The Roman Republic was snuffed out by the time of Julius Caesar. That’s when the Roman Empire was birthed. Conquest, war, and plagues were the order of the day. Every day.
Intrigue followed. Caesar was stabbed to death. He would be followed by centuries of assassinations, betrayals, excess, and brutality of every kind. Once Jesus had been crucified, believers began to spread the Gospel. They were hunted down. Nero liked to have them lashed to poles, soaked in flammable oil, lit on fire, and used as torches for his garden parties at night.
Once the coliseum was completed, Christians were sent to die by wild animals, legionaries, and more.
But something miraculous happened: Rome couldn’t kill them all. They kept growing in numbers until, eventually, Christianity became tolerated and then made the official religion of the Empire.
It’s odd that so many were executed in Christ’s service, yet John of Patmos (a Greek island) was merely banished. While he was there, he freely corresponded with churches, advising them. Then, he was chosen to get a very special message in visions that we read about today in the Book of Revelation to St. John the Divine. Revelation means to reveal, a revealing, and he got quite a measure of them. It’s a terrifying book, the last in the Bible, telling of tribulations (great suffering and destruction). This book reads like something Stephen King would never dare to imagine.
It was common to execute Christians; it was not so with banishment and imprisonment. Why bother? Few ever came from a Roman prison alive. But exile was like special treatment.
While exiled and aging, John had a vision of angels, and they showed him a timeline of the horrors that would precede the end of ages. God uses who He can, His willing believers, to reveal things to, or to do His work. It’s not predestination. It’s all about faithfulness.
Times are already here that Jesus described to His Apostles. Earthquakes in places that don’t usually have them. Plagues and pestilence. Wars and rumors of wars. He told them, “But the end is not yet. These are but birth pangs.”
We should feel free to ignore peer pressure from those who do not have faith. People will call you names and hurt you. Christ works you into a new life. Past sins are wiped away. Sometimes friends abandon you. Your spouse may call for a divorce. But Jesus warned us that these things would happen. We’ll suffer. We’ll be ostracized. It’s worth it. Those who hold out until the end will be blessed. They will live in paradise after death.
The Roman Empire will rise again. Christians will once again be hunted like criminals. Those who refuse the mark of the Beast will perish at his command.
I look forward to and am excited for what’s coming. Terrible things will happen and will do so very fast. From Revelation chapter 6 through chapter 9, there will be very little time. I pity all who will suffer while unsaved by confessing Christ. Everyone will suffer in those days, but true Christians will be spared the fires of Hell. They will not experience the unending darkness and loneliness that those who have seen the Lamb at Judgment and will never see him again will feel.
What can be dreaded by some is cause for excitement for others.
A guy I knew once said, “I don’t want to go to Heaven. I won’t know anyone there.”
Surely, that’s a man doomed. Bitter, complaining, and seeing nothing good. He probably will not go to Heaven. He doesn’t even want to. That’s so very sad.
I was recently faced with the statement that some past events that had occurred had been because of fate. In fairness, I can’t remember what was said or by who, or even what it was about.
I don’t always file bullshit away for future use; it gets put into the shredder that an old man’s mind regretfully keeps in “standby” mode.
The main idea I tried to get across to the person was that I no longer have such a belief. It’s bullshit and a protective thing we use on ourselves to soften the bruises to our egos after a failure.
Maybe there was a time. I don’t want to think that I did, but if I once believed in fate, then I didn’t understand what free will is.
Fate is a concept. Oh, it works well in assuaging guilt, calming the tears of a broken heart, or soothing the mind after finding out that the one person you’re really into doesn’t like you at all, but rather holds you in contempt. That’s the hurt before getting far enough to even get a broken heart. It’s called rejection and scorn.
But let’s say for a moment that maybe, if not fate, there are some pretty cool or weird things that happen, which we utterly fail to understand. Because of course there are. Random, whether we think so or not.
