#the american dream is a lie and our flag is just a symbol we made.

[transmascpetewentz]

"even if you don't agree with a war you have to respect the people that fought and died for our flag" actually i'm not interested in that performatively nationalist bullshit. american soldiers are people too. if they are so strong and amazing and brave and not made of glass, then they should be subject to criticism for their actions just like every other person. unfortunately for the american empire, we have the right to free speech here and that includes criticizing soldiers for their actions.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Rant

The majority of Americans couldn't pass a citizenship test, but they feel entitled because they just to happened to have been crapped out here. I'm not knocking birthright citizenship, but people who have actually gone through the naturalization process arguably have a stronger claim because they had to put in some real work. They had to learn shit, they had to memorize dates and events and the historical significance of esoteric symbolism. Do you think Senator Cleetus McFucksHisCousin of Mississippi knows what the colors on the flag represent? Can he name all 27 amendments, in or out of order? Can he name all 50 state capitals? Hell, can he even find all 50 states on a map? We know for a fact that the previous president thought Colorado was on the Mexican border, so my guess is no.

Americans need to get off their fucking high horse, stop looking down at people who actually had agency in deciding to live here. Hell, if I wasn't born here I probably wouldn't choose yo live here myself, knowing what I know now; no healthcare, no good jobs, less and less democracy as the years go on, it's all a crock. The country America claims to be and the country America actually is are two wildly different places with nothing but daylight between them. I've all but given up on America these last five or six years, and the only thing that gives me even an ounce of hope is that people still buy into the lie and honestly believe in what America could be. They don't see the flaws, they see the opportunities, they see the big promises being made (though seldom kept), they see an IDEA of America, and even if the reality is far off from their perceptions it still makes me feel as though things COULD be better. We need to hold ourselves, our leaders, our government up to this imaginary standard; we need to hold the country accountable so it can finally live up to the saccharine image it projects to the rest of the world.

We need major systemic change to do this, and I know the opposition against it will be much stronger and more organized, but it can't be entirely hopeless. Things can't get worse forever, eventually something had to boil over and people in stronger positions than I will use their power to force the major change we so desperately need. I don't trust anyone in power right now to spearhead this change, but history proves that there are always up-and-coming movers and shakers willing to challenge the status quo. What the country needs is a constitutional convention, frame off restoration, new from the ground up, and that's a pipe dream if ever there was one. I do not and can not honestly believe that any current politicians would be willing to denounce the current constitution and try to write a new one, much less would they be able to actually write and ratify a new one that is much better than the one we have now. It would be full of just as many holes, and it would fall short of all the protections and guarantees it would need to suit an developed nation in the 21st century. If Republicans write it, it would make America an apartheid era theocratic ethnostate; if Democrats wrote it, they would compromise with the Republicans and let them make their half of the country become an apartheid era theocratic ethnostate before grabbing enough power to do it to the other half. It's lose-lose. I don't have any definitive answers to this problem; we can't just cut our losses and let the right wing nutjobs rule themselves as they see fit because there are millions of minorities they would oppress. What we would need to do is enforce progressive policies on them, which they would oppose and threaten war against, so it would be a war of attrition until one side ran out of resources and was forced to submit to the other. There's no healing the divisions in this country, the best hung we can do is try to wear down the spirits of the people fighting for division and hope that future generations are more receptive to change (good luck with that; if that were the case, there wouldn't still be Confederate sympathizers 160 years later).

The system only works if everyone agrees it works. Half the country has decided the rules don't apply anymore, and they've gamed the system so they always come out on top regardless of what the people actually want. There's no means of holding them accountable, nobody is watching the watchmen, there's no higher authority to call upon to keep them in line, so the entire system is beginning to break down. There need to be consequences, real consequences, consequences rooted in something more than just a piece of paper locked away in the National Archives; it's like half the country has decided that they don't have to follow the law anymore because there's nothing literally making them do so. "What if I don't, huh? Who's gonna stop me? What entity is going to stand in my way? How will you make them? You can't enforce anything unless we allow it to be enforced, and we don't, so you can't." Just because the paper says something is illegal doesn't mean they're gonna be punished for breaking the law; so what if they ignore the law? Who is gonna stop them? There need to be trustworthy and nonpartisan arbiters who observe the system from without and step in to ensure everything runs smoothly, but how on Earth could you prevent such arbiters from be apolitical? Everything is politicized now, there's no way you'd be able to create an institution if legitimate law enforcers who are devoid of corruption. Just look at the Supreme Court, it's a big fucking joke, nothing but toxic partisan agendas disguised as justice. The whole system is broken and needs to be thrown away. I don't trust states to do the right thing, but the federal government as it exists today is functionally useless as well. I guess that's just a consequences of having 50 disparate governments all vying for influence over one another, half of which hate the other half.

If I were tasked with framing a new constitution, first of all I would carefully rethink the concept of representative democracy over direct democracy. I wouldn't keep the same bicameral system we have today, certainly not a disproportionate senate and gerrymandered house. I would encourage there to be more elections, popular referendums for the people to vote on major legislation instead of delegating it to corrupt millionaires whose main concerns are staying in power forever and making everyone do what THEY want to do regardless of how much popular support they have. I would have term limits on every office, I would have comprehensive antitrust and campaign finance laws to keep money out of politics; this new country would necessarily be poorer than the one that came before it because all the billionaires and tax cheats would abandon ship and move overseas the second we came after them. I would put less importance on GDP growth, I wouldn't worship capitalism, I would hold the interests of businesses above those of the citizenry. If communism could collapse in Europe, surely capitalism could collapse in America; nothing lasts forever. The economy is so too heavy it will eventually collapse under its own weight; the poor can't and won't keep subsidizing the rich. Income inequality would be a major priority, at the expense of so called "freedom of speech." Money is not speech, especially not when applied to the 14th amendments "equal protection" clause. If everyone has equal protection under the law, then money being speech would mean the rich minority have more powerful voices than the poor majority, which shouldn't be allowed. We need to end the oligarchy. Break up monopolies, cease infrastructure with imminent domain, federalize rather than privatize industries

I'm just in a mood today, and I needed to get some things off my chest. I don't know if any of this is even coherent, it's largely stream of consciousness, one thought leading to another without structure. I am powerless, but talking about my pipe dream ideas makes me feel like I could be powerful. I don't know, it's more catharsis than anything else. My opinions aren't any more valid than anyone else's, my ideas aren't even well thought out, I'm no politician, I'm no statesman, I'm just some kid with aspirations and ideas on how things should be. I am sick of the rightward shift his country has been undergoing, and I'm sick of American nationalism. I just want to live in a country that is as free and fair as it claims to be.

