Changing my mind.
I apologize that this turned out to be one juggernaut of a 1,700 word entry.
Yesterday I tossed around in my mind a comment a friend posted online. The comment went as such: “Marriage is only for a man and a woman.” Simple enough right? Just two years ago I would have muttered “uh-huh” while my head nodded in agreement; now something is different.
I figure the long bridge between my mind and my mouth should be drenched in yellow paint. There’s these warnings on the paint claiming “Project incomplete and in process, not a good idea to cross.” But I don’t care and I let my undeveloped ideas march across that bridge. I catch myself saying things that I used to believe yet now I completely disagree with. Does this ever happen to you? You are in deep explaining yourself to a friend or convincing yourself and you realize you don’t even agree with the idea you are pushing.
That’s where I start to laugh at myself and swing open the gates to change… oh bright sunny clarity of self-improvement. Here’s what I mean, two examples as exhibits in my mind.
EXHIBIT 1:
I’m no longer as racist as I used to be. I’m also damn proud of that; I worked hard to change.
While I was a child, my father explained to me that people of different color were not to be trusted, and blacks, those degenerates are all criminals. All of them.
Even though I respected my father and wanted his approval, this made me my reason sick even as a young pup. It didn’t seem right inside of me. Yet as time moved on I adapted many of his thoughts; was I slowly changing into him?
An example of one silly racist moment: I was in a airport line impatiently arguing with a the check-in lady who happened to be black and I missed my flight leaving me with 24 hours to stew over my anger before the next flight flew in. I thought that I would be on a plane if I had spoken with a white lady instead. In retrospect, I was a fool.
I had a roommate named Adam that helped paint a new view in my mind. It was time to improve, I needed to get over this prejudice and told him some of the nonsense I have just told you. Adam had spent some years running summer camps that mixed all sorts of children with inner-city kids. He told me of one exercise he ran with a class of kids in a gymnasium. He had all the kids stand on a line in the center facing him. And then came the questions:
- “If you grew up with both a mom and a dad take a step forward.”
- “If your family ever had to rely on welfare, take a step back”
- “If your family owns a home and doesn’t have to rent take a step forward.”
- “If you’ve never met your father take a step back”
- “If you regularly have three meals a day take a step forward.”
- “If any members of your family have been or are currently in jail, take a step back”
- “If your parents attended college or any higher education take a step forward”
- “If your parent(s) never graduated from high school, take a step back”
…Questions of a similar nature continued for a few more telling steps.
If you are picturing this in your mind and you see a majority of white children in the front and a majority of poorer black children in the back you would be spot on. Not much of a surprise, children usually become a product of their environment. If we were born in a poor, violent, anti-intellectual environment, void of a good father figure or a host of other unconstructive environments, what do you think would happen to us?
No longer do I look down on others because they have a different look or use an unfamiliar vernacular. I realize I would act and be similar to them if I was born into their situation.
This doesn’t mean I applaud the black guy on the corner, selling weed to the neighborhood kids; I just realize I might very well be doing a similar thing if I was born into his shoes. Just because it seems horribly wrong to me in my paradigm and even though I would never live the life of a hood doesn’t mean it’s out there to think that I could be that very guy if I grew up tough and unloved.
There isn’t an easy answer; I now go out of my way to get to know people not like me to understand where they come from and battle my leftover racist views. I still have stereotypes in my mind but I’m learning to realize that we’re all the same species; I think that what forms us to the biggest extent are our surroundings.
EXHIBIT 2:
Yikes, this one is fresher than that yellow paint, and I’m still tracking prints all over trying to decide quite how I feel about it. It addresses the comment my friend said about anti-marriage for gays.
Being in a religion that preaches that homosexuality is a problem that can be overcome, I feel at odds with this idea and what my peers in my church would say. Nevertheless, if I go with the herd I’ll have that same sick reason in my head. I struggle to believe my opinion because one of my personal hero’s, and former leader of my church said:
“We love these people (gays) and try to work with them and help them. We know they have a problem. We want to help them solve that problem. ” - Gordon B. Hickley
How can I go against someone far smarter than myself who taught me so much on how to stand tall and raise a banner for virtue and moral life? I guess because I’m following his advice on staying true to myself. I don’t believe gays have a problem, I think only a minority has this same sex orientation but because it is foreign to the majority of us we reject them. I think the problem is how we view people who aren’t like us, morally I think we need to allow them to live life as a first rate citizen.
