What is your current battle?
Racism. I was raised by bigoted white supremacists. The Hard R was what I was referred to regularly by my parents when in trouble. Bad grade, messy room, or maybe getting home late incurred physical violence with racially hateful verbal abuse. I thought that that was normal. I thought that every other family just hid it like my parents did when we were around non-family. When I went to uni I learned partially of how ignorant and broken my world view I was (and am). At uni I took sociology and anthropology course to try and understand how racism damages communities and about how nation/states use racism for reenforcing power structures. I had to re-learn US Civil War history ... being taught in high school that the war was really about States Rights (which is bullshit and I continue to re-learn thank you Mr. Coates). What I didn't do was check myself, though. I forget to point with my thumbs when engaging in accusations of racism. So now in my middle age I have discovered that I am a racist. It was unconsciously done for my first 30+ years. That what I tried to leave behind intellectually feels branded into my fucking head. And I do not like it. I am working on disengaging with that part of my ignorance. But when I hear the hard R ... I flinch. When I here the non-hard R ... I still flinch. I am at a point of understanding that my ignorance about the African American experience extends to my ignorance of humanity. I have anxiety every time that I have to interact with an African American. I don't worry that they are going to do something to me ... but rather that some undiscovered corner of my ignorance will be exposed to them. That whomever I was just dealing with now feels let down once again by humanity. By humanity subset psulli -- me. Worse still ... it would happen, and I wouldn't learn from it. So now I sit here besieged by a collection of people trying to convince me that racism is dead. That my new perceptions are white guilt or some manifestation of it. All of that is juxtaposed on the backs of Michael Brown, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, and the countless unreported assaults and murders of African Americans by my nation. It leaves me screaming and crying. Literally crying, cursing alone out loud in the garage. My partner is struggling to be with me because of my emotional inability to parse what I am being show in Ferguson, MO, right now. So that is what is in front of me emotionally right now.
It's because it doesn't directly, explicitly affect them. I've linked part of the to protect and infect talk, and one of my facebook "friends" (Ive wanted to quit facebook for a while, but idk of a messenger my friends would bother using) said, and I'm quoting here: "Yeah, I skipped to the last two minutes. I suppose it's probably ignorant to jusy say I dont care, but.. Lol". I used to share police brutality stories with family, but my mother put a stop to that ("why are so cynical"), or she just doesn't read the stories i send her (articles about the LIBOR scandal, or why bank of america--which she uses--is horrid). I tried sending her an article about the latest NSA leaks that were relevant to her, but after a brief description she declined and said it was "too depressing." The only way any of this shit will change will be when it becomes a direct/explicit inconvenience.I feel ya on this one. Being a teenager that actually cares about sociopolitical issues is tremendously frustrating. There's some seriously messed up stuff going on in the world, and none of my peers seem to give a damn.
I have mostly everything I need right now in my life. I have shelter. I have food. I have people who love and care for me. I do not look at my life and see what else I need, because my needs are being met. My battle is now to help others - to ensure that they have an ally in their struggles.
http://therothrocks.bandcamp.com/track/all-my-money Well these are demos recorded in April. There are a few more songs being mixed at the moment as well.
Nice! Provided you guys have a good stage presence, I think that playing gigs will yield you quite a bit of fans. And with that much energy in the demo, it sounds like your stage presence is excellent. Best of luck, amigo.
Some stability in my romantic relationship. Recently I've been dating a girl I dated for a long time a while ago. Things are going great so far, but I can't shake the feeling that it could fall apart pretty quickly based on any number of things.