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things2mustdo · 3 years

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On July 6th 1994, twenty-six year old Troy Kell, inmate and white supremacist gang member at Utah State Prison, killed Lonnie Blackmon, a black inmate, with 67 blows from a prison shank while prison guards videotaped the attack. The deed done, Troy wiped his hands clean of the blood and walked away, proudly yelling:

“Got some white power jumpin’ off around here!”

Later, in an interview with HBO for it’s documentary Gladiator Days : Anatomy Of A Prison Murder (2002), Troy explained his reasoning behind why he killed Blackmon.

TROY

“I went into the situation that I’m gonna hafta kill the guy – I’m not gonna…jus hurt ‘em, I’m not gonna stab him two times and say ‘yeah we’re even’, you know, cause the philosophy in prison is, you know, you stab me I kill you… I just stabbed the shit outta him, you know, until he didn’t move anymore.”

“I’ve seen guys hesitate…on not thinkin’ somethin’ was serious, and it was serious, and they get themselves stabbed up. Or they get themselves fucked off…they get themselves killed.”

A brutal view on life. Yet it’s not surprising to hear from an inmate who had been imprisoned for another murder since he was eighteen. Troy’s first murder was James Kelly [real name James Thiede], a twenty-one year old Canadian man in Troy’s hometown of Las Vegas. Troy, with the assistance of Sandra Shaw (fifteen at the time) and another friend, lured Kelly into the desert and ambushed him, where Troy shot Kelly six times in the face at point blank range.

Who was Troy? Where did he come from? What was the series of events that drove him to commit two murders, both of which placed him on death row?*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL_PlbqyLcI

One of the most startling aspects of Troy, from watching the documentary, is just how intelligent, almost proverbially All American he comes across as. Troy was not some trailer trash kid, doomed for eventual incarceration.

TROY

“I was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, little middle class family. I’m the only child.”

“I think I was probably just an ordinary kid on the block, I wasn’t any different, or anything from anyone else that I noticed.”

“My father’s into horses, and kinda a redneck background, country boy kinda thing, and we had horses and stuff.”

“I was expected…to be successful, you know, my family, you know, they’re not losers.”

His neighbourhood was middle class, his school was middle class. Troy was thoroughly middle class. So why did he, at eighteen, kill James Kelly? For the answer to that, we have to turn to Sandra Shaw.

Sandra was three years younger then Troy. They met quite early, when they were children.

SANDY

“Troy’s been a part of our life, um, ever since I first came to Las Vegas. Um, since I was probably, like, six years old. We lived on one corner of the street and on the opposite street he lived at the other corner. And um, me and a couple of friends, two little girlfriends, were walking down the street and him and his little friends were sitting in front of their house on their bicycles and you know they were watching us googly eyed cause he’s three years older then me. So when we got all the way to the end of the street, towards the desert, you know, we turned around and said somethin’ real sassy and they chased us on their bikes and we ran and he jumped off his back and tackled me into the grass and you know it just became like a plaything. And since then he was like, ‘You’re gonna be my girlfriend’ and I was like, ‘No I don’t even like boys’.”

There was obviously some romantic tension going on between the two of them from a very young age. Though Troy and Sandy both refer to each other in a younger sister older brother dynamic, it’s clear that at least Troy felt a deep attraction to Sandy. Why shouldn’t he? After all, she was the quintessential girl next door whom eagerly spent time with him. Sandy was a cute little girl, and Troy was no slouch himself.

SANDY

“His father was really really strict, and um, I remember one time on his birthday, we were, he was turning thirteen and I believe I was ten and I rode my bike all the way to the mall and I bought him a Nike outfit and he had to sneak out in his back yard and climb up on the brick wall for me give him his gift, because he was on restriction – he was always on restriction – just, for absolutely nothing.”

That’s an almost classical scene of romance, and one wonders how many other secret rendezvous Troy and Sandy had over the years.

In many ways Sandy herself was the counterpart of Troy – the proverbial All American girl; pretty, a cheerleader, precocious and outgoing – though her family was struggling on the line between middle and lower class (Connie Shaw appears to be a single mother). By all counts, Sandy was destined for a typical middle class life herself. Perhaps even with Troy.

SANDY

“When I was thirteen years old I was spending the night at a friend’s house and her step father went into a jealous rage and shot and killed her mother and her mother’s two friends and then killed himself. It changed my life.”

That man was Alex Egyed, a budding computer entrepreneur who may have been a well recognized name today if he hadn’t gone on a rampage and left Sandy covered in blood, huddling in a bathtub with her friend. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only incident Sandy was going to have with extreme violence.

CONNIE

“Another episode happened to her; she’s walkin’ home from school, uh, sees this guy runnin’ up behind her, girl in front of her, sees the guy shoot…the girl, in the back of the head. She’s already gone through this. Now this is two. How many times – I mean, I’m forty-eight years old, I mean, I’ve never seen anyone, in my lifetime, get shot. She’s seen two.”

These episodes left Sandy a broken girl; a girl barely on the cusp of her womanhood.

SANDY

“I detached myself from my emotions, I didn’t have a sense of life or death, it’s all the same to me.”

Yet she was still a significant part of Troy’s life. And Troy really needed love in his life, since his own family had self destructed.

TROY

“My parents got divorced and I kinda bounced back and forth between them. It was kinda a struggle for me for awhile but, it’s nothin’ outta the ordinary… Any other kid goes through it.”

CONNIE

“His father must have been very tough on him, very abusive, I believe, with him. And his mother was never around. I know they were separated. But I don’t think his mother came around too much, I don’t know if it was because of the father…or what, you know, but uh, I guess he looked at me, more like a mother figure you know because he’s always sent me, even till this day, sends me a bouquet of mother’s day flowers.”

Troy and Sandy were both set adrift at a young age, both from broken homes, both experiencing severe forms of trauma – albeit Troy’s were less extreme. Because of his need for love, Troy grew ever closer to Sandy while Sandy threw herself into an abyss. Like many traumatized girls, Sandy began to slip down into degeneracy and self abuse. She began to hang around shady men and casinos while barely being a fully fledged teen, and at the age of fourteen she ran into James Kelly at the Circus Circus casino.

SANDY

“I met Cotton Kelly at Circus Circus eight months prior to this actual tragedy.”

“He ran some type of, um, adult entertainment business. He wanted me to pose nude for him.”

“He had started following me and calling my house constantly, harassing my family… And as a fifteen year old child, I made a very bad decision, a very immature request and I called upon Troy to beat the man up. To have him, leave me alone.”

A normal girl with a strong family could have resolved this situation with ease. A simple, hard talk by a good father with this James Kelly character would have spared everyone a lot of tragedy. Sandy, however, had drifted far away from being a normal girl and with nothing but a weak family at her disposal she allowed this situation to escalate and continue. Perhaps she even began to be sexual with Kelly, though she does not mention the full depth of their relationship.

In the end she turned to the one man she knew she could depend on.

TROY

“Me and a friend of mine from high school agreed to beat this guy up, because he was doin’ some things to some teenaged girls that we knew. She was a friend of mine, she was like a, a sister kind of, to me.”

“This guy, I felt, was takin’ advantage of a friend of mine, and she asked for my help… And…I…went, kinda overboard.”

Eight months. That’s how long Sandy allowed James Kelly to be a part of her life. How many nights did Sandy turn to Troy? How many nights did she cry on Troy’s shoulder, detailing the horrors that James Kelly inflicted on her – and which she allowed to be inflicted on her. How many times did Troy have to hear Connie, a powerless mother, express her grief and frustration over this older man taking advantage of her daughter? Troy loved both these women.

Troy decided to save them. He told Sandy to lure Kelly out to the desert. So one night, in 1986, Sandy did just that. She made Kelly stop the car, claiming that she needed to pee. She went out, came back, pretended to hurt her leg and when Kelly came out to help her Troy put six bullets in Kelly’s head.

TROY

“For a reason that I, uh, can’t really understand, I decided to bring a gun and shoot the man. And killed him.”

“I didn’t go to sleep that night.”

Troy Kell, eighteen, murdered a degenerate man. He did it because he loved the tragic but degenerate Sandy Shaw. Because they bragged about the murder, soon schoolmates were visiting Kelly’s body in the desert.

When asked if he thought about running Troy said; “Yeah, of course.” When asked why he didn’t, “I…I don’t know. I didn’t have anywhere to run too. I couldn’t just keep on runnin’ and runnin’.”

Troy didn’t run because everything he loved lived on the corner one street over from his house. There was nothing else in the world for him.

One of the children who visited the body in the desert told their parents, and soon the police had Troy, his accomplice and Sandy in custody. They would convict Troy.

Surprisingly, Sandy was also tried and convicted. These were the days just before peak feminism so women weren’t the infallible angels that they are treated as today but still, after hearing about her abuse and her tragic past, the jurors sent a fifteen year old girl to jail for over twenty years.

In order to survive in jail, Troy quickly joined up with the white supremacist gangs. Eventually this would lead to the second murderous ambush of his life. Troy and fellow gang member Eric Daniels attacked Lonnie Blackmon with Eric holding his legs and Troy stabbing Blackmon with a shank 67 times. For this second murder Troy himself is currently waiting to face death.