[xtruss]

Civil Rights Icon Rep. John Lewis Lies in State at Capital!

BY BILL BARROW AND ANDREW TAYLOR

— July 27, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a solemn display of bipartisan unity, congressional leaders praised Democratic Rep. John Lewis as a moral force for the nation on Monday in a Capitol Rotunda memorial service rich with symbolism and punctuated by the booming, recorded voice of the late civil rights icon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Lewis the “conscience of the Congress” who was “revered and beloved on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the Capitol.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the longtime Georgia congressman as a model of courage and a “peacemaker.”

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” McConnell, a Republican, said, quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “But that is never automatic. History only bent toward what’s right because people like John paid the price.”

Lewis died July 17 at the age of 80. Born to sharecroppers during Jim Crow segregation, he was beaten by Alabama state troopers during the civil rights movement, spoke ahead of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the nation’s first Black president in 2011.

Dozens of lawmakers looked on Monday as Lewis’ flag-draped casket sat atop the catafalque built for President Abraham Lincoln. Several wiped away tears as the late congressman’s voice echoed off the marble and gilded walls. Lewis was the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Rotunda.

“You must find a way to get in the way. You must find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble,” Lewis intoned in a recorded commencement address he’d delivered in his hometown of Atlanta. “Use what you have … to help make our country and make our world a better place, where no one will be left out or left behind. ... It is your time.”

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus wore masks with the message “Good Trouble,” a nod to Lewis’ signature advice and the COVID-19 pandemic that has made for unusual funeral arrangements.

The ceremony was the latest in a series of public remembrances. Pelosi, who counted Lewis as a close friend, met his casket earlier Monday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, and Lewis’ motorcade stopped at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House as it wound through Washington before arriving at the Capitol.

The Democratic speaker noted that Lewis, frail with cancer, had come to the newly painted plaza weeks ago to stand “in solidarity” amid nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality. She called the image of Lewis “an iconic picture of justice” and juxtaposed it with another image that seared Lewis into the national memory. In that frame, “an iconic picture of injustice,” Pelosi said, Lewis is collapsed and bleeding near the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, when state troopers beat him and other Black Americans as they demanded voting rights.

Following the Rotunda service, Lewis’ body was moved to the steps on the Capitol’s east side in public view, an unusual sequence required because the pandemic has closed the Capitol to visitors.

Late into the night, a long line of visitors formed outside the Capitol as members of the public quietly, and with appropriate socially distant spacing, came to pay their respects to Lewis.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden paid his respects late Monday afternoon. The pair became friends over their two decades on Capitol Hill together and Biden’s two terms as vice president to President Barack Obama, who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

Notably absent from the ceremonies was President Donald Trump. Lewis once called Trump an illegitimate president and chided him for stoking racial discord. Trump countered by blasting Lewis’ Atlanta district as “crime-infested.” Trump said Monday that he would not go to the Capitol, but Vice President Mike Pence and his wife paid their respects.

Just ahead of the ceremonies, the House passed a bill to establish a new federal commission to study conditions that affect Black men and boys.

Born near Troy, Alabama, Lewis was among the original Freedom Riders, young activists who boarded commercial passenger buses and traveled through the segregated Jim Crow South in the early 1960s. They were assaulted and battered at many stops, by citizens and authorities alike. Lewis was the youngest and last-living of those who spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington.

The Bloody Sunday events in Selma two years later forged much of Lewis’ public identity. He was at the head of hundreds of civil rights protesters who attempted to march from the Black Belt city to the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery.

The marchers completed the journey weeks later under the protection of federal authorities, but then-Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, an outspoken segregationist at the time, refused to meet the marchers when they arrived at the Capitol. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on Aug. 6 of that year.

Lewis spoke of those critical months for the rest of his life as he championed voting rights as the foundation of democracy, and he returned to Selma many times for commemorations at the site where authorities had brutalized him and others. “The vote is precious. It is almost sacred,” he said again and again. “It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”

The Supreme Court scaled back the seminal voting law in 2012; an overhauled version remains bottle-necked on Capitol Hill, with Democrats pushing a draft that McConnell and most of his fellow Republicans oppose. The new version would carry Lewis’ name.

Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the last time Sunday on a horse-drawn carriage before an automobile hearse transported him to the Alabama Capitol, where he lay in repose. He was escorted by Alabama state troopers, this time with Black officers in their ranks, and his casket stood down the hall from the office where Wallace had peered out of his window at the citizens he refused to meet.

After the memorial in Washington, Lewis’s body will return to Georgia. He will have a private funeral Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which King once led.

— Barrow reported from Birmingham, Ala. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Darlene Superville contributed to this report from Washington.

[surveysonfleek]

543.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 31

2901. have you ever written a letter to: a friend: yes. a lover: yes. a celebrity: yes, but i never sent it. congress/house/reps: only to the mayor, it was a task in elementary lol. the president/leader of your country: no. 2902. Why are cigarette companies allowed to manufacture and sell cigarettes when they are so unhealthy and dangerous? it’s basically the same as why do mcdonalds sell food? people will always buy things that are bad for them. 2903. Do you chat with people in an elevator? only at work because i know them lol. 2904. What's your favorite Jack Nicholson movie? i don’t have one.

