Jumping To Conclusion

Anthony Weiner has caused a major glitch in the moral fabric that America pretends to display. We are a sexually fueled generation. We are marketed to with what past generations considered pornography. The body has become a stock exchange for instant gratification. It seems as if our imagery of who we should be is manipulated by none other then our pleasure center. I cannot condemn Anthony Weiner because the erotic connection is a powerful force. What I am trying to do is hear his actions.

Embarrassingly, infidelity is something I am guilty of. Watching the spectacle that Anthony Weiner is undergoing leaves me happy to be a nobody. I am also surprised at how so many in the media have not taken a mature perspective and listened to the real story being told. What I see from Anthony Weiner might be a projection from my past being resurrected with the reminder from his circumstances, regardless there is an emotional void this man is experiencing.

He is revealing a major void in the masculine culture. Maybe for this post it is my void. The void is male validation. The void is created by not dealing with our intense desires for pleasure, being desired, and being recognized. These desires are rarely maturely discussed among my masculine clicks. I find it interesting how shameful our desire for pleasure is. It is thought to be feminine to have the feelings of needing to be desired. It is demeaning to need to be recognized.

Having recently embraced texting I see how effective texting is at establishing intimate connections. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of men are "sexting". Having had to experience being a single man again, I have felt like an oddball for not receiving nude photos. But when I look into my daughter's eyes I am thankful that I have restrained from acting on my ever functioning desires. There are times when in a group of men sharing stories of sexting I feel invalidated. I have wanted to be part of this culture, just havn't had the will to make it happen...and not entirely for all the good reasons either. I know that enough consciousness,luck, and misfortune have all stifled my interest in sexting.

It is amazing how influential perversion and nudity fills this void in the male culture. It is confusing how validated I have felt by being considered attractive and how pleasing it is to be sexual.

Anthony Weiner is a symptom to greater Masculine concern. Men open your eyes to what it truly means to be exposed.....and vulnerable.

Coward!

For most of my life I have just needed someone to blame. I think a quality of being a man is shouldering more blame than unloading it. Better said, it is taking responsibility for my contribution to the circumstances, and looking for it when it is not obvious.

I am free to be accountable to others, knowing I will fall short of most expectations, but my expectations are selfish and not as diplomatic. That is where blame comes in to play. Others can create circumstances that are unfair. Conveniently it is easier for me to recognize how unfair someone else is before I recognize how unfair I am. My responses thus far have mostly been passively violent. When things don't work to my advantage, I fall back on disappointment, forgetting to find the opportunity in the fallout. I tend to get bogged down in pity, when dignity is ripe for picking. My reactions are usually inspired from fear, and I can see how useful blame becomes. It keeps me from feeling pain or failure. Blame is pain reflected, where sweat and tears symbolize pain transcended.

There are lessons in the communities I live in. I think my family has shown me that responsibility is my gift to culture. I think society teaches me that I can buy my way out of responsibility, but I cannot buy true responsibility. The "both and" is that there is a consequence to every benefit. Finding out how and what responsibility should look like, is living. We are a creative species....when some of us take a break from blaming.

Enhancing Traditions

This inspires me to be more critical of how I approach what aspects of my cultures to enhance, sustain, or accept. I am more like my neighbor then i am like, the person I think I am. To the outsider it is easier to draw a distinction, and to the insider it is easier to say I belong. In reality, nature is laughing knowing we are both.

P.S. Happy Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa Estrada

More History!

I am part of an American culture that is leaving behind a generation that once resisted civil rights. Their generation left behind a generation that resisted human rights for non white. This is what I see as enduring freedom. Now, I am part of a generation where most citizens believe that every citizen has an equal opportunity. Equal opportunity for what? That is the question.

When you look at the modernization of the colonized nations, we see the effects of technological advancement. We can see how gradually those technologies trickle down to the lowest of socioeconomic classes. I see how the European pioneers have created economies like no other, spanning the globe and even into orbit. I also see how filtered indigenous participation in Americas progress has been. Often participation is suppressed, stifled, limited, and in my view controlled. Even in saying this I feel a subconscious voice telling me,"don't play the victim role, the poor little Mexican, the poor little brown guy". I have been condition to overlook the disadvantage and the white advantage. I have been conditioned by subtle and moderated progress. A mentality that asks me to feel overly grateful for scraps from the privilege banquet table. But then I realize how God given talent and privilege only takes a person as far as the elite will allow.