I reiterate once more; by all accounts Troy was a normal kid. There was nothing in his childhood that would have led anyone to believe that Troy one day would end up a murderer of two men while leading a white supremacist gang in prison. If he just had to weather a broken home, as far too many middle class children nowadays do, he may have had a chance to move on and become a man of worth; other men have suffered worse and managed to raise good families and live a good life. Unfortunately Troy had the tragic fate of loving a girl who also came from a broken home, and like most women from such situations Sandy did not have the inner strength struggle for normalcy. She gave herself to degenerates and came to Troy whenever she needed to use his love.

This is a theme all too familiar with young men today. Young men are struggling to find peace in their lives while having to deal with their broken female counterparts. Most men can’t help loving who they love, and far too many men pay too high a price for this once noble emotion. The tragedies surrounding Troy Kell and Sandy Shaw provide an extreme example of this – and in the case of Sandy her despair motivated self destruction is understandable – but the dynamic of good men who need love and the rotten women who use it is one of the great (and unnecessary) social plagues of the modern age. Perhaps it always has been, going back through every society since time immemorial.

It seems nowadays that there is an epidemic of men being destroyed because of single parent upbringings or broken women. Yet Troy was destroyed in 1986. Who knows how many potentially decent men in the past have been destroyed because of similar situations. Who knows how many more in the future we’ll have?

We know the symptoms – it’s time to cure the disease, or we can expect nothing but more and more unnecessary tragedies like Troy Kell’s to occur in the future. Do we really want to grow old and live in a society full of young men like that?

I end with a comment from the video’s youtube page,

Darrylizer1

“Troy Kell is one the one hand a despicable human being, a stone cold killer, a sociopath or near one and a racist. But he’s in some ways he’s likeable, even admirable: he’s articulate, intelligent and is absolutely honest with himself and for the most part unblinded by bullshit. I’m not saying that he should or shouldn’t be put to death. His circumstance is just a very sad waste of human potential.”

*As of this article’s publication, Troy is still awaiting his death sentence. He requested to be shot by a firing squad.

Read More: Sunday In The Park

Although it was written decades ago, Bel Kaufman’s Sunday in the Park remains just as relevant today, if not more so, to what it means to be a man. Her story centers on a family enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the park and is told predominantly from the wife’s perspective. Relaxing on a bench, the wife watched happily as her son Larry played in the sand box before her. Sitting next to her, while reading the ‘Times Magazine section,” was her husband Morton.

Morton. A man as nerdy as his name sounded. Who was, “So citypale, cooped up all week inside the gray factorylike university.”

As Larry played on, she noticed another boy digging in the sand too. This boy was fatter, more aggressive than Larry. And his father, a grizzly looking man, sat on the opposite side and “seemed to be taking up the whole bench as he held the Sunday comics close to his face.”

Suddenly the fat boy threw sand at Larry, making him upset. After hesitating a moment, the wife intervened;

‘Don’t do that, little boy,’ she said sharply, leaning forward on the bench. ‘You mustn’t throw sand!’ The man on the bench moved his mouth as if to spit again, but instead let her speak. He did not look at her, but at the boy only. ‘You go right ahead, Joe,’ he said loudly. ‘Throw all you want. This here is a public sandbox.’

She felt a sudden weakness in her knees as she glanced at Morton.

Morton was listening too. But he hid under his magazine. Seeming to hope the matter would solve it self.

It didn’t.

He put his Times down carefully on his lap and turned his fine, lean face toward the man, smiling the shy, apologetic smile he might have offered a student in pointing out an error in his thinking. When he spoke to the man, it was with his usual reasonableness. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said pleasantly, ‘but just because this is a public place….’

The other man cut him off, and an argument ensued until the large man said “Aw, shut up!” They both rose. Morton reluctantly. The wife nervously imagined the coming violence, about what she should do, how she should react.

Until…

Morton adjusted his glasses. He was very pale. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said unevenly. ‘I must ask you….’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said the man. He stood with his legs spread apart, rocking a little, looking at Morton with utter scorn. ‘You and who else?’

For a moment the two men looked at each other nakedly.

Then Morton backed down.

‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’ He walked awkwardly, almost limping with self-consciousness to pick up his son Larry and left with his wife by his side.

At first she was relieved. There was no violence. No one was hurt. But as they left the park, she began to feel something else, something…

Inescapable. She sensed that it was more than just an unpleasant incident, more than defeat of reason by force. She felt dimly it had something to do with her and Morton, something acutely personal, familiar, and important.

While walking to their car, Morton rambled on and tried to rationalize his defeat. But the more he did, the more distant she became.

Getting pulled further away from the sandbox, Larry’s cries grew worse. But once he started dragging his feet, Morton and his wife finally had enough.

‘If you can’t discipline this child, I will,’ Morton snapped, making a move toward the boy.

But her voice stopped him. She was shocked to hear it, thin and cold and penetrating with contempt. ‘Indeed?’ she heard herself say. ‘You and who else?’

—

At first glance Bel Kaufman’s story seems simple: There’s a stronger male, Morton backs down, he’s a wimp, needs bigger balls, women hate beta males, etc…

We know that already. But there’s another point to her story that’s hidden below the surface. Because Kaufman’s story isn’t just about lacking courage, it’s about what causes that cowardice; namely, apathy.

As a man, your first reaction to the story might be that she’s saying being a big brute pays off more than being a weakling. The big guy might have shown some dominating, alpha characteristics, but to think that way is to miss Kaufman’s point entirely.

The wife didn’t care that Morton was a nerd; that’s probably why she married him. Perhaps she was one too. But it was Morton’s lack of anger, his lack of pride in himself that bothered her. That he never developed the animal-like rage proving that he was the family’s protector in the most critical of moments.

…more than defeat of reason by force. She felt dimly it had something to do with her and Morton, something acutely personal, familiar, and important.

Morton’s cowardice proved to her what she knew deep down all along, that he didn’t love his family enough the way she did.

It is critical to realize that Kaufman never gave the wife a name in the story but did for the husband. By doing this she was trying to show that the wife had given her up identity to the family, and expected Morton do the same by being a man and fulfilling his end of the bargain.

That courage isn’t so much about standing up for yourself as it is about standing up for others. But he didn’t and that was the source of her resentment. So repeating the “You and who else” remark was a way of saying, “How are you going to raise your son to be a man if you’re not even one yourself?”

The great thing about Bel Kaufman is that she came from a time where women encouraged men to be what they are and not what they should be.

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cha-d · 4 years

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Early in the formidable new essay collection “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning,” the poet Cathy Park Hong delivers a fatalistic state-of-the-race survey. “In the popular imagination,” she writes, “Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial status . . . distrusted by African Americans, ignored by whites, unless we’re being used by whites to keep the black man down.” Asians, she observes, are perceived to be emotionless functionaries, and yet she is always “frantically paddling my feet underwater, always overcompensating to hide my devouring feelings of inadequacy.” Not enough has been said, Hong thinks, about the self-hatred that Asian-Americans experience. It becomes “a comfort,” she writes, “to peck yourself to death. You don’t like how you look, how you sound. You think your Asian features are undefined, like God started pinching out your features and then abandoned you. You hate that there are so many Asians in the room. Who let in all the Asians? you rant in your head.”

Hong, who teaches at Rutgers, is the author of three poetry collections, including “Dance Dance Revolution,” which was published in 2007, and is set in a surreal fictional waystation called the Desert, where the inhabitants speak a constantly evolving creole. (“Me fadder sees dis y decide to learn Engrish righteo dere,” the narrator says.) “Minor Feelings” consists of seven essays; Hong explains the book’s title in an essay called “Stand Up” that centers on Richard Pryor’s “Live in Concert.” Minor feelings are “the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic.” One such minor feeling: the deadening sensation of seeing an Asian face on a movie screen and bracing for the ching-chong joke. Another: eating lunch with white schoolmates and perceiving the social tableaux as a frieze in which “everyone else was a relief, while I felt recessed, the declivity that gave everyone else shape.” Minor feelings involve a sense of lack, the knowledge that this lack is a social construction, and resentment of those who constructed it.

In “The End of White Innocence,” Hong describes her childhood home as “tense and petless, with sharp witchy stenches.” Her father drank; her mother, she writes, “beat my sister and me with a fury intended for my father.” Her parents grew up in postwar poverty in Korea—as a child, her father caught sparrows to eat. In order to get a visa to immigrate to the United States, he pretended to be a mechanic, and ended up working for Ryder trucks in Pennsylvania, where he was injured, and fired. He moved to Los Angeles and found a job selling life insurance in Koreatown, then bought a dry-cleaning supply warehouse, and became successful enough to send Hong to private high school and college. He recognized that Americans valued emotional forthrightness in business and developed a particular way of speaking at work. “Thanks for getting those orders in,” Hong remembers him saying on the phone. “Oh, and Kirby, I love you.”

Hong feels ashamed, but not of her proximity to awkward English, or her features, or witchy domestic stenches. “My shame is not cultural but political,” she writes. She is ashamed of the conflicted position of Asian-Americans in the racial and capital hierarchy—the way that subjugation mingles with promise. “If the indebted Asian immigrant thinks they owe their life to America, the child thinks they owe their livelihood to their parents for their suffering,” Hong writes. “The indebted Asian American is therefore the ideal neoliberal subject.” She becomes a “dog cone of shame,” a “urinal cake of shame.” Hong’s metaphors are crafted with stinging care. To be Asian-American, she suggests, is to be tasked with making an injury inaccessible to the body that has been injured. It is to be pissed on at regular intervals while dutifully minimizing the odor of piss.

