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oh, god, it's an actual entry! @_@
I watched American History X today, and once again I was forced to realize how differently I view the world from… certain members of my family. I hate that movie as much as I love it, for what it stands for, what it says, what it portrays. It really is horrible, but the message is what’s so important. Anyway, I was watching this movie with my mother and Rick, and I cried for what should have been. For everything that was so close to being. There shouldn’t have been any death. Maybe that’s just a personal feeling, I really don’t know. So, yeah.
I’m really, really white. I’m so white what when black customers come up to me in the gas station I work at, and they’re all ‘hey, baby, sis’er, you aiight?’ I have no clue what they just said. I’mI the type that goes ‘excuse me?’ with a blank look of incomprehension. Instead of ‘aiight’, say ‘all right’ (although, apparently with my southern accent, it’s more like ‘awl ryeht’) Regardless of whether I can understand people or not, I pay absolutely no mind to other races. They’re people, with their own cultures and ways of living, and that’s it. I suppose that’s why I’m stunned every time I hear someone use a derogatory word towards anyone. People aren’t ‘Japs’, or ‘tight’, or ‘nigger’, or ‘fudge packer’, or anything to me. But American History X threw it into my face again (I’ve seen it twice) that just because I think like that doesn’t mean everyone else does. I saw the final death at the end, and I thought about the path that led everything to that moment, that conclusion, and mourned for cycles that never stopped, the pain that never ceased and the anger that so many people have.
Rick said the boy would have been shot because it’s L.A., not because he was a skinhead. He all but bragged that ‘his’ generation helped to create a cease-fire from coast-to-coast between rival gangs. He said that the skinhead boy had a right to stand up for what he believed in, because it’s America, and it’s a free country.
I said that there could be other ways besides violence and disrespect.
He said I should be glad that he didn’t solve things with guns, but would settle things with his fists instead, because then no one would die.
I refrained from telling him how easy it is to beat someone to death with your bare hands. And I didn’t point out how often he threatens people with his aluminum bat. But he only threatens people who sell drugs and sell out each other, and he conveniently forgets that he makes drugs, and that he breaks promises as easily as a person can tear a piece of paper. So what actually makes a bad person? Or am I too strict in my own code of honor to understand?
He told me that he knew what I saw in the movie, that all people, black and white, were equal, and they should be treated equally. I couldn’t help but think that he missed the point of what I saw completely.
I saw the movie as a path. That, even though you might find a type of redemption, there’s always a price to pay, and sometimes redemption comes too late. I mourned the boy who died, and the boy who felt such anger that he thought the only way to get rid of it was by killing someone. All Rick could say was that the black people deserved what happened. All I can say is that no one deserves to suffer unless they’ve proven beyond all doubt that they refuse to change-refuse to do anything else. Maybe it’s just me again-the foolish, hopeful girl who gives second chances, and tenth chances and fiftieth chances instead of letting people stand by themselves. But I’ll admit that some things do get me irritated, like the Affirmative Action programs. I don’t have anything against people trying as hard as they can, but it isn’t fair to the people, and it isn’t fair to society when someone who is better qualified to handle a particular job, or a particular spot at a university gets denied because they are white, and the school/workplace hasn’t filled it’s quota of black/eastern/Indian people. But I’m not going to go out and attack a minority just because I don’t like something that my government is doing.
Rick all but told me he was better than everyone else by virtue of the things he’s gone through. Oh, he’s so jaded that he can go to the worst parts of Little Rock and laugh because L.A. was just so much worse. Let’s cry for his generation that single-handedly managed a gang cease-fire until someone in my generation fucked it up by killing a gang member. Let’s coddle the poor little boy whose best friend (although he’s had at least three best friends, all from the same time period) was shot to death in front of him.
I would offer him my sympathy, if I only knew he spoke the truth.
