The DC Sniper Dies Today - I Ain't Forgot How You Terrorized My Family

One of the DC snipers, John Allen Muhammad, is scheduled to die today. In late 2001, his actions terrorized me and my family on a personal level. My feelings about his date with death is good riddance, bitch.

Below is an excerpt from one of my September 2008 posts, Cognitive Dissonance.

****************************

On one October morning, I left home with my daughter to drive her school and then continue to work. The Sniper hit my area. Yeah, I'm talking about John Muhammed and the teen, Lee Malvo who accompanied him.


I recall the first day well. At the time, I lived off Georgia Ave in Maryland and would drive 14 miles south on it toward DC to my job. I was one of those idiots who would stop at Star Bucks each morning and pay $3.50 for a large Mocha Frappuccino. I liked the ones they made at Leisure World the best and the lines were shorter.

That morning, however, I had to return a movie video in another location near my home, so rather than be late for work, I went to their Starbucks. This saved me and my daughter from the trauma of seeing, or maybe being victims, to the murder at Leisure World.


As I drove in that direction, I heard a zillion police cars and they were heading to my favorite coffee shop where I would have been had it not been for the movie return.

Those mofos hit nearly every place I go to on that day and week, including the Post Office located on the side street of the K-Mart. They killed a bus driver there. They also murdered someone at the then-new Shoppers Food Warehouse in the evening as I drove home. This was really brazen - it's right across from the police station. People left flowers in the grocery parking lot. Once in awhile I think about this when I shop there, and in fact, bought groceries there yesterday evening.

They also killed someone at a gas station off Georgia Ave where I don't refuel, but it was scary as hell pumping gas anywhere in my area. I'd make my young daughter lay down in the car so she wouldn't be a target. She seemed to think it was a bit of game but would also peep up while I pumped, with me fussing, "put your head down!" I was hardly the only parent doing this.

I later found out they'd shot a bullet in the old Michael's Craft & Art Store the day before their first murder, also where I was a frequent customer.

Xavier was shocked to learn about the carnage in our community when he was released from the hospital. Even he wondered if whatever evil that tried to get him couldn't since he'd been locked up and medicated, and instead moved on Lee Malvo, the luckless and just as confused teenager. It was a sobering thought. Xavier finished the rest of his 8th grade without significant problems until he hooked up with run of the mill bad boys the following summer.

Long before then, the police finally caught these creeps, but the military planes and jets continued to fly all over the area as Bush got ready for war...

**********************

I wonder if they'll ever bring those other criminals from that time period to justice. Y'all know who know I'm talking about.

Jesus On Food Stamps

Born to a homeless family and pretty much in a barn, with only his parents and some animals to keep him warm, Jesus would have been on food stamps in 2009.

Years later, one of his most memorable miracles was feeding four to five thousand hungry people with a few loaves of bread and a small basket of fish. This is cited in Matthew 14:13–21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:5-15.

I bring this up now because I just got wind of this news: Many US Children May Live In Families Receiving Food Stamps. That's the least offensive link I've found summarizing Vol. 163 No. 11, pp. 973-1072, November 2009, of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine journal. You have to subscribe to read the full article, but you can read their abstract summary here.

It says that up to 50% of all American kids and 90% of black children will grow up in a household by age 20 where they or someone receives food stamps.

As an African American, I felt bad. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Their statistics feel like bullets that wound me.

I also doubted the conclusions. I mean, 90%? Come on. How many times have people lied with statistics? Or been wrong? But still... I wonder. What if it's true, or even remotely true?

Why are their projections so bleak? Research-gathering techniques of that magnitude sucked 30 and 20 years ago. The internet didn't even begin to get good until ten years ago.

If the government wasn't going broke and we hit Great Depression II with a vengeance and could afford to feed that many households of all races, then it might become true. Otherwise I just don't see it.

And, if they redid this study using stats of only the past decade, I wonder what their projections would be?

I know I live in an area of the country that is friendlier toward my people than nearly anywhere else. I speak of the DC-MD-VA beltway loop, where good government jobs, military and corporations abound, where the real estate market has held fairly steady while other areas have plunged, and so forth. Jobs have been tight this year but not impossible to get.

Hardly any the folks in my social circle have ever needed food stamps, and if so, it was only for a very brief time between jobs. Sure, I've had goo-gobs of clients who have relied on them, but the educated black middle and working class is strong in the DC area.

With this in mind - that my culture is only one of many subcultures in Black America - I grieve if the estimates are accurate.

