I was painting a portrait the other night,
when I figured this out; so let me paint you a picture now.
See I’m a writer, and not a very good artist, and I’m overly clumsy
and far too bulky for my own good.
I have a boxers’ hands to go with a boxers’ grip which is the worst
way to grab a paint brush unless you want to tip over your paints.
And that’s exactly what I did.
I tipped over that tray thing with the little slots for all the different
colors of paint to keep them separated.
They went tumbling to the floor and they all mixed together and
became one, and there was no more white, no more purple, no
more yellow or red.
There were no lines to color in or outside of cause the paint was
everywhere and I left it to dry instead of calling it a
“mess that needs to be cleaned up.”
I gave it a chance to become its own thing.
And it didn’t.
It just remained sprawling on the floor.
But at LEAST it was given a chance.
And then I turned on the TV to see that cowboy has-been from Gran
Torino talking about how this is a “***** generation” and how
everyone is too Politically Correct.
He said we used to not be afraid of words like '******' and '****'
and we walked around proudly in our own neighborhoods,
and I immediately turned that ******* off.
Not to ignore it, but because I couldn’t respond to it.
I’ve been screaming at the TV for 32 years now and have determined
that either they can’t hear me or they just don’t give a ****.
It may be both.
But I want to scream.
I want to tell him that people still aren’t afraid to use those Words; they just choose not to.
I want to tell him that they still walk around proudly in their own neighborhoods, and they are even more proud that he doesn't live here.
But all that’ll lead to,
is an Us vs. Them mentality,
which eventually leads to wars.
We can’t have a war.
Not based on this.
And there are people out there who want that, and there are a
lot of them.
And they are using those words and they are walking those
neighborhoods, and they are posting on Alt-Right Message Boards
and talking about how the White Man is going extinct and how
they are the minority.
They white-wash phrases like “White Supremacist” to become
“Racial Purists” and I realized that they just gave us the answer.
We need to spill the paint.
We need to fall in love with people of color.
Any color.
Every color.
We need to spill the paint and mix it together and make new colors.
And it’ll take a long time, but anything worth doing is worth doing
right.
And there will be no more primary colors and secondary colors,
there will only be people.
But its not enough to mix the colors, we have to clean up the act too.
We have to raise our children of all colors right.
We have to tell them that no color is better than another, and that you
can draw a painting with just one color, Because that IS a choice!
You can surround yourself with just one color, and only use just one
color your entire life, but what kind of a life is that?
You walk down the street and the Roses are grey. And the trees are
grey. And the grey men at the bar are hitting on grey women
outside and the bartender is pouring grey goose for everyone
trying to wash down the fact that something is definitely
wrong.
We need Red roses and green trees and black men with white women,
and Asian women with white men, and everyone needs to just start
mixing and loving, and loving to mix until there is nothing left to
stereotype.
Nothing left to minimize, undermine, or scrutinize.
And if we don’t do this soon,
I fear there may be nothing left to scrutinize at all.
Some thoughts on Current Events