And if you believe in God, then tell me how fate is decided by him. Does that mean that he is always holding you by strings like a marionette, reading from a script that he laboriously wrote before time existed?
The evidence that God is real is all about; one has only to be willing to see. Hawking and others devoted their lives to proving that the Big Bang was random and spontaneous, but they failed, all of them. Einstein himself wasn’t exactly a believer but did write in a letter, “There is a God, but he is never listening.”
Bitter experience in his early years and his subsequent exposure to science prompted him to call scripture many things such as a book of lies used to condition children and a bundle of myths from various cultures in ancient times.
He did, however, believe that the universe had an order and a beauty that seems to be a description of a Creator God’s work. The fact is he changed throughout his life and deeply regretted writing the letter to Roosevelt that started the Manhattan Project. He said if he had known what would happen, he would have been a watchmaker.
Here we see a burning question: was the atomic bomb an inevitable creation? A matter of fate?
If one believes in the multiverse, then at least one Earth, parallel to us in time, never had the H-bomb. It’s possible that World War Two never happened.
The concept of different timelines or parallel worlds is fringe science at best. If there is no way to prove a theory, the concept remains just that. However, in this world, what if Hitler never took power, and the Empire of Japan never decided that war was necessary to get what they needed? What if it had favored trade instead of a military expansionist economy?
The possibilities are infinite.
World War Two did not happen because of fate, no more than any other war in world history. It happened because men chose things that led to it. Their actions and verbal abuse, and speeches of racial supremacy did it.
When the American Army found its first concentration camp, high command had been hearing through military intelligence what amounted to rumors, but ultimately, intelligence had confirmed that something terrible had been going on. It did not help that the troops who found the camp had not been told. They were in shock at the sight of men emaciated and pale, all but dead, some dehydrated to the point where their sobs terminated in their throats. And that first camp was a work camp, which wasn’t even an extermination center where Zyklon B, which superseded the original Zyklon, was used to kill Jewish people, political dissidents, Christians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, especially mental disorders, and others. Jews bore the brunt of Nazi hatred, though no one can explain why it went that far. Heinrich Himmler was suspected of being more cruel and far more sinister than the others who decided that the use of the pesticide was a humane way for a “civilized” nation to kill its enemies. The war crimes trials at Nuremberg proved otherwise. Antisemitism wasn’t new; the Nazis just industrialized their hatred. It was not humane (as if war crimes ever can be). It was an agonizing death.
These camps were to be visited at Eisenhower’s orders, later, by command officers. In one instance, General George Patton refused to enter a shack with dead bodies stacked in it. General Omar Bradley communicated, “Georgie wouldn’t go in. He said he’d throw up.” That’s a quote from memory and not exact, but I can’t stomach researching it right now.
George Patton was a true-blue, cocky, tough son of a bitch. I’m not so sure that the allies could have ended the war without significantly more casualties without him. He knew that the German people, military and civilian, would be massacred by the Soviets who had suffered horribly in Leningrad and Stalingrad and everywhere between those cities and the border. The Soviet Army shelled Berlin mercilessly before moving in, but when they did, anyone they found in house-to-house searches was shot, the women raped, random torture was used, and Patton knew that all of it would happen. He hated it. Protested the splitting of Berlin. Out of this, a myth was formed: Patton wanted to invade the Soviet Union. In fact, he knew better and was a keen tactician and historian. What he wanted was to get them back across the border. To put them in their place. George never liked the Soviets and he bristled at never getting the chance to fight them.
The result was that the war in Europe ended. The Soviets declared war on Japan, but before they had the chance to do much, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war.
Einstein lived ten years past those bombings. He lived to see the Soviets use the same dreadful weapon in tests. Thus, we have his final words about regret at not being a watchmaker.
There is nothing whatsoever that I’ve written in this thought experiment that lends any credibility to the concept of fate. Himmler was a sadistic man with power, and he did what all sadistic men with power do. All his choices speak to that.
