Let’s see if you can spot me in this picture…bet you can’t………I’m the geeky white kid with glasses…did that help? …can you spot me now? …….it’s pretty hard, isn’t it? I CLEARLY blend in so well with everyone else here, ya know? Okay, I’ll help you out a bit…
…I’ll just draw a simple red circle around my head………hopefully that’ll help you find me……better?
Glad I could assist in that one but all sarcasm aside, I grew up in the straight ghetto (do you see all the gang signs in that picture?) of Tacoma WA’s East Side. After growing up, then joining the Navy, then getting out after 6 years, I then went to college, earned my Biology Degree and my State Teacher Certification…then, and this is a much longer story, but I ended up taking my first teaching job at the high school that my neighborhood fed into.
My parents went to this school and so did my older sister. The mid to late 80s were some of the toughest times in Tacoma because there was a massive GANG PROBLEM. These gangs primarily moved up and down the I-5 corridor and were more or less born out of Southern California and probably Oakland. And yep the drug trade was huge, of course, as well. They apparently chose Tacoma because the Police were said to be “soft” (trust me, 911 was really pretty much an actual no joke joke, and because a lot of the big money had left town due to Federal Environmental Regulations (that were, frankly, very much needed), so home prices dropped by a LOT in the late 70s and 80s.
(Footnote: Watch this youtube video, which was only posted last year some time, as an example on how serious the gang problem was at the time. It’s going completely apeshit on YouTube right now and after only just over a year, it’s already gotten over 19 million views…incredible. A bunch of Army Rangers from the Army base (Ft Lewis at the time) got into a gang shooting fight with a bunch of Crips in the Hilltop area, or the upper downtown residential area of Tacoma. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4iQxpwYhAg This happened my senior year and probably about 10 blocks from my actual high school. However, on the East Side of Tacoma where I lived, it was mostly Blood territory, in case you’d like some context)
I got into a lot of fist fights as a kid (that I never really asked for, you just had to) but I never was involved with gangs and I never personally did any drugs as a kid. Mostly probably because my closest friends didn’t either, I guess. I also never snuck out of the house (well, I shouldn’t say “never”) and never went to any kind of parties that weren’t in some way sanctioned by my parents. Dispite my relatively disruptive family and homelife, I was actually always a pretty good kid. I always loved to do my homework. In fact, I can’t remember my parents ever telling me to do my homework…that’s weird, isn’t it? lol
While I’ve never done the bad stuff, I clearly knew people who did and were, frankly, friends or at least kind aquaintences of them. I did play a LOT of sports, however, and 3 years of high school football. So obviously I was playing a lot of school yard basketball and whatnot with gangsters, especially in my own neighbor-hood on the east side of Tacoma. I acted like them and talked like them. I listened to the same music and watched the same movies. And the race thing really wasn’t a thing at all, if that makes sense. Tacoma was generally incredibly diverse with all cultures and races (and still is today for the most part), so if you didn’t have friends of color or people who were different than you…well…you just didn’t have friends at all lol
I’ve also, whether by my own design, or simply by pure chance, have transistioned in and out of different life experiences that has enabled me to basically reinvent myself along the course of my life. For instance, while my parents and sister went to that local high school, I was able to go to a much better high school across town that was, in fact, not just gorgeous as hell and right along the water front of Commencement Bay, but was actually a no joke State Monument. There was plenty of gang crap going on at this school but nothing compared to the one my sister went to near my home. This school was considered a darling of Tacoma, and so middle class and wealthy kids went there as well. It was a very interesting mix. I got to go to it because my junior high grades were just good enough and because I wanted to learn Japanese and at the time it was the only school with a Japanese Teacher (and she was AMAZING!).
Getting back to the gangs and race, I was more or less lucky to have the opportunity to go to the high school I went to because the late 80s (I graduated in 1990, then joined the Navy 2 weeks later) and early 90s were by far the worst gang activity and there were MANY drive-by shootings. It was just like the movies, if you’ve never experienced it. Actually, the movies don’t even come close to the reality. Probably the most accurate ghetto movie that I’ve ever seen is Friday (the 1st) and I was in complete stitches through the whole thing laughing my absolute ass off…..you know when you get the jokes of a culture…you’re pretty much a part of it.
So I never really experienced or understood racism when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I spent some time in the Navy when I both witnessed it AND experienced FEELING it being directed at myself, and from both black people and white people. This is when I learned that in most of the US, black and white is still very much separated. I literally met white people who had never even seen a black person in their real life before the Navy! lol WOW!! And, yes, despite what Fake Ass Casino America says, black people can be VERY racist as well…in fact, everyone can be (which I’ll get to in other posts). Everyone’s shit stinks, folks…..yep, you too.
I remember the first time someone called me “wigger” lol…he was a higher rank than me and I was too young and stupid to think it was innappropriate or anything like that…in fact, I literally took it as a badge of honor, similar to how (a lot of) black people do with the word Ni@#$. The guys in my division on my first boat called me “Moneyclip” or just “The Clip” for short…..apparently, I was just a moneyclip but without the actual money in it lol ….kinda true looking back, I was clearly no gangster, but then again, I also didn’t come from money, so I accepted it lol.
