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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

I rant about oppression and groundskeeping and not really respecting authority

I got so angry today I had to go take a walk.
I was raking leaves outside a classroom with an open window. I was trying to be quiet so as not to disturb the class and so I kept catching snippets of the lecture.
The Professor was talking about ethnic groups (of course) which helped to build America and how they were exploited.
Of course most immigrants were exploited and treated poorly. Migrant and foreign laborers were mistreated. We all know that. Everyone looked bored.
I wandered off and started pulling weeds.
The talk continued on to the exploitation of those said ethnic groups and the terrible indignity of the mislabelling of ethnic foods and their absorption into "American" ideas of what certain ethnicities would eat even though they don't. An example of given of how adding one spice and a label made something an ethnic food even though it was not. This was met with the appropriate laughter.
I got to thinking...
Chalupa's at Taco Bell. I mean really. If that is high enough on the list of cultural indignities then we really don't have that much to be offended about.
And that is when I started to get annoyed.
I've been working with Mexican immigrants who actually went through a lot to come to America. They had to learn English, they were exploited by their employers, they suffered racial bias but they are not victims. They are working to better themselves and their families in spite of odds which are against them. They are succeeding.
My family and I watched a show on PBS last night about black people moving into Portland. They worked hard, they built a community, they were exploited, treated poorly, but they built their houses and business and they were not victims.
The city of Portland did its best to treat them poorly. The old folks who did all the work are not victims but their kids seem to be.
So now that we have had 40 years of affirmative action and countless improvements in the social structure, in awareness of race issues, of discussions about race, why now are all the second and third generation people feeling exploited?
Chinese laborers were treated very poorly but they came here for opportunities they didn't have at home. Irish immigrants were treated like slaves, some were slaves, the prejudice remains to this day. The stereotype of a drunken Irishman is racist.
Of course people suffer hardship and injustice. Live is cruel and unfair. Look around the world and see the absolute racism and intolerance in other cultures. America (unless you were a Native American but that is another subject) has been about a chance for self betterment.
What we are supposed to do is to band together and focus on our commonalities as Americans and move together. People will not ever get along perfectly, life will never be perfectly happy or equal or fair. You just do the best you can do and put one foot in front of the other and if all else fails riot.
But I digress...
Those kids in that classroom are the ultimate in entitlement. They are given preference based on race, they are given scholarships, they come from money, they all have some kind of advantage. That teacher was given advantages because she is female.
But, yet they laugh and bite the hand that feeds them. They are setting in the classroom being taught to feel oppressed or feel guilty for have an ancestor that they have never even met who oppressed someone.
Meanwhile, I'm out there raking flowerbeds. There is such a lack of priority for things that really matter in the country that a farmer can't make a living raising food but has to work for the entitled classes so that his kid can go and get a piece of paper that grants her access to a higher social class. And in the process be programmed against everything her father has ever worked for.
Made me so mad I got in my golf cart and drove around parking lots picking up trash..
AND then I realize what I was doing... Picking up trash thrown carelessly down on the ground by kids who are programed with words such as sustainability and they won't even pick up a Starbucks cup. I'm not feeling victimized I'm feeling angry enough to start a mild revolt.
The only thing that keeps me sane is my work study students who are not entitled and have had to work for a living. I have a girl, a white guy, and a black kid who was the only black kid in a hicksville high school. They are awesome kids. Perhaps there is hope for humanity.
I like to point out that we are sweeping the President's path in the rain. I ask them if they think the President could do the job they are doing. I tell them that he has to take a crap every morning just like they do. I suggest that manicuring lawns so that a bunch of stuffed shirt academics won't trip on a pine cone is a pretty good incentive to study in school and get a good job. I point out that the Professor who is lecturing them about things they already know probably couldn't make it driving a truck and that they can be better than that.
They can live their lives on their own terms, make their own decisions, find their own sources on information.
Then I get distracted and start quoting the lyrics to old country western songs and realize their eyes have glazed over long ago.
But, I digress...
And one more thing,
I probably know as much or more about any random non science subject as any one of those Professors and even if I didn't know that much I bet I could teach their class for a week and they kids would enjoy it more. I'm not sure they could do my job for a week.
I do feel better now.
I suppose more educated and philosophical people can now feel free to find the flaws in my own confused ideology.

18 comments:

  1. You hit the nail on the head, my friend!

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    1. A good liberal would gleefully shoot me down it a heartbeat.
      This is because I speak with bias and I know it. I war it as a badge of honor.
      No one says the believe in Marxism Lite, cause their parents bought it for the with that expensive college education.
      They don't need to because they know they are right. This is what they learned in Angst 101... second required college course since 1948...

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    2. I meant to say, required course since... but my privileged white bottom can't type on a touch screen phone.

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    3. Which is an outrage in itself cause I'm sure the rest of the world can only afford flip phones cause we are using 110 percent of the world's energy reserves to commit micro aggressions against the poor and disadvantaged!!! Remember, you can't hug a kid with nuclear arms.

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    4. I meant to say, required course since... but my privileged white bottom can't type on a touch screen phone.

      Delete
    5. A good liberal would gleefully shoot me down it a heartbeat.
      This is because I speak with bias and I know it. I war it as a badge of honor.
      No one says the believe in Marxism Lite, cause their parents bought it for the with that expensive college education.
      They don't need to because they know they are right. This is what they learned in Angst 101... second required college course since 1948...

      Delete
  2. BTW, concerning you needing to work a second job - the joke among farmers in this neck of the woods is that they work elsewhere to support their "farming habit."

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  3. Interesting and inspiring as always. And Gorges, I prefer to call it a "lifestyle choice" rather than a habit.

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  4. The majority of small farmers have always had secondary sources of income. Even in the "good old days" before there were huge factory farms. Google: 'farmer's second job' for kicks.
    Also,
    It's all a matter of perspective.
    Even the poorest laborer here in the U.S.A. is more privileged and has it infinitely better than say an untouchable sewer worker in India. They don't have a chance in hell for upward mobility.
    I know, small comfort. :-(

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  5. budd,
    wait til your gal is told she won't get the diploma she earned and you paid for til she is forced to take certain 'gender' classes, which you also pay for.

    i suggest that your girl find a trade she would like and study as an apprentice in summer.
    these days the college degree is worthless in so many ways.
    have a hands on trade and you will work.
    girl welders are in demand because they are often able to do work requiring very fine coordination.
    daughter went to an electrician class and loved it.

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  6. Classes like that serve as a handicap for the privileged. It's funny people actually pay good money to sit through them, and absolutely hysterical they would take on burdensome debt to do it. I wonder if any of the bored students in that class know enough math to figure out that it's costing them around $5,000 to sit through that professor's nonsense.

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  7. I see you drove your Z3 to work and parked it next to your Gator. Weather was too bad to ride the Triumph. ;-)

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  8. Seems to me that the education would be much improved if you and the mentioned professor traded jobs for a couple of months.It would be good learning for all involved, especially the professor!

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    Replies
    1. She would just feel oppressed and probably do a bad job of mowing. Couldn't drive straight.

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  9. HVAC would be my choice were I doing it all again. Everyone loves hot and cold.

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    Replies
    1. But it's really hot till you fix the ac and then they make you leave.

      Delete

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