Who is us? DoY 028

Us is white supremacists.  Us learns it at our granddaddy's knee, and our granddaddy is the most gentlemanly, most real-manly man we know.

But white supremacy is avowed also by our uncles.

I want to say "No!  No!  No!  No!  No!"  For a lot of reasons.  I want to absolve my granddaddy.  I can't.  I want to absolve my aunts, and I don't remember learning it explicitly from them, but like so much of what went on at the time - 1954, let's say - they went along with it, good women, good citizens, good conformists.  I want to absolve black people, but they were terrorized into accepting it.

It's just part of who us is.

I would like to absolve the hippies, but suspect they were oblivious to it and bore it like they bore white privilege.  Poor children!  They really believed the ennobling and generous descriptions of us that us had taught them!  They somehow thought they could just excuse themselves from us and live like us had said us did and us would leave them alone, maybe even support them in admiration!  Us taught them!  Us beat the bejesus out of them!  Us killed enough of them that the rest went into hiding, or gave up and conformed like the rest of us.  Us took care of them!

Now you may not have learned it from your granddaddy.  You may have learned from your daddy or your momma, but you learned it.  Else how would it still flourish?  I didn't do it all, and it plays a major role in what makes up the Trump-folks.  Trump didn't do it, he just gave them presidential permission, and they eagerly accepted.  He saw them lurking in the shadows and invited them into the light, and here they are - us.

What was it Wordsworth promoted?  Writing after quiet contemplation, writing calmly and carefully.  I ain't there yet.

Learning how strongly white supremacy burns in me embarrasses me.  Learning that I can't just deny it revolts me.  I think I live as if I had none.  This is an improvement over my uncles and granddaddy, I think.

But I don't know, I don't know.

I do know us is white supremacists, and us needs to not-be, and I don't know how to get us there.

Who is us? DoY 021

Us has a calmer, more thoughtful, more celebratory aspect than those I've addressed so far.  Us do.  Us takes time, us makes time, for ceremony.  Weddings, funerals, birth days, wakes, celebrations that a city has lasted 250 years, and every four years, in the United States of America, we inaugurate a new President, or re-inaugurate a sitting President.  Yesterday we inaugurated Joe Biden after four years of Donald Trump.

May Biden have the will and the commitment to undo what Trump did.

But about us.  Us were mostly solemn yesterday.  For some inaugurations, us are almost silly.  But yesterday was only two weeks after an insurrection seized the Capitol and wrought havoc inside it.  I think us are still cleaning up and repairing what the insurrectionists did.  Mostly us glossed over that.  Us celebrated 232 years of a continuous government wholly invented on this continent, with the birth papers to prove it.  Us celebrated a more or less peaceful, even more or less harmonious, transfer of power from one president to another.

Us watched in delight and awe as Amanda Gorman marked the occasion with a fierce poem.

Yea us!  Viva us!  Long live us!

 Who is us?  DoY 15 0f 2021.

It's complicated, isn't it?

To begin with, there's us, the good guys, folks who aren't necessarily doing anything good, but we have good intentions, good will, even well-wishes for the human species.  We don't do anything much to make the human species the good guys, but we don't do anything to make us the bad guys either.

Then there's us who actually do good things.  Doctors Without Borders.  Human Rights Watch.  The Red Cross and its sister organizations.  People like that, who actually work to manifest kindness, thoughtfulness, benevolence.  (I'm a little leery of that word, benevolence.  It too much smacks of a superior doing good to his or her inferiors.)

Then, I think, there's most of us, who don't really give a damn.  We're perfectly fine with people who do good, and we're perfectly fine with people who cheer them on.  But we're busy, thank you.  We have lives to maintain, jobs to promote ourselves in, we may have hobbies, or civic activities.I think what I mean is we really don't give a damn.  "You go ahead and do good, or you go ahead and do bad.  Either way don't bother me.  If you do, I may make you very sorry.  Or I may just ignore you.)

But some of us go beyond that.  We're not quite ready to do evil, but we kinda get a kick out of those who do.  We don't murder, rape, or pillage, but we don't get in the way either.  We may even actively cheer for murderers, rapists, pillagers.

And then there's us who work at making the human species the bad guys.  Murderers, rapists, pillagers, Republicans, some or many capitalists, proselyters, thieves, deceivers.

Did I miss any of us?  If I did, let me know.

who is us? 007 of 2021

 Us.

Who the hell is us?

Walt Kelly, the cartoonist who gave us Pogo, had him say. "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

But it's more complicated than that, isn't it?  Yes, us is our own worst enemy, but sometimes us is our hero or heroine too.  Like the couple hundred or even couple thousand cops they sent out to deal with the insurrectionists yesterday (WDC, 6 Jan 2021).  Us gotta admire them for going out and doing their job, even if they did it softly and gently instead of with their usual bravado and insolence.

Us for the most part isn't very brave, and us likes our comforts.  Us would just as soon someone else took any risks.  Us admires courage at a distance, like maybe in binocular range.

Us complains about masks, but complains more about the coronavirus.  (It's just damned inconsiderate.). Us prefers our eclipses on television, and not in real time.  Us ducks out of marriages when they become inconvenient.

Hm.  Perhaps I exaggerate.  Perhaps I'm just in a grumbly mood.  Perhaps....  No, I don't think so.

This probably is a good start at coming to grips with who us is.