Several Confessions of a serial individualist!

"Remember, when you're with me, it's the only time you're not the strangest person in the room. So go ahead, get weird with me."
                                                                                                         Ally McBeal

It probably sounds better coming from Ally McBeal than it does coming from me.

I don't do stereotypes. I do my best to reject generalizations. BUT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS PRONE TO BROAD SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS!

Hereby I shall confess to my own flaws and thus you may understand why getting weird with me does not involve the necessary loss of clothing or dignity that our language implies.

1. I am actively not a racist but I am racist. what I mean is that I try to not be racist towards people (including those damnable whiteys). The downfall of any reasonable human being is in generalities which are inescapable with our current level of English. One would have to revamp the entire nature of plural usage to completely avoid it. When discussing any group of people no matter how small or insignificant we all inevitably face the certainty of having to use them. Racism spawns from the idea of them. I am a racist because I grew up in a predominantly white South African and White American South Dixieland Cultures. Both cultures have Black Racism down to it roots on a variety of levels- some of it is very negative, some would be described as harmless. Regardless (and believe me I could write this entire blog on it) Racism factors into who I am. I reject it but do not deny it. I have to constantly ask myself why something offends me, why does this person upset me and so on. I do not engage in hatred of any general group or classification of people but it was bred into me by the environment and people that surrounded me. I do not blame them since I recognize that Xenophobia s exist in almost every culture and place on this planet anyway.
2. I am not a sexist... unless I am trying to get a rise out of someone else. I do not actually believe  that a man is a better driver, cook, house cleaner, bigger slob, lazy in bed than a woman. Adversely, I do not actually believe for a second that a woman is a better parent, cook, house cleaner, maid, scientist or lover. Sexism is sneakier that other failures and generalities since it is ingrained in everyone's psyche from birth by everything around us. There is no escaping it and it is even more prevalent in non-western societies. Is it wrong. In a word? Yes. But (and there is always a but) it doesn't have to be. What I mean by that is that a man or a woman can be anything and while some may see it as sexist, that person doesn't have to think of it in that way. If that person is complacent in allowing the labeling or defining of what they are doing or choose to be doing then they are not doing themselves any favors and are thus contributing to  problems of Sexism. I am a sexist when I want to be (yeah I know that is sounds paradoxical) because I wish to point out that someone is expecting me to reinforce the idea or suggest that the idea is somehow okay. No I don't want a little woman who greets me at the door my my slippers and newspaper, who has the house clean and supper cooked. If she chooses to do those things then it is here choice not mine. What I would want is someone who would know that I want her to choose.
3. I am not prejudice but then again I am fallible. What I mean and have meant is that despite my upbringing and the cultures that I have lived in. That despite what people expect of me. Despite of religions, churches, doctrines and credos I choose who and what I am. It is my responsibility to myself to not be prejudice. Let me say that as you get older, not being prejudiced gets harder. The very nature of prejudice spawns from experience. The longer you have lived, the more that you have seen tends to make you expect certain behaviors from certain classifications of people which ironically you have classified. Everyone is prejudiced in some way, it is unavoidable as a human being and most likely by any living creature. It is tied into your ability to survive. You prejudge situations and environments and the same through your experience or relying on another's experience. The major difference (to me) is that you separate prejudgement from prejudice by saying this to yourself (over and over again as the need arises) People are people unless they choose to be someone else or something else- wait and see. You can be prepared but shooting first may insure your survival but I doubt very seriously that it will be good fro your soul or anyone EVER inviting you over for dinner again.

         Why does any of the above make me weird? Not sure, but I believe it is because I think about it a lot.

I define and redefine who and what I am every day. So tomorrow, I might just do some more confessing (yes I recognize the incongruity of saying I am a serial individualist).

Until tomorrow, my friends (and yes that can include everyone )