Having experienced over a decade of cumulative abuse at the hands of romantic partners, I am now all too aware of the sea of red flags that precedes and indicates abuse, neglect, and manipulation.
It’s one thing to accept what we’re spoon-fed from school-age at face value, but to harass, belittle, berate, and minimize the lived experiences of people from different cultures and walks of life is exactly what the Propaganda Machine wants and expects us to do.
Our government has done a bang-up job of “othering” entire countries, financial and societal institutions, cultures, languages, and skin colors, for multiple insidious self-serving reasons. There are hundreds of examples to choose from — demonizing countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to justify bombing the shit out of them, but conveniently leaving out the parts where our government violently intervened with, funded, and manufactured terrorist organizations, all in the name of crude resources.
Blaming marginalized communities as individuals for their circumstances instead of acknowledging the socioeconomic hurdles, barriers, and traps that were set for them long before they were born. Socialism and communism are “evil” because evenly distributing wealth and resources to everyone across all tax brackets means that the rich fucks up top end up with less, and we can’t be having that, y’all. Enacting laws for over a century that barred disabled people from existing in public at all (the last of which being repealed in 197fucking4.) Claiming that systemic racism magically ended in 1964 but refusing to acknowledge the data, experiences, and truths of the Black community that succinctly and chillingly prove otherwise.
Disabled people must’ve done something to deserve their condition or illness. Poor people just don’t work hard enough. It’s not the system’s fault that Black people start 50 steps behind white people; it’s their fault due to their… I dunno, genetics or something. (This shit hurts my stomach to type out, and for the record, I don’t subscribe to any of this bigotry in any way.)
Mix in White Christian Nationalism and you’ve got an oppressor pity party of ghastly proportions. How dare you change the word Christmas to Holiday in order to accommodate other religions? In the richest and freest country on Earth, you’re erasing Christianity! You know, the religion that we base our year on? It’s been 2023 years since what, again? The religion that’s responsible for the most bloodshed and global suffering since its inception? The religion that has been bastardized and cherrypicked by racist capitalists who have morphed it into some sort of Keeping Up With the Joneses cult? The religion that depends on fear of a fiery and torturous hell to keep its people in line? The religion that boasts a wrathful and vengeful god that will smite you for removing Him from your Myspace Top 8, but He… loves you? (Carlin really nailed that one. Damn. I miss him.)
This system has tricked millions of people into voting against their best interests. It relies on fear and othering in order to emotionally appeal to people who are emotionally attached to their bigoted perspectives. Seeing marginalized people as people? Don’t make them laugh. “I deserve everything I have because I’m a good person by default, but if a progressive bill gives them a chance to progress in society, make ends meet, or *clutches pearls* thrive, I will not be voting for programs to help the poor, the houseless, the drug addicts, the mentally ill, the immigrants, or any other group that makes my cushy white self uncomfortable to think about.”
Siiiiiiigh.
It doesn’t behoove the overlords in charge to be held accountable, so they depend on mouth-foaming minions to do their legwork on their behalf. Laziness is a colonialist capitalist construct meant to levy the working class against each other, and it fucking worked. Still does. Laws, rules, regulations, and systems have been built around the notion that laziness is an epidemic in need of eradication.
Peeling the onion, however, reveals a simpler truth about laziness — it doesn’t exist. Not in the way capitalist bootlickers would like to believe, anyway. There is always a reason behind “laziness” that explains exactly why a person can’t or won’t do something — exhaustion, disability, fatigue, lack of knowledge or means, and others that escape my mind at this very moment. (This is what y’all get for reading a stream-of-conscious word vomit article, so just go with it.)
There is such a disingenuous morality tied to the idea of laziness, as if we’re supposed to want to be exploited for our entire lives. These people are terrified of seeing other perspectives that don’t center human existence around earning money. They enmesh their identities and personalities with trivial shit that either doesn’t matter or is decided randomly— where they were born, what they do for a living, what sports team they like, and who they vote for. They spend their time suffering because they believe it builds character or prepares them for their reward of the Pearly Gate Resort in the afterlife (looking at you, evangelical Christians.) None of that shit matters. None of anything matters, actually. And because nothing matters, everything matters.
The futility of existence brings me comfort when my Head Rattlings get too loud. None of us asked to be born, none of us had control over where or to whom we were born, and yet, too many facets of our existence are contingent on these random factors.
