ginjerchuk

[ginjerchuk]

Searching for Reasons Not to Know

Is there a way to say I’m in here, in the flesh  / so that you’d ever comprehend? / Do you know why Pride is the air we breathe? / A movement needs an idea and a center. / Like gravity, it should be simple and reliable. / Is it fair to ask why do you require it? / Do you really need it, and is empathy not more useful? 

I see your bars and know your prison; I’m in one much like it. / But beyond these gates there are walls so high you simply can’t imagine / and since it’s imagination you lack, you’re totally blind / not to see what stands between us. 

Don’t you know that to memorialize is to honor, but neither is the same as history? / This is something you’d know, from over here. / And can you tell me this: / do you know another word for statue?

Compromise seems far away when it seems that you won’t try / full stop. 

From here, the concept’s clear, and to push your version is vanity. 

If it wasn’t for the original sin, would we know of Pride anyway?

[ginjerchuk]

Looks like change might finally come.

MS Flag

Sentiment is among other things a devoted guardian of the past. On the flag of this state, the Confederate battle emblem is an artifact of a place desperate for the spirit to take up what the blood had lost. Many around this state fully embraced the tragic and in their melancholy set all ghosts free to ride in radiant glorification. It’s peculiar to attribute such a thing to history, but there is certainly the historical moment present therein.

History cannot adequately render grief and blood, because that is inevitably lost to time along with all the day by day living. It does give though plenty of evidence from the reconstruction period of a rebel consciousness alive and wrapped in its own logic, violence and terror merely unavoidable consequences of the lost order, it seems.

This symbol of the Confederacy brings the comfort of heritage to some but to others it is of accord with acts of terror and brutality, a spirit of cruelty and dehumanization. That is no more relegated to history than the specters so many are trying hard to disavow.

Leave each to his or her own interpretation, whose part it is then to think honestly, because this symbol does speak loudly. As to the State, don’t be turned back by sentiment alone or swayed by the charms of an imagined place; change the flag.

[ginjerchuk]

Dialogue continues

C -- What if the answer we’re both seeking, the answer to the question of what is fundamentally different in our experience owing to our white skin vs. the experience of black people, can be understood better by seeing it through art, specifically the privilege white and European artists enjoy to practice art without fearing automatic dismissal.

G --  Well now that’s interesting, but how widely respected is art in general these days?

C -- I’m talking about popular art mainly, I guess; it’s a theoretical proposition too, something like a spyglass for us to look through hoping for a closer view into a more expansive problem. And even if in the case of fine art it doesn’t capture the attention of many people these days, the response, gut response, of those whose attention it does capture could still say something about my theory.  

G -- So we’re talking in broad categories here, arguing principles. 

C -- Yeah, and I’m self conscious talking this way in a world that seems to have been torn from its already insufficient moorings, but let’s just stay with fine art a minute. It has to overcome the first hurdle, image or political acceptability, in order to get a viewing. I’d argue that in this system art created by black artists might be received as a “species” of art, rather than Art. It feels like there might be unfair restrictions on the subject matter portrayed, like if there’s not a political message Black enough on some level, then the tastemakers won’t see the subject well enough to reflect on aesthetics. This is a microcosm theory.

G -- The politics of now, seems to me, despise Art and Artist equally these days. Come to think of it, I’d say the politics of America, going all the way back, despise Art. Surely this is at least one area of equal opportunity for artists of all backgrounds. I mean, any expression remotely abstract that can be seen as rendering more deeply something encountered, something reasonably interpreted as a principle or universal human emotion, is tied to some accusation of radicalism. Plus, rednecks or vigilante anarchists—they don’t know their asses from art, and it’s the same with all these militant cockheads who are into violence for the sheer catharsis. The ones acting out something like a vengeance fantasy. What of that?

