is what it is.

we keep pouring it in to the processor. today: panel on the william winter institute for racial reconciliation, and panel of delta students (incl. a white kid who went to academy).

it's beginning to wash over; it's beginning to become a litany of malfunction, a big knot of disservice. we're running our mouths; we're learning the same song over and over again, and we're being constantly reminded that it's not ours - and that we should never forget that it is so.

this ownership complex is intense. the self/other dialogue is nearly unbearable - like the heat, and the kudzu: the myth of something being present enough to be unbearable, but not so much to warrent any real, substantive notice of. if you notice it - if you really notice it; if it bothers you - then you're not from around here. and you don't want to be not from around here. that's part of the song. for, who could tame the heat and the kudzu? and who's so bad off without taming them? we certainly aren't. but if you are, then you surely are a "you." certainly, once you understand that the heat and the kudzu are just how it is - once you realize that it's in your best interest to stop noticing them, because you wouln't be able to do anything about it anyway - then you'll be just fine.

so, if you have problems, just wait a while. you're not from around here. these things are just how it is, and they're not so unbearable anyhow. maybe they'd cause a stir where you come from, but we're sure that you're pretty comfortable with some things that would cause a stir to us. you wouldn't want to be causing any trouble by trying to fix things that people don't mind having anyway. when the sun's hot - turn on the air. when the kudzu's tangling up a tree - clear it up a bit. then, once you get settled into how we live around these parts, come talk to me about your problems.

**

certainly, this is a complex case. certainly, i'm a bit reductive in the above paragraphs, but it's damn hard to say anything of substance after having to keep changing from reference point to reference point, running up against a steady stream of already worn-out phrases like "catch 22" and "paradox," paying lip service after lip service, shown more dead ends and shrugged shoulders than productive momentum, and being essentially halted on any grounds of addressing a pretty dismal situation because it's more important that we don't offend anyone because we don't understand the playing field because it's not ours. this is the classic sidestep of "you don't know me," and "this is none of your business" - and, honestly, i'm hardly convinced that there's some personal/ideosyncratic reference point that would allow for me to substantively change my mind within a consistent framework, and i'm less certain about some substantive statement that can be made about where your business ends and mine begins. this is not to say that i devalue empathy - rather, that i don't confuse situational richness for systematic agency. neither am i implying that i don't change my mind, or that i'm unwilling to. i'm a skeptic, for god's sake; i, in all truth, prefer to not make up my mind, and am wary of those that do.

**

[edited for anonymity's sake, 8-5-05. apologies, grandpa. DMWM]

christmas day brunch at my grandpa's house, 2002 or thereabouts. i'm sitting next to my uncle, talking - as we always do - about the goings on at the manco duct tape company (via the german company that bought manco a couple years ago. sidenote: as manco is a supplier of walmart, it's set up shop wherever in arkansas the walmart hq is. so, my uncle lives somewhere in arkansas, within commuter distance of walmart hq). as we chew the cud - once again - about how brilliant sam walton's inventory database system is, somehow the conversation turns to education. now, i went to parochial grade school and a jesuit high school, and my siblings are in the process of doing the same, as are my uncle's children. however, it was beginning to occur to me at the time that there was something inherently unequal in the way that public schools in cleveland - especially in the city proper, but also in the suburbs - seemed to be of poor quality, while private schools seemed to be doing just fine. not only this, but that adults - my uncle included - were resisting tax increases to fund schools, and would often complain - as my uncle was doing on this occasion - about the fact that he has to but some other person's kid through school, while at the same time send his own to get a good education on top of that. blah blah blah. well, i found this to be a bit fustrating, and as we argued about whether it's the government's responsibility to provide services to its citizens, we shifted into a discourse on race - wherein my uncle went off on how he's worked with black people, and they're just lazy, and they don't want to be educated, and they just want handouts, and you know the routine. so i don't like this either, and after we've spent quite some time wrestling about, he tells me something along the lines of: "when i was your age, and in college, i had all these liberal ideas, too. everyone's liberal in college. it's easy to be so. but, when you get older, and you see things for yourself, you'll have different ideas about all this."

this - of course - is the sidestep of age, and experience. it feeds directly into "you don't know me," and "this is none of your business," and i have perhaps the lowest opinion of its validity. i made it through college with all my goddamn liberal ideas, and i don't think they're going to go much of anywhere. and i hope to god that age - the heat of the sun and the kudzu - doesn't house train me into any of these grand old shoulder shrugs, or even the - more abominable - deep rooted desire to perpetuate my comfort, even at the expense of glaring structural wrongs.

**

well, that was a rant (yes, childish at times). no doubt daniel's wheat to chaff ratio is in true form there. i don't even remember what i sat down to write about. i'm just a little pissed off. i feel like - again - people are trying to clip the old wings, or tell me how it really is, or how it's really going to be. and the irony is that it's the other side of the same damn coin. it never really is anything. everyone's saying wait, wait, wait. and you get used to it, so when other people start showing up you start telling them to wait, wait, wait, and we're all sitting around baking in the god damn sun and being closed in by this wierd ass vine, and all we can think about is how sweet tea sure is good, and how we'd never imagined that gas stations would be such prominent food vendors, and every once in a while someone drops a "catch 22," and we all nod and mmhmmm and we just wait, wait, wait till the savior comes.