I see how important it is to look a certain way, how important it is to know certain people, and how important it is to be in the right place. I think about how many generations of white Americans have a legacy of formal education in a system designed for them, indoctrination in formal business systems convenient for them, established networks of other culturally competent people using codes convenient for them, and a pedigree of enhancing privileged life as is convenient for them. What an advantage they have.

I think about how many white Americans deny their immigrant status and confuse me into generalizing them all as privileged. This makes it easy for me to forget that the Italian, Irish, German, and Jewish cultures, only to name a few, have fought the same class struggle that I feel my culture is fighting right now. Its as if the fight for acceptance is won only to make the segregationist opponent stronger.

Well I think this featured documentary by Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a great example of how the privileged white Americans have controlled and continue to control how inclusive the lower class/minority people can be. Be mindful of the mining, media, agro, and oil industries as they benefit most from keeping a lower often indigenous class.

On the Shoulders of Giants
( a documentary by Kareem Abdul Jabbar)

Be aware that most products are global and the luxury you see in your communities is often at a great expense to another community very far from yours (Guatemala, Cambodia, Philippines, Mexico, etc..).

Vicente "El Picosito" Garcia Jr.

There is a part of the Chicano culture that is ruthless. Even the slightest social struggle creates opportunity for deviance. My family was a victim to the darker side of the Chicano culture. There is a pride in young Chicano men that is detrimental. There is an ignorance that festers in the poverty. That ignorance is harnessed and feeds a violent restlessness. As outsiders might see it, deviance is a bad choice that many of our youngsters make, but as the insiders know it, it is an inspired direction that is influenced by those who are consistently working in our lives. With Chicano pride comes Chicano disgrace. My primo was ruthlessly murdered by the noxious strata found in Albuquerque's barrios.



My cousin, Vicente "El Picosito" Garcia Jr., whom I only met once was shot and killed. Picosito embraced boxing and the people in his life gave him a fighting chance at prosperity. It was in the shadows of a prideful Chicano culture where Picosito fought his last fight, and was ruthlessly murdered. I feel guilty claiming him, because it wasn't until 4-5 years before his death that our family was able to begin the reconciliation process. Reconciliation for circumstances that distance him form us. He was an aspiring boxer and future contender. Raised in California and New Mexico, he brandished the qualities that athletes hope for. I never got to know him as a young man. I played with him once for a short time in front of our grandparent's house. He was around 8. I am fortunate to have that memory.

Happy Birthday Primo

Outsider

what is it to be an outsider? it's perspective and interpretation. I have a romance with my connection to New Mexico. the romance isn't necessarily good or bad. it causes me to feel included and a part of something everlasting. there is convenience in this. I am familiar with my surroundings, this makes surviving easier. New Mexico is a framework that is rooted in attitudes and systems designed by people like me. lifestyles were created with me in mind, and I continue the tradition of trying to live with understanding and concern for future generations, my future generations more than yours. all this convenience leads me to think like an insider. the wonderful thing about memorial is that it allows me to ponder the past. in this reflection I encounter the outsider, me.
I am the continuation of outsiders. I am the consequence of evolution. I am the consequence of a restless generation. I have convinced myself that I am an insider while denying all the remaining evidence of how I am also an outsider. it is in critical thought that i can accept that both are persona that motivate my thoughts and more significantly my actions. in the end, I must reconcile that regardless of duration, pedigree, and lineage, the insider is one who operates from respect for others and is mindful of their inpact on the surroundings. the outsider is in it for the benefit and experience.

Your tradition is confusing my tradition

I think generations of New Mexicans are inundated with trends and superficiality leading to the acceptance of inferiority and imposition of other's values and expectations. I recognize how our cultural gems are being marketed and exploited by many outsiders. I think the outsider is a threat to the integrity of our traditions, whether it is a meal, art, or ritual. I think we are learning to apply economic value to our cultural icons. The American way is to assign value in dollars, and I am struggling to accept this mindset. The economification of this culture is an aspect of modernism that I see as corrosive to the integrity of a collective identity. This is music to the individualists ears, and I like to think that the individual has lived generations disconnected and feels threatened by others connection and unity. I see it as the reason why Americans try so hard to market their American Pride. In New Mexico our pride is engrained in our behaviors, our friendships, and our understanding of God. In metropolitan life it is package, manufactured, themed, and sculpted. Many Americans shop for culture, desiring a connectedness with a past and hopes for legacy; even the individualist. It might be hard to fathom but I am both New Mexican and American; owning both the traditionalist and capitalist mentalities. Not sure why the following program inspired this note but it sucks knowing the military complex has New Mexico and its people by the balls.