C -- That’s true, but hasn’t it been for at least the period covering our American history, and really throughout recorded history of civilizations? I mean I’m not a historian and I’m mostly talking from sense and intuition, but hasn’t the Artist, with some exceptions for sure, I think, been on the margins? Hasn’t civilization always implied some requirement toward conformity? Again, I’m taking broad positions here. Anyway, I’ve always thought that on some level we who are not artists have a tendency to fear the artist, or at least the intellect of the true artist. I mean, the ARTIST, as I understand it, which is more or less a god in this formulation. And of course, those with political power fear the artist most of all, but that might be getting away from the overall point. All of what I say regarding artists holds true in my speculative position, unless that artist is black, in which case the title of artist is qualified, a supposition that backs my overall argument. 

G -- OK, I get it, but all this unrest is politically motivated, and in a very real, circumstantial way.

C -- It is politically motivated, and the consequences are life and death for some, but in this fight, as in the Art world, we as white people have always had a loaded gun to use, speaking only metaphorically. Look, wounded pride has always favored us. Black pride is a political movement, the effort of trying to rescue pride from deep despair and invisibility; white pride is comfortable in its skin, with no larger political load to bear.

G -- I’m not sure I’m making the connection.

C -- A black person can have a gun, and that gun could certainly be loaded, in material terms. In these terms, I, you, anyone can buy bullets and load a gun. It can be shot. But the shot once fired rings out and hangs in the air, and yes the metaphor is becoming tortured but give me a second; the shot calls to account the person who fired it. History plays a role in this account, although not necessarily consciously. In other words, I don’t mean that somebody sits down with a history book and blah blah blah. But this gets to the particular, which again is part of the issue here. I as an individual rest more easily shooting my gun in this scenario, theoretically, than a black counterpart, because my reasons rest on a more stable foundation, a consensus of superiority in the first stones, and so these reasons can be just as various and open to interpretation as you like.

G -- Yeah, that’s pretty convoluted, way too esoteric, but I think I have some idea of what you’re saying. You know, though, that after this conversation, we’ll just forget what we’ve talked about...or better yet the point will get lost in arguing some other aspect of the problem.

C -- Yeah, that’s at least partly because deeper understanding requires reflection. I mean to say we don’t reflect. WE aren’t equipped for reflection. It’s a personal thing, reflection. It’s also not tied to any economic reward, and the best equipment is always acquired at the cost of time and a certain expenditure of resources. And, deeper understanding doesn’t foster perfection or anything that can be measured in absolute terms, so why invest the time and energy, I hear some disembodied voice ask. Let’s talk further tomorrow. I need a drink now.

[ginjerchuk]

Everyday, the same old thing

C -- They’re shooting at us! It’s only rubber pellets. But they’re pointing at the cameraman! It’s only one bad a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-

G -- Oh I see, the needle got stuck in the groove. This happens when the groove becomes so worn and so deep that the needle can’t pass through, or if there’s a scratch or a catch, and the...

C -- This is digital man; it’s a glitch in the processing.

G -- Oh yeah, that’s right.

C -- Have we asked yet why it might be that some of these cops seem to relish the opportunity to play at war? For that matter, have we asked why this combatant is taking aim at a news crew there to cover the action? 

G -- That is unusual, I will say. This combatant is supposed to be on the side of the civil establishment too. I must say this doesn’t bode well.

C -- Yeah, cracks in the wall. Let’s rewind for a minute though. You remember Do the Right Thing?

G -- Yeah, I hated the way it ended. 

C -- Well sure, and I think that was the point...really I��m kind of positive that was the point. Unflinching, that’s what we call certain movies that confront us with awful truths.

G -- What was the truth there again?

C -- It’s pretty complex, but I’ll give it a shot. Powerlessness makes monsters of us all. No, that doesn’t quite cut it. 

G -- That makes me think of the scene in Full Metal Jacket when...

C -- Yeah, fine, but let me finish. We’re left without anyone to feel that we should identify with. I mean I do feel sorry for the pizza shop owner, but when you get past the initial anger, it’s all despair and nihilism, and I guess that’s where things get glitchy and begin to repeat over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and

G -- Ok, that’s pretty fuckin annoying. 

C -- Well yeah, I agree. I need to run now though. Let’s pick this up tomorrow

[ginjerchuk]

Some mornings

Some mornings, the stillness blooms with thought as thunder before an approaching storm. The power and frequency increase, compressing time, and overwhelming me before my feet hit the floor. 

