CHAPTER 23

Bigotry: Q’est Que Say What?

BIGOTRY

For me this word conjures up images of the ego energy infected by the Fear Fleas warped by a greed need to lower others in order to escalate one's self. I've noted that when personally applied, it doesn't seem to exist.

MEANING:

Everyone knows a bigot, but no one is one.

   People admit it exists, but not in them.

   Even with well publicized extremists like KKKers, Neo-Nazis, or any I'm-Better-Than-You-Are-Group, I doubt they see themselves as bigots, or as a product of fear or self-loathing, as anti-human or as just plain not nice.

   Though our specie concedes that bigotry exists, it's usually considered to be the other guy's hang-up, as it is with child abusers and mate batterers.

   Life has shown me that most abusers do not to relate to being one no matter how well broadcasted the traits and actions may be.

   As with bigotry, abuse has been centurally condoned by Tradition, though not seen as a private behind closed mores violation. Yet, bigotry is mass abuse, a collective agreement within a segment of humanity that permits themselves to launch inhuman wars and attacks on other segments of our specie, usually based on inherited fears.

PURPOSE:

To flex counterfeit power to feel superior, which may be the reason abusers abuse.

   Bigotry is usually aimed at natal targets such as skin color, religion or birth place. It extends to the life styles of the attacked segment, such as their financial level, career choice, even their fashion passions (any teen knows that bias). But enforcers seem to prefer uncontrollable venues to berate so to as to make their targets incontestable.

   The need to rationalize seems to be inconsequential to abusers. Being alive, being their child, or simply being different from them seems to cover their Reason Issue.

   And as Tradition supports: “I'm the parent. So, I don't have to give you an explanation for how I treat you.” As if arbitrary actions rule. And they too often do.

   My sense as to why the title of bigot or abuser is never personally applied came into my focus when I was a single adult living in Toronto. It occurred during a meeting with the mother of Lisa, a long time girl friend.

   Her mom was on one of her rare, but intense visits to her daughter, a mission aimed toward a nonstop listing of Lisa's failings and foibles, from her choice of boyfriends to what stocked her fridge. The list was an endless bummer.

   In a sitcom, the plot would have been settled before the last Excedrine commercial. In real life, without a laughtrack, it played as a migraine without relief for Lisa.

   Except for the pre-week crammed with anxiety shrieks of “Why did I let her know I'm still alive?!?”, the on-guard visit week and the detox afterweek, Lisa was a fantastic lady with a great real estate career, neat supportive friends, a stylish home and a terrific mind willing to discuss all sorts of topics.

   But, when mama paddled into her main stream, it seemed as if Lisa was channeling a very paralyzed flinch.

   She'd enlist her friends to “just drop by” to hopefully dilute the assaults. It never worked. In fact, the audience seemed to inspire her mom to scale greater slight heights.

   If we disagreed with a knockdown punch she leveled at Lisa, she'd pull out a one-size-fits-all loophole such as:

   “I AM Lisa's mom and you're not so you'll never know all her all faults as well as I do.” Or, “I'm only pointing out these little problems to help Lisa. After all, a mother's job is never done.” Plus the old standby stinger of: “Why would you care? I am her family and you're only her friends.”

   The only defense I mustered was to keep the conversation off Lisa. This wasn't easy with someone pledged to pursue a lifetime warpath. Every chat detoured back to Square Whine, to a Lisa Lack. It felt like a game show: Discover what topic could not be converted into Lisa-Ammo and you win door Number Exit!

   But, mama was a pro ego-puncher, which stacked the odds against us, the players.

   I thought I was close when the TV flicked on a talk show about kids in show business — of which Lisa wasn't. This emerged as a hot topic for mama as she abruptly detonated her opinion that all stage moms were abusive, manipulating bitches who were cruelly pushing helpless kids into early careers of their mother's choice.

   Her tirade included pity for the kids, figuring they all lost their childhoods, hated what they were doing, were forced to work against their will and would instantly give it all up to live a “normal life” like other kids. Like her kids did.

   The irony barfed forth as Lisa had often told me how much she and her brother hated their kidhoods, hated the ridicule their mom amply served within their private prison called home, and how toughly mama sought to control their lifestyle choices.

   I heard how Lisa despised being trapped, being the one left to entertain mom for life as her brother pulled out of any contact by joining the Air Force at 18.

   Her mom's abusathon sure reflected Lisa's bitterness over never having been accepted as-is, of never having been encouraged to believe she had any ability by being fed a daily control diet of her mom's verdict: “Worthless since birth! Never could get anything right. Hell, she couldn't even braid her hair if I wasn't there to tell her how.”

