So, I'm a pretty angry guy sometimes.
What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, in my head I go through some daily battles with insulting people. That gets balanced against my conscience, which tells me I'm an idiot. Finally what comes out of my mouth is generally respectful. But that doesn't mean I ever skip the angry part.
If you ever went through a basic psychology course, you probably understand Freud's theory that we have three levels to our consciousness. You've got what's at the base: The Id. The Id is instinctual drives and urges that you can't control. Like me, I get angry at everyone almost right off the bat. Maybe it's the cost of living in a high stress town in a high stress profession.
Then you've got the Superego, which are all the rules culture and society teach you. Think of these like ideals. You'll never perfectly meet them, but they're the standards that get set for you depending on how you were raised. Finally there's the Ego, which satisfies the basic drives of the Id by balancing them against the realistic rules set by the Superego.
So, for instance. I get angry at someone (often for little reason; say they cut me off). I want to get out of my car and start yelling at him for being an idiot. My Superego intervenes and says that type of stupidty could get me locked up. And my Ego, still needing to satisfy my lingering angry urges, turns up some aggressive music for me to rock out to and get my impulses satisfied in a way that does no harm to anyone. According to Freudian theory, people go through this cycle on a daily basis, no exception. We all have some urge we realize isn't appropriate that makes us say to ourselves, "Hey, dumb dumb, quiet down with that nonsense."
What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, in my head I go through some daily battles with insulting people. That gets balanced against my conscience, which tells me I'm an idiot. Finally what comes out of my mouth is generally respectful. But that doesn't mean I ever skip the angry part.
If you ever went through a basic psychology course, you probably understand Freud's theory that we have three levels to our consciousness. You've got what's at the base: The Id. The Id is instinctual drives and urges that you can't control. Like me, I get angry at everyone almost right off the bat. Maybe it's the cost of living in a high stress town in a high stress profession.
Then you've got the Superego, which are all the rules culture and society teach you. Think of these like ideals. You'll never perfectly meet them, but they're the standards that get set for you depending on how you were raised. Finally there's the Ego, which satisfies the basic drives of the Id by balancing them against the realistic rules set by the Superego.
So, for instance. I get angry at someone (often for little reason; say they cut me off). I want to get out of my car and start yelling at him for being an idiot. My Superego intervenes and says that type of stupidty could get me locked up. And my Ego, still needing to satisfy my lingering angry urges, turns up some aggressive music for me to rock out to and get my impulses satisfied in a way that does no harm to anyone. According to Freudian theory, people go through this cycle on a daily basis, no exception. We all have some urge we realize isn't appropriate that makes us say to ourselves, "Hey, dumb dumb, quiet down with that nonsense."
Hell, my entire Facebook wall is a bleeding stream of angry rants
against racism and inequality in America. So while I can think a huge
jumble of positive and negative things about people based on race,
color, creed, sexual orientation, and on, the arc of my behavior has
always been on a trajectory of despising inequality and treating people
with some human decency. And, much like the Good Book argues, I believe
sin starts in the mind and leads to bad actions. So how do you get rid
of negative thoughts like the ones I have? Well, meet more people not
like yourself. Understand their struggles. Get to know them. This is
like, basic kids stuff. They taught you this on G.I. Joe twenty years
ago.
That leads us to the gas station incident of yesterday. Now, I've talked before about how I enjoyed writing a black female lead into my book, FLOOR 21 (which is selling quite nicely, thank you). Most of my friends are black, a happy consequence of living in Houston. I've also talked about how I had to drop a friend of mine after showing a picture of my ex-girlfriend to him. He might have been drunk, but when he said, "Oh, you like those n****r girls", that was the end of the friendship. Being my skin color and dressing nicely means I overhear a lot of stuff that's borderline, but when you can't even hide your racism, and don't even want to try, well we don't need to be friends.
And maybe it was me being naive, but I really didn't think talking bad about black people was that persistent. But, apparently, people feel like because I'm white skinned and wear a nice suit I'm the guy you feel comfortable sharing your racism with. And the weird part is, this time it was so subtle, I didn't even realize what had just occurred until I was driving away from the gas station.
Scenario: Me, standing in line behind a black man taking a long time at the counter. He tells his son he won't buy the child a particular candy because at $3.00 it's too expensive for its size. So, the father takes the child into the aisles to find another candy.
Thoughts: Your internal reaction to this could range from inoffensive to highly racist.
You could think
1.) Nothing. Oblivious to the situation.
2.) Man, it's just three bucks. Just pay.
3.) Well, this is a responsible adult teaching his son to choose wisely when buying something.
4.) Black people have no money and this guy shouldn't be here.
I highlight that last option because of what happened next. I've already gone through my rolling number of thoughts. I'm in a rush, annoyed, want this guy to hurry. I've done my, "Don't think negative thoughts because we're all humans who struggle and have priorities and this guy obviously loves his son." So I've put the situation behind me.
The clerk hasn't apparently. After the man walks back into the aisles, he says
Clerk: "This guy."
Me: "What's that now?"
Clerk: "I'm not surprised he didn't have money. Probably shouldn't have been in here. Looks like he's on the wrong side of town."
Me: (Not digesting what I've just been told) "I know right?"