2905. Who should play the part of Superman? never been a fan, so idk. 2906. Do you like when your friends and your mate's friends hang out? we have the same group of friends. 2907. Doritos or Cheetos? cheetos!!!! 2910. Do you brush your teeth three times a day? no, more like 1-2 lol. 2911. Should I stop making questions with multiple parts and just count each actual question as a question? yes. 2912. What gives your ego a boost? genuine unexpected compliments. 2913. What knocks your ego down? genuine unexpected critiques. 2914. Live and let live or live and let die? either or. 2915. What do you think of Damien Hirst's art piece Mother and Child, which is half a cow in formaldedhyde? i don’t know it. 2916. Why is it that 70 percent of americans Do Not want to go to war with Iraq and yet we are going to war with Iraq anyway? eh, not knowledgeable on this subject. Is this democracy? - 2917. Imagine you have two choices of what life you can live: One: You are provided with meals, medicine, clothes and shelter. You are always with your family. You can lie in the sun and smoke, drink, play, cook, etc.. There will be certain rules you must follow such as no killing, no hurting others, no leaving the commune you were born in, no stealing, no tv, no newspapers and no books. OR Two: You are turned loose in the world with nothing. You start out cold and hungry. You may stay cold and hungry forever but you also have the opportunity to try and make a life for yourself. This will take a lot of hard work and there is no guarantee you will ever live comfortably. Which life do you choose? it depends how much knowledge and street smarts i have, but i’d probably choose the second option. WHY? because i know the world has so much to offer. if i worked hard enough i could basically get all the benefits of option one and even more. 2918. Why is there no 'Mr. America' pageant? isn’t there? there’s a mr. universe right? Should there be? i’m not that fussy. What qualities would YOU look for in a Mr. America if such a contest were to exist (like miss america he would have to be a role model)? same qualities as miss america i guess. 2919. If something offends you do you feel that it has no right to exist? in a perfect world, yes. but life doesn’t work that way. 2920. Why do advertisers seem to believe that guys will buy any product that a hot girl in a bikini is sitting next too? well, sex sells. 2921. What would you do if your mom had a fight with a male aquantance and you heard an answering machine message he left her cursing at her, calling her names and being very disrespectful? i’d ask her wtf is going on and take actions into my own hands. i can’t handle the idea of people being rude to my family. 2922. What do you represent? myself? lol. 2923. What message does ___ send when given as a birthday present?flowers: a kind gesture i guess. i’m not a flowers kinda gal though. slippers: a possible regift? i’d use it anyway. candles: everyone likes candles so it’s a universal gift i guess. diamond necklace: a grand gesture coming from someone with money obviously lol. gift certificate: didn’t know what to get you, but here’s a gift card! cash: unthoughtful but very useful. books: tbh i gift books a lot i think it’s good for kids and stuff. 2924. Have you ever completed a paint by number? yeah most likely. If yes of what?/ i had a lot of these books as a kid, so i don’t remember a particular one lol. 2925. How long has it been since you colored in a coloring book? i’ve done it sometime this year. 2926. What have you been caught doing? smoking haha. 2927. Does temptation make you do what you love? hmm not really? 2928. Do you have an gadgets in the house that you don't know how to use? What? the washing machine lol. it’s all a guessing game. 2929. Do you read the instructions to things or skip them? i skim through them. 2930. Will you ever reach your full potential? i sure hope so. 2931. Who is your biggest fan? my family and boyfriend. 2932. Who do you take care of? my family and boyfriend. Who takes care of you? same ^ 2933. Do you think that lawyers should only argue cases when they feel like the client is in the right? i guess so but money is the motivation i guess. representing someone they wouldn’t necessarily support could also help their arguing skills idk. If you were a lawyer would you argue cases when you felt like your client was completely wrong? not sure... 2934. Is it sexy in here or is it just me? it’s just you. 2935. You are giving out your phone number to a HOTTIE by writing it on a napkin. Do you write a little note or draw a picture too? If yes, what? i would never do this. 2936. Can you fold paper into anything (a hat, a swan, a boat, etc)? What? yes, i can make little 3d stars haha. 2937. How can a girl get a guy-she-is-dating's mom to like her better? just be yourself. mothers of sons are always harder to please, just like fathers of daughters. 2938. What is one theory about life or anything that you came up with that no one else has? nothing haha. 2939. Do you like answering questions about: (bold) your life? your taste? tv? music? art? politics? life? religion? issues? sex? loved ones? favorites? objects? math? philosophy? hypothetical situations? things that require lots of thought? 2940. The mortuary science department is having a bake sale. Does this strike you as funny? pretty random. 2941. What would you think of a new reality tv game show where real life criminals on death row competed in life threatening tasks for the prize of a reduced sentence? pretty sadistic if you ask me. Did you know that they are considering making this a show? no idea. Would you watch it? probably not. 2942. What was the last song you looked up the words to? curve. 2943. What Saturday morning cartoons do you like? the only one i remember watching was saturday disney. 2944. If anything's possible, then is it possible that nothing's possible? no. 2944. What does the T in T-Shirt really mean? the shape of a tee? idk. 2945. Would you alter your routine if there was a sniper in your area? haha i guess so. If so how? head straight to my door as fast as i can, draw the curtains to all windows. 2946. Is castration a good punishment for extreme or repeat sexual offenders? eh... why not. idk. 2947. If you are a girl have you ever experienced penis envy? nope. If you are a guy would you still want to live if you had to be castrated? 2948. Imagine you are teaching a class of sixth graders. A the start of the year you tell them, "If you come away with class and have learned only ONE THING, I hope that you learned....(finish the sentence) idk. 2949. If you were being interviewed for a job in a clothing store how would you sell yourself to the prospective employers? obviously wear clothes that they sell at the store, research the brand a little and keep up to date with their seasons, promos etc. 2950. How do you stop pop up ads? adblock. 2951. You are alone. You take a bus to the mall. The stop is right in the mall parking lot. You window-shop. You don't buy anything. You want to get back on the bus to go home when you realize you have lost all your money. You have no cell phone. All the payphones are jammed with gum. You can not get it out. How do you get the $1.50 you need to get on the bus and get home??? i’d go to the mall, visit each store and ask them if i can contact someone to pick me up. 2952. How long would it take you to organize your bedroom? probably an entire day. 2953. Make up a nickname for your bedroom: no. 2954. What comes after: I've got a love-a-lee bunch of coconuts (diddly dee) There they are a-standing in a row. <--- this Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head... 2955. Where ARE the wild things? in our dreams. 2956. You get a six cd changer for the car, only problem is that you know that once you put in six cd's you can NEVER take them out. Which 6 cd's do you put in? i wouldn’t bother. as long as my car had an aux in, i’m all good. 2957. Let's play Jeapordy. (Do-Do-Do-Do-Do-Do-Dooooo-) I'll give some answers..you give the questions. Ready? Begin. The answer is: Purple what colour is barney the dinosaur? Yellow what colour is a banana? Candle what’s something you can light up during a romantic dinner? Pepsi who’s coke’s biggest competitor? Peace what does a dove symbolize? Lisa what’s the name of the eldest simpsons daughter? Cotton what type of fabric are most t-shirts made out of? Flag haha idk. 42 idk. 2958. Pick a letter. d. List some great words starting with that letter: no. 2959. Is eight days a week enough to show you care? no haha. 2960. Have you told your parents you love them today? no. 2961. What is the difference between a number two pencil and any other kind of pencil? its tone, thickness idk. 2962. Have you ever cross-dressed? no. 2963. Are we living in a world without end? probably not. 2964. What do you think of that couple that was just on the news who kidnapped a 16 year old girl for a week and forced her to be their sex slave? that’s terrifying and disgusting. it sucks to think there must be so many more undocumented cases like this. 2965. Wanna watch a movie about a cheerleading competition? only if it’s bring it on. 2966. Are you singing in the rain? no. 2967. Should the sopranos actors have been allowed to march in the St Patrick's Day parade? idk? 2968. Is oral sex, anal sex or regular sex more intimate? regular. 2969. Is it time to switch to Decaf? i do drink decaf from time to time. 2970. Why is it that the truth hurts? because some people can’t handle it. 2971. How do you feel about: ticketmaster? laggy. scalpers? it depends. we bought tickets from a scalper at an ice hockey game once for a fair price and they were the best seats in the house. i don’t think i’d ever do that again though. 2972. What are you guilty of? being lazy. 2973. Have you ever done any of the following in order to catch a buzz or get high? sniffed glue: i did this as a kid coz i liked the smell, not to get high. sniffed magic markers: nope. ate paste: no. drank Nyquil, rRobitussen or any other Over-the-counter drug: no. 'huffed' (inhaled or sniffed) any kind of fabric softner, cooking spray or other household product: no. whip-its: no. 2974. What gives you inner stregnth? inspiration. 2975. ::eyes you suspiciously::Where have all the COOKIES gone? idk. i don’t eat cookies. 2976. What is a good gift for someone you don't like so that it SEEMS to be nice but really 'gets' them somehow? haha no thanks. 2977. If you don't like the service at a restaurant would you skip the tip? yes. Why or why not? because tipping in australia isn’t mandatory. 2978. Apples or peaches or pumpkin pie? apple. 2979. What Race/nationality was Jesus? israeli?  2980. What was one evening you'll never forget? every night of coachella. 2981. Name 13 ways to look at a blackbird: no. 2982. Trick or Treat? treat. 2983. If you had money to burn, what 'toy' would you spend your money on (think monopoly game with real money, luxory boat, a train layout that takes up a house, etc.)? a tesla. 2984. Are you having trouble with aol 8.0? lol this is so old. Or if you don't have aol...have you ever been to a podiatrist? nope. 2985. If you could write your own ten commandments, what would they be? 1 no thanks. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2986. When people lose weight, where does it go? it’s been burnt. 2987. Your mate/partner/wife or husband/longterm boy or girlfriend/etc. has SOMEHOW gotten his or her FAVORITE celebrity's attention. Your sweetie has always thought this celeb was so sexy and now the celeb kinda fancies your sweety as well(although the celeb is not interested enough to stick around for more than one night). Your sweetie wants to have a one night stand with the celeb. Knowing that this is your sweeties one and only chance to bang (or even hang out with) a celebrity (ESPECIALLY their FAVORITE celebrity) you would say: lmao. i’ve had this convo with my boyfriend before. i’d let them hang, whatever. 2988. Have you ever seen an Ed Wood film? no. if yes, what one(s) and what did you think? If no, aren't you curious to see a movie by the person known as the worst director of all time? 2989. What kind of bread do you like to eat (white, rye, potatoe, grain, whole wheat, etc)? white. 2990. Are you emotionaly articulate? yes. 2991. Does everything happen for a reason? i’d like to think so. 2992. Do you take a piece of those you have loved and carry it around forever? eh, not really. If yes, than aren't they still with you even when you are gone? 2993. Is it true that the child is worth ten of the parent? never heard of that. 2994. Can you think of a door that has closed in your life? yes. Can you think of a window that has opened? yes. 2995. What does this mean to you: 'Necessity is the mother of invention'? Do you believe that necessity is also the mother of: courage? survival skills? independence? idkkkk. 2996. What helps you to get over a Major heartache? time. and things to distract yourself with. 2997. Can you depend completely upon yourself? yes. have you ever tried? yes. 2998. How can you tell the difference between the end of one part of your life and the beautiful beginning of the next part? i can’t. 2999. Have you ever read an stories by Kate Chopin? no. If not, I suggest that you do. 3000. Do you often make the best discoveries when you really weren't looking for anything (or anyone)? yes.

