Embracing "racism"

A weird thing happened on a recent afternoon walk in the section of my neighborhood that is half local industry, half residential:

I passed a black guy straddling his bike on the sidewalk. He was wearing a grey wife beater and had well-built arms and thick fingers. He did not seem to be in an anxious rush to get anywhere, but his eyes were still narrowed crossly, in what may have been his resting facial expression. As I walked past him, I explicitly thought something innocuous like, 'oh but he is a black guy, so whatever....'

Further down the street I passed a more handsome version of myself: a man with a nicer build and wearing nicer clothes. We did not make eye contact--he was zoned out listening to his earbuds—but for the first time in my life I did not feel animosity or jealousy or inadequate self-consciousness as I compared myself to this man's alleged money and objective good looks…instead I felt an inexplicable camaraderie, as a finer reflection of me.

Another man walked a few paces behind him. He was older, somewhere in his fifties, overweight, with thin, grey hair. Possibly on a lunch break, his baggy t-shirt was dusty and rumpled, his fingers and forearms covered in work dust. Although he was not listening to earbuds, we did not make eye contact, but I still knowingly studied his lips and face, and detected a faint, peaceful smile, at once familiar and comforting….with his wise, wistful eyes focused straight ahead, he seemed to be saying something to me, like, ‘I know how you feel…everything is going to be fine…’

But why?

I’ve seen—and worked—with thousands of fat, loud, white blue-collar men in my lifetime, known—and despised--thousands of white douchey yuppies in my lifetime. (I don’t mean to brag, but I am neither type.) What made this moment special was this unpredictable pleasant new feeling of being associated with these average strangers as a fellow average, straight, white man.

My neighborhood is mostly Muslims and Hispanics, with a light sprinkling of blacks and whites. 60 years ago, whites were the neighborhood’s only ethnic group, subdivided by various European nationalities; ‘American’ was the uniting common denominator among them. Today, whites are the undisputed minority, and trending towards extinction as childless yuppies and aging second-generation families that never fled for the suburbs make up the majority white population in my neighborhood. New white families, if they exist, are the smallest minority.

Muslims and Hispanics (and their large families) are not American. They may be American by an unfortunate technical, legal definition, but they identify first as Muslim and Hispanic. They are not culturally American, and can never be truly American, just as I can never be truly Lebanese or Ecuadorian. (Blacks may be American, but they are not white, and their differences in culture are just as noticeable as that of Hispanics and Muslims.)

It is in this context as a minority in my native land that I find a new appreciation for the undeniable primal comfort I feel when around people that resemble me, a comfort I took for granted when growing up in my racially homogenous town. I took for granted that my city—and my country—are the same as my hometown.

‘White Power’ is cringe, but it is not evil. It is normal for any racial or ethnic group to be proud of their ancestry and heritage. (So long as they do not destroy others for being other.) As I recognized myself for being ‘just another straight, white male’ I felt a humble pride, satisfied and grateful for the circumstances and fortunes of my ancestry, heritage, and (once great) nation.

Furthermore, seeing men that looked like me in my own neighborhood, and looked like what I would become (fat, old, mediocre) inspired me to reach this white standard of normal, a standard that for so long I felt guilty for having the privilege of attaining. Without realizing it, these normal white men set an example of hope for me, that I too could be satisfied, proud to be an average white man.

But just as quickly as I felt this swoon of average white male pride did I lose it when I spotted an emaciated douchebag with shoulder length pink and black hair, too old to be wearing a graphic tee of his favorite band, and too pale to be wearing cutoff jean shorts, with the undeveloped arms and legs of a middle school twerp and covered with ugly, alternating tribal and cursive tattoos. ‘Pathetic faggot’ I thought with explicit venom. 'What is he compensating for?' (He was probably Jewish.)

Mask Mandate Observations #2

On Long Island no one wore a mask outside. 

In New York, everyone wears a mask outside. 

Cities don't die like humans do, they die by changing. Look at Detroit, Istanbul, Rome. A city is less defined by its structures as it is by the people who inhabit those structures. 

The mask mandate is for pussies (excuse my language), and even the toughest New Yorkers are afraid enough of popular opinion--and the cold stares of strangers-- to comply with its hypocrisy. 

Badass vigilantes are supposed to wear masks, but it is gay and laughable to see Candidate Sliwa's Guardian Angels wearing mandated masks. Being tough is not wearing a mask! Exposing your likeness to the cold stares of strangers and staring right back is the new tough.

(Also, you're not 'tough' if you vocally shame the only person not wearing a mask on the subway; you're a bully with popular support.)

For a city in which everyone lives on top of (or inside of) everyone else and nobody knows their neighbors, anonymity and confidentiality are taken to an ironic and unprecedented extreme. Clueless city propaganda even urges riders against talking to others on the subway--an inclination we never had! What are we protecting again? Our health or our likeness?

(For this reason, I don't even want to be earn the title of "New Yorker" anymore. The term is more descriptive of a Bangladeshi civil servant who owns three houses in Queens, or a wasteful avocado-toast hipster yuppie who owns no property than it does a hardboiled mobster, old school Tammany Hall Dem or even fratboy banker (they've all left the city to work via zoom). I am a Long Islander. I like Billy Joel. I eat mollusks. I am white. My Italian grandparents fled the city in the 40s and never looked back, and I shall continue this tradition.)

