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Xander07
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Name: Xander07
Birthday: 4/7/1989
Interests: Kantian Metaphysics, The Boondocks, Rawlsian Justice, Applesause, Queer Theory, George Orwell, Douglas Adams, Randian Objectivism, Sci-Fi, Plato, Noam Chomsky, pens, Foucault, Albert Camus, Edgar Allen Poe, obscure Tim Burton films, Arthur C. Clarke, burned CD sharing, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Anarchism, Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Libertarianism, Karl Marx, You
Expertise: doesn't rhyme with 'Rene Descartes', although it certainly seems like it would.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Art
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/19/2004
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| Personally, homogeneous residential zoning seems like one of the most overtly racist instituted practices in my community. I mean, they can feed us excuses about the plumbing and electrical problems that arise when a chiefly R1 community 'devolves' into a chiefly R8 neighborhood, but at the end of the day, these are just ad hoc rescue fallacies with false antecedents. I think that if they were more honest with themselves, the rich homeowners in North county would admit that the real reason why they don't want apartment complexes in their neighborhood is that they don't want to live next to poor people who, thanks to racist institutions like homogeneous residential zoning, tend to be black and hispanic.
The worst part about State Racism in America is that it probably isn't going to end any time soon. Although, I do not condone identity politics of any kind, I still recognize that any attempt that 'Black America' has made to give itself an identity of self-respect (opposing drugs, prostitution, gang violence, and other social plagues) has been crushed. Perhaps the easiest example would be Malcolm X: in schools, textbooks will claim that he was little more than a racist, when in reality he simply felt that blacks needed to be able to respect themselves before the racist whites of the time would respect them. And yet he's criticized more than George Wallace is. Now consider the African-American identity that hasn't been stamped out by 'White America': ghetto pride. I don't blame rap -- there's nothing necessarily racist about the genre -- but rather the record labels that have promoted a form of neo-blaxplotation in the music industry. Even whites now identify self-destructive gang behavior among blacks as something 'cool', which completely undermines any attempt to end the racism of the political structures that force African Americans and Latinos into lives of violence, prostitution, and substance abuse. I mean, why would we question the racism of our own government if there's 'nothing wrong' with life in a ghetto.
And what's more, this is becoming the way that many people seem to view as the proper role of minorities, in the same way that chauvinists think that the proper role of a woman is a home-making baby-cannon. How many times have you heard someone criticize a rap fan, saying, "He's white, and he needs to stop acting black." Acting black? The norm is there established that 'they' belong in the slums. Which isn't surprising, I guess. After all, that's where they put them in the first place. | | |
| It was a disenchanting year. As child abuse, suicide, pernicious drug addictions, eating disorders, hate crimes, and other social ailments began to effect my personal life, the process of disillusionment began as well. I have discursively and performatively broken down sexual categories and found a new sense of dedication towards the discovery of 'alternative' gendered possibilities. I've woken up covered in blood in the shower. I've developed not only suspicious of, but also outright resentment towards the contemporary twin gospels of Objectivity and Rationality. I have discovered how much people mean to me, and I have discovered just how little I mean to people. I just kind of hope I've learned something in the meantime. | | |
| Oh, for the tender, filigreed sound, the humming and the fragmentation of warmth and chill, the delicate suspension of belief. If you believe that a life can be audibly measured, then consider this: tonight has been strictly transcendental, with Animal Collective, Winterpills, Cloud Cult, The Arcade Fire, Rilo Kiley, Mogwai, Stars, Sufjan Stevens, and Umbrellas. And now, the invalidation: I feel as visceral and exhaustively melodramatic as always. Lily keeps coming back to San Diego and inviting other people out, while telling me that she won't be back until Thanksgiving. I'm failing two of the only classes that I have ever put effort into. Debate is a disaster: I'm an officer, yet I haven't yet managed to place any better than fourth in ANY event. GSA is in shambles. I'm way behind on the lighting in theatre, and the play is approaching quickly. I think I may have managed to ruin everything with Gina and Justine last night. My attempts to help a bulimic girl are failing... she keeps lying to me. My body is a wreck: not only am I more out of shape than I have ever been in my life, my recent diet changes and stress are working together to rip me apart, and catch myself staring blankly into space more and more often. My parents are taking me to a new psychiatrist, but they're keeping the same lunatic therapist.
Heavens, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with my life, and I can't see how going to college would help, even if I managed to get in. I'm considering getting religion. I could be a monk... Bahia, Catholicism, it doesn't matter. I just need to have somebody tell me that my life has meaning right now... | | |
| I really wish I could feel schadenfreude (not to mention a few "I told you so"s) from things like this, but I have a unique sense of empathy in that it leads me to be a complete and total asshole, perhaps in order to divert animosity towards myself. In any case, I realized a few hours ago that this might be a good time to skip town. I'm not totally sure where I'm going to go, and I'm not sure how long I'll be, but I will not be taking a cell phone, so contact is more or less impossible. And that's the point, I suppose. In any case... good luck, and I hope everything turns out alright for you guys. | | |
| I hate showering now.
You see there is a spider who/that has spun a kaleidoscope of silk augmented with adhesive and desire in my shower-bath complex in such a location that dooms her/it to the hydrated teeth of the faucet so in order to protect her/it from Bull Connor's Montgomery vipers I must position the nozzle and myself such that the lethal stream is stunted before it stings although it is a remarkably uncomfortable and inconvenient stance that hinders the processes necessary for hygiene et cetera et cetera so there is an air of temptation to return to my regular daily habits and ignore the neighboring arachnid and that's when reality crumbles because I make the mistake of thinking I try to avoid the subjugation of moral agents but agency is not measured in physical form but rather by itself and questions and corrections and insurrections until I stumble from the restroom heaving and wheezing and gasping for a breath of dogma and security and banality in my bed with my skin and my soul still blemished and dreaming of immaculacy or at the very least peace.
Dream on. | | |
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