For a long time, Hong recounts in the book’s first essay, she did not want to write about her Asian identity. By the time she began studying for her M.F.A., at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she had concluded that doing so was “juvenile”—and she couldn’t find the right form, anyway. The confessional lyric felt too operatic, and realist fiction wasn’t right, either: “I didn’t care to injection-mold my thoughts into an anthropological experience where the reader, after reading my novel, would think, The life of Koreans is so heartbreaking!” In “Stand Up,” she asks, “Will there be a future where I, on the page, am simply I, on the page, and not I, proxy for a whole ethnicity, imploring you to believe we are human beings who feel pain?” The predicament of the Asian-American writer, as Hong articulates it, is to fear that both your existence and your interpretation of that existence will always be read the wrong way. At Iowa, Hong noticed other writers of color stripping out markers of race from their poems and stories to avoid being “branded as identitarians.” It was only later that Hong realized that all of the writers she had noticed doing this were Asian-American.

I read “Minor Feelings” in a fugue of enveloping recognition and distancing flinch. I have tended to interpret my own acquiescence to and resentment of capitalism in generational terms rather than racial ones; many people my age seem to accept economic structures that we find humiliating because we reached adulthood when the margins of resistance appeared to be shrinking. I know, too, that my desire to attain financial stability is connected with a hope, bordering on practical obligation, to protect my parents, as they grow older, from the worst of the country that they immigrated to for my benefit. But, for some reason, I haven’t written very much about that. Was I, like Hong’s grad-school classmates, afraid of being branded as an identitarian? Had I considered the possibility of being positioned as a proxy for an entire ethnic group, and, unlike Hong, turned away?The term “Asian-American” was invented by student activists in California, in the late sixties, who were inspired by the civil-rights movement and dreamed of activating a coalition of people from immigrant backgrounds who might organize against structural inequality. This is not what happened; for years, Asian-Americans were predominantly conservative, though that began changing, gradually, during the Obama years, then sharply under Trump. Today, “Asian-American” mainly signifies people with East Asian ancestry: most Americans, Hong writes, think “Chinese is synecdoche for Asians the way Kleenex is for tissues.” The term, for many people—and for Hollywood—seems to conjure upper-middle-class images: doctors, bankers. (We are imagined as the human equivalent of stainless-steel countertops: serviceable and interchangeable and blandly high-end.) But, although rich Asians earn more money than any other group of people in America, income inequality is also more extreme among Asians than it is within any other racial category. In New York, Asians are the poorest immigrant group.Hong describes a visit to a nail salon, where a surly Vietnamese teen-age boy gives her a painful pedicure. She imagines him and herself as “two negative ions repelling each other,” united and then divided by their discomfort in their own particular Asian positions. Then she pauses. “What evidence do I have that he hated himself?” she wonders. “I wished I had the confidence to bludgeon the public with we like a thousand trumpets against them,” she writes elsewhere. “But I feared the weight of my experiences—as East Asian, professional class, cis female, atheist, contrarian—tipped the scales of a racial group that remains so nonspecific that I wondered if there was any shared language between us. And so, like a snail’s antenna that’s been touched, I retracted the first person plural.” Hong doesn’t fully retract it—“we” appears fairly often in the book—but she favors the second person, deploying a “you” that really means “I,” in the hope that her experience might carry shards of the Asian-American universal.

Throughout the book, Hong at once presumes and doesn’t presume to speak for people whose families come from India, say, or Sri Lanka, or Thailand, or Laos—or the Philippines, where my parents were born. The Philippines were under Spanish control from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, and under American control until the middle of the twentieth. Many Filipinos have Spanish last names and come to the States speaking English; many have dark skin. In his book “The Latinos of Asia,” the sociologist Anthony Christian Ocampo argues that Filipinos tend to manifest a sort of ethnic flexibility, feeling more at home, compared with members of other Asian ethnic groups, with whites, African-Americans, Latinos, and other Asians. The experience of translating for one’s parents is often framed as definitive for Asian-Americans, but it’s not one that many Filipinos of my generation share; my parents came to North America listening to James Taylor and the Allman Brothers, speaking Tagalog only when they didn’t want their kids to listen. I grew up in a mixed extended family, with uncles who are black and Mexican and Chinese and white. Ocampo cites a study which found that less than half of Filipino-Americans checked “Asian” on forms that asked for racial background—a significant portion of them checked “Pacific Islander,” for no real reason. It denoted proximity to Asian-Americanness, perhaps, without indicating a direct claim to it. (About a month ago, at a doctor’s appointment, an East Asian nurse checked “Pacific Islander” when filling out a form for me.)

“Koreans are self-hating,” one of Hong’s Filipino friends tell her. “Filipinos, not so much.” My experience of racism has been different than Hong’s, as has my response to it. Much of the discourse around Asian-American identity centers on racist images associated with the stereotypical East Asian face: single-lidded eyes, yellow-toned skin, a supposed air of placid impassivity. I don’t have that face, exactly, and I’m not sure that I’ve confronted quite the same assumptions; when I hear people perform gross imitations of “Chinese” accents, I don’t know if it hurts the way it does because I’m an Asian person or because I come from a family of immigrants or simply because racism is embarrassing and foul.

If you escape the dominant experience of Asian-American marginalization, have you necessarily done so by way of avoidance, or denial, or conformity? What can you do when colonization is embedded in your family’s history, in your genetic background, in your very face? If I feel comforted in a room full of Asian people rather than alarmed at the possibility that my inner racial anxieties have been cloned all around me, is this another effect of the psychic freedom I’ve been granted with double eyelids and an ambiguously Western last name, or does it mark progress in the form of a meaningful generational shift? In the decade that separates me from Hong, the currency of whiteness has lost some of its inflated cultural value; one now sees Asian artists and chefs and skateboarders and dirtbags and novelists on the Internet, in the newspaper, and on TV. Is this freedom, or is it the latest form of assimilation? For Asian-Americans, can the two ever be fully distinct?

“Minor Feelings” bled a dormant discomfort out of me with surgical precision. Hong is deeply wary of living and writing to earn the favor of white institutions; like many of us, she has been raised and educated to earn white approval, and the book is an attempt to both acknowledge and excise such tendencies in real time. “Even to declare that I’m writing for myself would still mean I’m writing to a part of me that wants to please white people,” she explains. She’s circling the edges of a trap that often appears in Asian-American consciousness, in which love is suspicious and being unloved is even worse. The editors of “Aiiieeeee!,” one of the first anthologies of Asian-American literature—it was published in 1974—argued that “euphemized white racist love” had combined with legislative racism to mire the Asian-American psyche in a swamp of “self-contempt, self-rejection, and disintegration.” A quarter century later, in her book “The Melancholy of Race,” the literary theorist Anne Anlin Cheng described “the double bind that fetters the racially and ethnically denigrated subject: How is one to love oneself and the other when the very movement toward love is conditioned by the anticipation of denial and failure?” In the introduction to his essay collection “The Souls of Yellow Folk,” published in 2018, Wesley Yang writes about a realization that he regards as “unspeakable precisely because it need never be spoken: that as the bearer of an Asian face in America, you paid some incremental penalty, never absolute, but always omnipresent, that meant that you were default unlovable and unloved.”

The question of lovability, and desirability, is freighted for Asian men and Asian women in very different ways—and “Minor Feelings” serves as a case study in how a feminist point of view can both deepen an inquiry and widen its resonances to something like universality. Essays and articles about Asian-American consciousness often invoke issues of dominance and submission, and they often frame these issues according to the experiences of disenfranchised men. The editors of “Aiiieeeee!” call the stereotypical Asian-American “contemptible because he is womanly”; Yang often identifies the Asian-American condition with male rejection and disaffection. Hong reframes the quandary of negotiating dominance and submission—of desiring dominance, of hating the terms of that dominance, of submitting in the hopes of achieving some facsimile of dominance anyway—as a capitalist dilemma. I found myself thinking about how the interest and favor of white people, white men in particular, both professionally and personally, have insulated me from the feeling of being sidelined by America while compromising my instincts at a level I can barely access. Hong writes, “My ego is in free fall while my superego is boundless, railing that my existence is not enough, never enough, so I become compulsive in my efforts to do better, be better, blindly following this country’s gospel of self-interest, proving my individual worth by expanding my net worth, until I vanish.”