While I believe God is real, I see from history that he simply doesn’t control the affairs of humans. All of humanity has the gift of free will. Only one man was ever born for a set purpose. Yet, he still could have easily saved himself from the cross. He chose not to.
When each of us wakes from sleep, we don’t really consider how many choices immediately present themselves. For the needy, the poor, imprisoned, and the infirm, there are fewer possibilities than other more fortunate people have, but, yes, there are still choices. We choose with our free will.
But wait! There are so many things that can influence that will. You need to shower and go to work. That’s routine, right? Not so fast. Maybe you don’t feel well. You’re tired, sore, and you have a headache. Is that an excuse not to go to work?
Not sure? Well, wait until you step out of the shower. More tired, lightheaded, and no appetite. Little bit of nausea downstairs, too. You’re awake fully now, and your body is sending signals to your brain: don’t make us go.
What’s your choice? Call in sick, or go to work?
This decision is unique to every person and their jobs, their supervisors, their economic situations, their modes of transportation, and more. What they choose has nothing to do with fate.
Some people believe, as do I, that opportunities and chance encounters are the presentations of a higher power. In other words, God does not control your life. There is no fate. But consider how and when you met your spouse. Which types of things had to happen leading up to your crossing paths with each other? Now you see the complexities of life. You meet, but do you ask that person for a date, or do you let them go out of your life, most likely forever? Is that the right one to be with? Are you the right one to be with them?
A chance encounter can lead to happiness or misery. Did God drop a gift in your path for you to choose to take or refuse? Think of what that person makes you feel. How can you know even then?
The answer is simple: if, as many believe, there is true evil out there, and I promise you that there is, then is there not also good? God and Satan. The former wants what’s best for you, but ultimately, you’re the one who has to choose, as the latter puts tempting but destructive people and things in your path.
God gave us free will. He didn’t want to create just another animal. Even the earliest humans chose, developed, lived in peace, or became violent as a matter of choice.
This freedom is extended to our beliefs in him. He didn’t want us to automatically love him without deciding to. If that were so, we would be nothing more to him than what a child keeps trapped in a bird cage. The parakeet may appreciate getting food, but it can’t tell the child that it loves him. In fact, it has never known freedom, but at the first opportunity, it will fly away. The old saying applies: if you love it, let it go. If it comes back, then you can probably keep it. If it doesn’t, it never belonged with you at all. We can’t force love. We know if a dog loves us because they express it. But if that dog shows no affection, you have to let it go to someone it will be happier with. That’s what I think God’s dynamic with us is.
We are free to love. Free to choose. With that said, so is everyone else. So what they do isn’t up to you. Bad or good, they affect us. Sometimes, it’s not his will for us to suffer. Prayer goes a long way, and he does give us miracles, but pain can teach us things we never would have known. He sees that. He may know how we will be treated and what we will do with what pain teaches us. But that doesn’t mean that he controls it.
“Fate” is a false concept that we use to give up, take a pass, or deny our part in something negative. And all we really have is our faith and each other. That is why love and kindness are so important.
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”- Jesus Christ
King Kong didn’t have to climb up the Empire State Building with a woman he could never mate with. He chose that irrational action. And then he was killed for it. But he was an animal. We are not, and we shouldn’t act like one.
I think that, perhaps, the above question was offered by someone who had read my last post. What they provoke in this way from others does not concern me. My insouciance will not be moved; my ennui will never allow it.
It is possible that some may, incorrectly, land on the certainty that I complain constantly without cease. Or perhaps that Taylor Swift is the main target of my criticism, my source of causticity, and its resultant acidic release.
Taylor Swift is rarely on my mind. However, even if I lack the respect I once had for her, she is hardly the muse responsible for my complete and unrelenting anger; she has no such power over me, and I realize how other people in her “cult” of unreasonable fans had swayed my opinion of her.
