Whitey On A Vengeance

To organize my thoughts and feelings into a tentative posture would be like putting a jig-saw puzzle together. I have a hard enough time figuring out myself let alone figuring out the rest of humanity.

To look at life I think one can not be close-minded to other people’s views. People are victims of their circumstances. Humans develop and become the way they are because of culture and society.

I’m a Caucasian male, in American terms, and I’ll only know what it is to be a Caucasian male. I’ll have understanding on other people but it will always be secondary information. So when I look at people I look at them for who they are, what culture they fit into, what has happened to them through their life, where they’ve been, and where they’re going and then I make conclusions. I think because of this view I find such areas of study like history, anthropology, sociology, and political science some of my favorite areas along with of course my favorite music. Views like ethnocentrism are for the weak minded. To hold to a belief that your culture is the best and superior and that your religion is the only one, to me is a true sign of ignorance. I believe in cultural relativism and hold fast to the idea that every culture is valuable and that they should be judged but not by our culture, one should understand from their perspective not ours. So the loss of Ancient Rome’s culture is significant, it is from their perspective I would think.

As Americans, we are the only country that makes classifications upon ourselves. We have African-Americans, we have Hispanic-Americans, we have Chinese-Americans, and we have many Americans. My argument follows like this: We all want equality and justice, so why do we as Americans give ourselves these groups? If you were to travel to Europe or Africa or Asia, you wouldn’t meet people and tell them you were an African-American or Hispanic-American, you would simply say I’m American. If someone from France or Zaire came to Colorado and you were introduced to them they wouldn’t tell you they were an African-Frenchman or a French-Zairian. To me if one wants equality, why give yourself a classification. If you’re an American, it’s that simple: you’re a fucking American. I had a friend in high school who was white and he was born in South Africa but he was American does that make him an African-American?

I’m a kike-ass, limey, Catholic, protestant, orthodox American, if that means anything. I’m a living, walking contradiction to life. I’m Jewish born in England, but yet I’m Catholic from a Protestant country from Orthodox roots all wrapped up in an American body born abroad. In all my trueness I’m a 1/2 Scottish, 1/4 Danish, and a 1/4 Hungarian. I take pride in being Scottish. “We Scots are the lowest of the low, we are the most pathetic people on the face of the planet and we got colonized by a bunch of bloody wankers.”(Dialect from the movie Trainspotting) The only way I admit to being English is that some where down my line my Scottish ancestors got rapped by those bastards from the south. We Scots have been oppressed and victimized for centuries. Then if I look to being Jewish, I’m the biggest money hoarding, penny-pinching bastard around. My people have been oppressed for generations upon generations. I was enslaved by the Egyptians, but it was by the hand of God through Moses that I was delivered into Palestine. So being logical Egypt is in Africa, so my Jewish ancestors were enslaved by Africans. Then it got worse: first the Greeks and then the Romans oppressed my people and enslaved us. Then Jesus came, this is where my Christian ancestors come into play. Being a Christian, I got fed to lions, killed by centurions, crucified, and sent to the galleys. But reform came to the Romans and now I’m a Roman Catholic and we wreaked havoc on the world. Killing people who didn’t conform, became my practice. But then there was an argument over the Pope and I became and Orthodox Christian. Oppressed and tyrannized once again. Then traveling a few centuries I as an Englishmen reject the Catholic Church because of old horny Henry the VII. Now I’m a Protestant being oppressed, getting into fights with the French every few hundred years. Then I flee to the New World. Now as an American I’m oppressed by those same bloody bastards who oppressed me when I was Scottish. But we Americans rebelled against the crown. So now I’m a rebel. But my ancestors all come from the North, there’s no inbred Southern in me. And I never held any slaves, not one but this doesn’t matter for me now. Now, I’m a white Caucasian male, who is an American, who gets no special treatment, I have no job-quota, I have no ethnic group to belong to, I’m blamed for enslaving the black man, abusing Hispanics, but in true fact I have been ransacked for centuries, I have been enslaved, beaten and abused and all I have to say to those of you who tell me I did it to them, you better fucking get over it because the sad fact is that is has happened to all of us.

Culture is everything you think, you do, and make it. Culture allows us to adapt. So as Americans, we need to realize we’re Americans, whether we’re white, black, yellow, or red. We need to put a stop to this stupidity of classification, we all have the same color blood. The internal problems of America reflect those that we ourselves portray to the rest of the world. We’re a bunch of unruly bullies who think we control the entire planet with disregard for anyone else. We lack honor, humility, integrity, justice, peace, and freedom is a farce.

Society has to have religion. Religion controls society, it maintains social control in other words it controls the behavior and maintains order. Religion also distributes necessary goods and services. Religion is responsible for group integration. Humans are goal oriented mammals. Empirical knowledge can’t answer everything. When you can’t achieve a goal with empirical knowledge, God is the answer. Science can’t answer every question but religion always has an explanation. Religion provides us a place in the universe and where empirical knowledge ends, God picks up. Religion is simply psychological comfort. If I looked at religion then I’m a Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox but if I examine my life I would want to say that I’m a Rastafarian. Psalms 104:14, “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and the herb for the service of man, that he my bring forth food out of the earth.” As my favorite musician, Bob Marley, put it “It is the mission of the Rastaman to drive out such odious superstition and encourage the smoking of ganja spliffs and herb packed chillums among the people to ‘aid dere meditations on de truth’.” There are five essential elements to religion: 1. Myth, 2. Ritual, 3. Personnel, 4. Symbols, and 5. Faith. Religion goes all the way back to Neanderthal man, it simply brings people together.

I’d like to say I’m a monist and that I’m a materialist meaning my one reality is physical but I’m probably a dualist. I believe that there definitely is a difference between mind and body. However I think, I think this way because of how I was raised in other words, I might be different under other circumstances. My body is matter, which is an extended and unthinking thing. My mind is an unextended and thinking thing. Matter is divisible, my mind is indivisible. Matter has no sensation, my mind possesses sensation. My mind perceives, matter does not. So therefore, I perceive two realities.

I think culture determines everything. Culture determines people’s ideas on many things. Take the word beautiful. Beauty and sex-appeal are different in every culture. My ideas on the subject are completely different compared even to my ancestors. To me heavy weight women, no, ‘cause I could care less if she could rear me children but my ancestors of old did take this into consideration. My ideas on life will be completely different in generations to come. As the neo-evolutionalist, Leslie A. White, put it: Culture = Energy x Technology. Society evolves like a biological organism, for the better or for the worse I don’t know. But the way I am is because of my culture, and I hope I evolve and I hope the rest of humanity evolves, especially in America because it is a scary situation.

JJB (May 3rd, 1998)

Jonathan J. Benson