of the cave is a road at a higher level along this road a low wall has been built. Here other people have puppets, which they use to cast the shadows upon the cave wall.

These shadows are given names by the people in the cave, and they consider them to be real things. However anyone outside of the cave in the bright sunlight would no longer see the shadows (or be under the illusion manifested by the puppet show). The people inside the cave cannot stand the bright light of the sun outside, and so always avert their eyes back to the shadow wall.

These are the people who seem to be asleep to the spiritual world, dreaming a dream of worldly consciousness, and afraid of waking up. The process of ‘waking up’ or turning away from the obsession with ego, and the mundane awareness, away from the shadows and back toward the light, is Metanoia – the transformation of the mind from that which is worldly to that which is the light of true consciousness.

People, at any time, can choose to not be enamored by the shadows in the cave.  The shadows have names…freedom of religion, the right of a business to operate however they want, the right to be married, the fear of God’s wrath when we say we know better than Him.  All of this is just a temporary distraction from what is really going on here…there is a brighter place that we have feared to go to together.  There are puppets used as distractions so we stay in the cave.  There is fear that you will wake up and stop believing all this.  But it’s really hard to save face and change your mind.  There is an art to changing your mind.  Christian’s can change their mind and stand on higher principals of love and acceptance.  But if they did they would have to accept love in all it’s forms.  My gay brothers and sisters would have to have a lot of compassion and understanding while we all grew together and come out of this cave.  And we’d have to remember that there are going to be those who are SO committed that we stay where we are that they will use any means necessary to keep us there…including dividing us, killing us and separating us inside our communities.  If there is a devil…surely this is it.


So what now?  We are on the cusp of something big…I can feel it.  All the distractions and smokescreens that will be thrown our way cannot take us off course from our journey together.  But they will try.  Chic Fil A is a distraction/shadow.  Sarah Palin eating at their place and flaunting it is a distraction/shadow.  Hate groups aren’t anything new…but they are also a distraction.  The KKK was a distraction.  It’s ALL a distraction.  It’s nothing but shadows.  So let’s get our head back in the game here and look for a way to bring this together.  There is a new world coming…and a new world in the morning, that’s today.

Be kind to each other.  For everyone (all of us) is fighting a hard battle.

Thank you dad (and mom) for the inspiration for this.  You did a great job with me and I love you for it.

Harold