While the idea that I am an “anti-Swifty” may seem to set me apart from you and everyone you know, I am hardly a lone wolf in this area. For every Swifty, there are hundreds of people who are even more disenchanted, jaded, and weary of her. We have had enough.
I have gone astray, however, in calling the NFL a “fixed” sport. It seems to me that I’ve heard this before from kooks who love to sit around and, in a partly paranoid and delusional state, put hands to keyboard and declare that this event or that incident was the result of a conspiracy.
This nonsense became a conspiracy theory regarding the NFL. There is, however, little to no proof of any such thing. For one to exist, the conspiracy itself would have to be small or compartmented in such a way that if one person (it’s already happened with more than one), a player, coach, or owner leaked information on it, there would be serious consequences. For one, the biggest asset the NFL has is its fans. Imagine the terror they would unleash if they found or were presented with proof that everything is scripted, like the WWF (did John Stossel really have to ask)? I knew it when I was a kid. I could see that for every punch one wrestler threw, one of them would stomp as if it were a real blow. It covered what was usually just a lack of sound.
That fans bought it for so long horrified me. Every time Chief J Strongbow let himself get beaten enough to, were it real, fall down and die, only to suddenly go into a war dance and unleash his well-acted fury, I knew what I was seeing. However, I never made a big deal about it, and from 1974 to 2000, I rarely paid any attention to wrestling. That was excellent timing, as I consider, and I am not alone on this, 2000 to be the best year wrestling ever had, and one which could not be repeated. Yet I never heard any conspiracy theories about wrestling except for the hostile takeovers and buyouts that doomed the WWE to its present, boring state.
What vexed me recently into giving the NFL or Taylor Swift any room on my site may not have anything to do with sports-fixing. Then again, no one can prove that there does not exist any rigging or predetermined “script”, or that the obviously, flagrantly bad calls by the officials I have seen this season did not happen.
Detractors of the NFL conspiracy theories all point out that there are laws that bind the league to prevent any cheating or tanking in any way. However, I challenge you to give me one example of any corporate entity or company large enough to have the power to do things such as price fixing that actually follows the letter of the law, and I will call you on the spot for your proof, which you, of course, will not have.
What draws most of my complaints is hardly Taylor Swift or her newest temporary boyfriend. It isn’t the constant news coverage they get, nor is it the media telling people to watch them, to cheer them on, to love them. The romance will end badly. It may even be messy. I know this just as I knew that the Ravens were not supposed to win. The Chiefs were scoreless in the second half. They did not need to score; it was already over.
My biggest concern, and what I complain most about, aside from my failures and the attendant self-loathing they have caused, is the incredibly uncaring and cavalier attitude people have toward global warming, crime and corporate power, used to further threaten life on earth and steal money from people who do not have any. This corporate power is responsible for the shocking response to the Affordable Health Care Act.
Insurance companies write inscrutable policies that even established attorneys cannot unlock the secrets of. Between that and crime, a lack of governmental concern over firearm availability and the sickening statistics that this lack of concern reflects, people are dying.
These are not deaths from highway accidents, resort conditions, home, or household accidents. No, these deaths are the most heinous things that can happen to people: premature, hollow, meaningless, and unnecessary deaths. There is no glory, no honor, and nothing about such an ending that is good. It’s just evil and tragic.
Please note, I do not for one second believe in fate or “dying for a reason” or “it was his or her time” to go. That’s weak rationalization, which is to say, a pack of lies.
Perhaps you would like to tell a grieving spouse, parent, or sibling that their loved one was murdered by someone with an assault rifle because it was “their time” or worse, that it was “God’s will“. You deserve to be slapped if you say such things.
Answer this question: how many mass shootings took place in the United States in 2023?
You don’t know, do you? Because corporate news stopped telling you. I place even odds that nobody knows, that the books have been cooked to the point that the truth cannot be known. This would constitute a real conspiracy if I am even close. But no one can prove me right…or wrong.