I keep in mind that they are only statistics based on the past 30 years and projections of the future, and are not necessarily reflective of the present.

This is what's missing in so many news stories. It's all over the place and watered down or distorted to make it look like a current reality or a foregone conclusion... and for what purpose?

To give mainstream White America yet another reason to pity us?

To be fairer to us when we apply for jobs and in the workplace?

To throw up their hands and write us off as hopeless cases not worthy of saving when economic shit really hits the fan in 2010?

Or worse, to hate us en masse for our (unwanted) poverty, and at so many of us who are struggling for a figurative meal of fish and bread?

Jesus on food stamps... I picture this in my mind. It's the only thing that keeps me from feeling worse, and that we're not in such in bad company after all.

Kit's Satire: Ideal Part Time Jobs

I'm on the light side this weekend, and have been thinking about some ideal, part-time fluff jobs, perfect for folks looking for a second gig. Feel free to add yours.


~Presidential Check Writer~

You can handle this job! Yes, I am certain that nearly all of you have a great deal of experience writing checks, so add that to your resume. Our Commander In Chief is too busy to fill out all these "bailout" checks. You can do this, and he only needs to sign them.




Just remember to not use the word "welfare" around him. I think he likes to call it "economic recovery" money or some other fancy phrase to make the rich and the tax payers feel better.


~Food Disposer for Gordon Ramsey~

Didn't your grandma or mom teach you to carry ziplock bags whenever you ate at buffet restaurants? Remember how embarrassed you were when other customers or the wait staff caught you? You've got experience then! You can dispose this celebrity cook's magnificent meals right into your refrigerator, as fresh and crisp as it was on his show. The all paid travel benefits will be a plus.



~Vibrator Tester~

Someone has to do it, right? Both women and men can apply to determine if the latest interesting little device can give a good shoulder massage. That's what they're for, right? Just be sure to take out a life insurance policy, however, in the event that faulty wiring in the encasement causes a power outage in your body.




~Medical Marijuana or Alcohol Sampler~

Don't lie. Bunch of y'all got experience in this area. For every batch of legal weed or ale, somebody is working in Quality Control and testing that shit. Might as well be you.




~Reality TV Show Audition Screener~

If you can scan a crowd and quickly identify a bully, nutcase, nerd, skank, dimwit, or a beautiful girl or hunky guy willing to do anything for love, fame or career, apply for the next season of shows.

My favorite was Real Chance of Love (their Stallionaire Guide To Dating clips are pretty funny), and more recently, I Want To Work For Diddy 2.

"Ahahaha... These silly hoes thought we were looking for love.
But thanks for letting me tap that ass."

- hat tip to Chicken Head

"What, you think this is easy?
Work for me anyway so I can send my kids
AND the next 20 generations of Diddys to college!"

Even if you have a long history of dating or working with "unforgettable" folks, that's experience, so apply to screen those candidates. Afterwards, you might even get a date with, or can give a job to, someone who didn't make the cut.

Then you can blog about them.


~Doomsday Clock Watcher~

If you can tell time and periodically holler out, "It's still five to midnight!", apply now.

There's actually a doomsday clock. It's was started by and is maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. As said in wikipedia, "The number of minutes before midnight – measuring the degree of nuclear, environmental, and technological threats to mankind – is periodically corrected; currently, the clock reads five minutes to midnight, having advanced two minutes on 17 January 2007."




These mofo's actually think the world will end when their clock says so. They probably drink too much coffee and worry too much, then try to get everyone else to worry with them. I used to do that, and I know just thing they need.

I'm gonna apply for that job. When they're yapping it up on their umpteenth coffee break, I'm gonna push up the time to past midnight, just to eff with their heads.


Betcha they'll be applying for some of those other jobs by tomorrow.

Barack Made History One Year Ago Today Open Comments

Open comments today, but only for readers who were pro-Obama last November.

Bang Bang

This one's gonna make some of you mad at me.

Xavier, my 21 year son, recently brought home three of his regular friends and a brand new BB/CO2 gun. They each had new ones too.

We don't hardly live in the country. There are few squirrels and birds to shoot, not that I condone that, but the men in my fam have a long history of enjoying that kind of shit. My dad hunted for food in his youth; my brother to a much lesser extent and both for sport.

Xavier doesn't even know that, to my knowledge; must be some kind of Boys Club they're born into.

So, in the absence of small animals that are viewed as rats with wings or fluffy gray tails, they were shooting each other in the backyard. You know that game: bang-bang you're dead. With pellets.