Lisa's mom validated a very common verity:

People who live to control others no matter how they rationalize that their control is exercised ONLY for the other person's “GOOD”, are invariably people who are living out-of-control lives, personally, spiritually or professionally, or all 3. There are many who feel their self-worth is only to be gained by lowering the self-worth of others.

   Lisa told me about the arbitrary painalizing she and her brother endured; about being smothered with guilt blankets for having destroyed their mom's chance for career success by being born (as if their birth was a solo creation having nothing to do with their parents sexual bonding). Lisa felt this scenario was silently endorsed by their dad's emotional indifference to his family.

   I heard how the Momarchy was enforced with a favorite motto: What goes on in the home, stays in the home!, (Like Vegas is now promoted) which I came to realize is the clever credo for abusive parents who know they have something to hide in the home. It insures silent obedience and on-going rulership after a kid grows up and continues responsibility buck passing.

MEANING:

The kids get conned into mistakenly carrying the Guilt Gauntlet for the nightmares of their own kidhoods, if they choose. Thus, revising the old chestnut of: What goes on in the heart, stays in the heart.

TRANSLATION:

The horrors I endured as a kid better stay in the closet no matter how much they still hurt or I'll never stand a chance for my family's love and validation.

   Though it felt like Hell, it was my only home and to even privately question my past would be a sin against Honor Thy Father and Mother, a permanent cutting of family ties (no matter how already frayed) and as pointless as a Catch-22 because no matter how old I grow, society will surely believe that Father or Mother Knows Best. Oh, yeah?

   Or, the Biggie, if I tell to expel the pain from my system, I might find out I am as bad and worthless as I was told.

   Though Lisa was in her 30s and no longer lived under her mom's physical control, she still let her energy be conducted through her mom's powerhouse.

   During the week before mom's ratings sweep, Lisa begged me never to mention her kidhood revelations by using the oh-so-familiar-to-me words of: “Mom would just deny it and make life worse. Besides, what's the use? It's in the past.”

   Yeah? Well, not from what I sensed. To me, it seemed as if the abuse flexing simply extended to a new workout level.

   Believing Lisa's I Remember Mama stories, I kept mum on mom. Though I couldn't resist probing her thoughts as to why she felt all showbiz kids lived “unfortunate lives” compared to her kids' “ideal life.” Having been offered the stage she grabbed it to dramatize the sacrifices she made for her kids' past “perfect” life. As well, to detail their many acts of ungratefulness.

   When asked what she meant by sacrifices, she boasted of her struggles to make sure they stayed kids as long as possible. “None of that having to pretend they were better than they were.”

   She admitted she was tough, that she often took a belt to them, “like all good mothers do,” so they'd mind her and “get the message.” “Did 'em good,” she said, “they never dared sass or disobey me.”

   “That”, she said, “taught them to respect her, to respect all adults, to never question mom's authority.”

   It felt pointless to ask for her definition of Respect vs Fear.

   Since she cleared the court for a volley by saying all stage moms where child abusers, I asked what she considered to be an abusive parent. She hurled a fast conclusion. Outside of those moms who push their kids into the spotlight, she felt child abuse really didn't exist.

   She saw it as a media fad promoted for sensationalism; as an exaggerated issue created by talk show hosts who don't even know what it's like to raise kids. She saw it as a wicked way for hateful kids to hurt good parents.

   She saw it as a money making topic furthered by bitchy adults willfully wanting to destroy the reputations of fine community people or wonderful legends like Joan Crawford.

   She saw it as horrible manners by obvious brats daring to air family laundry in public. Kids who never learned, as her kids did, that “What goes on in the home, stays in the home.” (Vegas again!)

   As I listened to her during that wintry visit over coffee and quakes, I realized how futile it was to communicate with someone who is speaking an entirely different language.

   For many, seeking to speak of spirituality to someone who has buried themselves in fear can be as futile as seeking to speak Cantonese to a Sicilian.

   I felt there were no common words I could have used to express Lisa's feelings in a way her mom would have heard or accepted, nor was it my job. And Lisa felt outmatched as her mom knew every Guilt Button to make Lisa feel wrong and make herself right.

   Lisa was outmatched only because she was still allowing those buttons to be operational.

QUESTIONS:

Why does another want our keyboard? Why do we allow it?

POSSIBLE ANSWERS:

They fear becoming responsible for the ideas they enter and delete into their own keyboards. Maybe we feel the same way and fool ourselves to think we can spiritually get away with blaming our woes on another's domination of our lifal choices.

