OK ok ok ok ok.... we are ADULTS! WE CAN DO THIS! Omg omg omg omg please don't unfollow or start a dumpster fire I promise this is gonna be unbiased!. I hate to touch on this, it is making me very nervous but... fuck it, we are strong people, you guys are GOOD people, we can do it! The conversation has become out of control, and the word has become invalid almost.
Now, I live in the middle of a cornfield and some woods, no joke, and about a mile away from us is our neighbor, and a hill, leading to to two of the most diverse, and cultured small American cities, cities that raised me, cities that Billy Joel wrote about and went down in Steel workers history, where it's also unsafe to walk on the street past 7 PM in most places. My culture is strong, and made me exactly who I am, a street smart homesteader who can barter with the best and live off the land.
Live shot of the Dadmented Compound for the last 34 years(eerily peaceful)
A-Town (my second home)
B-Town (Grandadmenteds stomping ground)
This morning some dude posted a picture, portraying the Denver landscape as diverse because it has mountains and a city. This was his idea of being cultured, he had spent half his life here and there and gotten his 'view on white people' to boil the blood of 60.000 white people who follow his stuff to be angry. You know what I say about Denver? You can buy real mushroom caps at the bus station instead of getting fake weed! Oh and the people who don't sell drugs are cool as fuck too! That's it. That's uh, what I know about Denver.
"Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth."- A wonderful Dadmented friend!
This doofus said stuff like "People from the city just think country folks are racist!" and "Country folk just think city folk are rich and stuck up" I mean, dude, what planet are we on here? Stop. Its time we be honest and direct with each other, we really don't know anything about each others cultures. We all come from eons of conquering each other. You cannot act cultured and defined, and speak directly to one demographic, who are we kidding? I am PROUD of my heritage, plain and simple, everyone should be allowed to be! My heritage? I am a little from column A (German) A little from column B (Hungarian) And a lot from column C (Romani).
I also promise to keep on point and not start rambling right or left. This is us against them. Not political at all... If you can't find my understanding, you have a lot to face in yourself. But I will use photos of the current times also, in the correct ways, to show you that... yes Virginia, it's still alive and well out there. There is no room around here for hate, if you feel it and wanna change though, I ALWAYS have an ear for discussion. I am here to help change, not condemn. But as a White Male, I can only bring what I know to the table.
I wasn't sheltered from race as a kid, lets be honest. What do I mean by that? It was the 90's, like the Klan was still a highly functioning thing, as were Militia's it was a different era. I had the honor of being born between the 70's and early 80's the OFFICIAL generation after Civil Rights, it was rough. People were pissed. They were whiny, they felt betrayed, and the "guilty of being white" thing came from the masses of people who yelled at their TV's.
There were a lot of slogans like uh "You wear your X and I'll Wear Mine" (insert victimized flag here). Or oh, there was another fancy one floating around that pertained to "The Original Boys In The Hood". Any of them ring a bell? Remember when Jerry Springer would invite the Klan to get their ass handed to them on stage, even if it was 'fake'? This was a real time in our history, and we haven't gotten past it, we just made it more generationally appropriate. The story hasn't changed, the people telling them just got older and smarter on their approach.
Anyways, I was growing up in this time, my mind was a sponge. I had no real viewpoint, and then, one day.... I was ready to be molded. It started very innocently, as conversational undertones. When I was young, I was sold the idea that, living where I did, was for a reason, and gave us a certain safety from the rest of the world. One single person sold me this idea, but was about as close as you could be. I'll give you a hint, despite popular belief these days, it wasn't a male figure. When I was 9, things kinda changed. It started with a trip to visit family that we were detached from, I have family all over the south, LOTS of it. Though I was born in the coal regions of PA, that's where my history begins. But I was entrapped with the idea of rebellion, and when we visited a Civil War museum, and I wanted a 'Confederate Flag' because I was so thrilled to have family in a different area, and I was told that this flag defined them. I had no clue what was about to happen.