Their tiny sharp teeth, the fragmented pricks, nip at me; they come suddenly and leave quickly and I remain behind, rubbing my face in irritation. 

They’re antagonistic -- leftover insults and points of contention from bad experiences, the specifics of which are beyond recovery.  

I find myself with the sense of being haunted, gloomy in thought, captive to my past. 

[ginjerchuk]

Costume Perspective

Every trip into the store right now is a trip to a house of horrors: all masks a slight variation on a theme. 

Every day’s a compulsory Halloween.

If I’m callous, I’m sorry; I wouldn’t add to personal grief. 

But since neither could I take it away, I give an observation...just some black humor, 

and for me five minutes relief. 

[ginjerchuk]

Pick it back up where you left it

Five years ago I woke up thinking about some heavy shit. I wrote it out in my new Tumblr blog (it’s my first post on this blog) and directed it to the state government of MS--in a public way. Spiritually, it was meant for all the blind bigots of every stripe.

It was only relevant then in a “why the hell is everything so fucking hard to think through” kind of way...like "why can’t the simplest, most reasonable premise stand long enough for me to get a foothold?” 

So as not to be purposely obscure, I should explain that I was obsessed with the fact that all information was twistable and open to distortion. I mean in the abstract I knew the truth of this, but now I was feeling the squirming truth of it firsthand.

I focused on a topic that reflected the most obscene limits of revisionism. The moral dimension just seems so obvious! Well anyway, that’s what all the relevancy talk is about.

The topic will be relevant again. It’s a sad fact of our reliance on simply being accepted. For most people, social identity seems the air they breathe. Nothing strange about that.

So for me I’m preemptive and I claim that if the whole of an intelligible existence becomes available here, in randomized connections over an immense and fragmented social network, well then I need to make a place to come and talk. Can you and I be friends?

[ginjerchuk]

Who sleeps, really? If you’re a proper adult person in the 21st century, how can you relax, at all? Your mind keeps churning. You think, “What if this thing happens?! What if that thing happens?! What if they happen together?! What if I lose my job?! I hate my fucking job! But what if I lose it?” Your mind is a hive of worms. And worms don’t live in a hive, so it already feels unnatural. You lie in bed, beside your partner… “What if I died?!” If you don’t have a partner, you just think, “What if I died? …Okay, I would be dead.” But if you do have a partner and family, you’d think, “What if I died? How would they cope?” They wouldn’t! They would be out in the street in half an hour, stealing food from seagulls mouths! Or worse! They WOULD cope! They’d have a much nicer, cleaner house! And an improved sense of self-worth. Probably more money! And inevitably your partner would find somebody within the first 3-4 days, and begin a tumultuous sexual relationship. They would be having sex a lot in your bed when you were dead! The morning, the afternoon, the evening, and the night time would be the main times they would be having sex, in your bed, when you were dead. Feeding each other lobster with their bare hands, to give each other more energy to try it in new and more demanding ways. When your realise you are lying besides somebody who is waiting for you to die! And what’s more, they’re sleeping to make the time go faster

Dylan Moran, on adulthood (via onlysilenceandcoffee)

[ginjerchuk]

MS Flag

Sentiment is among other things a devoted guardian of the past. On the flag of this state, the Confederate battle emblem is an artifact of a place desperate for the spirit to take up what the blood had lost. Many around this state fully embraced the tragic and in their melancholy set all ghosts free to ride in radiant glorification. It’s peculiar to attribute such a thing to history, but there is certainly the historical moment present therein.

History cannot adequately render grief and blood, because that is inevitably lost to time along with all the day by day living. It does give though plenty of evidence from the reconstruction period of a rebel consciousness alive and wrapped in its own logic, violence and terror merely unavoidable consequences of the lost order, it seems.

This symbol of the Confederacy brings the comfort of heritage to some but to others it is of accord with acts of terror and brutality, a spirit of cruelty and dehumanization. That is no more relegated to history than the specters so many are trying hard to disavow.

Leave each to his or her own interpretation, whose part it is then to think honestly, because this symbol does speak loudly. As to the State, don’t be turned back by sentiment alone or swayed by the charms of an imagined place; change the flag.