Seems i've become adept at lifting titles theses days, (see the last post and now this one) and any Bowie aficionados out there will recognize where the genesis of this one came from... and once again i turn my attention to the what i call the bastion of whiteness known as Middle America aka the suburbs and in particular my little enclave to the south of Steel Town... granted i'm one of those blue enclaves that seems to be a bit of a rarity these days but as the days roll by (and i have once again began venturing into the city and my old hoods and haunts) i can't say i particularly enjoy living in the burbs... granted the Dudiest in me realizes i can only be where i'm at and to accept and make the best of it and i'll admit there are certain things i truly do enjoy, namely the number of animals i get to see and talk with, nothing amuses me more than standing out back and conversing with the deer or the groundhogs or the local cats who frequent the hill behind my house, there is also the added bonus of living in an area with no streetlights which greatly enhances my stargazing... during the winter months especially i get to see all kinds of things while i stand outside in the cold staring up at the sky and trying to locate certain stars or planets (this past few weeks being a boon for the nerds like me as Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn were all visible to the naked eye)... i also understand there are many things i could do without...
It is not lost on me that i am and always have been a bit of an outsider, a borderline loner or as i put it a social misanthrope, i don't really conform to my society's norms in the conventional ways, no i don't have any tattoos on my face or dress in some outlandish way, in fact on a surface level my fellow suburbanites would believe i am much like them... i don't say this as if i'm special or "cooler" than any of my neighbors and i understand we all have to play the game to survive living here in the post-capitalist consumer culture that has been propagated on us, i'd say most of what i'm talking about is, for lack of a better explanation, my views on the world around me, my ethics, my way of thinking... not that i'm going to stand here and say that my way is better or worse but more to the point it's just different... and where is all this going? i'll explain...
The last year of high school for the I-mac was challenging to say the least... the boyo and i butted heads on a regular basis and his academic performance could be kindly termed a disaster, the kid is wicked smart and incredibly stupid at the same time and yes i'm keeping my fingers crossed that it has more to do with age than anything else but there are some precedents from the BW's side of the family that are worrisome, mainly the similarities to her older brother, also incredibly intelligent but impulsive and stupid at the same time (both have ADHD)... of course he's my kid and i love the boy even when i want to throttle him but there was a moment last year that came up that got me to thinking about things, not between the boyo and i but something that happened at school... it was the BW who told me about it and while i didn't discuss it much with her (for the simple fact we usually end up disagreeing on damn near fucking everything) it got me to thinking... it had come up when the I-mac was talking to his mother about stuff and at the time he and his father had what one might term a strained relationship, shit happens, fathers and sons sometimes butt heads the real test is how we come out of it and i can say that while the boyo is still incredibly frustrating at times (as is his younger brother just not nearly as much) we're working on it and things have improved...
What transpired was apparently a conversation that took place at the lunch table where high school boys tend to like to bust each other's balls over shit... of course these days i find it even more comical cuz these fucking kids devolve into what amounts to a bunch of Yelpers critiquing anything and everything but on this occasion it got a little more personal... out here in the lily white there is much emphasis placed on status and economic affluence while pretending to not place much emphasis on status and economic affluence... in short, bullshit... so while the I-mac's mother is part owner of a couple of wildly popular breakfast joints and makes quite a comfortable living his father is a gig economy serf... i was first pushed? prodded? into this gig by the BW during the pandemic when her businesses were closed and then half opened but not allowed full capacity, things the BW had no problem with as she was more concerned with the safety of her employees than profit (her partners in turn care fuck all about employees and worship profit), so in order to bring in extra cash she felt it a good idea to send me out to work for one of those delivery services that shop for people, it'll remain nameless and at one point i worked for two of them depending on which one was busier...
It seems the I-mac had mentioned this previously and one day at the lunch table in an argument over something one of his "friends" brought it up... he began busting the I-mac's balls over the fact his dad worked as a shopper and delivery driver, one has to admire the children of privilege and their tunnel vision, granted life has not kicked them in the nuts yet and they don't realize that outside of this affluent suburban bubble the world is a much different place.... the I-mac was telling his mother how he was defending me, in part due to an argument i believe the I-mac and i had recently had, and his mother's reply was that the last person he needed to defend was his old man, that he didn't give a shit what this kid thought but she understood why he did and that i would as well, the I-mac in turn asked her not to tell me about what happened and it was one of those times where you hurt for your kid... i felt bad cuz he was taking shit cuz some entitled little asshole looked down upon what i did, that though he didn't want to be the I-mac was probably a little embarrassed that his old man did this gig and now some rich kid was slagging him off about it...