[chroniclesofawkwardness]

The Awful Truth

During my first three years as an undergrad at Ohio State, I stayed in the dorm closest to Ohio Stadium, the same one Jeffrey Dahmer lived in when he was a student there. Dorm-room technology had probably changed in as many ways as it stayed the same between Jeffrey’s era and mine. In the micro-fridge that had probably been in the room since Jeff roamed the halls of this building named after one of Mr. Lincoln’s acts that freed land instead of people, I don’t remember finding a singular earlobe encased in ice, or a perfectly preserved pubis devoid of flesh that may have once been a good luck charm to suggest that I’d be having friends for dinner in the same room where Mr. Dahmer may have studied the intricacies of human anatomy in preparation for his career of choice. 

The first of the two rooms of my suite had corkboard filled with holes that were probably as much natural as manmade above two desks that sat catty-cornered from one another. As I began to unpack my computer and set it on the desk closest to the disappointingly barren micro-fridge, my brother told me that the Internet connection I was about to plug into was the equivalent of a firehose at a time the standard was a dialup garden hose with kinks in it every six inches.

The bedroom had two beds, catty-cornered from one another like the desks in the front room, and shelving between them that was probably installed around the same time somebody thought a micro-fridge was a good idea. I wasn’t much interested in the shelves, or rock-paper-scissoring it for who got which one. I didn’t want to piss in the corner like a dog marking its territory either, despite the fact that listening to my dad tapping the steering wheel while butchering Incense and Peppermints by Strawberry Alarm Clock on the drive up made doing stop drop and roll in traffic, or deliberately wetting myself just for the attention seem like great ideas. 

All I was focused on when it came to the bedroom was putting my Rita Hayworth poster on the wall above the head of my bed using some bluish silly putty the manufacturer said wouldn’t damage the walls. Once I stuck the poster to the wall, I only pretended to ignore it, secretly hoping that someone would oblige my reference to The Shawshank Redemption by calling me Andy, telling me to guard my pickax carefully because folks around the dorm loved surprise inspections, or wondering aloud how long it would take me to tunnel through the wall with it. 

The eight of us sharing the 1150s suite that year had been scattered throughout Ohio before uniting on Ohio State’s Columbus campus that fall. The only exceptions were one guy from Illinois, and one from Pennsylvania. As college freshmen, we were terrified, yet hungry for new experiences at the same time. Who felt what, when, and why probably varied from man to man. I was more terrified than hungry, yet still eager to prove to myself that I could transverse the sprawling campus without the assistance of the same transportation from the Office of Disability Services that had spectacularly backfired during orientation by either showing up late or not at all to shuttle me back and forth between placement tests.