I used to be anti-gay and very much anti-gay-marriage. Two years ago I would have damned California and parts of Canada for allowing legal union for gays.
Well here is why I have switched sides of the debate. I imagine someone telling me that I have to stop acting on my impulse to date, build relationships and enjoy intimate moments with women. They tell me, “hey it’s a lifestyle that is not ordained by the law of nature or by God.” But inside of me I can in no way switch my attraction to men nor do I want to live a life without love and sex with someone I love.
Not only do they tell me I’m a sinner and doomed to hell, they insult my intellect by telling me that it was a voluntary choice to love women and that I can change my lifestyle to love guys. Now in my head the thought of seeing a man’s bits makes me gag, heck looking at my own unsymmetrical set-up isn’t my idea of and ideal Friday night. But show me an attractive scantly clad woman and we all know by the smile on my face I’m sold.
My desire to have a special woman as my partner shapes my life and I know how happy I have been in previous relationships so eventually I want to marry a female partner for life.
Sure… you know where this is headed. What if a guy or gal has that same desire like me except it’s for a member of the same sex? Its not a rebellious phase or fun lifestyle idea. No it’s genuine desire to be with one of the same sex and to lead a fulfilling life.
Or perhaps it’s an adult who was born with both genitals and the parents had to choose at a young age weather to snip or to sew? Now this full-grown woman feels like a man inside and wants to rendezvous with other women? Do we tell them that they cannot because they have the same equipment? NO to love and happiness for you!
So you live in America and are allowed a pursuit of happiness unless you are a homosexual? Yikes.
Now I in no way condone the lifestyle some gays lead in having many different sexual partners. This causes many negative things including outbreaks of STDs and just like a heterosexual switching partners every week, it’s plain trashy. Nevertheless, saying no to marriage for gays outlaws a special union between two people who love each other and could take care of each other while staying monogamous.
So yeah I won’t go with what the bible says or doesn’t say on this. To me it is extraneous; what matters is what the morals in my heart are telling me. I’m libertarian and feel that everyone should do as they please as long as it doesn’t affect others to the negative. I want to make this part clear, as of yet I DO NOT have any opinion on whether married homosexual couples should be allowed to raise children as this brings a third party into the picture.
Honestly I hope I don’t approach other topics like a girl I dated for a couple weeks last year. She told me that gays disgusted her and bragged to me how her dad would tell her stories about how he beat up gays in high school. Clap clap… it turned my stomach to hear her go on about how they are disgusting people; there weren’t too many dates after that.
I plan to keep my mind as open as possible before I become old and hard, it will inevitably happen. The generation following us will shake their heads at how we view some things just like we sometimes shake our heads at our elders.
A Harlem caress
Yesterday I saw a friend with whom I’d become acquainted with earlier this year when I had moved to NYC to intern on Madison Avenue with a PR agency. For your and my pleasure I decided to make a check list of all the crazy things that happened during my stay.
Preface: Moving from the 73rd street of the Upper East Side to 111th (by Malcolm X Blvd) Lower Harlem was solely a move to trade paying $1000 a month for my own room to $450 for a shared room in Harlem. But Harlem changed me like a much needed lover…
Before diving into Harlem, a mention of the Upper East Side:
I lived with Shahar, an Israeli who worked for a moving truck company with decent english in his late 20s. One downside was that I listened to him for a week straight ravish the shores of his very vocal girlfriend while I tried to get beauty rest on the other side of a thin wall. My jewish roommate daily smoked the dankest weed I’ve ever smelled, yuck; but good chap on all other accounts. Really.
The fourth floor upper east apt had a picture of two women kissing that took up most of the wall in the living room, the whole apartment was the size of a beefy shoe-box. Shahar was able to hook me up after my two month stay with a box-spring bed. Maybe it had its share of plate-sized stains, but who am I to be picky. Thank-you Shahar.
March and April belonged to Harlem, and I LOVED em.
I had two roommates in Harlem, Adam a 140 pound calm intelligent Christian in my room and Dean, or Dean-o as his friends called him, a big red headed fun-loving Aussie studying film.
Harlem was the cultural experience I’ve always wanted. I’d hang out on 125th and I felt like it was 1990. Clothes was baggy and there was tons of bling. I could never figure out how most everyone in Harlem could afford the hottest sneaks, newest bluetooth earpiece, shiny 22s and still collect hand outs from the government.