"You don't have health insurance," I said after I found out. "And that thing looks real."

"Yeah, ain't it great?"

"You're an idiot. Keep it outta my sight."

You might wonder why I don't 'make' him keep it out of the house. I could tell him this, but experience proves that he'd lie and sneak it back in anyway.

You might wonder why I don't kick him out.

That answer is easy: he'd quickly become a menace to society. This may be one reason why so many young adult males live at home. I think some of their mothers have sized up the odds pretty well that their young, poorly paid or unemployed black son would have no recourse than turning to crime. A man has to eat, you know?

He did bring home a real gun once. This was maybe two years ago. He thought it was a good idea to have one "for protection". That was one of the biggest fights we ever had.

I had an idea who gave it to him too, and without even confirming this, called that nigga up and cussed him out. He fortunately has a lot of respect for me, and took his shit back promptly.

That man-child almost landed in jail a year later on a robbery charge - one of those "I was just with them, Your Honor, and didn't know it was gonna go down" scenarios. I know his mama lost her shirt for his high priced attorney.

Along with not doing bail nor feeding fat attorneys, that's one thing I have never done for Xavier and told him long, long ago I never would. That's actually a lie, but it has kept him fairly honest. If he became a true victim of a racist cop, and the free public defender was incompetent and could not be replaced, I might help him out, depending on the circumstances.

Ssshhh. Don't tell him that, though.

So now, he's got this BB gun. It also has something called CO2, which allows it to shoot out air when there are no pellets in it.

That was actually fun.

All three of us were in the kitchen last night, including my daughter. Well, make that four, the dog was there too. So Xavier was playing with this awful toy. I made him prove to us there were no pellets in it, so he removed some thingy in the gun.

"It's only air and doesn't hurt," he said, putting it back together. "See, watch."

He shot his hand. You could see the CO2 gas come out in a poof. When he shot "air" at me, I blinked in surprised. It didn't hurt at all.

The child in me can be a bitch, and so can my curiosity and human nature. Next thing I knew, I surprised our poodle by shooting air at his azz.

It was one of those you-had-to-be-there funny moments.

He didn't like the 'pop' noise, and was startled, but he didn't leave the kitchen, no matter how many times we did it to him or each other. It really was fun.

Well, I'm dead certain some of you are horrified. I am too, because reading about it gives it a distance, where I can see not just the trees, but the forest of that mistake and that of others.

In the forest of my childhood, I grew up with cap guns and water guns and toy machine guns in addition to the Barbie dolls. That shit was fun back then, playing cops and robbers and all that. So playing with Xavier's BB/CO2 gun was like revisiting a time of innocent play.

The story turns dark from here.

A few hours later, he was on the computer. His BB gun was on the bed next to him. I came in to see when he'd get off. Saw the gun on the bed, picked it up, and bang bang, playfully shot him in the back of the head.

No, Your Honor, it was an accident. I was just there, the gun was just there, and I didn't mean to paralyze him, really.

Air hit the back of his head, and he turned around and laughed. I was laughing too. It was like my golden cap gun days.

Then suddenly, it hit me. I was horrified.

"Xavier, what if you had loaded BB's in this thing since earlier? I could have really hurt you!"

"Pffft! I don't have any more pellets. I told you that. It wouldn't have happened."

"But what if you had???"

He still wasn't getting it.

"Ma, I said I'm out of pellets. It's fine."

"But what about the next time? With me, your sister, or your friends?"

He hates conceding a point. The best I got out of him was a hmmmm.

"I won't lie to you," I said. "It's fun, but it wouldn't be fun if we were on the way to the ER now to remove a pellet from your scalp, or if you or one of your friends got shot in the eye with it. Or worse, a cop saw you with it and shot and killed your black azz."

He was quiet. Quiet is good. It means he's thinking. When he ain't thinking, he's arguing against my point of view.

Then Casey walks in. We're all nosey as hell in my family. She's in on everything and heard the conversation.

She says to Xavier, "Me n' Tyrone and Jill saw it on the coffee table on Halloween. He thought it only had air in it. I told him it had pellets but he didn't believe me and fired it..."

"I'm so sorry, Mz. Kit. I didn't mean to shoot your daughter. At least she still has one good eye."

"Where?" I asked.

"He shot one of the living room pillows. He said he was sorry."

"Is there a hole in it now?", I ask.

"Yeah."

We look at Xavier.