When I wasn’t out trying to make it from point A to point B, my roommates and I were spending too much of our free time playing video games. At one point, the eight of us were playing old-school Punch-Out on our computers at the same time using emulators like NESticle to reach into the past and bring bits (bytes) our childhoods to the present. That said, most of our screen time was spent playing Madden. I don’t know how he did it, but Illinois would play as the Falcons every time, and constantly call audibles that made Chris Chandler, Jamal Anderson, and Terance Mathis look like first-ballot Hall of Famers. We were powerless to stop him, but that didn’t stop us from trying. 

When it became clear that the eight of us wouldn’t try to kill each other except in Madden, we began decorating the walls of our suite’s common area with posters. Rita stayed in my bedroom not only because she gave off more of the prison cell vibe I was going for, but also because my Rita Hayworth story was both too obvious and too personal for anyone who happened by to see. I was content with the ah-ha moments and laughter that came when a near stranger comprehended the thinly-veiled reference to one of my favorite movies, but I also that hoped the same near-strangers wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at me that I balled my eyes out every time I watched the ending.

One day, someone hung a poster displaying an awful truth in our common area. It was black and white with The Awful Truth written in all caps across the top. Below that, there were symbols you'd see on the respective signs for men’s and women’s restrooms. The female’s heart was drawn where it anatomically should have been, the male’s heart was in his dick. I got a good laugh each time I saw it, but it was also a stark reminder of how inexperienced I was with the opposite sex at age 19.

Back then, I controlled my libido the only way I knew how: constant unfettered release. My consumption of adult content wasn’t as bad as it would become as Internet connection speeds got even faster, but I won’t lie and say that I didn’t take advantage of the high-speed connection of the time for some high-speed gratification. When 19-year-old me met a real woman, I had no clue what to do, what to say, or how to act. I didn’t know who I was at that time, probably because I was setting millions of little pieces of myself free far too often. It was easier to lose myself in the pornscape than hold on to what naturally made me a man. There, I didn’t have to think of women as real people who could challenge me. There, I never had to be afraid that a woman would call me a creep if I expressed sexual interest. Women across the pornscape never said no, not even to a 19-year-old like me, and they always seemed to enjoy whatever their fellow performers did to them. 

Years later, when I met the woman who would become my fiancée, she was also 19. I’d been leading the English conversation club at the American Corner in Novi Sad, where Zs. was a student at the university. I assume that’s how she found me, but I can’t be sure. I got a friend request on Facebook stating she’d added me. She had no profile picture, and of course, I didn’t recognize her name. Despite these obvious red flags, I acted per the awful truth of males thinking with the little head instead of the big one and accepted her request sight unseen. And to think, when I was 19, I thought my dad was an asshole for doing essentially the same thing at a time before social media exploded.

At first, I thought she was just picking my brain for its knowledge of English. As a student of the language, I assumed she was happy to learn whatever I had to offer as a native speaker in a place where native English speakers were as rare as walls untouched by nationalistic or phallic graffiti. The red flags became even brighter when she’d just so happen to be at the end of my street before I could cross into the city center where one of the schools at which I taught was located. Glad for the attention, neither of my heads was thinking straight. The big one began to fill with love dreams brought to music by the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt - Zs. was, after all, from a predominantly Hungarian-speaking part of Serbia - the little one and its attachment began to fill with blood. Honestly, I didn’t feel as intensely attracted to her as I had to other women. I won’t say she made it too easy, only that the ego wants to want more than it wants to have. 

The interior of her apartment was as cold as her hand the first time I held it. Still, I loved waking up beside her in the morning and watching a VH1 station that played music videos as we lay beneath the covers. Daniel repeatedly tried to convince me that Zs. was working for the Security Information Agency of Serbia (BIA), which meant she was using her sex to pump me for information. He offered to put her under surveillance as often as he congratulated me on being with a nineteen-year-old. Paranoia would slowly seep into my big head as I replayed his words of utter conviction that I was sleeping with a real-life spy whenever Zs. and I were together. Predictably, my little head could not resist the temptation that I’d so often prayed God would not lead me into while growing up Catholic. 

When I saw how ridiculously high her heating bill was, I began to entertain the idea of asking her to move in with me. Our relationship was as new and exciting as it was unknown; I thought I loved her. Plus, I needed someone with whom I could split the bills after escaping the Crazy House and renting an apartment that a fellow teacher had occupied before returning to Seattle. I thought it was a win-win situation for both of my heads.

But, red flags kept waving even before we decided to live under the same roof. Sex with Zs. had been nowhere near as fulfilling for me as it had been with S. Zs. and I never bonded in the same way, however briefly, that S. and I had. This wasn’t entirely Zs.’s fault. Since being kicked out of the house in Sombor and letting my thoughts run wild about my uncertain future, I hadn’t practiced yoga. To this day, I’m convinced that the practice allowed me to enjoy sex with S. so much because not only had the technical difficulties of Sombor kept me from any contact with porn, but, I’d learned to discipline my body in ways I never had before. This combination allowed me to consistently last as long as I wanted, and feel the unchartered contentment of holding S. in my arms after making love without the emptiness of a genital sneeze at the end. The contentment of the feel of her long black hair across my bare stomach as she’d rise slightly to settle herself on top of me, and kiss me upon coming back down. The ecstasy of sinking more deeply into one another’s being, the heat of the summer sun trying to burn its way through the curtains that kept us from prying eyes all the while. The rapture of neither wanting the moment to end.

Zs. did not enjoy cunnilingus nearly as much as S., another red flag. To make matters worse, as the mental and physical discipline instilled in me by yoga faded away, I lost control over my body and mind that I once had. if I could tell Zs. wasn’t into it, or I just wanted sex to be over, I’d ejaculate too early, or almost immediately after penetration out of spite. Eventually, I couldn’t withhold my seed for more than ten minutes if I tried. Since I’d gone back to regularly consuming porn, I found myself envious of how the male performers seemed to be able to both last forever, and ejaculate on cue. Since Zs. didn’t fancy cunnilingus, but could easily lose herself in British literature (she would repeatedly tell me that I just wouldn’t understand Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes), I privately wondered if I could spice up our relationship by having us pretend to be in a 1960s-themed black-and-white British porn mystery called Alfred Hitch’s Cock Presents, which would later be reimagined as a series of erotic nursery rhymes adapted for after-dark television, featuring the largest of black male talent: Hickory Dickory Cock.

