optiotriarii-blog

[optiotriarii-blog]

Don’t tolerate neo nazis. Don’t let anyone defend them.

[optiotriarii-blog]

Discussion: White Culture?

For my first discussion, I would like to address a type of question I’ve lately heard asked with increasing frequency from a certain type of person. These simple inquiries, asked so innocently and yet so insistently, tend toward the following: “Why don’t we have a White History Month?” or “Why aren’t there Straight Pride parades?” or “Why can’t we celebrate White Culture?” For these myriad questions, I have all manner of explanations, and those parties concerned can take their pick. I will endeavor to elucidate as clearly as I can, and perhaps these questions will come up less in the future.

First of all, there is no such thing as White Culture. The relevant definitions of the word culture, in this case, would be “the behaviors and characteristics of a particular social, ethnic, or age group,” or “the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.” There is no White Civilization. There is no nation called White. There was never a Mighty White Empire. There is American culture, there is Irish culture, there is Texan culture. These are groups of people that live in the same area and share lore, exchange ideas, and develop new concepts.

White history (or, as modern society calls it, “History”) is already observed all the time. The reason we study women’s history and the reason we observe Black History Month is that, in general, our records skew to focus on the individual contributions of specifically white and male people, even to the point of ignoring the contributions of other cultures. For example, American children are taught that white settlers established colonies  on the East Coast, but textbooks and teachers  often neglect to mention that we occupied the empty buildings left behind by Native Americans that were wiped out by plague. Only in recent years, specifically because we have made an extra effort to make note of important minority figures, have we become aware as a whole of their contributions.

It is easy to see where a situation like this could lead a member of the uninformed majority to assume that this is some sort of bizarre favoritism. If a person is brought up being told that virtually all of human progress was facilitated by their ethnicity, it would be easy for that person to think that their ethnicity’s history deserves greater focus, which would then lead to subsequent generations placing greater importance on their place in history, creating a sort of feedback loop. What must be remembered is that history is written by the victors. Those in power will always seek to vindicate their place at the top. It is not enough to simply be fortunate; we must be fortunate because we are the best.

But is there a Black Culture? There is no Nation of Black, no Black Empire, but there is Black Culture. European settlers created it when we abducted countless thousands of people from their original cultures and homelands and forced them to find solidarity with one another, creating their own culture in the face of adversity. As a displaced people rejected and treated as less than human by the rest of America, African Americans created a culture of their own. Because black Americans, regardless of original nationality and creed, were lumped into a community, they were forced to create their own culture within our nation.

This can similarly be seen in Pride celebrations. For much of history in most of the world (to this day, in some places) homosexuality was against the law. It was illegal for people to be who they were. They were legally barred from the same rights as other people. They were forced to create their own subculture, their own community, in which they did not have to lie to gain acceptance and safety. In this way, they created their own cultural values.

But why celebrate a culture, some might ask? Why celebrate something you were simply born with? One does not choose an ethnicity any more than one chooses any other inherited trait. When a person is excessively boastful of their intelligence or their looks, they are seen as prideful or vain. To understand why we celebrate Black Culture, or Pride, we must examine the nature of the celebrations more closely.

The theme or motif seen most frequently in celebrations of culture is a triumph or a defiance of adversity. The Fourth of July celebrates Americans declaring themselves free from the British. The Irish and Italians celebrate their culture because they were considered persona non grata in our nation for a very long time. Black History and Pride are similar celebrations. They are not simply a demographic patting themselves on the back for being born; they are a celebration of the triumphs of these cultures over adversity and a reminder of the battle that continues to be fought.

These calls for Straight Pride parades and for celebrations of White History might be met with less incredulity if there were examples of systematic oppression of either demographic in history, or if American modern society did not already, by default, cater to the needs and wants of straight white people, and if these questions did not always come up as a reaction to mention of celebrations of the cultures of minorities, rather than coming up on their own. It might even lead a person to doubt that these questions are asked in good faith.

This is not to say that there is not adversity to overcome in every person’s life, and one might say that it is unfair that one culture or demographic’s triumphs over adversity are given more focus than those of others, but even given these qualifiers, in the context of history, the questions posed seem silly. If I am given a week off from work with pay because my mother died, and you ask why you don’t get time off work with pay because you need time to read your favorite books, it implies to me that you consider your lack of reading time an equal hardship to my loss of a defining figure in my life.

In addition to this, in our world today there exist numerous groups that advocate and actively campaign to restrict the rights of African Americans and members of the LGBTQ community, and many others who are more concerned with the hate groups’ right to propagate hate than the rights of the minority to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These people, interestingly enough, will also often be the people who are asking questions about Straight Pride and White History Month. This would lead any reasonable person to believe that such people might value the rights of straight white people over the rights of others, which looks like an unfair bias, or a prejudice. (Racism. The word is racism.).

I hope my first essay has been helpful to those who were confused. There is a lot more I could say about this, but I’ll leave it at this for now. It’s obviously not a discussion just one person, so please, by all means, ask questions. Discuss with me.

[optiotriarii-blog]

You hit the nail on the head. Sadly, Mr. Trump will not come out against racists, because he knows, as much as his legion might deny it, that they comprise a large portion of his voter base. They openly proclaim their support for him, and all he has to do is waffle on it and attack anyone who calls him a racist.

Both Sides Fucking Don’t

In case anybody missed it, somehow, President Stupid has bravely come out against the extremes on both the Left and the Right equally.

Because, you know, there’s fucking any equivocation left that could even possibly be done, right.

Dondon, your existence by itself has so strained the media’s obsession with False Balance and the Golden Mean that it’s made it so hard for even them to pretend there are Both Sides to say, stealing peoples’ Healthcare, or denying human rights to trans people.

Much less when you go and do this.

I thought the Right was the ‘tough’ party, the ‘fuck your feelings’ party. The ones who will Do What’s Necessary To Protect America, tough on crime, all that shit.

… Actually, no, I’ve never once thought that.

What a little bitch, though. He can’t even say “the KKK is bad”, the lowest fucking low-hanging fruit there can ever possibly be, without some backtracking and kowtowing.

Because he knows the sort that helped get him elected.

Sad!

After all, the Dondon has exactly one principle; “Help Donald Trump.” The rest of the country? The citizen he swore on a fucking Bible to protect who was murdered by the Right all too soon ago? The values of freedom and democracy we’re founded on? They can all go fucking burn, if it suits the Dondon.

[optiotriarii-blog]

It has always been about picking on perceived easy targets for cheap brownie points. His whole campaign was built on it.

The “reason” doesn’t matter. The result does.