I say, "Could've been her eye, ya know."

He goes, "Hmmmm."

"Well," I say crisply, "Wouldn't that have been a memorable Halloween."

There's really nothing else to say without belaboring the point and beating a dead horse, but I do anyway.

"You really need to get rid of that thing, and until then, keep it locked away."

"Okay."

I do some things very, very well as a parent. Sometimes, however, I screw up badly or am a terrible role model. For all my training in the helping field, I don't always know what to do or not to do. Human nature is so unpredictable, and people - your kids - have a will of their own, which, short of kicking them out, must be negotiated with reason and diplomacy as they get older. Yelling only makes them stubborn, and threats make them sneaky.

To make it worse, the values I grew up with don't apply for this generation, and haven't for a long time. Not to make excuses, but sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in a time warp. For example:

My mother smoked through her pregnancies and throughout my childhood.

Seat belts were non-existent.

You could buy paddles just for beating your kids. The word child abuse did not exist.

My daddy taught me how to drive long before it was legal.

As a kid, when I went to the grown up parties with the folks, it was common to hear one adult tell another, "Jack, before you go, take one for the road!", and if Jack wasn't "too drunk", he just might take that beer or cup as he walked out the door with his wife and kids.

In my late teens, I had several boyfriends who routinely smoked weed while driving, and one who always had a beer nestled in his crotch. All but one, by the way, turned out to be suit n' tie successful in life.

And everybody had guns, including the kids, many like myself, who had an arsenal of toy weapons.

Oh but how the game has changed.

Parenting is like a war game. You battle for their safety and often their souls, and you battle to adapt to the changes from your childhood where the rules were different, but now there's more to lose.

I don't know if or how I'm gonna get that damned BB gun from Xavier, but at least I got some hmmms' out of him. It may not be enough, and may be our next battle ground.

While part of me doesn't want to overreact to a BB/CO2-Air gun, the larger part worries more about under-reacting. What if he and a friend play in a park at night (which is illegal, it can only be used on private property), or it became visible in his coat pocket, and a cop sees this and blows him away?

I'm sorry Mz. Kit, we tend to shoot first in these situations and ask questions later.

I hope I win on this one, because there's one post I never wanna write: My Son Is Dead.

Blogging For ConfidenceAnd Other Random Thoughts About Family Dynamics & The Sexes

If you missed it yesterday or today, it's gone for now. Several people who caught it enjoyed it immensely, and I thank them for their comments. I'm speaking of a short story I wrote about the monstrous horror of what went wrong in one family.

People blog for many different reasons and cover a seemingly infinite number of topics.

Well readers, I've been blogging for confidence.

I was given the gift to write well long ago. Luck would have it that I had a wonderful Catholic school education through 7th grade, and my public school English teachers for 8th through 11th were excellent.

I loved reading and could spell my azz off. I had a clue on how good I was in 8th grade, when my teacher had the class do a spelling bee. I was one of the last two standing. My classmate missed the word, but I sounded it out and used the weird rules that I somehow know without knowing and got it right. Even the kids who took little interest in English watched to see if I'd blow it. You could hear a pin drop. I got it! The teacher looked astounded, and dropped her head down with one of those, "damn" expressions, as in, damn, how'd she get that?

Boy that felt good!

My 9th grade teacher saw my book of poems and encouraged me to enter one. I was shocked with I won 1st place in that DC citywide poetry contest.

The thing is, my parents weren't into my poetry. They really didn't understand it. Left me feeling like it wasn't all that important.

It's kind of weird because my father wrote and sold poetry to white men just so he could see it published. Wouldn't be in his name, but at least he saw it in print.

I wish the hell I had a list of those guys now, not to sue them, but just to know who those fuckers were.

Maybe he didn't want to see me get hurt like he had been. Instead, he encouraged me to study journalism in college since I liked to read so much and could write a decent essay.

Well fuck, that field had a very low glass ceiling too, so low that a dwarf might bump her head. Like my father in the 1940s or 50s, I couldn't break the racial barrier in the early '80s. I managed to get two gopher jobs - "go for this and go for that" - in black media places, but sexism was rampant.

I got fired by one old fart (old as in his 40s, which was old to me back then), because I wasn't interest in getting with him, and he got jealous because I started dating a guy my own age who worked the technical end of radio, who quickly became one of my best boyfriends ever. He was fired a week after me.

The degradation I saw a number black women go through, and the racism black men and women had to put up with, made me think long and hard. I gave up on journalism and pursued social work, and shortly after that, mental health. It was a rewarding career, financially and mentally.