The degree and forethought of my fantasies were at least partially the results of the feast-or-famine lifestyle of substitute teacher taking its toll on me. Some days I’d have three classes at multiple schools. Others, my phone wouldn’t ring at all. I’d be stuck in our apartment watching the slow, flickering death or my laptop screen, and wanting to save it more than save myself. On rare occasions when my laptop was closed, I’d be locked in a staring contest with the vacuum cleaner Zs. insisted we buy. One part of me wanted to run it, another didn’t see the point. If I didn’t do it, she’d yell at me for not helping out around the house. If I did, no matter how hard I tried, she’d be unsatisfied with the results. She’d tell me I couldn’t do anything right, and slap me across the face so hard that imprints of her fingers would be left across whichever of my cheeks got in the way of her palm. Finally, and frequently after long days at the university, she’d do it herself, and make sure I could see the contortions or her angry, embittered, I’m-going-to-kill-you face all the while.

I could have been a better lover and partner to Zs., there’s no doubt, but as both our familiarity and dissatisfaction with one another grew, her attacks became more frequent, and the polarity drained from the relationship. 

The awful truth.

I couldn’t go the cops even though the police station was right around the corner. No one would have believed that my fiancée beat me up, not in a Serbian society still paying the price for repeatedly looking backward while others around it had been opening up to the world, drinking beer from tallboys, and eating lunch at noon for years. Besides, I wasn’t sure what, if any, rights I had on their turf. I like to think that that I was somewhere between the Hungarians and the fifteen layers of downward-rolling shit that separated them from the Roma in Serbian societal hierarchy, but maybe even that’s being generous.

Even as it became clear the relationship wouldn’t work, I couldn’t just hop on a plane and go home. I didn’t want to think of myself as a coward. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t entertain the thought of just turning my back on it all, and watching it burn like one of the precious books Zs. said I’d never understand. Tuesdays would have been my best chance. She had French class at 7:30 A.M. and was at the university all day. I was too scared (scarred) to run the vacuum, so instead of porn fantasies starring Zs. and me, I’d dream of packing everything in the same suitcases I’d drug behind me when I was practically homeless after getting kicked out of the house in Sombor, and never looking back.

One particular Tuesday, amidst my thoughts of flying home and seeing her jaw hit the floor upon walking into an empty apartment, Zs. came home unexpectedly. She had terrible menstrual cramps, and was practically convulsing in pain the moment she walked in the door; I’d never seen anything like it. Through clenched teeth, she managed to tell me how to ask for maxi pads in Serbian, and I went to the corner store to buy some. 

The things you do for dissolution.

Even after she stopped slapping me around (her friends told her she was mean to me), I couldn’t bring myself to love her again. My sometimes-intentional-sometimes-not premature ejaculation paled in comparison to her capacity for cruelty.  I questioned myself as a man for allowing such domestic violence to occur on my watch. I felt as if it was my fault for allowing her verbal and physical abuse to go on for so long. Maybe I did this because I was taught that girls don’t hit boys, and boys don’t hit girls, however untrue that turned out to be. 

Zs. may have been a minority, but she was still a Serbian citizen. If I fought back, and she went to the police with even the tiniest bruise claiming to be a victim, I reasoned that they’d be all too happy to throw me in prison. If the media got wind of it, I could have easily become the new symbol of American aggression against peaceful Serbia. Even a country whose conservative political currents had had no problem looking back over 600 years to their ancestors’ glorious defeat battle of Kosovo wouldn’t have to go back that far - the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia - to find an example of bloodshed in which Americans like me could easily be blamed. I could see the title card of the Netflix miniseries chronicling my relationship with Zs. in my mind’s eye:

Američki nasiljnik for Serbian-speaking audiences, Bruise is the New Bomb for English-speaking ones.

So I waited. There were many nights when Zs. and I wouldn’t even look at each other after pulling out the sofa bed to go to sleep. I’d stare into the darkness of the ceiling above, dream of coming home in a coffin, and wonder what the hell I’d gotten myself into by agreeing to share a studio apartment of 28 square meters with a woman eight years younger who made me watch Ally McBeal reruns and romcoms until I wanted to throw up. In 2011, when she got a scholarship to study at Montclair State University in New Jersey, I knew I’d have to leave Serbia too, as she had become my basis for staying in the country. 

I came home that summer. When Zs. tried to convince me to come to New Jersey and spend Thanksgiving with her that fall, I told her I wouldn’t. Not long after, we broke up over Skype, the same means I’d used talk to my family while missing out on the previous four Thanksgivings. 

I laugh when people ask me if I still talk to her. I don’t think I spoke to her even once after the Skype breakup. I stopped returning her calls because I wanted her to suffer, like I did when I was alone in my room in Sombor, or solitary in the darkness of my first night in the Crazy House.

I intentionally keep my emotional distance from most people these days. Yet there are times when I’m as sick of the sound of my voice as I am the company of others. Hoping Zs. would suffer was as ill-advised as trying to recapture the contentment of intercourse with S. as we shielded ourselves from the piercing summer sun. My attachment to feelings of that kind is the root of my suffering, not the feelings themselves. My cup may never runneth over, but I’ll find ways of filling it, ways to embrace experiences instead of attaching myself to outcomes. I might even read Flaubert’s Parrot, not out of spite, but curiosity. 

That’s a truth I can live with. Not because it’s awful, but because it’s mine.

[rhysford]

Okay… So Let’s Talk About Hatred.

HATRED noun ha·tred \ˈhā-trəd\

1:  extreme dislike or disgust :  hate 2:  ill will or resentment that is usually mutual :  prejudiced hostility or animosity

PREJUDICE

noun prej·u·dice \ˈpre-jə-dəs\

1:  preconceived judgment or opinion 2:  an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge 3:  an instance of such judgment or opinion. 4: an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

I posted these definitions to point out something key in the use of the word hatred. Usually mutual. I can hate broccoli which is definition number one because I’m pretty certain broccoli could give two fucks about if it likes me or not. However, we are definitely looking at the second definition with regards to the rise of facism and violence over the past year or so.

There have always been people who felt in their heart of hearts that I, as a person of colour (off-beige), deserve less than they get in life. Less money, less rights, and in some cases, even less life because they truly want other people to die. Solely because of the colour of their skin, the name of their God and anything else that is not exactly fitting into the box they’ve built in their mind.

These people are no longer afraid of the light. They have crawled out from under their rock, taken off their hoods and masks and are now walking amongst us carrying tiki torches and guns. They have murdered in the past. Do not forget this. This is a continuation of the murdering of millions abroad and countless thousands at home. These are the people who hung Emmett Till, shot Martin Luther King Jr. and interned Japanese-Americans. They beat to death Matthew Shepard, killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla and slaughtered 49 people as they danced and celebrated life in Orlando. And one, in particular, mowed down a group of people, killing a vibrant, young woman named Heather Heyer.

