All posts in prose

As a person who preordered the first iPad mini solely for reading, I used to get mad that most Americans don’t actively or even care to read. That’s changed now.

When studies showed that almost half of Americans can’t read well enough to understand their own health information to save on health care costs and that the national reading grade level is dropping every year I stopped getting mad, because I realized that it’s not that most Americans don’t read, it’s that they can’t read, period. But Americans who can’t read are nothing new.

In the past, in the age of slavery, African-American slaves couldn’t read, it was a crime to know how to. Laws and crimes solely made to keep people down like that are nothing new. But some slaves taught themselves how to read, laws be damned, proudly and secretly announcing to their fellow slaves that they’d finally “stolen back their own bodies.” By simply knowing how to read and exercising their ability to they weren’t slaves to the system anymore.

Today, in the age of terms of agreements, master companies and politicians have corrected themselves. They no longer bar people from reading because that instills in them the worst sort of defiance, an educational defiance. No, today’s masters have corrected themselves, the best way to make someone a willing slave isn’t to make reading a crime but to instil in them the idea that they’re totally able-bodied and absolutely free to do anything they want while they still don’t know how to really read the papers they’re signing. What’s a little reading when you’re free to do anything else with your time, right?

Imagine all the rights you can make the average American sign away in the fine print when half of the population can’t literally read to save their own lives, is proud of it, and the number’s only going up. Imagine what the country with the highest literacy rate in the world, Russia, can do to the average American’s body without them ever noticing.

Whoever thought to use freedom itself as the chains that bind in the land of the free was a mastermind, if not just simply master-minded. Because what’s a little thing like knowing how to read the terms of agreements you’re signing and your own healthcare information when you’re absolutely free to do anything else with your time? Right?

Really tired of people saying that they only say the things they do because they want to get an honest reaction out of people, and only that. No, you’re just assholes dying for some attention. Shut up, please.

I’ve pretty much made a science of doing things just to see how people honestly react. Years back, I proudly told people I’d read and enjoyed books they demeaned like “Twilight” just to see how much they’d laugh at me. In the past couple of years I’ve realized that my dating habits are eccentric enough to warrant laughs of derision from a lot of people, and so now I openly speak about them as one of my main ways of testing people. I’ve had boyfriends track me down and try to fight me because of their girlfriends when I was hanging out with a couple of friends who’re gay just for me to turn around and lie through my teeth, “Oh, didn’t you know I’m gay too?” just to see the expected looks of disgust on their faces as they turn away and me and my friends laugh. I have countless shirts with images on them that test the beliefs of whoever’s reading them, like my favourite one with a man diving into a coffin arms wide open crucifix-style, just to see the expected looks of non-acceptance. I’ve been in situations where an entitled person says nigga or nigger over and over again with a crowd of onlookers just for me to continue talking to them casually while the crowd and they think me a coward of some sort. I’ve been in fights where I’ve suddenly stopped fighting halfway through just because I realized not fighting was both the more mature thing and also the more cowardly thing to do in others’ eyes. And my entire online presence has pretty much always been me just personally testing out how people or site algorithms react to something new I’m doing, and most times that’s negatively.

As I said, I’ve made a leisurely science of this. Stop making a joke of what I’ve worked hard to perfect in my spare time since I was a teenager. Are you keeping documented track of how people are reacting to you? No, you’re just assholes dying for some attention. Shut up, please.

If you truly want to test or get a reaction out of people to see who they truly are masks-off always make sure they feel superior to you and that you’re not demeaning anyone in their eyes but yourself. It’s not that hard really, you have so much detestation to choose from! The number of things and groups of peoples that the common person looks down upon just because are surprisingly infinite. The sheer volume of it all would be amazing if it wasn’t so saddening, but at least it’s honest.

#TheHateUGet
#SpeaksLouderThan
#TheHateUGive
#JustShutUpAndListen

So much of the entertainment industry is reminiscent of us boys fighting during recess when we were kids, isn’t it? Rap beefs, top of the charts beefs, mixed martial arts beefs, yada yada beefs, all played out so somebody can be “The Man” of the hour for at least an hour.

