Deadwood Sermon

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

I cringe-watch this HBO show, Deadwood, no kidding I’ve probably fast forwarded through a third of the entire series.

But there is a really great moment when a character who is a drunken, racist horror-show finishes up a rant expressing his illogical judgment and condescension toward an entire group of people. And a man at the bar questions him for his own genetic history, making a suggestion his ‘nose looks a little broad’.

You’re not going to teach someone twenty years or older to start branching out beyond hate and judgment to search for an alternative source of self esteem. For a lot of these people, being White is the only thing they ever won outright. They hang their skin color on the wall like a diploma or a college degree, beside the flags and relics of an even longer heritage of losing.

You can hate someone, and still consider that any path to their subjugation or denial of their rights will never be exclusive. Any denial of any citizen’s rights is untenable, because down the line you will not be the right kind of White. If you accept a racial class system, then the burden is on each and every one of us to trace our own and impossibly produce documentation of our ‘purity’ and evidence of its lack of any corruption. Which you can’t. It will come down to DNA, and guess what, our ancestors were just as dumb, anxious and horny as us.

Hate. Hate everything. Hate your neighbor. Hate snakes in the grass. Hate love, hate hate especially. Not allowing your government and society to condone, propagate and operate under the principles of racism has nothing to do with who or what you hate.

Any path to taking away a citizen’s right to life is a path to taking it away from all of us.

On a long enough timeline, you won’t be the right kind of White, because White never meant race, it has always meant money.

And honey, if you’re still flying the Stars and Bars, you may as well be red and blue, because White isn’t you.

Keep no living heroes.

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

That is my advice in response to the sudden wave of awareness about the disparagement between sexes. You will find no easy data here. No clear answer. Just when you come up close to thinking it is all of them, you will be surprised. That is the way it is with humans. These are human issues. Within the procreation and sustained development of Man,
the existence of both women and men is required.

Are we surprised at the symptoms of patriarchy?

We took it on without any scientific exploration. We just keep pushing forward forms invented solely by men. More specifically, predominantly white men. We’ve updated our colored pencil collection. But it’s still their black and white drawings we’re filling in. And it’s producing boys who treat the world like toys. To so much surprise. If these are the celebrity stories spilling out, just now, after years, imagine the backcountry congregations and small hometowns and gated neighborhoods full of nobodies exposing themselves without permission, taking liberties with children, even members of their own families. I have heard the stories. Just about every single one of the females in my life has multiple stories that ball my fist, and make me wonder how anyone let these men say and do these things and live.
That’s the typical want to be a good guy response. More violence.
On top of our problem. With violence.

I’m angry. But not surprised. I’ve been a man my entire life. I played soccer in high school, I was in a fraternity in college. Anyone who defends or seeks to lessen an impact of, or response to, any of these forms of sexual violence, is apologizing for their self, their friends, their younger years, their peers, a son who got caught, the many more who were not, ever. Out there in the world leg crossed on the couch. Kids springing throughout the house. A spouse. And when he says a drawn out well, or begins a sentence with but, he is forgiving his own actions. He is doing what he has always done. Since that night. That afternoon. That morning when no one was around, and an implication did the work of social demonstration and time. And the thought that flashed through his mind. If not now, when? Maybe never get this chance again. He didn’t even wake back up into himself until after the flowery flutter of his orgasm had passed. He goes back to the path he was on. Doing what men do best. Committed to lives of distraction. Things work out. The universe doesn’t crash down karmic revenge on his head. In fact, now that he’s committed this act, he is open to an entire social circle of other men who have done the same thing. Who apologize for one another as often as they can, in the company they keep, with the policies they change, their plans.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m very fortunate to suffer from a massive overabundance of trust issues. A highly anxietized form of bold curiosity. Too much imagination for my own good, essentially. And when these boys told me their stories of playing with all these toys, sometimes until they broke, I listened. And I kept thinking how a well placed pocket knife would have taken them out of the gene pool for good. I am angry. So I think stupid things like how women should work blades and small weapons into their boots and stockings. When I know they should never have to. But these boys will never change. You can not wait on them to become men. It will not happen. They would have to go back to that night, or whenever, whatever it was, and make it right. And they won’t do that.

Another symptom of having only half a species invent, establish and organize society
without equally consulting the other half. They forget they are only half.
Half the species. Half the experience. Half of their crime.

I say keep no living heroes for that exact reason. Heroes are only half. The other part of a story like that, is struggle, loss, war, monsters and devastation and suffering are what call heroes out of hiding. Patriarchy is hero government. Their power is defined by destruction, not by a pursuit of peace. Of ease. Of simplicity. No heroes required. The self fulfilling prophesy of one half believing it’s the savior of the other half. When there are no more clear villains, that is what the living hero will become. He won’t be able to give up his cape.

He’ll be obsessive about instances of imitated control.
He will consider his strength indicative of dominance.
He will let the people he loves come to harm so that he can don his cape and save them.
He will construct a government for all people thinking most about what his sons will do for a living.
He will apologize for criminal actions because he is internally crippled by the guilt of what he got away with.
God will look like him.
Messiahs and saviors and saints will be erected in his image.
Cities will function as monuments to fallacy.

He will do most of this subconsciously. And bringing it to awareness will assuredly bring out the villain in him. And he will fight a war against the world, before he breaks down and confronts his own memory. I have no patience or forgiveness for heroes like him.

I learned to keep no living hero. All mine died a long time ago. Their stories are known.
Told by the only honest author in existence. Time. Try not to take it personally.
We’re just a far more trustworthy species once we’re done navigating life.