At the end of some days, I went home feeling like I'd done God's work. And I had.

In 2006, I began writing again for the first time in years. My parents were dead, but none of my family members were supportive.

I'll never forget when I read an excerpt to a novel that I knew was great writing, and this relative said something really cruel. The way he did it reminded me of the little cruel acts my father would do to me after I learned I was infertile.

He would say, while grinning, when I'd tell him that I was going out on date, "Don't get pregnant!"

Mind you, he was the number one person who pushed me day and night to get an abortion when I was 19. The men in my family are mixed bag. They can show you love and support - usually in areas that interest them - or they can say the cruelest things just because they're assholes.

So this time, with this relative, I confronted him.

"Why did you say that? Do you really think that?"

He became uncomfortable.

"No. I don't know why I said that."

He really didn't.

It hit me then that he was jealous, and his poisonous words were a knee-jerk reaction. He writes very well and should be doing his own thing in that area, but something holds him back. My success will trigger his insecurity and make him feel like he's wasting his gift.

Plus, he had wanted to edit my work after reading the first chapter because he said he liked it - but he wanted a huge cut off any profit... something crazy like 25 percent, rather than my paying by the hour for his help. Suddenly, my story wasn't good anymore.

Jealousy is so destructive. Even when you know the person is jealous, if your confidence isn't 100%, you might feel uncertain and insecure. I was getting demoralized by own family at their lack of interest.

Not everyone had the green with envy issues. Two close relatives simply didn't like the point of view of one of the characters. They'd scan a few pages, hone in on one, and start ripping the whole story apart. For one it was over religion, for the other, the character was too ghetto.

Folks can real pissed if their own values or beliefs are challenged by the thought processes of someone who thinks differently than they do.

"Do you believe this?", one demanded.

"Nooo, but my character does."

"Why don't you write about nice people with happy endings?"

"We all start out nice at birth," I explained. "For a bunch of folks, it goes downhill from there, and there are reasons for this. Read the story and you'll see."

"That's okay," he said dismissively, "it's not my cup of tea. By the way, I read a really good book recently that you might like."

Fuck you too, you unsupportive son of a bitch, I thought to myself.

Not a single one of my friends would take time to read my stuff. I know if I was their damn boyfriend or some nigga they wanted, they would. I got no dick, they had no time for my dumb hobby.

They'd yap for hours and in multiple phone calls over how some nigga done them wrong. I can't tell you how much those conversations bored the crap out of me after the age of 40.

If ya ain't happy with him, ain't you learned by now what to do? And don't you know the warning signs when shit first starts going downhill? Ain't like he's gonna marry you anyway so stop sweatin' the man.

Oh damn, how my girl friends hated hearing that.

That wishful thinking shit causes more heartbreaks than reality. Reality is raw. Only 30% of black women will ever get married, and we can expect half of them to divorce, so enjoy your kids if you got any or get a dog if you don't.

If you prefer cats, resist the urge to get more than one. My past two never wanted to share the litter box, and who wants to be over 40, unmarried, and thought of as the cat lady? Having one cat instead of one dog does have one great advantage - you don't have to rush home after work to walk it.

(Anyway, I got a little off track here. My bad. Told ya this post would be somewhat random.)

So I got into writing fiction three years ago, and lots of it. Posted one on-going story on the Internet and got 500 hits each time I added a new chapter.

Problem was, racism reared it's ugly head. My characters are black, and they had a lot to say. The cyberhate was mind-blowing. I still can't even talk about it, it was so bad.

But what was also upsetting was the poverty of black support. I know they were reading the shit because I'd see their user names in the 'room' where the story was posted, but proportionally, they were stingy as hell with the comments.

I mean, what's up with that?

I learned there really is truth that black male writers (and bloggers) get more attention from readers than black women.

Some bro can write some half-assed shit in one paragraph and get ten comments - or worse, write stuff that is sooo fuggin' wrong that if a woman wrote that shit, half of her readers would bail.

We got sistas out here in Blogland who routinely write quality stuff, but get far less attention. And it's not that I resent the kudos good male bloggers get, it's that I resent that women too often are not treated equally, even by other women.

I often think we're all starved for black men, even black men.

We hunger for their voices, opinions, and guidance, so much so that a woman can say the exact same thing but it not have the same impact.

It's not just a black problem either, it's a human problem. This is why male preachers will always dominate houses of worship, no matter what religion. Same goes for the political arenas. It's like everyone wants a daddy-figure to tell them what they need to know.