Upon my return to the Pandemic State of New New York I have seen untold thousands. When I meet Pandemic New New Yorkers (~22 of which have become fixtures in my life to varying degrees) their faces are hidden. Of those 22, I have never seen the faces of 13 of them. (The remaining 9 I have seen only in pictures, or on zoom.)

Some people want to protect their precious lungs from breathing the air we all share, so they never remove their mask in public, preferring to breathe their own mask breath instead. 

This is as disgusting as sneezing in your own bowl of cereal. But if that is the choice one wants to make I will judge and condemn with a special levity, especially if I have grown in fondness with repeated interactions. 

It's All About Me

I am selfish, and the mask mandate is personal. Is it really asking too much to want to know what my friends look like?

When I introduce myself I yank the mask down past my chin to show my face, so as not to disappoint when they spy my face and find me more charming than handsome. (No one ever asks to see  my face.)

Sometimes I get the feeling that my new friends/acquaintances don't want me to know what they look like. On one such occasion during a lengthy and enjoyable conversation my area manager turned around to remove his mask and take a sip of his Monster energy drink. 

Another time, the girl at Mass pulled her mask away from her chin with just enough space to receive the eucharistic wafer, making the only chance of seeing entire face a disappointment.

Once I entered the Director of Operations office and her back was turned from me. She did not have her mask on, and feeling my presence behind her, put it on before turning to face me. Rote or safety or needlessly protecting entirety of her likeness from my semi-curious stare? (Some people look better with a mask on.)

My behavior is subtly impacted by theirs:

Walking into the lunchroom one shift I saw Adolfo masklessly eating his lunch and diverted my eyes without saying hello, like I'd walked in on him on using the toilet.

Other times I hold my gaze longer than necessary to catch a glimpse of a chin or a lip or a cheek, like I am a pubescent middle schooler sneaking a peak at a bent over girl. 

At Planned Parenthood one morning, I had an hour-and-a-half conversation with a girl my age. I was maskless--though my eyes were hidden behind sunglasses--and she was masked. At the 7 minute mark I gave my name and asked hers (she refused it); at the 23 minute mark I asked again and she easily reciprocated. At the 44 minute mark she ripped off her masked exclaiming 'I like talking to you! This is what I look like!' to which I responded by taking my sunglasses off to reveal my own teary eyes. 

Overcoming the oppressive mandate and without succumbing to nakedness we had achieved true intimacy.

The eyes may be windows to the soul, but New New Yorkers are missing all of the good (and necessary) stuff around the eyes. I felt like a hack wearing those sunglasses--if it wasn't so sunny I'd have taken them off.

Such cursory observations make "the mask" the longest and most widespread social experiment in human history, not a preventative measure against the spread of a flu with a 99% survival rate.

gay nation

In the 80s, the gay enclaves of New York and California were overcome with a rampant plague that took the lives of many healthy and useful young men. The excessive nature of gay “culture” almost destroyed itself.

(It was not dissimilar to today’s heroin epidemic, itself a cause of the untimely deaths of many young men, the lives of which are the cost of society at large’s disregard for the condemnation of dangerous behavior.)

The only dependable method for ending the spread of the plague, and ensure the survival of the nation, was curbing promiscuity. Authoritarian enforced abstinence is more effective but more inhumane.

What curbs a heterosexual man’s natural appetite for sex is a woman’s natural reluctance to engage in sex with a man that does not prove himself as a worthy provider. As men are not hardwired to judge for potential providers unprotected gay promiscuity becomes effortless. Those that participated in this lifestyle believed their actions had no consequences, but the plague proved otherwise. Thus, urging gay sex addicts to be less promiscuous would eliminate the only proponent of gay “identity" and destroy its "culture."

This was the method of plague prevention before medications were introduced. Medications, combined with other proper precautions, meant the plague would be contained. Useful young men wouldn’t die sooner than necessary. Gays could keep their culture of promiscuous sex.

This history of sex related deaths and ensuing fallout of “systematic” discrimination has lead to a cynical political campaign for “Gay Rights."

Thus, sodomy itself has become a political movement and has invented a flag to stake out the mental territory of its nation state.

A flag once represented a nation, and a people within that nation. A people with similar values, similar tradition and a common ancestry.

Whereas this gay flag represents a sexual-political ideology, not a nation. (Gays have no common ancestry since they do no procreate.) And straight or gay, those that represent the gay flag are hook, line and sinker voting according to the political party that supports these “rights.” (Not all gays fly a gay flag.)

The gays of San Francisco and New York are not their own nation. They are not an ethnicity or a religion. They are American nationals that are guaranteed the same rights as heterosexual nationals under the constitution. These modern “rights” were invented by cunning politicians as a method for securing a voting block of fashionably marginalized individuals.

In their hearts, these politicians know that they cannot grant any more natural rights than the founding fathers have already defended in the constitution. They must turn to subvert an older, more powerful institution—the church—and alter it according to the new "demand" for modern "rights."

Not all gays are “culturally” homosexual, whatever that means. Some of them can be republican. Some of them can be Catholic.

Sodomy is only rectum deep.