I hate my Asian self the way I worry about being written off as a woman writer—which is to say, not at all. Hong concedes that the self-hating Asian may be “on its way out” with her generation: for me, the formulation still has weight, but does not capture the efflorescence of the present. The question, then, is whether the movement toward love, as Anne Anlin Cheng put it, can be made outside the grasp of coercion. Is there a future of Asian-American identity that’s fundamentally expansive—that can encompass the divergent economic and cultural experiences of Asians in the United States, and form a bridge to the experiences of other marginalized groups?The answer depends on whom Asian-Americans choose to feel affinity and loyalty toward—whether we direct our sympathies to those with more power than us or less, not just outside our jerry-rigged ethnic coalition but within it. The history of Asian-Americans has involved repression and assimilation; it has also, to a degree that is often forgotten, involved radicalism and invention. “Aiiieeeee!” was published by Howard University Press, partly as a result of the friendship that one of its editors, Frank Chin, formed with the radical black writer Ishmael Reed. Gidra, an Asian-American zine that was published in Los Angeles in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, called for the “birth of a new Asian—one who will recognize and deal with injustices.” (Gidra reported on cases of local discrimination and profiled activists such as Yuri Kochiyama; it’s now back in print.) To occupy a conflicted position is also to inhabit a continual opportunity—the chance, to borrow Hong’s words, to “do better, be better,” but in moral and political rather than economic terms.In one of the essays in “Minor Feelings,” called “An Education,” Hong looks back on her friendships in college with two other Asian-American girls—brash, unstable hellions named Erin and Helen. They made art together, they traded poetry, they got drunk and fought and made up. “We had the confidence of white men,” Hong recalls, “which was swiftly cut down after graduation, upon our separation, when each of us had to prove ourselves again and again, because we were, at every stage of our career, underestimated.” The story of their friendship is a story about the way that loving others is often a less complex and more worthy act than loving ourselves—and the way that love can blunt the psychological force of marginalization. If structural oppression is the denial of justice, and if justice is what love looks like in public, then love demonstrated in private sometimes provides what the world doesn’t. Hong is writing in agonized pursuit of a liberation that doesn’t look white—a new sound, a new affect, a new consciousness—and the result feels like what she was waiting for. Her book is a reminder that we can be, and maybe have to be, what others are waiting for, too.

#long reads

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enneagramspam · 5 years

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VERONICA SAWYER

6w7

“I wish you'd come with me-“

In response to a question asked over on r/enneafiction.

Veronica’s Six core is exploited at every turn throughout Heathers, the Musical and the clashing of her loyalty to her ideals with the desire to feel safe and secure ultimately results in an abrupt and extreme disintegration over the course of the show.

Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance / Basic Desire: To have security and support

“I wanted someone strong who could protect me…”

Veronica wants, more than anything else, for someone to have her back in a world she perceives as dangerous and frightening. This is made abundantly clear in Fight For Me, the song where she falls in love with JD after seeing him defend himself. The repeated lyric; “I would fight for you // If you would fight for me,” is the most obvious example- the world itself might remain unsafe, but the potential security to be found in another person is a huge draw for her (“Could you carry me through no man's land?”).

This isn’t the first instance of Veronica’s safety seeking behaviour, however- it’s present as early as Beautiful, when she asks the Heathers; “Um. Let me sit at your table, at lunch. Just once. No talking necessary. If people think that you guys tolerate me, then they'll leave me alone…” Veronica isn’t interested in spending time with the Heathers for the sake of popularity or self-affirmation- it’s as a shield. Beautiful also sees her scrambling out of the way of anyone who might pose a threat (“Oh, sorry!” // “Aah, nothing!”), except, notably, when Martha is the one being threatened, where the first glimpse of a counterphobic Veronica emerges; “Pick that up right now … I wanna know what gives you the right to pick on my friend.” Sixes are loyal to their friends, but also to their beliefs- Veronica has a strong sense of justice and a conviction that things can become better again;

“But I know, I know...

Life can be beautiful

I pray, I pray

For a better way

We were kind before;

We can be kind once more

We can be beautiful..,”

Ultimately, it’s her loyalty to this ideal, and her ability to function counterphobically to defend and preserve it, that saves her and the school as a whole, allowing her to confront JD with the conviction that “his solution is a lie,” despite his repeated attempts to exploit her loyalty; “Please don’t leave me alone, // You were all I could trust.”

Everything comes to a head at the end of Act One. After the events of Blue leave Veronica feeling particularly defenseless, she does what a disintegrated Six is wont to, and latches onto her only source of security; JD. “You’re not alone,” he tells her, an offer of the security she is seeking, but can’t seem to find anywhere else. Veronica finds herself drawing strength from the relationship; “We’re what killed the dinosaurs, // We’re the asteroid that’s overdue,” and ultimately venerates it to religious significance, following JD’s lead; “Our love is God.” But the fantascism of these statements, and the undercurrent of violence present from the beginning of the song, betray her disintegration, and the brutality that is about to ensue. Veronica reacts with horror when she discovers that JD has in fact, murdered Kurt and Ram instead of just knocking them out as he promised, (“What the fuck have you done?”) but he remains her only source of safety, even in a world that he has just made a lot more dangerous- he is still completely loyal to her; “...I worship you // I'd trade my life for yours.” Veronica finds herself, more afraid than ever, but with no other source of potential safety, she continues to answer JD, “Our love is God,” despite the fear plain on her face, and doesn’t try to leave his embrace- letting go would mean facing her basic fear, and being without support and guidance.

Seventeen is her attempt to make their relationship into a true source of sanctuary for the pair of them, appealing to JD’s own strength of loyalty (“Can’t we be seventeen? // That’s all I want to do.”). As a Six, she is unable to make a convincing statement without acknowledging all their past pain; “Fine we’re damaged,” and the truth of more in their future, “People hurt us … And you’re right, that really blows.” The song exemplifies her Seven wing- she suggests shallow distractions from the pain, chilli fries, prom night, shopping for summer clothes- but ultimately what she is offering JD is her presence by his side; “Don’t stop looking in my eyes.” The song is filled with offers and promises of and appeals to both their senses of loyalty; “I wanna be with you,” “Your love’s too good to lose,” “Hold me tighter,” etc. Ultimately, the conclusion; “I’ll stay if I’m what you choose // If I am what you choose // ‘Cause you’re the one I choose.” sums up Veronica’s tendency towards loyalty, but also need for it, perfectly.

Disintegration to 3:

“Dreams are coming true // When people laugh but not at you!”

What drives many Sixes to disintegrate is a belief that they are not equipped to protect themselves. Veronica’s initial disintegration occurs when she joins the Heathers as a direct result of this belief- by Candy Store, she has become image-conscious enough to sabotage Martha’s popularity in order to maintain her own (and thus her own safety.) Big Fun makes it clear that this strategy, though unhealthy, is working for her, (“I'm not alone! I'm not afraid!”) and she spirals further into it.

When disintegrated, Sixes lash out- they divide the world into “them and us,” and can be driven to sabotage the “them,” in order to protect themselves. As she disintegrates further, Veronica briefly embodies an unhealthy Three’s arrogance- taken in by JD’s sweeping promises in Our Love is God- “We can start and finish wars…” and enthusiastic to play judge and jury to Kurt and Ram- but critically, not executioner. The murder is a shock to her system, and ironically, allows her to see the flaws in their previous arrogance; “We’re not “special”, we’re not “different” // We don’t choose who lives or dies.”

Integration to 9:

“Listen up folks, // War is over.”

There isn’t much opportunity for Veronica to integrate, but Seventeen (Reprise) offers us a glimpse- while as a Six, Veronica can’t put her fears aside completely; “We're all damaged, we're all frightened // We're all freaks but that's alright,” this song has a far more optimistic tone from Veronica than anything else in the whole show; “We’ll endure it, we’ll survive it.” Like a healthy Nine, she shows a willingness to let go of unproductive conflicts (“We are done with acting evil // We will lay our weapons down”,) and relationships alike, (“If no one loves me now // Someday somebody will.”) Enneagram institute describes Nines at their best as; “indomitable and all-embracing, they are able to bring people together and heal conflicts,” and that’s a perfect description of what this song is all about; “Brand new sheriff’s come to town.”

Childhood Wound: They lost faith they would be protected.

““But the sky's gonna hurt when it falls, // So you better start building some walls…”

There’s an underlying pattern in Heathers, like in many teen dramas, of adults who are essentially untrustworthy- either helpless or unwilling to lend a hand to the kids they should be responsible for. This is arguably such a pervasive theme because it lends the teenagers more agency in the plot and gives their struggles more credibility, but in Heathers, this trope is in fact a depiction of a lack of empathy from adults who truly don’t take teenagers seriously, or are in fact outright abusive or neglectful.

In Beautiful, teachers objectify Veronica, or only recognise her once she is important enough to be seen with the Heathers. Outside of her, Kurt and Ram’s fathers’ are demonstrably abusive, and their sons perpetuate that cycle of abuse by taking it out on their schoolmates. They only repent only in My Dead Gay Son- too late. Ms Fleming is apathetic towards the students whose mental health she is supposed to prioritise from her first appearance- trying to impose a detention on Heather Duke even as she vomits from her eating disorder right in front of her. In Shine A Light, her advice to the students is facile, and her motivation is more about performing for the cameras than actually making a positive impact. Altogether, Veronica lives in a world where adults simply can’t be depended upon for help or sanctuary. Her verse in Dead Girl Walking (Reprise), directed at JD, encompasses all this;

“I wish your mom had been a little stronger

I wish she stayed around a little longer

I wish your dad were good!

I wish grown-ups understood!

I wish we’d met before

They convinced you life is war!”