Another killer is fentanyl. It’s everywhere. People claim that it’s a myth that police officers can’t be affected by just touching it or inhaling residual dust. We’re whitewashing a killer. The reason? No one wants to know about it. There’s almost as much misinformation on fentanyl as there still is about Covid-19.
Corporate media covers for corporations that are killing our last chances of surviving global warming. I’ve often said that the “temperature threshold” is already passed, and we’ve crossed the no return line drawn in the sand. No one can even see the line anymore; to many people have kicked sand over it. While wars continue, the need to cut reliance on oil is left out of discussion. We are, as a species, headed inexorably toward extinction. If there’s a way to stop that mass extinction, it lies more in the realm of fantasy than truth. I’m always sorry to write this, but I just don’t believe reliance on fossil fuels will stop.
What’s that you see in a child’s eyes? The desire to be a child, to play, be with friends, grow and become someone important?
Or do you see shock, mute and staring, after their home was destroyed by a rocket attack?
What’s that in that little boy’s eyes? Wonder at the world around him, the possibilities?
Or is it the dull stare of a little kid who’s just been raped by his father? Neither child can ever know trust again. Will never know peace or a world without the innocence it once had for them.
These are the things I complain about the most. The things I care about the most. Sometimes, I believe that we deserve to become extinct. God gave us a beautiful, bountiful place to live and the ability to thrive and to take care of what we’ve been blessed with.
But we deny his existence and fill fields that were once lush and beautiful with trees, grass, and flowers with sewage and toxic sludge.
Folks, those are the things I complain about the most. And I am not about to stop.
My brain is full of nightmares. That’s true. It is also a constant truth that I have emotions like anger or rage, and it’s clinically sick.
As in fucked up.
If, among my childhood traits, there is one thing that I managed to salvage, it is that I was polite, courteous and very sensitive: I cried at not just my own pain, but also that of others.
When I looked back at pictures of when I was a child I saw bright eyes and a beautiful smile. I remember losing both. I tore up and threw away every picture I had.
They turned me into a monster, out for revenge. I turned into an avenging asshole. I caused unknown amounts of money in property damage, said horrible things to innocent people, ran from the bullies, sabotaged close relationships, isolated myself, became more bitter than I could bear, and was totally lost.
The world did not believe children like me existed. They did not care of things they knew nothing of. I grew more sick every day.
Sometimes, by age 14 I took everything out on people I knew. I’d write hard-core porn with them in it. They did things that I saw, in my twisted mind, as humiliating to them. So far as I know, none involved in those stories ever read or heard about them. But I’m not a hundred percent on that.
I was good at it, too. Long before reading Penthouse Forum, I wrote better stuff.
It was revenge, all of it. For being ridiculed, marginalized or insulted, and ultimately ignored. And those stories…got more evil as time went on. They weren’t sadistic, there was never violence, I couldn’t go that far. And I have always hated violence against women.
Unhealthy outlets are usually the result of severe abuse. A child’s normal development stops, replaced by horrors.
By the time my parents were arrested, though, it was not about revenge. Oh, I had planned my revenge: I was going to buy a shotgun at Bart’s Sporting Goods on Ritchie Highway and shoot my parents with 00 buckshot. It was all mapped out. I had only to get in my car and go.
Fate, or God, intervened. A nephew living in their house was being abused. I passed on the message that my sister only had a certain time to move out, then bad things would happen. She didn’t. Bad things did follow.
But I’m proud that I wasn’t acting on rage and revenge, but for a child’s welfare. My siblings who testified with me boosted my courage. It wasn’t about me. It was about justice and a child who deserved better than what we had gone through.
In the decades since, I’ve struggled with worsening mental health. I nearly ended my own life 3 times. I became more racist and was violent to the point where if someone spat while looking at, or just after seeing me, I wanted to kill them: You think I’m scum? You won’t when you’re dead, motherfucker.