First off let me say that i've come to enjoy my little gig and don't mind doing it at all, i've gotten adept at picking the batches that provide the most money for the least amount of work (for the most part that is sometimes i'm forced to work a little harder) and there are times when dare i say it's borderline gratifying, usually when i realize i'm helping out someone who would have trouble doing this on their own, sometimes they have special needs or immune issues or they're elderly, i particularly like when it's an elderly person who i can tell may be a bit lonely, i'll haul all their stuff into the apartment or house, offer to lift anything heavy, and then i'll talk to them for five or ten minutes, something i often can tell they enjoy, it's always something innocuous like cats or kids or (their) grandkids but i can tell it makes them happy to have some human interaction and it probably surprised them that a tall and usually unshaven lug takes the time to converse, it's good to see them smile and i always get a kick out of it when they tell me i'm a nice young man even though i'm probably closer to their age then they realize...
And so this child of privilege gave the I-mac some shit and one day a few weeks after the fact when the I-mac and i were in a smooth patch and conversing i told him his mom did mention to me what happened, i also told him not to be upset with her and that i actually did feel a bit bad he had to take shit cuz i know how high school can be but that i also understood perfectly where we were living and what this community full of unicorns was like... i grew up in a much more working class area on the West Side of Cleveland, yes suburban but one wouldn't know it as it butted up against the southwest border of the city, the dividing line being a main thoroughfare near the airport which served as a de facto red light district.... sex shops, multiple strip clubs, cheap motels, massage parlors and working girls who one could find without much trouble at all...
Talking with the I-mac i explained to him how he's growing up in a place of affluence, there were a lot of places with even more money but there was a reason his school district was always one of the top two or three in the state and why people moved here, don't get me wrong i didn't grow up in the ghetto just a place a bit more grizzled where the hope was scoring a job in the auto plant more than attending an Ivy League college... this bubble is filled with what i consider the worst of suburban culture, yes it preaches diversity but is overwhelmingly white, like mid 90s percent, granted it's a bit better than some of the other burbs out here but still, for fuck's sake, the only place these kids see diversity is on fucking television or more correctly insert social media app here... these are children raised on western religion, some form of Christianity, raised to believe they are "special", that the world is their fucking oyster, they expect to make six figures or more, they drive to school in BMWs and Volvos and Range Rovers, a hardship to these fucking kids is not getting all the outfits from Lululemon they asked for or finding out they only got a Bronco for their 16th birthday instead of the Audi they wanted, yes it's a bit disgusting to my lumpen prole ethos when i watch these kids mosey into school with not a fucking worry in the world...
Worse still is they know and act like they are children of privilege, observing some of these kids i can only wonder what it's like at home, i think back to the whiteness of John Hughes films and laugh at how the Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles could easily be cast from the crew i see entering the high school every day... granted this is a generalization but for the most part i'd say a good 75-80% fall into this category... this is a community filled with VPs of HR, lawyers, doctors, bankers, financial analysts and stockbrokers, the less affluent middle management of the world, some business owners, and yes it's interesting to see what happens when the hardships arise, when a layoff or divorce occurs because out here it is a lot of smoke and mirrors, the image of perfection is to be projected and maintained at all times and at whatever costs...