Mind your LGBTQ’s

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

These words. This string of mismatched letters. LGBTQ. And what do
any of them have to do with me and you, I don’t know. Is it high heel shoes?
Is it Saint Laurent on a man’s ruby lips? Is it who you choose to be with?
Because straight people have worn all those choices.
Heterosexuality speaks with all these voices.
But we do not think to call them anything other than human. This prefix, trans.
Unless you’re transhuman, who cares? Have you ever undergone pain to be different,
not the same, to look at in a mirror who you see in your brain.
If it helps one and does not hurt two, what is it to you?

I do not take for granted that as long as I stay panted
nobody cares what is between my legs.
I do not take for granted that as long as their name isn’t Brandon
no one really worries who I’m with.

Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Questioning. Nobody calls me straight.
Nobody refers to my anatomy when they discuss my sexuality.
So if our goal is pure equality, why are we labeling anyone
based on information it is not appropriate for us to own.
Words. And these words give shallow-minded people an excuse to dehumanize.
To participate in uncomfortable conversations that might not happen otherwise.

This is not a reference to the color of your skin.
This is not bias based on the historical and cultural relevance
and transitions of your people. I’m sorry if this comes as a shock,
but you can be a straight man, and not carry a cock.
You can be a woman, in my mind,
and I never need to know
what you left behind.

It is inappropriate. It is offensive. Disrespectful, and borderline mad.
Discussing someone’s sexuality like that. It is an epidemic in this country,
looking at people sexually, completely disregarding if they invited us to or not.
It is the seed of assault. It is the germ that breeds sexual violence and hurtful fetishism.

We don’t have to support our LGBTQ’s.
We don’t accept people’s differences because it is right to do.
The definition of freedom means we do not have these conversations.
If you’re hurting nobody while helping yourself, you’re golden.
You’re just like the rest of us. Pure human.

And if we asked them these questions,
we would be much more aware of all the queer stuff straight people do.
But we don’t get asked. Because that string of letters. It doesn’t include S.

Everything is better when there are women in the room.

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

What if this is an issue of equality.
Of feminism.
We are arguing the functionality of purely male-made systems of
government and economy.

Perhaps if there had been at least one woman in the room,
she would have mentioned how unprofitable people still like to eat.

Perhaps she would have brought a scale,
and given a demonstration of the true meaning
of the word equal.

An Ironically Open Letter to the Alt-Right

Posted on by J.T. Homesley

Isn’t it control alt delete? Wasn’t sure if you were freezing up on an old screen, I have to do that as well when what I’m looking at fails to update how I want it to.

Moving on, you really like paper work don’t you? Bureaucracy seems to have become more a philosophy in your movement. I mean it might be hard for you to see a person as a person without checking their driver’s license first, am I right? Something about their image and name and height and weight and birth date all on a little laminated card between fingers. That has to be an intriguing experience for someone who believes identity lives in skin.

But as far as race, that is not skin color, correct? I sometimes burn old magazines and newspapers to start fires, and every now and again this really interesting thing happens, where a book on fire will actually turn its pages as it burns. If you get a chance in the next few years, take a look at a science book or two as it gives you its dying attempt at seeding information anywhere other than solely on paper. We are all all races. You, white man, are an African. This is not climate change. This is not human ownership of such a process. This is not environmentalism. That is not disputed science. We have read our genetic code like it were some special form of government identification, and it read we all come up one continent. We have genetic codes for every color skin all wrapped up in ours. Look at it this way, the way you look is more about the doorway you passed through coming into the world, than the room you were in before you took a step forward. Those last few generations of skin color and nose shape and eye color and hair type, the tip of an iceberg of genetic information stored just beneath the surface. So you’re going to have to claim and build this identitarian ethic all on your own. It has no foundation in truth.

And gender. That is half your fucking species man. That is your mother. Your daughter. Your sister. Hopefully your friend. They don’t have to whoop you in an arm wrestling competition to convince you you don’t exist without them. We are equal by necessity you bozo. We represent that fact in pay, protections, access and respect, not because its right or a nice thing to do or a special gift for your lady. You do that because it is reality. Women are not an ingredient in the stew, they’re the fucking water you start with. They’re half the equation. You strengthen and improve their way of life, their self-esteem, the respect offered them by their society, you enhance the entire system in one fell swoop. You support half of all of our foundation when you right this equation. You might feel good when you buy her flowers. But give her your eyes as an equal, and you will see the superhero you’ve been keeping in the kitchen. She walks city streets having lived through your worst fears head high, shoes sharp, face painted. She has heard words, and felt pressures, and experienced pain you don’t know exist. Learn them. Gain a friend. An equal. Make our species whole. Keep the flowers. Make the world ours. Because it will die if it stays mine.

That being said, a little advice for your ethic. I would love to be hated for the color of my skin. For being a man. For some externally perceived categorical assessment of my identity. Puts me in the perfect place to practice powers you won’t believe exist in my category. Allows me access to so much more subversive development of ideas and plans. Get to know me, talk to me, even feign friendliness just to access some better, more nuanced understanding of the answers to who, and how, and why, and what for and what all I am, and more importantly, all I intend. To put it simply, empathy and consideration are keys to greater hate. Just saying. Try it. Even if the sole motivation is ‘how the hell can we hate these people just a little more effectively?’ But I get the feeling that’s not going to happen. Not while this nice neat little laminated card stock photo identification stays cradled between those peachy white well callused fingers. You don’t want to know me. You want the me that can be erased from the world by a pair of scissors. Which is why my movement will always be stronger than yours. You have numbers.

But we, the people.