Today, I’ve had it. I’m sick of being sick. There’s no cure for any of my conditions. I’m slowly dying. I don’t care much.
But I have found things that I do care about.
I try to stay away from the news. I’m limited and cannot handle that mess. I try to keep busy. And I have decided not to bring more pain into a world that’s just had enough of it.
God blessed me. I used to think of my survival as a curse, but that was never true. I was blessed with experience others had but could not voice. Maybe, I thought, I could help. Offer support and kindness. Perhaps insight. Hope.
I have no wish to harm. I’ve returned to courtesy and friendliness, but with much more experience than way back when I was having my innocence taken by evil people.
I do not see myself as noble, honorable or even worthy of living, I stand alone except for family, none of whom have time for me or are in their own health crises. I know I’m loved and that’s enough. God’s love was always there with us, and still is. That’s why I’ve chosen a gentle path.
I still cuss and lose my temper over those taking advantage of the poor; over the press telling us how stupid we all are; of abuse.
I don’t need meditation or zen stuff. I’ve made my choice.
I challenge you to do the same. Start with a random, out-of-the-blue sharing of kind words. Gentle encouragement. Praise when it’s deserved, but never flattery; that’s shallow. Loan someone ten bucks and don’t expect to get it back. It spreads. You’ll even see it, if you’re lucky.
And remember: one kind word can save a life, where an unkind word may end it. Life is delicate and we must remember that, if we truly hope to fight the evil that makes so many just give up. You can change the world. Yes, I do mean you.
And I know how hard it is to smile. Don’t worry. If you’re sincere, others will always know that.
I’m a realist. I have no lofty thoughts and I caution you not to, either. This life can tear you up. I am sorry for that. But do you or I have any right to make that worse?
Looking back at the pain and chaos I caused and knowing why I did it hurts. My age back then, my mental health, and all other things considered, I regret so much. I hurt people I loved. Or hated. I never felt justified. For a few moments, maybe. But smothered in guilt and shame, I longed to be clean. Feeling as if you were born already soiled, knowing you had some good qualities, is difficult to reconcile. How can you process a thing like that? I fear no one can know. We just do the best we can.
And the question I’ve asked bears the same answer: none of us has the right to make the world a worse place than it is.
Choose what’s right. You’ll know what to do. I have faith in you.
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
Actually the title is bait. But I really do hate crackers. Ritz, Saltines, Wheat Thins, all of them. I don’t care if you give me the most expensive cheese or Beluga caviar, I will not eat crackers.
That’s what the title really means. But it may not be the way you saw it.
That’s because once upon a time, it referred to a hillbilly, a dullard with no education and a hatred for freed slaves, usually African Americans, and this hatred was absolutely deadly. The expression, a derogatory slang, once conjured the image of an old man wearing a battered straw or felt hat, shirtless beneath bib overalls, bare of foot, a corn cob pipe hanging from a mouth with no or few teeth, and in his hands a side-by-side double-barrel shotgun.
More recently it’s been used as a derogatory name for any Caucasian, used by African Americans.
Down in the southern and in the midwestern United States it is more prevalent, but since the late 1990s has faded further north. But you can still hear it.
Racism is everywhere and is a part of everyone’s life, whether we want to believe it or not. You may not think that you are racist, but no matter how you may try not to be, the need for and effort itself means that there is something within you that’s being fought, something you try to bury deep, crammed into shadows you never dare let see the light of day. That’s a great thing. It is noble, this fight, and remember that many before you have fought the same personal battle, each one of them making the world a slightly better place. No brave effort is ever wasted.
Of all the regrets I have that haunt me most, being a blind bigot is at the top. I’ve hurt people, almost exclusively with words. I would sling the “N” word from my mouth as often as the word “fuck”, and that goes way back to childhood.