From Yo Girl, we know the situation applies not just to Veronica’s schoolmates, but her, too. The intertwining of her parent’s empty reassurances; “Your problems seem like life and death! // I promise, they’re not!” with the chorus’ building, ominous reminder of the very real threat of JD drawing closer and closer, “Guess who’s climbing the stairs? // Guess who’s picking the lock?” shows that her parents aren’t equipped to protect her. Childhood wounds only have to be felt- a Six can perceive themselves as vulnerable when this isn’t the truth of the situation. It’s notable that despite the present danger, she simply answers, “You wouldn’t understand,” and works to protect herself (“Veronica’s trying to keep him out, now,”) and again, doesn’t ask anyone for help during Dead Girl Walking (Reprise). All of Veronica’s experiences have clearly built her into a Six who feels she has no-one left to trust.

w7:

“Let's be normal, see bad movies // Sneak a beer and watch tv,”

Veronica often deals with her issues by retreating, shutting her eyes to the unpleasant realities of what’s going on around her, with varying success; “Dream of ivy-covered walls and smoky French cafés // Fight the urge to strike a match and set this dump ablaze!” Her conflation of her own ideals of kindness and inner beauty with the physical beauty she achieves as a result of the Heathers’ makeover is arguably made easier by her Seven wing- “When you’re beautiful // It’s a beautiful frickin’ day!”- when she fakes Heather Chandler’s suicide note, she as much confesses this; “Believe it or not, I knew about fear ... I hid behind smiles and crazy hot clothes,” although she doesn’t admit this is partly confessional. This isn’t the only instance of Veronica’s unwillingness to confront unpleasant truths in favour of happier distractions- trying to undo what’s happened with JD with chilli fries and dancing seems another example, as does her behaviour in Dead Girl Walking, wherein she opts to distract herself from her anxieties not just by returning to her source of security, (“In here it’s beautiful,”) but with seeking baser pleasure to drown out any pain; “Make this whole town disappear!”

#Veronica Sawyer #6w7 #Type 6 #Heathers the Musical #enneagram

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hellospunkiebrewster · 6 years

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Fathers - A Duty Sideshot

Author’s note: I’m so incredibly sorry that there is no new Flight Risk today. This sidetracked the hell out of me as I started to put my final touches on the chapter. All the baby fever fics for Father’s Day got to me and in my natural fashion I couldn’t be too happy about them. This is a tribute to all the different kinds of fathers in someone’s life. Real, biological, adoptive, foster, step, overprotective, intimidating, goofy, serious, or fun. I cried so much writing this and I thought I put Duty behind me, but it’s so obvious I haven’t. If you haven’t ready my series Duty, it’s here:

Part I: Déjà Vu - Part II: Hopelessly Cold - Part III: Bitterness - Part IV: Rage - Part V: Promises - Part VI: Oath - Part VII: Dysphoria - Part VIII: Toska - Part IX: Credence - Part X: Unconditional

Summary: Eleanor reflects on the fathers she’s had over the years and what each of them has taught her.

Perma-tags: @madaraism, @mfackenthal, @blackcatkita, @never-ending-choices, @darley1101, @pbchoicesobsessed, @flyawayblue56

Tags (I tagged those of you who were tagged throughout Duty): @queencatherynerhys, @theroyalweisme, @crayziimaginations, @boneandfur, @lizeboredom, @gardeningourmet, @hopefulmoonobject, @hamulau

Eleanor Charlotte Rhys adored each one of the men she considered a father to her; she loved each one differently and no one more than another. It was fun, having so many fathers to call hers even if her past was marked with sadness and loss. They managed to pull her from it but still maintain an acknowledgement that it existed and deserved to never be forgotten. She was thankful for that because to do so would be a disservice to one of the greatest men to ever walk the earth. But still, each of them had something unique to offer and a valuable lesson to teach her, and for that she was grateful.

Uncle Leo. A man tossed from his country because of his heart. Even her own mother had a difficult time looking him in the eye. But Ellie saw something more, something special in the way he looked at the world around him. It was her Uncle Leo who taught her to follow her dreams and that they were limitless even when she felt so weighed down by the crown. Being sworn to the throne at not even the age of five was terrifying and rarely afforded Ellie the time to breathe and so it was one summer in her early teens that Ellie persuaded her mother to allow her to spend a month in the states with her Uncle Leo.

Even though her royal guard surrounded her every moment of the trip, from the time she stepped out of the limo onto the tarmac of the Cordonian airport, to the moment she returned to the palace, Eleanor had never felt so free, so normal. The sand of the beautiful beach her uncle’s house shared squished between her toes in a way she had never felt before. They’d sneak out and skirt her guard to see a show in New York City or paddle a boat to a nearby cove to watch the sunset through the trees just so. She cherished that summer as her uncle recalled stories of his youth, a carefree but sheltered time with his brother. The minutes spent without her guard liberating and exhilarating, but always short. Once the cloak of surveillance enveloped her she felt relieved.

As the month rolled on, Eleanor found herself counting the days to her return to Cordonia even as she continued to adore every moment. The solitary life of a fox was not for her, flitting from place to place not calling anywhere or anyone home. She was born for the throne and no taste of freedom would pull her from her responsibility to her country and her people.

Uncle Bertrand. Ever a stick in her side. He always meant well. Bertrand was a stickler for rules and tradition. He reminded her why things were done a certain way, why titles were important, and why the dessert fork was located at the top of her place setting. Eleanor never retained all of it, but his lessons instilled a sense of pride behind how she pinned her medals just so and solidified the depth at which she bowed her head when greeting a guest. Never too far, you are queen after all. Being the expert of courtly traditions, Bertrand was tasked with ensuring she understood the meaning and origins of all of them.

She recalls being in full regalia late in her teens, wobbling on her high heels as Bertrand places a book on her head. A queen must walk with poise and never stumble, lest she give others something to talk about. Attention spans of people at court were short and if their queen tripped at an event the day after cementing the largest trade deal in the country’s history, only one moment would be talked about over dinner and it wasn’t the important one. Things were done a certain way out of respect and tradition. While it may seem outdated, sticking to it in many cases did little harm to others. It was in the grey areas however, Bertrand told her, that she would be asked to help the country forge a new path and develop new traditions to keep them ahead of an ever changing world.

As the book slipped from her head for the umpteenth time, Eleanor wondered what sort of lesson this was supposed to teach her. She watched Bertrand’s face as he sighed once again and scurried over to gather up the book. He smiled a rare smile and nodded at her. When she looked at him, confused, he merely shelved the book and complimented her inability to become frazzled by his ridiculous request. An important quality when one must speak with vapid and self-centered nobles.

Uncle Max. The brightest spot in her childhood. Maxwell never ceases to make her laugh and forget whatever issue had her down at the moment. He could never erase the largest pain of her life but he worked hard to help her deal with it in constructive and healing ways. He was more than the resident goofball; he was perceptive and loyal. Her most vivid memory of him was one afternoon as the sixth anniversary of her father’s passing. The age of ten can be a difficult time for a young girl and she envied more than anything her friends’ families, so whole and perfect. Not this broken amalgamation of people who never perfectly fit together. She couldn’t very well invite them all to parent’s night.

Her Uncle Maxwell senses something wrong and offers to help her pay tribute to her father, spending the better part of the day wandering the maze, standing at the well with her, in search of the perfect flower. Each time they think they’ve located it, another appears just around a bend or a few steps ahead. By the time they’d scoured the gardens they had well over a hundred. Her Uncle Max helped weave them into a gorgeous wreath and took her to hang in at the Royal Tomb. Never once did he make her feel like her feelings were silly or small.

As she hung the wreath at the placard indicating her father’s grave, Ellie noted just how valid her Uncle Maxwell made her feel that day. He took her broken heart and mended it with smiles and laughter, weaving it all together with the beautiful love he had for her. That they all did. It didn’t matter that they weren’t the same as the families of her schoolmates, they were something more. It didn’t matter that they were different.

Uncle Drake. The rock. Ever present and always reassuring. He’d taken it upon himself after her father’s death to give her some semblance of a childhood because it was what she deserved. She also realized at some point it was what probably held him together as well. He clung to her and kept her as safe as he possibly could. He played incessant princess games with her, fueled merely by her shrieks and laugh. She put him through a ringer, from the moment she got her first period when her mother was out of town to the time he caught her in the gardens during her first kiss, at her fourteenth birthday celebration. He was never angry or upset with her; he could never be. She was mortified when he chased the noble boy off, even if she laughed at the memory later that same night.

She never quite understood her mother’s and Drake’s relationship as she grew up. Somewhere in-between being friends and something more. She’d asked both of them on numerous occasions if Drake was going to be her new father. It was something neither of them ever needed from the other, a deep understanding that their relationship was never meant to be. Had her father still been alive, neither of them would’ve needed it. So it was that Drake took up residence eventually in an extra bedroom of the royal suite. Always nearby when needed, never too close for comfort when they both required space if the memory of her father became too real for them. She never understood it until much later, the need to just feel someone’s lips against your own, their skin under your fingertips, so you could feel like yourself, like you were alive.

As she watched Drake chase a fourteen year old boy through the hedge maze and away from her, Ellie noticed how Drake’s loyalty to her and her mother outshined all else in his life. Underneath the deep crimson of her cheeks, it was a quality she hoped she herself had.

Her own father. Whom she could scarcely remember. The fiercest love she would never know. What she does know of him are fleeting snips of moments. She can sometimes recall them with no issue and on other days she can scarcely remember what his face looked like. She knew he was a man to be reckoned with, proud, honest, kind, and humble. He was a king in every possible sense. His duty to his country and people was unrivaled. His love for his family was unmatched. He treated each of these two halves of his life as if they were his whole self.

She remembers how he would peek over his glasses at her, when he worked late at night in their living room. Instead of scolding her and sending her back to bed, he would offer her a seat next to him. Her tiny hand would bunch into his shirt as she leaned sleepily into him. The morning would break and the two of them would be found on the same spot. Her father dare not move lest he wake her and pull her from sleep. She remembers how his eyes shined when he laughed at her silly stories from the day. He was a king, but he was never too busy to lend an ear. She remembers his arms, strong and comforting around her, as he holds her close during a particularly scary storm one summer. She remembers resting her head against his upper arm in the limo on the way to some sort of boring public appearance. She never was sure if these were her own memories or those she created from the memories of others.

