A Personal Account

From time to time—especially when I have no sage wisdom to impart—this blog will get personal. I'll tell a little bit about me and about what it's like to be me in my attempts to free myself from the shackles (okay, I'm getting dramatic) of debt.

Currently I'm between jobs. That is, I'm employed, but I'm between jobs I like. That is, I'm between jobs I've trained for and would actually want to keep for a sizable duration. I'm not thrilled with the space between things, but it has given me a unique perspective. I'm currently working retail at Plantain Democracy (you figure it out). Let me first say that the people I work with are pretty fantastic. Even when I'm pissed off about something, I don't stay that way for long. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of talented, smart, and enjoyable people in my many pinball professions, and there's no exception here. Still, I notice things.

Racism—and its cousins, Gender and Sexual Bias—are rampant here. There is a distaste about serving people that seems to increase with the depth of natural pigment. Many cashiers prefer Asians to Latinos, Latinos to Indians, and Indians to Blacks. Being gay is also a turnoff unless we're talking shoes. I suppose I could quote some statistics on how certain socioeconomic and geographical/cultural backgrounds influence the reaction to these variables, but the truth, I believe, is even simpler.

If I am told a man is beneath me and then find myself in service to that man, how else may I react other than in anger? Make no mistake, retail is humbling work. Working in newspaper production, I felt as though I was contributing to the community and raising my own stock in the process. Even though the pay at PD is roughly the same (and on a cost-of-living basis, better), I feel much less satisfied about my role in the human game. I'm a pretty common commodity in the retail sector. I'm young, white, and male (Truth be told, at PD there are three men among fifteen odd women. There are two Asian, one Latino, and two Black employees.). As (mostly) young, (mostly) white, able-bodied workers having every advantage under the sun, what are we to conclude by seeing the ethnic range of our betters? Intelligence seems the only variable, and proof of our station shows we must be lacking.

Now, I don't believe this. But a lot of people do. And so, not wanting to feel inferior to those we've been told should feel inferior to us, we call them uppity; we hold grudges; we hate. And, I believe, we hate ourselves for hating.

I've never met a happy hater. I don't believe one exists. And so there is the double whammy hate breeds. This feeling is obviously not good for the hated. Hate crimes and lesser mentioned but just as emotionally destructive events, i.e. shunning, name calling, stereotyping, clearly effect the target of these actions. But just as the arrow pierces the target, it also rakes the bow.

We need, on the whole, an equalization on all fronts. It is not enough to provide Affirmative Action for one group of people while another group is left behind to breed hate. It is not enough to educate men and women only to let them see how close they might have come if given a few better opportunities. It is a difficult thing to talk about what a man deserves. I can say that a doctor is an important man because he saves lives, but where would he be without the roofer who keeps the weather out of his practice? If we were all painters, who would appreciate the art? Our place and station has a quantifiable value and the weight is placed too high. We must learn to appreciate men and women for the fact of their existence, not only what they do with it. As a writer as yet unsuccessful, I would be loathed to think my life a failure simply because no bound book bears my name.

The struggle is where life lies. Why are we always on a path of avoidance? Our success or lack is too great a burden. Relieve the weight; relieve the hate.