Actually, allow me to tell you the story of when I was deemed an “Honorary Nigga” in my neighborhood. lol I was roughly 10-11 years old and there was a black family that moved in up the street from me. There were 3 brothers and the middle one was my age, in fact he was also in my class in school when they moved here, so we became friends. We all played sports together and this was the early 80s when the original 5 inch G.I. Joe toys were a HUGE thing….every boy around my age played G. I. Joe….I’m pretty sure most boys didn’t shoplift their Joes though lol. I’m not going to say I never did it (I was never actually caught though, thank God) but easily 90+% or whatever of my Joes were from my parents, birthday parties, or from me mowing lawns for the money.
So, there I was at their house in the living room and we were all playing G. I. Joe. Sitting on the sofa was the older of the brothers, and he was about 14-15. I’ll call him ER. Of course all the younger kids in the neighborhood looked up to him and he was a seriously good dude to all of us. I learned a lot of from him, actually. The rest of us were playing on the carpet, driving our jeeps around, and shooting at each other with lots of explosion and shooting sounds lol …it was fun, and everyone was having a blast. Of course, (some) black people call each other “Nigga” as a term of endearment and brotherhood, but there I was a 10 year old white boy just playing like everyone else, and like I mentioned above, race meant nothing and never really even came up…so….you probably know what I did….or, actually, what I said lol ….as all kids tend to mirror each other and language is exchanged, including slang, etc….yep, I used the word “nigga” just like they were doing, thinking it was nothing….
…and suddenly, literally, everything stopped.
It was dead silence. They were all looking at me, mostly in confusion, and almost as if they were afraid for my life lol I WAS 10!!! LOL! So, I looked up at ER sitting there right next to me on the couch and he looked down at me with his Jheri Curl, and after a very long pause, said “that’s okay, (my name) is like an honorary nigga around here” …..and at once, everything immediately chilled out, and we all went right back to playing G I Joe lol
Now keep in mind that I never said the word around them again but it should be clear that ER sorta sanctioned it for me. But I did learn a huge lesson from it, even at that age….that there’s a sort of sacred respect about it. So I didn’t stop saying it out of fear or anything weird like that…it was simply out of Respect.
ESSENTIAL POINT ==>
The major theme of this blog is to call bullshit on the News and very publically out them ALL as nothing but Propaganda and Corporate Advertising fronts. That’s true. Race is just very Superficial and while I’ll discuss it and Racism in other posts, and even on a Psychological and Biological level, it’s BECAUSE Race is superficial that the News can spin literally MILLIONS of people so easily up about it.
I’m also going to discuss this “spin” stuff in other posts and how sophisticated it is, but the bottom line is that the reason WHY they deliberately, and artfully do it, is because when we are in extremely heightened emotional states, not only are we easily compelled to do really effing stupid things, which then makes more News of course, but also, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, the BRANDS in their commercials stick in our minds longer and become remembered and FELT with the association of these shocking, superficial, and fake events…that is literally what “spin” is….because they deliberately SPIN you up because they sell advertising space/time in their overall programized presentations.
It’s a FORMULA …and it’s a Formula….that WORKS! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
NOW do you understand how TRULY FUCKING SINISTER it is?!!
Then, when you see these advertised products in stores or whatever, you’ll immediately form a more friendly, and even tribal-like (Racism is really just a more specialized form of Tribalism) feeling towards them…and you’ll be more likely to purchase them.
You THINK you’re acting on your own bidding….but you’re not….not really……you were emotionally brainwashed to actually do THEIR bidding.
THAT is EXACTLY how Brainwashing works…..it’s also how Advertising works.
If people KNEW they were being Brainwashed, the Brainwashing wouldn’t work…..duh lol
And Advertising….oh man….it’s a GAJILLION DOLLAR Business, folks.
Superficial, insulor or undereducated people see events and form ideas on Superficial levels….so, if YOU form reasons and opinions for things that happen in your life and you do it through the lens of Race….you are not only most likely a no shit Racist……but you’re also a very Superficial…Insulor….and probably very Undereducated…..person.
That’s NOT an insult, it’s just that Corporate Advertisers understand YOU better than YOU DO.
That’s their job.
YOUNGER people, Insular people, and LESS EDUCATED people EASILY fall for this SHIT….
...easily
So literally all you have to do to make it stop, and stay clear of it…is to just stop watching/reading/consuming…
…your News.
And YOUR LIFE, almost magically, will become immeasurably….better.
It’s not Real, folks…….it’s just not.
Dig?
I’m going to stop there for today (Juneteenth) because I have other chores to do, but just to hit this home, if you haven’t noticed already, Race is now a major theme of this blog and I will routinely address it in one way or another.
Because if it is to be, it’s up to me.
– Your Friendly NeighborHOOD Science Teacher
English