There are a few enclaves in my little burb that are less affluent, apartments and small houses mainly occupied by the elderly or young couples, single people living who want to live in a nice neighborhood and to be honest it's more affordable than those old city haunts i once lived in (now being gentrified), Disaster has a friend who was thrilled that they were moving to a house they bought instead of renting and getting a car, the light rail runs right through the middle of my suburb to get you to the city (see a certain degenerate and his mushroom taking trips to see bands) and the main drag has a hip (but overpriced) record store as well as a number of ethnic restaurants so while i can say it's not exactly my bag it does have some selling points but the fact is the place is pretty much dominated by squares... when it comes to the kids like the one busting the I-macs balls i'd probably explain to them that life in the bubble is much more cushy and comfortable than what they'll get when/if they ever leave... many will trot off to college, maybe work in a different city but as i've discovered a lot of them will end up back here to continue the tradition so to speak... what i'd really say though is that life is not as neat and clean as these kids think it is and that sooner or later they'll get kicked in the nuts, metaphorically speaking, and the true test will be to see how they handle that... what happens if you don't make six figures or attain the status they think they deserve, that's the real test, are they prepared for when things fall apart? what if they had to, gasp, work a second job like gig economy serf to pay the rent or buy their groceries? granted some will never have to worry about it as the trust fund or inheritance will be sizable...
Sometimes i wonder if moving out here was the right choice... had we stayed in the city proper the boyos would have most likely gone to a city charter school with a student body far more diverse racially, in fact depending on the school they would have been in the minority race wise... they would have been exposed to a lot more economic diversity when it came to the kids they dealt with and called friends, they've always been well schooled in the fact that everyone is coming at things from different perspectives and it's important to understand and appreciate those perspectives even if it's nothing like theirs, they've been taught it's much tougher to be a black kid, especially male, in this country than it is to be a white one, the system has and is rigged to the white kids advantage and they should be cognizant of that and understand why their friends and people of color have issues with it and sometimes them even though they are their ally... instead they went to school in Wonder Bread land out in the privileged burbs...
The I-mac was doing court ordered community service for one of his fuck-ups and was volunteering at the food bank and while he had been taught about inequality and injustice, the white privilege, nothing teaches better than real life experience... his job was to help people shop and understand what they could get and what amount... he encountered an overweight white guy spewing racist bullshit, a guy who used a racial slur when he heard people speaking Spanish and bitching about them using up his benefits... most certainly a Shitgibbon fan (though when his SNAP gets cut i'm sure he won't blame his Fuhrer but those non-white people)... he also helped and elderly black man, who when they were about done shopping told him that he didn't much like young white guys or white people in general but that he really liked the I-mac... the I-mac smiled and told him he understood, the elderly man gave him a surprised look and said someone must have taught him right... the boyos have always been taught not to judge someone on the color of their skin but on the content of their character (to quote Dr. King) and like mentioned above to recognize their experience is going to be vastly different than theirs...
--- side note--- for all the warm and fuzzy feelings we like to pat ourselves on the back for here in my burb there's also a nasty little secret, in fact the BW was hipped to it one day and then her best friend, who is Ethiopian, got an up close and personal view... seems her employees basically stated that as a black male they wouldn't drive through our suburb unless they absolutely had to because there was a good chance they'd get stopped for some bullshit (see no) reason... i'd seen it a couple times before i had that info but i had my suspicions and believe me next time i see i'll stop and ask why? her friend was somehow pulled over by a cop who claimed her tag was expired except there was no way for him to see her tag, when questioned about it he then said he ran her plates... why? his excuse was they do that every so often, which of course is bullshit, they do it when they see a person of color seeing at there aren't that many in my burb and i half suspect they have a sheet of who they are and where they live and what they look like so they don't "mistakenly" stop them, would look bad if they stopped a tax paying citizen of suburbia now wouldn't it?
So yes these days i'm not so enamored of my surroundings, from the privileged teens and their privileged parents, i am was and always will be that lumpen prole warehouse grunt, fry cook, weed slinger who never really bought into this "American Dream" bullshit that we've be hearing since we entered kindergarten, i understand who had the opportunity and who doesn't, i understand why the boyo wanted to defend me cuz though he may get pissed and angry with me i'm still his dad... i've explained that sometimes i wish we would have stayed in the city and both the boyos understand where i'm coming from, i lay out the pros and cons of each place but ultimately it's up to me to make sure they don't turn out to be fucking arrogant, entitled assholes like that kid at the lunch table... and there's part of me that's proud to say that the BW and i haven't done too badly in that department... those boyos may be a pain in my ass (yes i'm laughing) but so far they're turning out to be decent human beings... and really that's the most i could ask for...
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