They carry flags of symbols they’ve stolen from other cultures, warping them into iconic imagery we now equate with death. They carry them so we fear their approach. They hope that if they carry these symbols we will hide away, that we will cower and scatter. They scream and strike, thinking their numbers will shield them, hide their identities and they can march freely against us, trampling our freedom and steal the rights we’ve all fought so hard and long to obtain.

See the thing is, those rights are ours. They were ours to begin with. Sadly, we are still waiting for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be ratified despite it being a work in progress since back in the 1920s but still, these are all of our rights. This speaks to the struggle we seem to have as a nation to accept ALL people are created equal. We are literally still fighting to erect the foundation stones of what our country was built on.

And now these assholes come along and try to tear our house down.

They’ve always been there. These malignant termites who lurk in the darkness. Their hatred and prejudice are self-aggrandizing fantasies they are working very hard to make a reality. Not because they want to protect their culture. Our skin colours do not dictate who we are as people, our actions and our thoughts do. “White” isn’t a culture. “White” isn’t an identity. These people are no more “White” than I am “Yellow” or “Brown”.  “White” doesn’t define a person or make them better than the person next to them and no matter how loud these parasites scream they are being oppressed, they are not.

People are more than the colour of their skin.

These people are simply being told… we will not stand idle while you kill, subjugate and terrorize us and they are angry we refuse to lie down in the dirt so they can slaughter who we are, what we are and how we live. They seek to drive us into the shadows, hoping we will cow before them but we will not. We CANNOT. Not because we deserve better than what they want for us. No, that’s not it at all. We cannot let their prejudice survive because we want better for their children as well as ours. We can only move forward as a species if we are all reaching for the same goals, for the same stars, for the same dreams.

What do I want? I don’t have children. I will never have children. But that doesn’t mean I intend to leave the world without thinking about its future or about the people in it.

I want everyone to have the luxury of going home at night to their families, regardless of how that family looks. I want the children of these families to learn about other people and embrace other cultures, eat their foods and learn their language. I want people to look at someone’s differences and be curious not dismissive or incite hatred. And most of all, I’d like us to stop killing each other as if we are animals fighting for survival around a single watering hole.

There are enough rights and life for everyone here. Equality is like space, it is infinite. It is not a cup of sugar to be doled out sparingly among the privileged or a select arbitrary group. It cannot be made less because someone is afforded the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

You cannot have less rights because the person next to you has the same as you do. That’s not how it works.

So, hatred. I can hate broccoli although I don’t. I can hate bitter melon, which I do. But hating someone because their existence threatens yours? It is, in essence, irrational. And while we cannot argue with the insanity that is bigotry and prejudice, we can stand against its violence, refuse to let them grab a hold of our society and say no to their theft of our rights. We cannot afford to let this stupidity slink back into the shadows. We cannot allow those who represent us to be silent in this war of words and blood. People have died because of these rancid beliefs, this mindset and if we do not stand against them, many more will follow.

What we can allow—what we must allow—is space next to one another for us to all exist together in peace. There is enough room for everyone at the world’s table and we need to fight to make sure everyone has a seat.

    from Okay… So Let’s Talk About Hatred.

[wolvesdevour]

From Russia With Love

[Title is taken from one of the protest signs I saw today.] There’s a post I’ve been thinking on writing for awhile, and it’s a mix-bag of things, which makes it even harder for me to write. Also, by this necessity, it is very long. Sorry :/ I want to talk a little on American-Russian relations, and not simply on a White House-Kremlin scale, but on a citizen-to-citizen scale.