In my school in elementary grades, what they call “primary” school now, there was one African American girl. Same grade I was in. And did we ever punish her. Also the girls who never washed or bathed, who showed up in white blouses that went as unwashed as they, well we gave them hell too. I got bullied, but when it was the rare girl who set her cross hairs on me, I would be shocked into frightened silence, and the sickening language I used on others would come back to me, but strangely, because there was a certain finesse and panache added in. I hated Cheryl Gant and admired her at the same time for being sick, but eloquent in her loathing for me. After a time, she became attractive to me!
I could never figure out why she hated me, and it spread to her mother, who had the balls to knock on my door after I passed her once on North Shore Road. I thought that was funny, but let my mother handle it because at 17 years of age, I had no way of holding back my emotions and I’d have used language like “cunt” on her. Yep. I’d have done that. Maybe worse.
What Cheryl did, unknowingly, was teach me that hate can come from anywhere. It isn’t restricted to race, gender, religion, or any other factor. Sometimes, it’s just there.
Other times, it’s taught. When parents are both southern bigots, true racists, you do what they do. You say what they say. You feel what they’ve taught you you feel. Being young in redneck Pasadena in the 1960s, lots of prejudice existed, and if a black family moved into the neighborhood, they’d be shunned by most, befriended by few, and invariably suffered vandalism. I rarely heard of violence, except on Walter Cronkite in 1968.
Maryland went into panic as riots broke out in Baltimore City that year, and Governor Spiro Agnew activated the MDARNG. A conservative, Agnew would go on to be Nixon’s vice president before being caught with fraudulent tax records. He was replaced by Gerald R. Ford.
These riots, so close to the cloistered suburbs of Pasadena and North Shore, scared my father silly. He kept a .22 revolver with a 10-inch barrel loaded. Ready for (“the ‘Ns'”) to walk into his yard.
They weren’t coming, but his blind terror of blacks rendered him hysterical and unreasonable. I felt the fear that he did. It made an indelible mark on my soul, and I got worse. If I was a mentally ill loose cannon before, I became a monster later. And the African American girl in my class suffered additional reactionary punishment not just from me, but others. By sixth grade, she’d grown an impressive bosom. The girls wanted to be her because they had nothing in the breast department. Weren’t supposed to, really, but everyone matures at different rates.
By junior high, the bussing situation threw together kids who weren’t prepared. Shock naturally occurred, but with dire consequences. Rednecks regularly carried switchblade knives, and came very close to murder. Fights, rumors of riots,fistfights in the hallways were more limited to the redneck guys, but other scenarios happened. It wasn’t a conducive learning environment. And I hated black people more until I finally got suspended for hate speech. Several times.
I didn’t care. Not for decades would I feel differently.
Being grown, working every day, I was always going to interact with people I’d been taught to hate.
And slowly, ever so slowly, I became less fearful. I interacted with customers, asked stupid questions, but always, they understood and praised my eagerness to learn, to overcome. I wanted the hatred and fear to end, to be no more. I began to see beauty in all people of all races. Women whom I’d never have paid attention to became ravishing. And almost always, and to this day, women of color are nicer to me than most others. They sense things in me: no threat, no danger, always sympathetic and ready to listen, not a man seeking a relationship, but a friend.
And the girl in my class all those years ago, who alone had to bear racism from white students surrounding her?
One night I read a newspaper article. She’d made the headline. Babysat one night. And the baby wouldn’t stop crying… she tortured and killed it. I never knew, and never will, if what she went through in school, because of boys like me, played a part.
You know what I’d like to think.
But the abuse we piled on her for years would almost certainly be part of her hell.
All actions and words have consequences. And the potential to harm, and harm greatly. I wish I could have learned that lesson much earlier. Then, maybe, though damaged and full of my own sorrow, rage and bitterness, I could have learned respect and how to love…instead of having so many hurt left behind me in time. A painful lesson that hurts more because I took so long to learn it. I often think back to those who I had hurt and hated. Too late to apologize. Too distant. And some are long gone. As is one infant whose name I will never know.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 