My Grandfather had just died and things were changing. Instead of Jim Croce and the Oldies station in the car, I started learning about the 'Southern Pride' of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the radio played Country because we were "Rednecks". Going forward when we took trips into the cities (almost daily), I started hearing things like. "This is why we don't live here!" or "GET A JOB!" if someone took too long crossing the street. Sounds innocent enough I know, the tip is always gentle. It was all passed off as prideful or the best part 'meaningless anger'. Whenever there was something inappropriate said, it was quickly covered with reasoning I was supposed to understand. I didn't know how to process what I heard, all I knew was I was supposed to love and trust the person saying it, so... I did.
For a few years, it went that way always with reasoning, but a better understanding that I was white, and better, and supposed to be proud. I was never called 'superior' but, those undertones changed to 'correct' during my generation. We were the ones who had it all together because our parents worked liked dogs for the bare minimum, and someone else was getting it for free. This conversation, is so common that its sickening. I want to say first, I understand the frustration, I also understand the history that brought us here. I was always ALWAYS born and raised that work was life, and if you didn't provide you failed.
However, I was also raised with merit and humility. That means, your thoughts, are your own and sometimes the truth hurts, and the truth is the system is broken. Its broken for the purpose of keeping the poor down, always remember, you may work in a small town, but every city has trade workers, and those workers are mostly minorities just trying to provide. To be better, we must truly... be better. The welfare argument has always been there since its creation, and became weaponized after the depression to keep the classes separated. It's uh... It's that simple. I learned that very young, always be polite, and now it was being stolen away. I eventually started becoming pretty angry about it too, thinking I was like an adult or something I started to judge how others lived.
One day I met my 'Real Grandpa' (so they say) and, things became toxic. Sadly, I have so much experience in this subject, its easily going to become a 2 part issue because.. there's so much to say... Anyways, the man lived in a Trailer, in the middle of the mountains, with his 3rd? Wife. I didn't understand anything about what was going on, other than I was reconnecting with family, because that's what I was told to believe. I didn't see him much, but one day he did something I was supposed to find respectable, and it opened a real can of worms in my life. As the 'grown ups' sat around conversating, the TV that was blasting said it was time for Oprah, and the fucking dude nearly shot his TV and started yelling the nastiest shit in the world to someone that was thousands of miles away, projecting themselves in his living room and he wasn't having it. They changed the channel and the old coot calmed his ass down. I have a lot of feelings for this dude, because he brought out the ugly I faced for a very long time. At the time however, I bought right into the idea.
The car ride home from that day was one I will never forget. I got a very ugly history.. that was supposed to be prideful and something threatening. I was shown spots where rallies were held, and then, I was told that my "Harmless" Grandfather had his own color robe to be proud of, and, for once I didn't know what to think. I had always known those dudes as bad, and now, here I was supposed to be glorifying them. It was then, I had made a vow to myself. I wasn't going to buy into this idea, I wasn't gonna be vocal to upset anyone, but I just wasn't buying the fact that these were good ideas anymore. I sat silent and just kind of nodded in agreement, which apparently, was read as "I should encourage these thoughts!" Everything from music, to lifestyle, to ideas became race. I wasn't sure what to do, I wasn't in the position to have a defense... So, I quietly soaked it all in, and started to form my own opinion on the matter. I decided as a young kid, I would use all this for learning, instead of a weapon, and I had a lot to learn from this point on. I was now a statistic in the world of racism, I came from THAT side of white, on one side.
In the next article coming directly after this, I am just gonna continue this story on. I feel its important to share though it may ruffle a lot of feathers, I have barely touched the surface here. This is only the beginning and I hope it didn't scare you away, because I have a lot more to say on it. Thank you for reading, so much, this one is pretty important in my opinion and I pushed it off for a long while due to the amount of work to put into it and the possible backlash. Here goes nothing!
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