I’ve learned that people are hypocrites, really. I mean, everyone’s hypocritical to some extent, but others just take the cake. Take for example, Rick, my mother’s boyfriend. (Yes, he is my template for all the vices of humanity.) He has the biggest problem with homosexuality. I mean huge. He threatened to beat me if he found out I was gay, and of course, I assured him that I was perfectly straight. (I might be bicurious, but I’m not stupid.) He went on and on about how more people were gay in my generation, and how it was wrong and disgusting and unethical.
One thing I’ve always been to him is a confessional. If he doesn’t tell anyone else the truth, I know he’ll come to me and I’ll have to hear the whole story whether I want to or not. So imagine my surprise, after he and my mother spend a whole day fighting, and he’s driving me home (there’s no place like home), when he tells me that he’s bisexual. (Oh, but he’s never a bottom, always a top.) I don’t even know why he tells me all this-does he think I’m a priest who can penance away his sins?
But it makes me think about my own fascination with slash, and the whys and wherefores of why I like it. It isn’t just because it’s two boys together (I can’t really stand very much Neville/Draco, or Harry/Ron, for instance) I find myself noticing that I don’t care what the sex of the couple is. What attracts me is the passion, the chemistry, and the bonds behind the couple. Harry and Draco have so much enemy!chemistry together, just like Smallville Lex&Clark do. But my OTP on Stargate:SG1 is het (I love Carter/O’Neal), and my B5 pairing is het (Sheridan/Delenn all the way). A lot of people I know in rl seem to think I follow the H/D pairing because it’s hot boysex (which I will admit fascinates me) and that I’m really just oppressing my own warped mind and imagination. That liking slash means I’m mentally ill, when that’s really not it at all. I enjoy slash because it’s different than what I can find mainstream. ‘Slash’ in itself is different from stories about gay people, I’ve found. Slash seems to be an oftentimes more subtle usage of romance, longing, and need than regular romance is. The fact that it’s built on subtext makes it all the more potent. The slash, in most cases, will never happen in canon, and when it does, it loses something, in my mind. Maybe the whole ‘imagination’ aspect of what the relationship would be like. And taken just on canon subtext, and thinking the characters who are so obviously (in a subtexty way) in love with each other do nothing about it, that’s really painful, and I think it touches a lot on the vibe of unrequited love that’s so popular in literature.
It makes me wonder about my own writing, really. My father often tells me that he doesn’t mind fan fiction being written, as long as the writer stays true to the characters. So I see the challenge in writing slash as trying to make it as realistic to the character as I possibly can, although I don’t often reach the mark. The romance between the characters is already there for me; I just need to find a way to draw it out. It never shows up on paper like I see it in my mind, which is why I don’t understand why people like my stories. They are unfinished, unpolished, not perfect. And as a writer with a very low self-esteem, my disappointment in a story often rings a death knell for the piece I’m unsatisfied with (and if people didn’t bug me, not a single one of my pieces would ever see the light of day). I’m often at a loss with words, because I can’t do anything original. Everything in the HP fandom has been done. Exhausted. And although I write, I don’t feel like I’m contributing anything, and that in itself is almost enough to make me drop my pen and forget about writing completely. After all, I could simply find a couple of authors I like, and read about my pairings adventures vicariously. But my passion for the words, just like my passion for the characters, remains, although at times it’s more like an ember than a flame. There’s a satisfaction for creation that I think every writer enjoys. Sometimes, fantasy is more real than reality. And then again, sometimes I wish fantasy was reality, and maybe that's why I write. But I never know for sure, because it's comprised of both the wish to create, and the want for adventure. But then, I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about, so I'll sign off now.
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I don't understand how Rick can hate gays/homosexuals as much as he does and he's bisexual. That doesn't make any sense at all.
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And I would like to eat this Rick fellow, because I have dealt with similar-sounding characters and... argh. I wish you didn't have to deal with that type of person.
*hug*
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And don't want to eat Rick. He'll give you indigestion. ^^
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I can’t really stand very much Neville/Draco, or Harry/Ron
I dislike H/R very much, but I really dig D/N, and most people don't. Have you given it a try and disliked it, or is it simply the concept you dislike? Because I might suggest that you read the D/N stuff by
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