As she is lifted and spun around one day after her father returned home from yet another long trip abroad, she wondered if all the other children she knew had fathers who were superheroes like him. She supposed that her dad was special and more important than the rest. When she looked back on her memories of him, she realized he taught her the most important lesson of all: how to balance the crown and the self.

It is because of these five men that Ellie cannot choose who should walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. Tradition dictates that a member of her regent council should be responsible, but to do that would fly in the face of all the great men who made her who she is. In the many long and boring planning meetings, she put her foot down time and time again on the subject when she was met with opposition. The conversation would then turn to other traditions and customs, detailing their meaning and what they entailed as the planning committee ran through the schedule of the ceremony.

It is because of these five men that Ellie decides to have each of them escort her a part of the way down the nave of the cathedral. Leo first, a few meters before he kisses her cheek and Bertrand puts his arm out for her to take. Tears shine in his eyes, this tradition was something she’d so beautifully and masterfully modified to bring her wedding into one that would be remembered forever. A few meters. Maxwell awaits her, his arms wide, drawing her into a tight hug before he remembers where they were, a few more meters. He kisses both her cheeks. Drake stands proud waiting his turn, trying hard to belie the fact that he’s already crying. Her hand slips into the crook of his elbow and he walks her a few more meters to the crossing, where the nave and transept meet in the cathedral. As she starts to let her hand fall from his arm, she feels him grasp her hand and he looks at her wordlessly and nods.

It is from here she walks alone. The furthest distance of her journey to be done in memory of the man she wishes she knew the most, her father, the king. The man. Her left hand slips from her bouquet to a small, discrete pocket custom sewn into her gown only days before. It is here where she keeps her most prized possession with her on this momentous day. The letter from her father, words meant only for her. Words that kept him alive in her heart. Her fingers run over the envelope’s surface within her pocket, a reassuring texture on this pivotal day in her life. As she starts her final steps and catches the glance of her husband to be, she wondered if he would’ve approved. She has to believe he would and her heart is so incredibly full.

#playchoices #play choices #the royal romance #trr #choices fanfiction #trr fanfic #trr au #duty #eleanor charlotte #long post

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surayajasmine · 6 years

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15 Things To Live By When In High School

I decided to make this list of things that I should have done before, during my first year in high school and take it into account sincerely. Anyways, I think it’s important that I share it with everyone.

1: Forgiving is SO important. And, I don’t mean the meaningless, insincere type of forgiveness that you say to your friends, just because it makes them feel better about themselves. Sometimes, you need them to feel guilty about what they’ve done and learn to gain that trust to redeem from their mistakes. And, forgiving people makes you stronger, mentally, and it gives you a sense of maturity, instead of holding unnecessary grudges.

2. Happiness isn’t CONSTANT. What does that mean? Well, it means that being happy all the time, in front of your peers or crowd in school, is okay. But, if you’re feeling down, there’s no need to hide it, because we all have our bad days. Let it out if you’re feeling down. No shame in releasing some steam. Just make sure to get back on track ASAP.

3: To care OR not to care. Why would you want to spend your high school life, pretending to be the cool and snobby one, and pretending to not give a shit about others? At the same time, why would you even pay attention to those who talk bad about you? What I should have done in school is to actually care about those who matter to me, who are kind to me, who help me in any way. Those people are the ones worth caring about. It’s hard to ignore the buzz in the background about you, but, trust me, taking the high road makes you the better person, regardless of how much it stings. Eventually, what goes around, comes around. Karma will give them a taste of their own medicine.

4: Parents play a HUGE role in your life From what I’ve known, plenty of my schoolmates aren’t close to their parents, or maybe their parents disagree with them on something. Guys, believe me when I say this, your parents are almost always right. I used to think that was freaking ridiculous, until I considered the consequences of my actions from their point of view. Imagine this; Your child, only daughter, sneaking behind your back to spend the lunch money you gave her on shopping, and seeing boys behind your back. If we were the child, we’d think it’s nothing harmful, it’s just shopping and dating. But, from your parents’ eyes, you are spending their hard earned money on items that you don’t need, and you’re betraying their trust. To earn our parents trust, is to understand their situation, talk to them, be honest (seriously, guys, it’s so important), respect their choices, and think rationally and maturely. Someday, we’ll have kids of our own and what we do now, could potentially be a reflection of ourselves when we misbehaved during our teen years. Don’t push your parents away. And, do what you can to bond with them. Family is first.

5: CLEAN, clean, clean. Do whatever it takes to maintain a good appearance and surroundings. Deodorant, brushing teeth and face wash are a MUST. Firstly, why would you not wear deodorant to school, where you’ll be spending nearly 7-8 hours in such an environment. Your body odour is a big no-no. To not brush your teeth is very disgusting, cause your morning breath definitely doesn’t smell like Chanel perfume, so, never skip brushing teeth, even if you’re running late. A messy appearance isn’t the way to go. Try your best to have a good overall cleanliness. Shave, brush, shower, etc. After all, you’re a teen and you undergo some insane hormonal changes. Best to look good and feel good.

6: REST your mind and body. We’re growing teens, therefore, sleep is so important to us. Yes, I like sleep as much as the next person, but oversleeping isn’t good either. I know people who don’t get enough rest every night, so, when school starts the next day, the coffee fiesta has begun, and the dozing off students.

7. LEARN TO SAY NO. They force you to take some illegal shit and it’s against your values and morals. Say no. They want you to be their lap dog and cover their asses for them when they’re wrong. Say no. When someone pushes you around, and thinks they can get away. Hell nah. You own it darling and show em how it’s done.

8. COOKING is a lifesaver. Okay let’s be honest here, I’ve had my disasters in the kitchen too many times. Like I’ve accidentally burnt instant noodles in the microwave. (don’t ask me how. I was only 7 years old and hungry af). Cooking will go a long way. You will find yourself one day cooking for yourself in college, in the kitchenette. It’s best to learn how to cook at an early age, at least get some basics of some simple recipes to help you when you’re off to universities or whatever. Even when you move out into your own place, you have to make use of the kitchen, and not always buy food or order outside. You gotta spend wisely. Start cooking even in high school. You’ll learn and master it, trust me, you will need it.

9. Spend your CASH wisely. Just because you have pocket money, or your parents give you lunch money, or even your own earnings from a part time job, doesn’t mean you HAVE TO SPEND IT. You see that top that you really like? But costs an arm and leg? Don’t splurge on it! Save that dough up for some other good shit that you really need. Like money to get a place of your own someday. Or some cash to get you by when things are rough. Or even money to pay for your own college funds. Things are hella expensive these days, and we have to think of how to save it, so we can use it for the right times.

10. GET A PART TIME JOB. Yeah, I can’t seem to emphasise this enough, but, you guys are on the road to adulthood. And, to NOT have the experience of what a working environment is like… That’s criminal. It’s good to have some exposure to what the real world is, for instance, booking appointments for clients, doing some hard labour, etc. You have to start somewhere. Corporate world is all about hiring young adults with experience. But, if you don’t have the least idea of what a working world is, it can be difficult to find a job that is suitable for you.

. 11. Not everyone you are FRIENDS WITH WILL LAST FOREVER. As harsh as it may sound, it’s the truth. Just because you are friends with them now in high school, doesn’t mean it’ll work out when you guys graduate and ship off to other ends of the world to earn that degree. Nope. You will grow apart after sometime. You will notice the distance of the conversations you share. It’s normal and there’s nothing to be scared of. Some people just don’t vibe with you, or maybe you realise that you deserve better. It’s okay.

12. Enjoy high school while you can. I’m going to be a senior soon and, it made me realise how much I’m going to miss high school. Ya sure. It sucked so much for me at certain points because people can be a bunch of dicks. No surprise there. But, where else are you gonna get an experience of high school? I’m gonna miss the high school food the most, cause it rocks. I’ll miss the insane practices I had to go through every day after school. You wont get anything like this when you’re an adult. So, being in high school has its ups and downs. But above all, there is some fun in it. And, you may not notice it now, but when you approach your last days of high school, it’ll hit you.

13. BE KIND High school is not a Mean Girls movie where you can just put everything in a Burn Book. Yeah, okay, that person pissed you off, but to go out and have vengeance on that person and get yourself in trouble too? Nope. Don’t be that person. As hard as it may seem, you have to be kind to the people you don’t want to be with at all. Even if they’ve hurt your feelings. Or even threw you aside like you were nothing. It’s painful. But, it’ll give you the strength to pick yourself up and move on and grow into the gorgeous human being. Patience is key.

14. Go easy on the PARTIES. Everyone loves a good party. Including yours truly. But, you have to put some limits on how hard you party. Don’t overdo yourself and don’t do anything you are forced into. It’s a big no-no. There’s a thing called partying too hard, and it will take a toll on your mind and body. It’s terrible and I’ve witnessed someone going through a tough time the next day in school. It was horrible. Go for the parties that are worth going to. Like birthday parties. Christmas. New year’s. Just as long as you are aware of your surroundings, but still having the time of your life. Be a good but careful party animal.