My response was one of those things you do when you're not really sure you've heard a person correctly, or can't really understand what you've been told. So I'm pulling away in my car and thinking to myself, "What did that guy just say? Did he really say the black guy was on the wrong side of town?"
The black man in the store was wearing glasses, a nice pair of slacks and a nicely pressed shirt. Not that you should have to defend a black man's choice of clothing anyway, but this was the least threatening or offensive way a person could have been dressed. But the clerk still thought it was okay to tell me, a white dude, that this black guy was on the wrong side of town.
This goes back tot he Id-Ego-Superego thing. Somewhere along the way in society, a lot of people have apparently had the rules in their Superego programmed in a way that says it's okay to talk bad about black people or insult them. Maybe not with everyone, but this clerk's Superego obviously told him, "Hey, this nice looking white guy's going to appreciate me insulting that black guy in the back who didn't want to spend three dollars on candy."
Candy. He felt it was okay to make this insult over candy. I don't want to know what he would have felt justified doing if the situation had been even a degree worse. Because small thoughts, like that, if left uncontrolled, manifest in words. Words help shape our realities. And then we create environments where it's okay to discriminate against a segment of our society. Everything builds on itself. That's why it's important to keep having discussions and broadening your experiences, so that you get it in your head that those thoughts and actions aren't right.
AS AN ASIDE, now that I'm actually a published author I'll be doing a lot more writing. Probably a lot about race, since I deal with it so much in Houston and because my books revolve around portraying people of different races in science fiction settings. I previously wrote about black heroic leads here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/28/1388577/-My-experience-writing-FLOOR-21-and-African-American-leads-in-Science-Fiction
And my next piece will be on interracial relationships. Until next time this is DAISHI, signing out.
That leads us to the gas station incident of yesterday. Now, I've talked before about how I enjoyed writing a black female lead into my book, FLOOR 21 (which is selling quite nicely, thank you). Most of my friends are black, a happy consequence of living in Houston. I've also talked about how I had to drop a friend of mine after showing a picture of my ex-girlfriend to him. He might have been drunk, but when he said, "Oh, you like those n****r girls", that was the end of the friendship. Being my skin color and dressing nicely means I overhear a lot of stuff that's borderline, but when you can't even hide your racism, and don't even want to try, well we don't need to be friends.
And maybe it was me being naive, but I really didn't think talking bad about black people was that persistent. But, apparently, people feel like because I'm white skinned and wear a nice suit I'm the guy you feel comfortable sharing your racism with. And the weird part is, this time it was so subtle, I didn't even realize what had just occurred until I was driving away from the gas station.
Scenario: Me, standing in line behind a black man taking a long time at the counter. He tells his son he won't buy the child a particular candy because at $3.00 it's too expensive for its size. So, the father takes the child into the aisles to find another candy.
Thoughts: Your internal reaction to this could range from inoffensive to highly racist.
You could think
1.) Nothing. Oblivious to the situation.
2.) Man, it's just three bucks. Just pay.
3.) Well, this is a responsible adult teaching his son to choose wisely when buying something.
4.) Black people have no money and this guy shouldn't be here.
I highlight that last option because of what happened next. I've already gone through my rolling number of thoughts. I'm in a rush, annoyed, want this guy to hurry. I've done my, "Don't think negative thoughts because we're all humans who struggle and have priorities and this guy obviously loves his son." So I've put the situation behind me.
The clerk hasn't apparently. After the man walks back into the aisles, he says
Clerk: "This guy."
Me: "What's that now?"
Clerk: "I'm not surprised he didn't have money. Probably shouldn't have been in here. Looks like he's on the wrong side of town."
Me: (Not digesting what I've just been told) "I know right?"
My response was one of those things you do when you're not really sure you've heard a person correctly, or can't really understand what you've been told. So I'm pulling away in my car and thinking to myself, "What did that guy just say? Did he really say the black guy was on the wrong side of town?"
The black man in the store was wearing glasses, a nice pair of slacks and a nicely pressed shirt. Not that you should have to defend a black man's choice of clothing anyway, but this was the least threatening or offensive way a person could have been dressed. But the clerk still thought it was okay to tell me, a white dude, that this black guy was on the wrong side of town.
This goes back tot he Id-Ego-Superego thing. Somewhere along the way in society, a lot of people have apparently had the rules in their Superego programmed in a way that says it's okay to talk bad about black people or insult them. Maybe not with everyone, but this clerk's Superego obviously told him, "Hey, this nice looking white guy's going to appreciate me insulting that black guy in the back who didn't want to spend three dollars on candy."
Candy. He felt it was okay to make this insult over candy. I don't want to know what he would have felt justified doing if the situation had been even a degree worse. Because small thoughts, like that, if left uncontrolled, manifest in words. Words help shape our realities. And then we create environments where it's okay to discriminate against a segment of our society. Everything builds on itself. That's why it's important to keep having discussions and broadening your experiences, so that you get it in your head that those thoughts and actions aren't right.
AS AN ASIDE, now that I'm actually a published author I'll be doing a lot more writing. Probably a lot about race, since I deal with it so much in Houston and because my books revolve around portraying people of different races in science fiction settings. I previously wrote about black heroic leads here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/28/1388577/-My-experience-writing-FLOOR-21-and-African-American-leads-in-Science-Fiction
And my next piece will be on interracial relationships. Until next time this is DAISHI, signing out.
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