Where did the ability to self abuse originate?
If I take a critical look at the people in my barrios that perpetrated on the homes, bodies, and minds of their neighbors, their motive seems to be some disillusioned type of prosperity. In most cases the prosperity was a way to afford addictions. In my narrow understanding of why someone would break into a home and rob, it sadly would be to convert the goods into drugs. It was the drug dealer who chased some perverted vision of prosperity. The drug dealer from my narrow understanding of dealing, could sell poison to a neighbor because they desired a better class of living. Granted these explanations are the simplest and narrowest of conclusions they don’t deviate too far from the thorough versions. I thought self abuse was a cultural trait. Then I learned more about the opioid crisis.
er” he’d argue that he wasn’t poisoning anyone, rather he wasn’t the irresponsible one. Providing poison shouldn’t implicate someone in the actions of the consumer. What the consumer does with the prescribed compound is their responsibility. A pharmacist and “Diego the dealer”, some brown sociopathic person capable of consciously delivering poison to a person, is not very different from Richard Sackler. The scale to which each of these men are unfortunately working to increase profits are not comparable. The corporate dealer of chemicals is on a scale far greater than “Diego the dealer”. The end goal of both is, maybe power, status, visibility, prestige, vanity, or prosperity. The goal reflects a human trait, greed. Brown people aren’t the deviants anymore than other peoples. Brown consequences sadly are more harsh though. When I look at my barrios and grieve the way we can treat each other, I can no longer say this is a brown thing. This self destruction is a human thing.
Now for the major difference. Where these 2 men are not the same is in the eyes of My America. “Diego the dealer” is a different and apparently more deviant type of poisoner. When “Diego the dealer” is discovered to be poisoning people he is imprisoned. Unlike Richard Sackler, a man who camouflaged himself in a pharmacists smock was able to poison globally. I don’t know what type of trait creates this disparity in perspective. My lazy self resorts to bigotry, racism, and oppression. Republican’s likely have some acrobatic philosophy to rationalize how this disparity could be sensible. Democrats might use a different type of evasion to distance their culpability by suggesting they were only functioning in the rules and laws that are mandated. I think it is far more important for me to emphasize how “Diego the dealer” saddens me. I think the only way to describe this is disappointment.
10 years ago I might have gotten stuck on the injustice for how the Sachler family didn’t have to unravel their family, throw away their freedom, nor pay any substantial consequence for their savagery. Today I try and recognize how I am being “Diego the dealer”. Who am I poisoning? What is my desire motivating me to abuse my neighbors? I can’t simply vent about Richard, I have to find the pain I am running from. I have to find the pain that feeds my desire in a way that might be growing my potential to be greedy.