15. A GOOD PLAYLIST CURES ALL. You sure as hell don’t wanna go through the bad days of high school with a terrible playlist. The wrong song can set your mood from 100-0 in no time flat. Listening to Coldplay has definitely helped me survive dark days of heartache and perked me up on a good day. Make playlists for different situations like studying, exercising, relaxing, etc. (However I do not recommend putting a sad playlist when you are in the middle of a breakup. That’s gonna make you feel worse.) But, do put songs that perk up your day. As well as songs to release your frustration. And don’t be afraid to dance or sing along to the songs. Why else would you make such an incredible playlist?

Those are pretty much my tips and advice on high school. And, it might not work for everyone else. But I hope it does. It did work out for me. I’ve been through some painful shit in high school, but thankfully I am doing well now. It’s not only to help you with high school, but it’ll shape your character into the better version of the person you are now. That’s all from me.

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anglenews · 6 years

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How a white supremacist learned to leave hatred behind

December 23, 2017 | 10:16pm | Updated December 23, 2017 | 11:01pm Christian Picciolini had gone to sleep just after midnight when a noise outside his window woke him up. The 17-year-old had started many fights and beaten up a lot of black people, anti-racists — pretty much anyone who wasn’t just like him. He had also recently acquired an arsenal, including an AK-47, a 9mm pistol, a rifle and a sawed-off shotgun. Thinking one of his victims was out for revenge, he grabbed the shotgun. Taking a deep breath, he put his finger on the trigger, flung open the curtain, and found himself pointing the barrel directly into the face of his mother. “She sank down into the bushes weeping and quivering,” he writes. “‘Why do you have a gun? What life are you living?’” Piccolini was living a life of violence and destruction, he writes in his new memoir, “White American Youth” (Hachette Books), out Tuesday. Between the ages of 14 and 22, he was first a member, then a leader, of the white power movement in America, spreading the white supremacist and Nazi doctrine, and hurting anyone who disagreed with him. Picciolini was born in Chicago in 1973 and grew up bouncing between the suburb of Oak Forest and town of Blue Island, Ill. His parents, both hairdressers, were recent immigrants from Italy who worked long hours, leaving him with his grandparents during the day. He would later blame his embrace of hate groups and violence on his feelings of abandonment. Relentlessly bullied in school, the one bright spot in his childhood was the birth of his brother, Alex, in 1983. “When my mother came home from the hospital with Alex, my heart swelled with pride,” he writes. “It was as if I’d known him my entire ten-year life. He was a part of me, and I was a part of him.” The two played together all the time. When Alex was two, Picciolini gave him a doll called My Buddy. From that day forth, the two called each other “Buddy.” “Buddy filled a huge void in my life,” he writes. “I felt I had a family member who wanted to spend time with me.” Picciolini was 14 when he met Clark Martell, the 26-year-old founder of Chicago Area Skinheads (CASH), the “first organized white-power skinhead crew in the United States.” Picciolini was smoking a joint with a friend when Martell, emerging from a car, stormed over to him, grabbed the joint and stomped it out. “Don’t you know that’s exactly what the Communists and Jews want you to do, so they can keep you docile?” he said. Martell then launched into a speech about Picciolini’s regal ancestry and the greatness of Roman warriors, especially Centurions. He wrote “Centurion” on a piece of paper, instructed Picciolini to research it, then told him to “come find me and tell me what you’ve learned about yourself and your glorious people.” Picciolini saw Martell as the first adult to discipline him for good reason — the first to care. He swore off weed and hung around Martell every chance he got. He absorbed his beliefs as well as his fashion sense, dressing in Doc Marten boots and suspenders and shaving his head. But in early 1988, Martell was arrested for beating a woman who had left his group and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Picciolini never saw his mentor again, but he was lured in even more by the danger of the scene’s criminal element. As he went to racist rallies and concerts, developing a love of white supremacist music and its teachings, he noticed that Martell’s absence created a void. Without a leader, the gatherings usually erupted into beer-fueled chaos and infighting. At just 15, Picciolini decided to fill that void. He rented a post office box and began communicating with skinhead, Nazi and racist groups across the country. When one group sent him a piece of white power literature, he immediately copied it and sent it to other groups, becoming a conduit for white supremacists nationwide. “I missed no opportunity,” he writes, “to market the ideology of white supremacy.” He also embraced violence, seeking out fights. In school, when a black student deliberately bumped him, he split open the student’s nose with his fist and slammed his head into the steel doors of the school’s lockers. After he was expelled, he returned and spray-painted ‘Ni–ers Go Home’ in two-foot-high white letters across the school’s front doors, he writes in the book. Life at home, meanwhile, grew tense. His mother started snooping through his things and found a T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika, which led to a horrible screaming match. His mom brought in Buddy, then 6, to try to appeal to Picciolini’s warmer side, but her older son slammed the door shut. When he heard further knocking, he threw the door open and screamed, infuriated, “Leave me the f–k alone and stay the hell out of here!” Christian and Buddy But it wasn’t his mother knocking. It was Buddy. Picciolini tried to comfort him, but Buddy ran away sobbing. As Picciolini burrowed deeper into white supremacy, he distanced himself from his beloved brother, treating him as a nuisance and pushing him away. A leader in the movement by 17, Picciolini formed a white power band of his own. First called White American Youth (WAY), then Final Solution, they became the first American white power band to play in Germany. That same year, Picciolini met Lisa, a “nice little Irish Catholic girl” and a non-racist, through school friends. Aware of Picciolini’s reputation and disliking his views, she nevertheless fell for the charismatic and good looking teen. Making out in his car early on, she noticed the shadow of a swastika etched into the condensation of his car window. “Can I ask you something?” she said. “Of course,” he replied. “Why do you have so much hate inside you?” she asked. Caught off guard, he lied. “I don’t hate anyone,” he said. “I just love what I stand for so much that I’m willing to protect it from those who want to do it harm.” “I knew my answer was bullshit,” he writes. “It was a common practice within the movement to always spin our hateful agenda and wrap it up in a pretty little ‘white pride’ bow for the general public to consume. The truth was, we hated everyone who wasn’t like us.” Still, Lisa probed deeper. “But then why aren’t you doing anything positive,” she replied. “All you do is say such horrible things and get in horrible fights and hurt people. When you’re with me, you’re so caring and gentle, but all I can wonder is, which one is the real you?” Over time, Picciolini kept his racist activities out of her sight, and her feelings for him overrode any sense of disgust or confusion. Picciolini proposed marriage in December 1991, just after his 18th birthday, and they were married the following June. They moved into their own apartment and had two sons in short order, with Picciolini working full time at a pizza place to support the family. Meanwhile, he began to have doubts — “the first rational thoughts I’d allowed myself in years,” he calls them — about the movement. In September 1992, he attended a massive white power rally in Pulaski, Tenn., that drew far more counter-protestors than participants. The protestors reminded him of people from his past, including one friend’s gay brother and some black schoolmates, people who had treated him well. “I suddenly felt guilty and out of sorts,” he writes. “I was starting to question what this struggle was about.” In an effort to better support his family, he opened a record store selling white power punk. But these bands weren’t plentiful or popular enough to sustain the store, so he also stocked anti-racist punk and other music as well. “This was a legitimate business, after all,” he writes. “I needed a diverse inventory that would bring paying customers.” He was shocked to see the same anti-racist punkers he used to feud with enter his store and buy music from him. Some even became loyal customers. One day a man he called “Black Sammy” came into the store with “three of his minions.” Sammy was the co-founder of a local anti-racist skinhead group called Skinheads of Chicago and the sight of him left Picciolini shaken. “My blood froze when I saw him in the doorway,” Picciolini writes. “We held each other’s stares for a territorially awkward fifteen seconds.” Sammy had formed his group in direct opposition to Martell’s. “I think you might be in the wrong place, Sammy,” Picciolini replied, his hand “hovering behind my back, near my [9mm].” After an awkward back and forth, Sammy asked about a few bands. Picciolini said he didn’t want any trouble. Sammy asked if he took credit cards and the tension slowly dissolved when they began discussing the actual music. Thirty minutes later, Sammy and his friends spent over $300 on records, making it Picciolini’s largest sale to date. “Before I knew it, we were shaking hands, and a bizarre smile was forming on my face,” Picciolini writes. “What could I say? The ideological delusions that had led me so far astray were crumbling right before my eyes.” Over time, his racist beliefs were no match for his everyday reality, which found him interacting with a diverse assortment of people on a daily basis. He stopped selling white power music in the store and no longer considered himself an activist for the cause. But a white power concert in Wisconsin in August 1994 was the final straw. Less than an hour after it ended, an acquaintance he’d spoken to at the show was murdered in “a skirmish with black youths.” “I could no longer deny my growing disgust with this miserable existence I’d created,” he writes. “This life wasn’t for me anymore.” Still, certain parts of his life couldn’t survive his past. He and Lisa, fighting constantly, divorced when his second son was four months old. He moved back to his parents’ basement, but Buddy, now 11, ignored him. Any warmth between them was gone. Picciolini decided to rebuild his life. He got a temp job at IBM, which after a year and a half, became a full-time position in marketing and operations. Meanwhile, he used IBM’s tuition assistance program to attend DePaul University, where he got a degree in international business and international relations in 2005. Christian Picciolini in 2017AP His IBM colleagues never learned about his past, but he told his story for the first time publicly in 2002 while at DePaul. “I did it as part of an essay that I read aloud to [a] class,” he wrote in an email to The Post. “I broke down sobbing during it.” He expanded that essay into a graduate thesis, which became the first draft of this book. In 2009, he co-founded Life After Hate, an organization dedicated to helping people leave white supremacy. He participated in interventions, won an Emmy award for a PSA he produced for the group and left the organization earlier this year to focus on “building a global extremist intervention network for all types of extremism.” He and Lisa remained friends, and he is active in the lives of his sons, now 23 and 25. In 2002, he began a romantic relationship with a woman named Britton who worked in a different division of IBM, and they married in 2005. He also made peace with his parents, apologizing for the years of trouble and grief he caused them. One relationship, however, could not be repaired. Buddy grew into an angry teen. He drank, hung out with street gangs, and was arrested for marijuana and gun possession around 2001 or 2002. Offered community service, he demanded jail time instead, “to prove he was tougher than me,” Picciolini writes. He tried to talk to Buddy about his choices, but his own actions had removed any authority he might have had. “Who the f–k are you to tell me what to do? It’s not like you even remembered I existed until now,” Buddy countered. Buddy added another crushing blow. “My name is Alex,” he said. “I ain’t your buddy.” A year later, while driving around with a friend looking for weed one night, Alex was mistaken for members of a gang’s rivals and shot twice in the passenger seat, with one bullet hitting him in the femoral artery. He died just one month shy of his 21st birthday. Picciolini, now 44, still blames himself for Alex’s death. “I felt that his death was divine retribution for all the violence and hate I’d projected into the world,” Piccolini writes, “for the pain I’d inflicted on others for the color of their skin, and my misplaced idea that by hurting them, I could save myself.” Share this: Source http://www.anglenews.com/how-a-white-supremacist-learned-to-leave-hatred-behind/