I think I first should say why Russians. My great grandparents moved to the USA during the first Russian revolution. They were nobility and fled, rather than be killed. They were hands the Tsarina. Upon reaching American shores, they quickly, purposefully destroyed their family culture. It is difficult to really research it through family, because no one  wishes to talk much about it. This isn’t the first I’ve heard of this tactic. In order to appear “legitimately American,” sometimes people attempt to erase all traces of their immigrancy. This is very depressing to me. From what I understand, they were Prussian-Latvian, although they also lived in Russia, of course.  A second reason for why I am interested in this is because, from an early age, I realized that even if a country has a dictator in place, that does not mean the people are supportive of the dictator. My grandmother spent time in Germany during the 30s and she often spoke to me about it. She was a tourist and student to Germany, young, and not fully understanding the trouble brewing. She was often a dark and gothic individual, yet strangely positive and naive at the same time. I think she believed the human species better than fascism and Nazism. I like to think she’s right, in the end, and that we may at times enter these states, but that as a species, we are inherently fascist.  My grandmother’s friends were some of the first to go into the CCCP and take photos and report to Americans about their troubles--starvation, oppression, imprisonment. As a child, I’d leaf through these photos, but in college, I finally got more appreciation for what was happening to the Russian people at this time. Everyone I have known has said that they hate Russians. They hate Russians because of Soviet Communism and their desire to rule/control the world. They hate Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Putin. They call them thugs, thieves, and look down upon their women as mail order brides. They call them hackers and spies. They call them oppressors and criminals. These are not the people I saw in the photos; these are not the people I have met. I do not disbelieve that there are bad Russians. There are bad Americans, too. Russia and the USA are brothers. Since our time in WWII, we have been strange brothers. We gave them aid, and Stalin used that aid to fund his gulags--to oppress his own people. They helped us win the war against fascism. We have always been both at odds and at help to each other, but we’re a brothership with a rocky relationship. I think that is Stalin’s work most of all. I do not think the Russian people should have reason to hate us--the American people; we do not have reason to hate them--the Russian people.  Russia, similar to the USA, has made bad actions. We have both warred and oppressed people. This is difficult to hear about one’s own country. This isn’t unusual for a country--I can think of many others who have harmed others that seek to deny their harm. It is particularly difficult for a people to know that their country did terrible things under the peoples’ noses. I went to a film event set by the Ukrainian embassy about the Crimean Tatars. There was a time when Crimea was occupied by the Nazis, to which  they could do nothing. However, they had fighter plane pilots who continued to fight for the Russian side against the Nazis. They Nazis left, then the Russians moved in. The CCCP then decided that the Crimean Tatars were all Nazis because they were occupied. So, they shoved them in cattle cars and sent them on the railroad. Many died in transit, packed shoulder to shoulder, unable to sit or lie down, with no food or water. They traveled through Moscow. No one knew. The trains were marked with symbols of cows. People did not think their government was deporting and imprisoning people like this. There were Russians who spoke against Stalin, but they often found themselves in gulags, killed, or sent abroad. I have friends whose family were ostracized to Kazakhstan until they eventually fled to the USA. Many poets or writers dreamed of winning clemency to flee to the USA. Some, such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, spent time in the gulags. People died in those camps. Some prison camps formed prison camps. I cannot remember the name of the city at this time, so I apologize, but there is one prison camp that effectively became a prison city. It had its own prison. It had children and women. Life was prison. Poets wrote of their pain on rolling paper--used for making cigarettes--and burned them away. They memorized stories, unable to write them down, for manuscripts do not burn* and they hoped for a time when they could speak freely again. But what about modern times, right? That is all history? The first that I notice from people is that they say every modern Russian they have met has been overbearingly in love with their home country. Russians are in love with Russia. Which puts a lot of Americans off. After all, we are taught that Russia is the Soviet Union. That Russia is the spy-thug enemy. So we see that they are proud of being bad. Most Russians I have met? They love their country because they are Russian. Americans love their country because we are American. It is a very similar love.  From childhood, we are told to love our country. I think there is a line between love of country and nationalism--the bad, obsessive and oppressive love. Many may love their land, their people, their culture--all of which is what makes up a country--and there are others who think we must hurt and destroy others with that love, to be blinded in their love and see no faults or what harm their country is doing. We can love our land, people, and culture. As Americans, we can love it. As Russians, I think they can love theirs too. Indeed, Russians should love their land, their people, their culture.  Why should they, despite the issues their country has caused, should love their country? I do not think Russians should love their for the harm their politicians, the Kremlin, or their country--as a political entity--have caused. Do not ignore the harm, but do love for the good. There are lessons that the German people learned that I think we Russians and Americas both need to learn.** Post-Nazi Germany, they felt great shame and despair for the actions that they committed. And yes, they should feel shame for that. People within their country committed such great crimes against each other, against the world. For much time post-WWII, Germans felt shame and self-hatred. Yet, there was a time when the Germans were facing a major football/soccer cup win. My German professor gave a lesson on this, because in part, it takes a little understanding. The people were effectively afraid to be proud. The German people were scared to love themselves.  Because loving themselves too much led to the Nazi Party. After all, that’s what Nazism was. It was nationalist pride. It’s literally there in the title. Germans were scared because if they started to be proud, to say “YES! We are German! We won! We are amazing!”, they would instead be saying “YES! We are German! We are Nazi! We are proud of our atrocities and terrible past!” But this was also something the Germans needed. They needed to realize that there was good about Germany, too. There was bad, but there is always good as well.  This is what nationalism runs on, however. Germany turned to the Nazi Party largely due to great depression as a nation. They had lost their war. They were poor and in great debt. Their leader had promised to return their people to greatness and failed. Some of their economic oppression had been long term, other parts short term. There were good things happening in Germany. Except people couldn’t see it. They were unhappy and a man began to promise them a new way. He promised them to make them great again. He promised and was not part of the old guard--he was not nobility. He was from poverty, too. He was a common person. He could help them, and he knew there were people to blame. They were the wrong people, but this made the Germans feel better. It made them feel like they could do something. And they did. The wrong things, of course. Although some had their limits, and then they became the enemy, too.  So what I am saying is that even if there are bad things that a country is doing, the people are not bad. I think our generation should understand this. After all, do I enjoy the wars in the Middle East? Do I enjoy how we handled Syria? How we’ve handled our relations with African countries? Because we have also helped cause economic troubles there, too. This is the same with South American countries and Latin American countries. I hate how we have treated the First Nations and native peoples.  But I think we have done good as well.  This is the same as our brother, Russia. There is great depression there, too. And there is a feeling that no one cares about them. I used to talk to the vendors in D.C. about this, strangely enough. Those little flag pin sellers? In the metro stations? Many I met were Russian. I would talk to them, in my mangled awkward Russian, and they would typically say “Alright, let’s speak in English,” because my Russian was very crappy, but I think they were excited, too, to speak in English and practice it. They always would say “YOU are learning Russian? YOU have interest in Russia? You must be crazy. Why would anyone care about us?” 

When I spent time at the Russian embassy film events, I got a similar reaction--despite there being a lot of American students, just like me, most of the waiters, bartenders, and general staff assumed that the only people to have an interest in Russian films and culture were Russian.

This probably only fueled me to care more. It is not pity that I care for Russia, or want others to understand why we shouldn’t villainize the Russian people. It comes from sympathy. I have always hated myself, after all, and eventually learned that maybe, even if I hated parts of myself, I should recognize and love the good parts, too. This is why I do not support loving the good parts of Russia despite being transgender, bi/pan, queer, and a feminist, but because of it. There are Russians who are transgender. There are Russians who are LGBTQIA+. There are Russians who feminists. There are Russians who are good people. Being Russian doesn’t make you a bad person. Being a bad person makes you bad.   As our country heads into its Trump presidency, I think we need to keep this in mind, too. We are who we make it to be. I think there will be a lot of fight, but no matter how depressed we get, we need to remember that there are good parts to our country, but there are and will be many bad parts. We need to understand and talk about those bad parts. We need to make sure that those bad parts do not lead us to make further terrible decisions.  I think, as an American, our best bet isn’t to further ostracize ourselves from the Russian citizens. From citizen-to-citizen, we have tried a cold war. I believe this only made everything worse. From citizen-to-citizen, I think if we help each other, learn about each other, we can better both our countries.  Also, there are Russian immigrants as well as Russian students and tourists to the USA. I’d rather make them feel welcome than to continue villainizing them and their culture. Are there people who come here and do stupid, rude things? Eh, yes. I think this is a human condition, not a country-specific one. We should not be shy about telling them or talking to them about this, although perhaps patient or learn how to delegate--that is literally the reason why we have ambassadors, but even as citizens, I think we should learn about other cultures, considering that we’re a country of immigrants. Of course, we also go to other places and do stupid, rude, terrible things, so we need to check ourselves, too. This isn’t a new idea. This is seen in stories--Star Trek, Man From UNCLE. The more we work together, the better we are. I could probably write a lot of posts about stories where Americans and Russians work against each other and why that is terrible when they could have done so much better by working with each other--such as Iron Man 2--and about movies where Americans and Russians work together and why that is awesome, but that’s another post. You can love your culture, your land, your country and not be a fascist.  ________________ *This is a Mikhail Bulgakov reference. He was strangely beloved by Joseph Stalin. Bulgakov despised him and constantly applied to leave the CCCP. He was never granted this. The police had raided his home and kept record of his work. “Manuscripts do not burn” is a quote from The Master and Margarita and is a bit of a warning--there is nothing you can do that isn’t noticed or recorded. **There are other countries that I am not mentioning that I think could also learn this lesson, but that’s a different day, a different post.