While shopping for protein shakes in a Harlem GNC, I had a black girl sales girl ask me if I enjoyed vanilla flavor or chocolate. I said “I dunno which one tastes better?” She said “You should try chocolate, its a whole new experience and you’ll be hooked. You really should try some chocolate buttaah.” I realized she was not talking about protein shakes and we had a playfully sexual conversation. This would not happen anywhere else I’m convinced.
If I ever move back to NYC, Harlem please reserve me a spot.
Here she goes, my top memories and lessons learned while my stay:
- knowing how to hail a cab
- not smiling, regularly frowning when walking around and being proud of it. (sheesh, only tourists smile in NYC)
- Slighlty exagerating my swagger in a feable attempt to look tougher during the late hours in Harlem
- Almost daily stopping by the Fried Chicken corner store down my street to pick up cheeseburgers or fried chicken and mash.
- Passing by the 40 and 50 year old homies on the corner playing rap by attaching a CD player to a larger speaker which was attached to a car battery; everything housed on a portable cart.
- One of the those homies offered me weed and told me not to go to the other corner cause he’s got the best green.
- Getting out of the 2 train at Central Park North (my stop) and being the only white guy in sight.
- Longboarding with Dean-o on a warm spring night through Central Park, talking about women.
- Skateboarding under the brooklyn bridge on those red bricks, a famous skate spot for the last 30 years.
- Being part of the largest pillow-fight on a sunny saturday afternoon in Union Square I have ever been in. Thousands of strangers with pillows, mayhem.
- Going to Harlem lanes with my friends and having our waists and ankles searched for weapons. To go bowling? Seriously.
- Seeing bottles of Hennessy chilling in ice buckets right there on the bowling lanes and big black ladies smiling, grinding up on their men while hip hop and disco spills over the happy crowd.
- Realizing how lucky I am to have such a top notch agency to work with in with a 12th floor cube that looks out onto Madison Sqaure Park.
- Leaving work after a typical 11 hour shift, headphone playing in one ear, cell on other ear, darting through traffic with my blue adidas gym bag on my way to a $120 a month gym and thinking I’m sane.
- Getting offered cocaine right in Times Square.
- Feeling the ground move during a Angels and Airwaves concert in the Roseland Ballroom.
- Getting in for free to see The Presidents of the USA and singing “Millions of peaches” with a very drunk crowd.
- Spring in NYC, everything in bloom including ladies in short skirts, magic.
- Scaring the crap out of Chris Brown during Toy Fair. I was dressed in a Clone Trooper outfit outside of the Star Wars room (the costume guy was hung-over and didn’t come in so as a good intern I offered to take his spot) and Chris thought I was fake because I stayed still. He leans in and I move. He jumps back and yells “OH Shit!” and everyone laughs.
- Going to a Poetry Slam in the East Village expecting to hear poetry and instead hearing about 100 ways to say punany by a lady who created a new religion all for women. She encouraged the ladies to pleasure themselves everyday for a month and passed out little bottles of “sacred
lubeoil” at the end of her 30 minute religious speal. - Getting audibly angry by the quality of comedians at various comedy clubs
- Almost getting in a fight in the subway with a guy bigger than me because I was too high on caffine after a work out to think straight. I looked him in the eye cocked my head narrowed my eyes and said “whatssup” in the cockiest tone; sometimes I am so stupid.
- Stuttering while helping Miss Switzerland pick a city to vote for during our World Monopoly Vote media event. She was too fine… sweaty palms.
- One favorite deli that always played 70’s disco, I’d sit, eat my cheeseburger and pickles and soak in the sounds.
- On dateless fridays nights I would cozy up in a four story mid-town Barnes & Noble usually in the biography section and lose track of time.
- Walking to the subway and watching a crazy women run by bleeding out the eye yelling at some guy and not thinking anything was out of the ordinary.
- Watching movies into the early hours with a friend on the worst TV I’ve ever used.
- Surviving the worst week of my life and laughing at it when it was done.
- Pursuing a girl who was way out my my league and thinking that she would be lucky to be with me.
And lastly picture this:
- Shopping on 116th and the grocery store was playing RnB, disco and Hip Hop and everyone in the store is singing along and some people are dancing along. At first this threw me off but after a while I realized this is their culture and I loved it. Hopefully they didn’t see me, white boy in the vegetable isle, trying to dance along as well.
