The death of Earl Simmons (aka DMX) has hit me harder than expected. Yeah, I know that's probably strange. But hear me out.
My childhood was less than awesome. I got in trouble... a lot. Between 13 and 14, I ended up spending the better part of a year in a juvenile facility. When I got out and back home to rural Missouri, most of my white friends didn't really want to associate with me. I found myself falling in with a group of mostly Hispanic/South American kids for several years, and the music we listened to was the gangster rap of the 90's/ early 2000's. DMX, Tupac, Bone Thugz and Harmony, NWA, Dr. Dre, Ja Rule, etc. This is was the soundtrack of my 8th-9th grade years, and somewhat into 10th grade.
The first time I encountered someone espousing racism, I was completely caught off guard by it. It made no sense to me. It never made any sense to me. The idea of judging or ridiculing someone based on skin color was immoral to me on a visceral level, at a time when my moral compass was probably the most out of whack it has ever been. And yet, despite my numerous flaws at the time, racism wasn't one of them. I knew several people who didn't share my consternation towards racism, and I was never able to understand why it was ok them.
I had a lot of friends who smoked, too. I never felt the desire to even try a cigarette, despite being offered one on dozens of occasions. When someone lit up, I always noticed because it made me cough. The smokers didn't typically notice or mind the smoke. I noticed every time.
I believe the reason why I never smoked is the same reason why I never understood or bought into racist ideas about people: exposure. When I was in 4nd grade, my grandpa died of Emphysema. He had a device that would rattle his esophagus, causing him to cough up this black debris. It was disgusting. He even had to carry around an oxygen tank for the last several years of his life. I imagine all of that decisively turned me off to the idea of becoming a smoker. Exposure to the consequences of smoking permanently removed all appeal cigarettes might have had to me. My grandpa's illness was, ironically, my inoculation.
I believe my time hanging as the only white guy with a group of brown kids, listening to Tupac rap about "The war on drugs so the police can bother me" served as a similar inoculation. There were like 2 black people in my entire town. But that didn't inhibit me from developing respect and sympathy for people who looked differently than I did. I had a unique exposure to people who looked different, and developed firsthand knowledge that we were actually the same. Thus, when I encountered racism for the first time in the form of older kids making fun of some Mexican students simply for being Mexican, it was as confusing as it was offensive. I knew their bullshit remarks were just that- ignorant bullshit.
DMX's death hit me hard because he represents a time in my life when I listened to nothing but rap and watched Fresh Prince reruns (and shortly after, Chappelle's Show). A time when I felt perfectly comfortable walking around town, getting into trouble with a group of kids who were all a different skin color than myself, and that wasn't a big deal. It was a time when a kid in rural Missouri could go off to college and not experience culture shock when hanging out with black students, listening to rap and hip-hop in our dorm rooms, because it didn't feel like a novel experience.
I miss that. I hate what our culture has done with race, and how it has toxified virtually all encounters between people of different races. Racism is being brought back to life by those on the far left who seek to wield it as a club against their ideological opponents. I'm not saying rap is virtuous, or the lyrics convey positive values to the listener. Not at all. What I am saying is that the rise of hip-hop and rap in the late 80's/ early 90's probably served as one of the strongest forces for eradicating racism in entire generations of young white kids like myself. Not that rap music was the experience of all black people- that's obviously stupid and not the point. The point is that it helped us develop appreciation for a culture we would otherwise not be exposed to, and as such, map that appreciation on to a myriad of other cultures as well. Today such a thing would be deemed cultural appropriation, rather than appreciation.
That's it. That's what I wanted to say. I miss the promise of that time, the promise of a post-racial America. A promise that has since be demolished by the activist Left and their corrosive ideology of putting race and skin color at the center of literally every human interaction. I hate it, so much. And I really hope we win, defeat these destructive idiots, and get back to the promise we came so close to not all that long ago. Thanks for letting me vent and try to get some catharsis here.
Rest in peace, X. You will be missed.