I can't complain too much, though, my male readers have been very good to me, and I have as many of them as the ladies. I attribute this to trying to be fair and looking at both sides of an issue, and being nurturing to them as well.

All of you together, the brothas and sistas, and my white readers too, have given me a sorely needed gift: confidence.

The few comments on my short story, which was only up for 48 hours, were so nurturing.

Last night, my son had four friends over, all between 20 and 23. I read it to them and they were mesmerized. Their excitement, like that of my readers here, was genuine. I got from you and from them what I could never get from own friends and family, with the exception of my beloved son, Xavier, who has always been one of my biggest fans.

Collectively over the past 18 months of my blogging, you have healed my soul.

My next step is to submit that story and some others, with the hope they'll get published in a book. This is why I switched it to 'private view - invite only' on my other Keep It Trill companion blog.

I don't know if I will succeed, but after blogging for confidence and succeeding in that, I'm ready to try - again, and this time, eff the haters.

Tonight I want to thank all of you. Here's a toast to you. Cheers.

~Kit


P.S. - Please excuse the excessive bold highlighting and earlier typos. This unusual post was so long and filled with randomness, that I figured highlighting the different shifts in thought would be helpful.

The Transforming Power of Life's Russian Roulette:You, Me, Chris Brown and Rihanna

Life can do unexpected beat downs on your azz. So can people you care about, live, work or go to school with, and that works both ways.

Getting - or giving - a beat down is sort of like Russian Roulette. You wake up and everything is normal. By nightfall something has happened to change all that.

The Swine Flu Vaccine Bake Sale

I'll jump right into my paranoia.
I think the unprecedented marketing of a new vaccine - the Swine Flu vaccine - and the partnership between Uncle Sam and Big Pharma is their version of having a bake sale.

Why? We're broke and about to get broker, and Uncle Sam needs to earn money to keep funding wars for oil.

Sounds far-fetched, but these devious mofos had all their ducks lined up in a row. Not only did they pass a law so you can't sue the pharmaceutical companies, but they were so desperate to peddle this experimental vaccine that they passed The Pandemic Preparedness Act (S.2028) on September 4, 2009.

This has been a remarkable ad campaign, with the mainstream media covering too many pros and too few cons about the vaccine.

In the interest of providing alternative views about this public health issue, this post has oodles of links to news, research and opinions you may not have read about.

Spreading Your Genes In The Right Places

I was over at Very Smart Brothers tonight, and the topic title is "1984 and More: How Important Is It To Spread The Right Seeds?"

The question was: "Do you think that “people like us” [literate blacks, compared to the uneducated] are obligated to start having more children, or is this too eerily similar to the “selective engineering” that Hitler was in favor of?"

To put this in better context, one thought was that we aren't pulling our weight while the underclass is outdoing us in the baby-making department.

One comment brought back memories:
"You all saw the first 10 minutes of “Idiocracy”, right?"

That person had a point. My Dad used to talk about this, decades before the movie or my birth. I thought he was terrible for thinking like this, but he explained it this way:

"Before welfare or desegregation, everyone (all blacks) were clustered in one area in any given town or city... the smart with the dumb, and the good with the bad apples. Kept things and the population more balanced."

As I see it, five major cultural changes tipped that balance:

What Might Cambodia & America Have In Common?

History is useful, but one downside is that is that it passes down the legacy of tribalism, aka prejudice, to the young. I was reminded of this today after reading an email from a relative about his travels in Southeast Asia.

One summer 30 years ago, I dated a Cambodian guy while taking classes at a local community college. We took algebra together, and he loved to help me in the Math Library. It was there he first asked me out. His name was DaVu. He was taller than your average Asian, darker of skin, very handsome, and don't laugh, but he was a helluva good disco dancer.

DaVu lived in a small apartment with his parents and at least one brother. He said his mother cried all the time. His family had owned a manufacturing business of some sort, and fled the country barely before all hell broke loose. He described the Khmer Rouge as being ignorant thugs who were so jealous of the middle class that they would kill anyone who wore eye glasses, which to them was a sign of being able to read. That gave me chills since started wearing glasses in 4th grade. I'd have been murdered!

I had the impression then that this was a class war taken to an extreme, but now that I'm older, I also understand that hate begets hate: it is generally the most literate of any society who uses propaganda disguised as information as a tool of greed and contempt, to take advantage of the uneducated and poor.