But Mr. Miyagi was always right. In a fight, so much of “Being a Man” is childish. And yet, in a fight, so much of being mature looks cowardice. Maturity then, growing up into a real man, is about learning to live with the boys and girls who goad you all of your life with “Be a Man” forever thinking you’re a coward. For even when they know karate, real men learn how to not fight, how not to beef. But I guess you can’t ever make money off of that. Yeah, you can’t make money off of that. From that capitalistic point of view it starts to make sense, entertainment I mean.

The entertainment industry starts making a lot more sense when you realize just how many people have a vested interest in raising professional children. When you realize just how much money there is to be made off of the entertainment that is two boys fighting during recess. Too bad our child labour laws can’t protect our celebrities from the people who’ll stunt their inner growth eternally to fill their bank accounts. Too bad we live in a world where the children too mature to fight childishly for a fraction of what others are making off of them get skipped over and go back to class (and bed) hungry.

Such a world we live in. All these Peter Pans on our screens happily crying, “Look! Look at all this money I’m making fighting instead of growing up. Look at how much they’re paying me to stay young, foolish, and entertaining. Look at how much you’re paying me! Such a wonderful trade. Such a wonderful trade. I finally have enough to eat.”

Do you think the boys who wouldn’t grow up ended up being happy? Or sad? I don’t know, but there’s this children’s fairytale in the anime ‘Monster’ that finally makes sense now. Now, how’d it go again? Oh, yes:

“Let’s trade. Let’s make a trade!” said the monster.

“That’s fine. Let’s trade!” said the person with the big mouth. Continue Reading →

“This revolution, this war, is different,” said a revolutionary. And then another. And then another.

Am I a revolutionary? Am I different? Yes. No. No… I don’t know. But being someone who’s well-read seems to be a symptom of being different. At least, of being different enough. And no, I’m not talking about the act of reading well, but the process by which someone becomes someone who’s well-read.

Looking back, I fell down the well and in love with reading when I was a kid in Texas after I picked up “The Yearling” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, “Redwall” by Brian Jacques, and “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. By the time I was half-way through high school in Toronto I started getting really bored with English literature, with the mindset behind it all. Luckily I stumbled upon this black-and-white Spanish graphic novel in a Toronto public library as I put down “Hellblazer” by Peter Milligan and “100 Bullets” by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. Captured by the very realistic and very graphic images it depicted of life in South American slums I spent a lot of time personally translating it. I didn’t play with a ball growing up so I had the time to waste. And man, did I waste it. I read that book so many times, like I loved it or something, because I guess I did, and then I ripped my favourite pages from it before returning it; I guess I knew I’d never see it again.

Even though I can’t remember its title anymore for the life of me, it’s still to this day one of my favourite graphic novels because it made me realize four things; one Continue Reading →

Thanks to Amanda Tendler, I’ve learnt this week that instead of telling people that I’m happily somewhere on the spectrum, or that I just have SPD, I can now officially call myself an Aspie. I’m part of the club! Even though I’m very social and I don’t actually exhibit any negative traits like having a meltdown despite the fact that they’re still present.

I can’t speak for anyone else but myself or on what having Asperger’s is like (how do you properly speak on what a state of being is like when you’re perpetually in it?) so I’ll just write ten points on what now looking back are all the signs of me being an Aspie.

1. Growing up I used to cry very easily.

I cried whenever I was overwhelmed by people not understanding something I thought was simple to understand, whenever I was ganged up on and asked, “What’s wrong?” repeatedly when I was just going about my day normally, and whenever I sincerely put myself in someone else’s shoes emotionally when they’re in pain.

I think I learnt how to subconsciously control this sign of me having a meltdown because I grew up in poor gang-filled environments where signs of weakness were hazardous to my health. Now Continue Reading →

Hahaha, the narcissism of this post. Personally, it’s much easier to write this as someone whose level of attraction varies greatly depending on the exact group of people they’re with. Let me explain.

I’m black (African/Rwandan/Canadian), short for a guy (5′6″), and I’m a lot more pretty than I am handsome. Life has dealt me a weird set of cards appearance-wise. If someone doesn’t like or doesn’t see themselves in a relationship with a black guy then I’m not attractive to them, if they don’t like or see themselves in a relationship with a short guy then I’m not attractive to them, and if they like their guys testosterone-filled then, again, I’m not attractive to them. Outside of that, I guess I’m attractive by society’s standards.

Going on and on essay-form about myself gives me a grotesque I-need-to-shower-now feeling so I’ll just list everything (long-winded though I be).

