Obnoxious Bitch
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Random thoughts from an email to infidelguy
Growing up unwhite, and the popularity of gangsters
I was just writing a “short” email to IG, and ended up with this bit of stuff that’s been rolling around in my brain lately… and I’ve gotta take advantage of it when the muse comes upon me!
I’m old enough to remember the Civil Rights marches, racial tensions and riots in the 60s; and as the daughter of a jazz & blues musician was raised without those prejudices of many of my peers. Unlike most of the kids I grew up with, I didn’t even realize our black friends were different, much less deserving of the distrust and prejudice I later encountered, until I went to school (where I was horrified to learn just how fucked up people can be to anyone unlike themselves). 40 years later, I realize that my family, my upbringing and my life’s experiences have always given me a greater sense of kinship with blacks (and as time’s gone by, latinos) than I could ever possibly have with “white” people. White folks own houses, have educations, clearly defined family trees whose branches are all legitimate, and don’t seem to have (or are quite astute at hiding) so many of those “family characters”: the crazy auntie or grandma… the drunken uncle or cousin crackhead. That certainly doesn’t describe MY family! There are baby-daddies, adopted out kids, teen motherhood, addicts, criminals and straight-up nutjobs in my huge, matriarchal, Catholic-on-both-sides family, who landed in NY back in the late 19th & early 20th centuries, and settled in a mill town in CT that’s now a shit-hole. A bunch of us escaped and have been in Southern California since the 60’s and 70s, but on the whole we’re still just dirtbags from Waterbury at heart (and I use the term with the greatest affection), and there’s plenty of drama and gossip.
The family members that’re my age actually own homes now, and our kids are the first generation to go to college (and NOT be forced to go to church!).
It’s taken generations to get to this point - and now I’m not talking just about my own family, but for everyone’s; because popular culture now comes into play. The glamorization of “gangsta” life, pimps, hos, greed and criminality in general, while really nothing new, seems to be taken more seriously by young people today - or maybe is just more easily and quickly adopted by way of their attire, speech and mannerisms, due to their much greater exposure to media. There’s nothing glamorous about being a criminal, a teen parent or any of that low life. Which is not to say that I don’t appreciate the stories being TOLD through the media… it’d just be so much better if people (especially kids) would take them as entertainment and cautionary tales, rather than as depicting a way of life worth aspiring to.
If there’s one rather common thread I’ve seen, it’s that it’ll need to be the women who take this particular bull by the horns. Mothers (many of them too young, and single) have to kick their sons’ asses into shape, and refuse to bring men into their lives who serve as a bad example. Not-mothers, girls and young women should start having more respect for themselves and stop hooking up with guys who have a string of baby-mamas, a criminal record and the attitude that women are inferior and/or exist for their pleasure and exploitation. Stop having sex with these losers, or otherwise giving them attention, and maybe they’ll finally get their overinflated heads out of their asses and realize that being a real man - responsible, hard-working and honest - will get them more of what they want (women), and as a result they’ll get further in life.
Yes, I just said what you think I said… in as “family-friendly” a way as I could manage.
Next entry: "American Cannibal": Myspace featured film - see it! Previous entry: What a movie! I'm CRANKed up for sure!