Black, White – Penis, Vagina

The deal with Rachel Dolezal has nothing to do with Caitlyn Jenner, or transsexuals in general. Or transracials, if that’s even a thing. I kind of think it is, although mostly it’s to do with culture rather than skin color – but then again, so is most racism these days. But more on that in a minute. For now, let me just try to convince you to stop comparing the two like they’re at all alike, or thinking you’re making a clever joke as if thousands of other people haven’t already beaten you to it on Twitter.

The main thing that separates Jenner from Dolezal has to do with the lack of willful deception on Jenner’s part. He didn’t pretend to be a woman for years, getting paid to talk about the struggles of being a woman in a man’s world, or sell the hardships of his life to local women’s groups. Dolezal, on the other hand, did exactly that.

She rode her white privilege upbringing until she hopped on board the minority train, taking advantage of everyone around her by deceiving them all into believing she grew up knowing the struggles of a poor black woman. She didn’t.

She made them up.

She lied.

Caitlyn Jenner did none of these things. Maybe he lied to himself as Bruce, maybe he lied to his wife – but if suppressing one’s desires for the benefit of your marriage is deception, then everyone celebrating more than a day or so of marital bliss is guilty of being filthy, lying scum. At any rate, he stopped that. His marriage ended, and he let go of whatever was holding him back from doing what he’d always wanted to do. I honestly don’t know the details or the timeline, and I really don’t care. I just know that Bruce Jenner didn’t lie to anyone to become Caitlyn. He didn’t cheat anyone or exploit a system set up to help others by engineering it to help only himself. He just did his thing. Which is now her thing. Because that’s how it works.

But Rachel Dolezal didn’t transition into being black. She never became black. She never said, “Hey, I was born a privileged white girl, but I identify more with black culture, so that’s what I’m going to be from now on.” And she totally could have said that. It would have been fine. People do it all the time.

On both sides.

For every Eminem, there’s a Ben Carson.

Because race in America isn’t actually about skin color anymore. That’s still there, sure – but only as an easy identifier of The Other. But as long as a black dude acts “white” enough, even racist white folk will embrace him. Same with white people who are more comfortable in black culture. Or millions of American kids in suburbs across the nation who have more love for Japanese pop culture than they do for anything from here at home.

Certainly, hardline racists still exist – but there are less and less of them every day. They’re dying off, as old and rotten bigots tend to do. In their place are the new, gentler forms of racism. The kind that doesn’t think black people are inherently Less Than just because they’re black, but because they haven’t been raised right. Unless they have, of course. Raised to assimilate into white culture. To be little Ben Carsons. Well spoken. Articulate. One of the good ones, as they say.

Which is all bullshit, of course. But it’s the reality.

It has its limits, though. Because there’s still a lot of white people who find black people icky in some way, and while they can tolerate a few of them swimming in their neighborhood pools, they can’t stomach the idea of a whole bunch of them frolicking poolside and swimming in the same water as the white folk. So they call the police and then McKinney, Texas happens.

But getting back to Rachel Dolezal, I really do think she just self-identifies more as black than she does as white, for probably a million reasons that are none of my business. The problem isn’t that she’s a white girl who would rather be black. It never was.

The problem is that she’s a white girl who pretended she had always been black, and who then took advantage of her invented blackness to game and exploit a system set up to help advance the very real struggle of actual black people who actually grew up black in a white man’s world.

The problem isn’t her race.

The problem is her lie.

So just to sum up, there is absolutely nothing resembling any kind of correlation between Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Except for the that idea that people can be born one way, and then grow up to become something else.

People do it all the time, and we commend them for it. A poor black kid makes it in the system and becomes a famous neurosurgeon, transforming his cultural identify from an underprivileged perspective to one of privilege and power, and we applaud him for it.

But when a white woman tries to do that in reverse, people snub their noses and cluck their tongues.

The harsh reality that a lot of people are going to need to accept is that we’re moving toward an increasingly transhumanist society. Technology will emerge in the near future that will begin with genetic manipulation, then move into cybernetics and nanotechnology until humans aren’t exactly human anymore.

Wearable tech will give way to implantable tech. Implantable tech will move into cybernetic limbs and organs. Genetics will wrap around all of it and keep it warm, like a comfy blanket.

But it will happen.

My nine-year-old son has a very real chance of living to see the face of humanity changed. Black people becoming white people. Girls becoming boys, with all of the organs and Y chromosomes that come with it. Augments. Cyborgs. Crazy science fiction right now, to be sure. But it’s coming.

So one day in the distant future, when your great granddaughter brings home a half man / half machine cybernetic hermaphrodite with glowing red eyes and tight dreadlocks, maybe you’ll look back on the day when you thought a man wanting to be a woman was scary. Or that a white person might want to be black.

And that’s probably the real issue here, when you stop to think about it. Apart from people capitalizing on the natural WTF reaction a lot of people have at the knee jerk, what has really cooked people’s noodles is the idea that a pretty little white girl would want to grow up to be a black woman.

Which is, I agree, a pretty fucked up thing.

The question, I mean.

And the people asking it.

Stop being that person.

Look to the cookie!

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
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Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

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Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
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This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.