1. I have very attractive guy friends.

Friends who I deem more attractive than me, and who Continue Reading →

If you’re reading this then chances are that you know someone who’s bought a self-help book, or someone who’s bought a business book written by someone who’s made it, or a book written by a spiritual leader of some sort, or any of the kind disguised as a biography. Chances are you know someone who goes to a house of worship with a book in their hand, and someone who’s recently liked a post, song, or video talking about just what’s wrong with the… something, anything.

If you’re reading this then chances are you’re human. Ayeee, congrats! And welcome to us, we love preaching! The only thing here we love from one another as much as good sex is great sermonizing.

For–if you’re not clear on things–a big part of being human is listening to preachers we like not to practice what they preach, but simply because we love that good preaching. Simply that, there really isn’t anything deeper than all that. It’s like with sex, why do we love sex? Because it makes us feel good! The end.

And hey, again, congrats!

#WelcomeToTheHumanRaceAndCondition #HopeYoureEnjoyingYourRide

Paradoxically, a lot of what makes someone talented gets in the way of real hard work.

By that I mean that most times the opposite of talent looks like hard work. And most times the more talent you have the harder it is for you to get any real work done. For the path between talent and hard work is that much longer the more talented you are and running from one end of the scale to the other is that much more time consuming, that much more difficult.

Basically, talent and hard work aren’t friends, and if they are they live on opposite ends of the world. Making great shit happen then seems to be less about talent or hard work and more about conquering the gruelling marathon in between both, and then staying still for a while.

All marathoners are geniuses then. But not all geniuses are marathoners. And for the rest of us talentless dummies (most of us, basically all of us) with shorter tracks to run hard work is the only thing that really matters in this race against ourselves.

Yeah, hard work seems to be the only thing that really matters. For if there’s anything that’s really true it’s that the world is run by hardworking idiots. To quote Beyoncé, “Who runs the world? Who runs this mutha?! We do! Yeah!!”

Beauty makes us a promise it can’t ever deliver.

A promise of complete salvation.

If/when attained completely, it promises to save us from not just the world’s but our own negative views about ourselves.

But it’s not just beauty that does this. The notions of wisdom, goodness, strength, and abundance also make us promises of unshackling that they can’t ever deliver on. Even our dreams promise us that they’ll absolutely save us from the world and ourselves.

This is one of the things that’s always confused me about being human.

That, although the truth will set us free, at our core, we very much like our impossible promises of total salvation. That, although the truth will set us free, we very much like lying to ourselves. Need to lie to ourselves even.

Strip us of all of our beautiful beliefs that lie to us, that promise to us deliverance that will never truly be, and what are we left with? In essence, absolutely nothing. Unmitigated truth isn’t just heartbreaking, it’s life-breaking. It’s suicide by another name. For Continue Reading →

I never really got why there aren’t more straight black men fighting for feminist or LGBTQ+ issues. And vice versa, I never got why anyone part of the LGBTQ+ or feminist movements would choose not to fight against racism.

I mean, almost globally, a woman going to her job’s HR department to speak out about the sexual harassment she’s facing looks very similar to a dark-skinned man going to their local government to speak out about police harassment.

I mean, even if the person they’ll both be talking to looks exactly like them, both walk forward realizing that the overall system has a vested interested in keeping things quiet, and thus in being anything but on their side. Both are very similar in that they walk forward realizing that things won’t really change.

All this before we even start looking at the next person in line who, identifying as LGBTQ+, will have to walk down both paths while also realizing that things won’t really change.

In fact, it seems everyone in the world realizes that things won’t really change. Mothers of black boys, girls, and queer kids today are still giving them all the same haunting speeches they have been throughout the ages, “Here’s what you do so you don’t give them a reason to abuse you. Here’s how you keep quiet. Here’s how you come back home to me, safe.”

I’m tired of that speech I guess. Mothers today are still telling their kids that they should change themselves because the world won’t, and we’re still too busy acting like we aren’t all connected to pay attention. Still too busy acting like we aren’t the world.

Actually, nevermind, maybe I do get it after all. Even I was taught how to be quiet. I mean, even after all this comes to light and the dawn of a new day approaches, even I myself think that we won’t really change. Screw waking up when the bed’s so warm right? I mean, screw changing the world when I can’t even change myself right?

Why fight for you when I won’t even fight for myself? Right?