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multiracialmedia-blog · 7 years

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Stages of Being Biracial: Briana Pipkin Âû

Age 7: My realization about race probably comes later than many. I always thought people with brown/dark skin were black & people with light skin were white. I had only seen Hispanics & Asians sparingly around town, but I never gave much thought about these two groups since I never saw them at school. When I began 2nd grade, kids asked me if I was adopted. I knew I wasn’t, but when they asked me why my mom was brown & I was white, I didn’t know the answer. I asked my mom if I was adopted & she told me I wasn’t. She told me that I was black, but I was just light. I asked my paternal grandfather what my race was & he said “whatever you want it to be”. Probably not the best answer when a kid has no concept of race, so I told kids that I was white like my dad. They accepted it and we would go about our day. My dad and his grandfather are also light (my grandfather was often mistaken for a white man), so whenever they came to my school, the image seemed to match up. Random adults often told me “you look like the little girl from Eve’s Bayou (Jurnee Smollett)”.

Hello! My name is Briana Pipkin Âû and this is my Stages of Being Biracial.

Also age 7: One of my childhood friends was a black girl I grew up with. Her parents were very pro-black (her mom strongly dislike white people). She loved to play with dolls, so I would always bring my doll from the animated movie “Anastasia”. I had black & white Barbie dolls, but I hated them and was a complete tomboy. I intentionally broke the Barbie dolls & only cared for Disney dolls since I love the movies. My friend’s mom always felt the need to comment about why I shouldn’t have white dolls, I shouldn’t wear flip flops, listen to rock music (these were all white people things), have white friends, or like white boys because white people smelled like wet dogs. She would sometimes call me “Sarah Jane” (tragic mulatta character from Imitation of Life 1959 version). I didn’t see the movie until I was 12, but when I finally did, the comment pissed me off. I definitely developed personal issues when it came to color, but not to that extreme. My friend eventually picked up her mom’s views when it came to race, so I stopped going to her house as often. We still keep in touch because our families are close & we grew up thinking we were cousins.

11: “White bitch” became my nickname at a new school. This was the first school I attended that was predominately black & Mexican. Mexican kids didn’t like me because they knew I wasn’t Mexican. They also didn’t like 2 Cuban girls who were cousins. The black kids didn’t like me because they didn’t think I was black. They constantly called me “white bitch”, “stuck up”, pulled my hair, etc. I got into my first physical fight & surprisingly, I was the one who walked away without bruises & a black eye. It was my first time experiencing colorism. The only people I had to talk to were the 2 Cuban girls & the only white girl in our grade (possibly the school). I developed ideas about color superiority, which is why I’m very quick to tell people that this is not always taught at home. This lasted until I got into high school.

12: I started at a Catholic school for 7th grade. An 8th grade boy from New Orleans asked me if I was Creole like him. I didn’t know what that was, but he told me that I likely was because I looked like it. I asked my paternal grandfather if we were Creole & he said that we were. He taught me about our family history & it made sense why dishes like gumbo, Étouffée, crawfish cornbread, jambalaya, etc were common in the house, especially during Thanksgiving. I later became aware that there is not actually Creole “look”, but my dad’s family fits the physical stereotype that people think of: Light skin and “good” hair that isn’t tightly curled. Everyone except for me & my dad also have light colored eyes. The boy from my school definitely looked like he could have been my brother.

15: I was accepted into an Arts Magnet high school that’s considered one of the most diverse schools in the city. I was best friends with a mulatto girl and it was the first time I knew another mulatto person outside of my family. While there was a pretty close number between black & white students (only a handful of Hispanics & even fewer Asians), we still mostly kept separate racial groups when it came to hanging out. My main circle until graduation consisted of the biracial girl & 2 white girls, but I got along & spoke to many black or Hispanic schoolmates. Some white girls seemed to be fond of telling me how I wasn’t “really black” and that’s why they were friends with me, but not with “real” black people. In my ignorance, I took it as a compliment. I had just started going natural around this time, but transitioned with my hair flat ironed. Many of the kids & even teachers would initially take me as Hispanic or white. My mom & I would always laugh about teachers reactions when they saw her for the first time. I had a racist math teacher who seated us according to race with whites in the front & blacks in the back. I was on the very first row with one of my white friends & 2 other girls. My mom came to class to get me early one day & when I started to get up, the teacher told me to sit back down & she looked at the other students in the back to see who would get up. My mom said she was there for me & the teacher looked at me with her mouth wide open. As I was getting ready to leave, a girl who was on the row with me whispered “is that your mammy?” I thought it was her way of saying mom, so I said it was. Once I found out about a year later what she really asked, I wanted to slap her. I was about 98% accepting of the fact that I was mixed, but the other 2% still wanted to be white. Not because of viewing them as better or blacks as less, but I was frustrated when I would hear from white students, mostly girls, that I was “almost” white. What the hell was “almost”? I found out it was because I have a “black” nose & as what was meant to be good advice, if I got a nose job, I could be white. I also heard the “almost” white remarks from the white women at my mom’s job, but I don’t know what “almost” meant to them.

Also age 15 (maybe 16): My black aunt, whom I’m very close to, was a foster mother. She always had black or biracial kids (black/white), but at one point, she got a 3 or 4 year old white girl. She was very sweet & loving at first, but didn’t feel comfortable around men. The men in my family are black, so I’m not sure if it was a race thing or males in general, but she always screamed and cried whenever they tried to touch her. She was allowed visitation with her grandmother & in the weeks that followed, the girl’s behavior changed. Her mother later told my aunt that the grandmother was racist, so she had likely painted a bad image of black people that scared the girl. She started acting out, but was always very well behaved when I babysat her & she always wanted to be with me. While I was giving her a bath one night, she told me that she didn’t like black people. “I like you because you’re white like me” she told me. I didn’t want to crush her or make her scared, so I didn’t correct her. I still think about all the foster kids, especially her.

College: I attended university in southeast TX. On the positive side, there was a large mixed community, mostly of Creoles, and the culture was very present. Nobody stared at me or asked “what are you” unless it was a student who didn’t really know about the city. I bonded with an older Creole student & her family felt and looked like my dad’s. I spent a lot of time with them. On the downside, the mindset of many people were still stuck in the 1950’s. Not only with race, but the idea that women should take care of the house, men are dominant, etc. This was seen across race & age groups. One of my favorite sociology professors was Jewish & she talked about the death threats/harassment she would get for being Jewish & how it would increase during the semester when she talked about white privilege. I learned that people my age (late teens-early 20s) thought the word “colored” was an appropriate term. I took the time to educate them if I could tell in other ways that they weren’t intentionally trying to be rude. A student who was 22 hadn’t even met a black person until she came to college. My hair, when straightened, came down right to my chest, so I explained many times that my hair doesn’t grow long just because of white ancestry. Since my look was common there, it didn’t fool other races like it did at home. I spent my time at university hanging out with people of color with the exception of a Cajun woman in my major who was much more intelligent & open-minded. I also had my first experience with discrimination when I applied to school’s graduate program. I wasn’t accepted & when I questioned the department chair, I was told it was because I made a “C” in a class. One “C” the entire 3 years (I graduated early). I guess when you have blonde hair or your dad is a judge, you can make several C’s while being outwardly disrespectful to professors & still get into graduate school. At least that’s what I was shown. Grades & the fact that most of my professors, including the department chair, praised my intelligence in class didn’t really matter. I rarely ever come to the initial conclusion that race is a factor for when people are treated unfairly, but in this case, I couldn’t think of any other possible explanation especially after I retook the class again and made an “A” only to once again be denied.

Briana is a 25 year old who was born and raised in Texas. She enjoys reading, watching movies, and learning more about race relations in America.

Stages of Being Biracial: Briana Pipkin Âû if you want to check out other voices of the Multiracial Community click here Multiracial Media

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