Many Blood-Sucking Parasitic Arachnids (Politics)
Just like any good child of my generation, I developed a slight addiction to the television. Not quite as bad as children of the upcoming ages whose parents nonchalantly refer to Sponge Bob as “the babysitter”. But still, I feel a slightly overpowering connection between the remote and myself on occasion, as though maybe in some passed life we were both otters of the same clan, splashing each other with water and giggling our creepy otter laughs.
Often times I find myself mindlessly clicking, which is when I realize the effects of my youth the most. It’s a total waste of time I am aware since, when you’re channel surfing, the whole thing is about wasting time. Recently, I was doing just that after a hard day of wishing away a hangover from bed and before I even realized it I had watched a pretty hefty portion of the film “Hairspray”. You guessed it, the cinematic musical adaptation, complete with pansy teen idols and a cross-dressing scientologist.
As I lay there, wishing I had the energy to reach for a glass of water, I found myself criticizing the themes of the film with the few functioning brain cells I had left. It takes place during a crucial time in civil rights, where integration was becoming legal quicker than it was becoming accepted. Sure, the show does shed light on the pain and struggle, but overall creates a feeling of excitement and progress. Watching the film, by the last musical number you feel like you’ve just won something amazing like a life-long tax exemption or a beta fish that will live forever. Even I felt strangely good, lying there, making deals with God to cure my alcohol-induced suffering.
At first, my skepticism was, “Yeah, sure,” assuming that they had lightened it up too much and I was sure a time like that could not have been so joyous. Then, I really thought about it. Back then, progress for equality was drastic and obvious, no one could hide from it. A gale force wind of cultural change bitch-slapping every close-minded American in sight by visibly and permanently changing the way they live their previously comfortably racist lives. Compared with today, I guess that does sound kind of exciting.
Today, both progress and hindrance are somewhat invisible forces. They have been the ghosts under our beds who, however rarely, will come out and rearrange our sock drawer. We live in a sort of cultural purgatory where equality is (for some) “legal”, but remains an issue in those pesky, hard to reach places.
I’m speaking, of course, about places like Virginia.
Living in New York, (Alright, parts of New York) it can sometimes be easy to forget that in some places racism, sexism and homophobia exists not just in people’s private minds, but out in the open just like steel drum players and the homeless. I know that for a long time I’d lived contently under the strict belief that all places in America operated as New York did, until I was forced to recognize otherwise.
Through high school I had a friend named Antonio. Of all our friends, we had always seemed to click in a special sense, and even more than that I always looked up to him in a way. He was smart, politically outspoken, socially conscious and still a blast to be with. And sure, he was dark-skinned but what did that even mean? Maybe that was me being ignorant, but I certainly didn’t stay that way for long. Midway through high school Antonio’s family relocated to Bumble-eff, Virginia, and so rapidly after did things change.
I naturally missed him, and we kept in touch as much as we could. Antonio was, as I said wonderful, so it wasn’t long before he made a few friends, found himself a place in a new rock band and finally, met a sweet new girlfriend. To me, she looked like a southern belle from a movie: fair skin, blonde hair, and curvy with a classic looking face.
“Damn.” I had said when he sent me her picture. “Way to go, Antonio.”
But as sure as they were crazy for each other, the color of his skin made her family equally as crazy. They made this very clear over time, in the best way they could. When studying human grieving patterns you see that there are often stages people go through to cope. In this case, where someone has forbidden feelings like racism that can’t be legally expressed, I sometimes think they experience the same stages.
STAGE ONE, DENIAL:
“This is our little girl’s new friend,” Her parents would emphasize to friends and relatives.
“I’m not sure about that boy, dear.” I imagined her father with a big, white beard and a pipe.
“I just can’t understand what you see in him.” Her mother would say, pretending to make an attempt.
STAGE TWO, BARGAINING:
“Darling! I just saw John Saunders from around the corner!” Her mother would nudge her suggestively. “He was asking about you, isn’t he so charming?”
They would have dinner parties, at which I imagine there being an old fashioned drawing room. Her first real boyfriend would be invited without her knowledge. “I’ll bet you two have some catching up to do…” her sister would wink.
And more desperately her father would set her down on his lap, “How about that newfangled computer you wanted? Now about that boy…”
STAGE THREE, DEPRESSION:
“Yes,” They would sigh to friends in sequin evening gowns and tailored suits. “It looks as though they’re still together,” as their friends shook their heads and drank their wine.
And then, STAGE FOUR, ANGER:
It was with this stage that things just became obvious. She was forbidden to see him, and her sister was sent to spy on them at school. The relationship was simply not allowed, but these lovebirds kept on fighting and then finally, I received the most fascinatingly terrible phone call.
“Hey, Ant. What’s crackin’?” My enthusiasm was not matched.
Antonio was sobbing on the other end. I had only ever heard him upset about something other than politics once before, and he was drunk that time and even then, “sobbing” was not the word for it.
“They were here when I got home.” His voice was shaky as he explained to me that when he walked in the door after school his house was already filled with federal agents. They had received an anonymous tip that my smart, skinny, sweet friend had made a legitimate threat against the life of President Bush. I knew it was ridiculous, but under the Patriot Act, that tip was as good as if he had pulled the trigger already.
These nameless agents had already ransacked half of his room before he’d gotten there, and he had no choice but to watch them check the rest. His journals, books, private things that no person should be able to see.
“I’m so sorry Diana, they read the letters you wrote me.” Sure, that bothered me a little but mostly because he was still so considerate as to apologize to me when this terrible thing had just happened to him. One of his journal entries had mentioned being depressed.
“Let’s see your wrists, son.” Of course they didn’t find anything. No scars, no threats against the government, no communist propaganda or pro-terrorism newsletters or whatever insane thing they might have expected to find. So, they had left, moments before he called me for the aftermath.
I looked up to Antonio because I was never as outspoken as he was. My opinions were my opinions and I just didn’t think anyone wanted to hear them. But I became so enraged in that moment, and I just let it all spill out in a frenzy of swear words and run-on sentences.
“I can’t believe they fucking did that to you those fucking bastards you didn’t fucking do anything fucking wrong in your entire fucking life and they can just fucking pull this shit?” I went on to further impress him with my eloquence. The thing was we both knew exactly who called them and why. The only political essays he wrote were for liberal newsletters that no one even knew about, and his friends all shared most of his opinions anyway. Besides, nothing he ever wrote could have been misconstrued as threatening in any way. “That fucking bastard, Antonio, if I ever fucking see him-“ And that was the end of that. My phone service was turned off, and wireless communication to my home? Cut. Not forever, just for a few hours. Just a warning that I had better watch what I say, or who I say it too.
…STAGE…FIVE…ACCEPTANCE?:
Acceptance did eventually come, for everyone. After all, there’s not much more a parent can do to protect his or her child after attempting to have someone condemned for treason, is there? And apparently, not even the possibility of federal prison can stop true love. The two birds have more recently become married to each other; I’m sure putting a final nail in the nonsense coffin.
Since these events he and I have mostly lost touch. But that incident has stayed with me. How we still have so much to work on as a country, how as a culture we can be so despicable to each other. Antonio is now serving his time and risking his life for the country that had zero tolerance, faith or respect in him not so long ago. And that restores my faith in us, and my hope for what we all could be.