While driving yesterday, I had an idea to help facilitate more regular content creation, especially during this time when it is all but impossible to make videos outside of livestreams from my phone. The idea is that of a biweekly post that roughly takes the form of a newsletter, of which this is shall be the first volume. As an aside, evidently a synonym for biweekly is 'fortnightly,' which I'd totally use if it weren't for the association with a game of stupid dances.
My current plan for the format is as follows, though obviously this is likely to change.
-Introduction, brief life updates, and maybe a thought or two I've had lately that I wanted to share with you.
-What books I have been going through, and any excerpts or takeaways I feel are worth sharing.
-Any other noteworthy podcasts or media I've consumed lately.
-What stories I'm paying attention to (if any) and why
-Any questions I might have for you guys
-?
Alright, it's called TL;DR for a reason. Let's jump in.
As I mentioned earlier, we have Covid again. I'm not going to ...
I know it's been quiet here lately. I'll eventually explain what's been going on with my personal life (most of it has been a mixture of our new baby being really, really difficult, and perpetual sickness. For example, last week three our of the four of us had to go to the hospital) but this is what has consumed virtually all free time outside of work and family time.
Please consider helping us bring justice to these bastards. Their indifference and complicity in the harm done to these kids has to stop. Please help us make that happen.
For those who missed it, here's an open letter I wrote to my community last fall after the suicide of a former student, himself a victim of this school district:
https://returntoreason.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-the-citizens-of-albany-county-ca507fa24cd8
Thank you for everything you do. You guys are awesome, and I look forward to filling you in on what's been going on in the near future. See you soon.
ps- I will be...
Salutations! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. Here is my list of top ten the things I learned/conclusions I reached from this past year. Some are directly related to events, others are not. Either way, I tried my best to create a list of useful ideas for you to incorporate into your view of the present moment. I hope you find this list useful, as many of the items on it are lenses I find incredibly important for understanding the world around me. As always, I welcome any feedback you might have!
In Part 2, I use Conquest's Three Laws of Politics to expand on my specific critiques of Peterson's Manifesto, and flush out some of my own axioms that I failed to explain in Part 1. This is where I get into the nuts and bolts of how institutions deviate from their original purpose and begin to generate and pursue their own interests.
What began as a singular episode critiquing one of my intellectual heroes has turned into a multi-part series going after some foundational axioms of mainstream Conservatism.
In this introductions, I discuss Permanent Washington and the concept of accountability, and sew the seeds for what's to come in either trusting or rejecting many mainstream Western institutions.
It's worth mentioning that this recording, along with every other part in this series, has taken almost (in some cases more than) a day to upload. I have no idea why my internet is failing me as hard as it is, but here we are. Hopefully you find these recordings in time to assist you in your vote tomorrow 🤙
I've been wanting to do this for a while. It might have taken me two days to figure out how to get this from my phone to my computer, but I finally got it to work.
On Saturday, I used the voice recorder app on my phone to record a podcast covering Karl Schmitt, his discussions of power, and how we can map this onto our contemporary situation with The Regime that runs our country, and the Bureaucratic State which does its ideological bidding.
After listening to it, I realize there is some more context I need to add to the ending, so I might record another one tomorrow or Wednesday. Either way, it feels good to be recording stuff again. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback!
"We don't know where this thing isn't."
-Bret Weinstein
@JamesDerian suggested I pin and regularly update a thread of sources I'm compiling to illustrate the total societal takeover of Far-Left Orthodoxy, including their explicit targeting of our kids for indoctrination. Here is that thread.
Compromised entities:
Nickelodeon
Cartoon Network
Kellogg's Cereal
Mattel Toys
Lego
Sesame Street (SESAME STREET 🤦♂️)
PBS
CNN
The New York Times
The Washington Post
NPR
NBC News
Gender/Sexuality
Cartoon Network celebrating transgender children:
https://twitter.com/stage13network/status/1377332951659151360?s=20
More Cartoon Network trans stuff:
https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1377259794294259717?s=20
Cartoon Network on "normalizing gender pronouns"
https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1338539346530537475?s=20
Lego released "rainbow set" for Pride Month:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2021/may/everyone-is-awesome/
"Queer up your morning routine" with Kellogg's new cereal featuring edible glitter, ...