Money is fake. State and country borders are fake. Government is fake. The stock market is fake. Credit scores are fake. Corporate America is fake. Laws are fake. It’s all fake. By fake, of course, I mean we made it up. We only give value and credence to it because we collectively agree to play along. It’s making all of us miserable while the Scrooge McDucks call us unreasonable for wanting to be treated like humans. What a fucking joke.
I’ve never seen Star Trek, but I get told pretty often that what I envision for human society is… Trekky? Is that an apt term? I dunno. But apparently they live in a post-currency society and although there are still issues and shit, people have their needs met. I… think? I might start watching it, who knows.
I don’t want to believe that, though. I don’t want my urge to ensure people’s needs are met to be just a plot of a fictional universe. Just because “this is how it’s always been” doesn’t mean it’s what’s best for us. Look the fuck around. Are you happy with your job? Your living situation? Your financial status? Why do you feel like you have to accept the lot you were dealt? Why don’t you want better for yourself or your loved ones?
I get it, it’s smothersome. You feel trapped. “We need money to survive,” you say. And as long as we’re all playing along to this fucked game of Hell, then sure, I agree. But grinding ourselves into bone powder for a chance at a roof over our heads and food on the table is not a life. It’s barely an existence.
Before I was born, in the US, people could work part-time at a library and be able to save up to purchase a house. Now, people with PhDs are living in basements and barely able to keep themselves alive. They have to decide whether to buy dinner or keep their lights on. This is the American Dream that people my age were sold. I jumped through all the hoops. I was in the workforce for 14 years. I didn’t realize I was disabled until my late 20’s and I’m no longer able to work publicly. People can’t stand that, either.
Disability isn’t a vacation or a break. It’s not a “won’t” work, it’s a “can’t” work. Instead of blaming the individual, you should instead examine the system that discourages disabled people from existing in society. Disabled people still don’t have marriage equality — they’re not allowed to have more than two grand in their bank accounts if they receive SSDI or else they’ll be at risk of losing their benefits. But in the eyes of the random financiers that run this insidious shit, they’re grifters and fakers, and if they’re not faking it, then well, maybe they should try…not being disabled?
I know disabled people deserve to thrive, live their dream lives, and have their dream careers, but society discourages and prohibits that. We’re barely even an afterthought.
My disability is considered “invisible”, but I have qualms with that term because it’s far from invisible to me. Because I neither use a mobility aid nor meet the criteria of an outdated list of “symptoms” written by and for white men, I must be faking my disability! I can’t get a medical professional to take me seriously. When I learned that women and minorities weren’t required to be included in clinical research until US Congress passed the NIH Revitalization Act on June 10, 1993, the rampant misogyny and gross misunderstanding of women’s health started making a lot more sense.
Capitalism doesn’t accept our humanity. If we can’t crank out a profit, we’re as good as dead. And the rich fucks who uphold this system depend on good little cogs, the complicit and afraid, and the willfully ignorant assholes of the world to regurgitate this propaganda and harass anyone who is unable to bootstrap themselves out of impossible situations, all while failing to realize that the system is failing them, too. It’s almost as if they’re also being exploited. It’s almost as if they’re also never gonna be a fucking millionaire. They don’t have to mistreat the people around them, but they do it for fun. They determine their self-worth by their level of productivity. It’s not their fault that the system is literally designed this way, but it is their fault for making existence harder for everyone else by being an insufferable chode about it. We’re all in the same fight here. We’re all being exploited and abused. I get it — learning about this shit is infuriating, but that doesn’t make it less true. Redirect your anger to the source of the problem, not the ones who point the problem out. And remember — just because you don’t experience something firsthand, doesn’t mean that others aren’t suffering.
Believe marginalized communities’ experiences. Believe disabled people. Believe Black women. Believe Indigenous communities. Believe immigrants. Believe children. Believe people who have been chewed up and spat out by the unforgiving churning metal spokes of end-stage capitalism. Your lived experience doesn’t invalidate my lived experience. Simultaneous truths can exist. I encourage you to expand your minds by learning about nuance, simultaneous truths, contradictory truths, spider-web-linked intersectionalities, and it all starts by believing people — especially those who are most greatly affected by oppressive systems.
Sorry, y’all. This serves as a journal post of sorts, if nothing else. This is far from the last time I’ll be talking about this shit. It rattles around my head at all times and I haven’t written anything in a while, so I needed to spit this all out. There’s plenty more shit that I wanna say about this, but the thoughts whiz by my head faster than I can grab them out of the air. I talk about this intersectional shit on every single platform because it’s all connected. If you dig this cursed peak inside my noggin, then be sure to follow. Or don’t. I’m not your boss.
Until my next word vomit-y blurb, I guess.