   That Date with Denial (Lisa's and her mom's) caused me to see how foolish it is to let our emotional freedom from kidhood nightmares become contingent upon our abuser's actions and reactions. Upon their willingness to confess or accept responsibility in creating past nightmares. A scene that rarely plays when an abuser has too much fake power invested in casting their self as the superior star.

   Sure. It would be great if we could all sit down with those who caused our kidhood pain, then tell our side of the story without fear and have them say:

    “Oh, I'm so sorry that I ever hurt you. I was wrong. You are right. From now on I'm a changed person. I promise I will never cause you any pain ever again. We'll be friends and I will love you unconditionally.”

   It would be nice, a nice fantasy, as abusers, like bigots, do not see themselves as such. They've spent too many years of emotional energy crazy gluing their worth to being right.

   To expect an abuser to suddenly see our light at the end of our tunnel is a bitch of a hitchhiker to invite on our journey toward our private peace of mind and happiness.

   The insatiable hunger to have an abuser turn around and admit to the hostile life they caused us is akin to seeking healthy clarity while on a toxic diet of murky illusions.

   I've learned that denial is a self-sabotaging by-product of our creative talent for rationalizing the worst of our past into a non-existent experience, like a horror movie we once saw that terrified us, but since we left the theater we figure we don't need to deal with it.

   Wrong!

PROBLEM:

Emotional replays (memories) don't leave. They linger with us until they're brought forward to review and interpret.

   They cling on until the credits run so as to differentiate between those who were caught into supporting roles as well as those actually produced the production.

   We cannot walk away from the ghosts of an abusive past because they stalk within us. No matter how subtly they tarry in the back alley of our memory bank, they haunt us until they are forced into the light. Until they're conquered by our emotional heart strength.

   Denial of what-was often stems from our ego not wanting to believe we had parents who willfully caused us pain. And, this often occurs when we forget we are all individual Soular Children of God who were placed into our familial setup for our needed growth experience. And when we forget that, we may then suspect we are destined to duplicate rather than alleviate.

   In that downer, denial seems desirable.

   To make others right we make ourselves wrong. We brain wash ourselves into assuming we must have done something bad to have asked for it.

   In this venue, it's easy to conclude that only our abuser's confession of “I was wrong and you are right” can free us.

   Yet by doing so, we continue to give abusers the control panel for our lives, whether they're near, distant or dead.

THOT:

It's rare to meet someone with the personal strength in everyday matters who can say I'm wrong and you're right — let alone an abuser. The ego won't allow it if it has spent its past investing in a persona of perfection.

   My meeting with Lisa's mom was a fortuitous Date with Denial. Maybe because she wasn't my mom, I could see how pointless it would be to focus my life toward the day I'd face Ashley and she would say the words I wanted to hear.

   But, how could she? They were my words. My feelings.

   I'm grateful to my God-Sense that I did not link my freedom to Ashley's willingness to exit her script so as to enter mine. Otherwise, I'd have cast myself as a long running co-star in a soap easily entitled: Our Days of Dueling Denial.

   I now realize the only result our denial can cause is to prolong our emotional and symptomatic pain. I also see:

   And contingent is the operative word. When it comes to freedom from past abuse, contingent is a retarding condition born of Fear Fleas & Guilt Gremlins. It's not a spiritual essential.

EXAMPLES:

   A black person's self-worth and ability is not contingent on a KKKer coming out of his linen closet, burning his cover alls and confessing he was wrong to have been inhumane and bigoted to another of God's Children.

   Yesterday's women's self worth and talents, political, professional and otherwise, the energies that secured the right to vote for our current female population were not contingent upon needing all the men of their day to confess they were inhumane by denying women their worth just to keep themselves kings of Audacity Mountain.

   Today's women's self-worth and value is not contingent on confronting every diehard male chauvinist (and there's still a lot of 'em) and waiting for them to face and address their prejudicial wrongs and arrogance. Waiting for them to give us women their permission to flex our talents.

   Handicap people's ability to achieve is not contingent upon people who are humanely handicapped; upon their inability to cope with differences; or upon their permission to allow others their contribution to self and society.

   Our ability to see our potential and activate our talent is not contingent upon our friends, our family or mate giving us the OK-signal.

MEANING:

Though we might never know the actual details or want to believe them, there are people who may be in our lives, who have a vested personal interest in our failings.

   Interests they translate as giving them permission to stifle our success. As Bette Midler said: “One problem with success is finding someone who's happy for you!”

   Possibly so. But then, finding answer is rough. But, if in such a heart cleaning project, you end up with a few, but true, allies, it sure beats the alternative.

   An abused-child-now-adult's freedom is not contingent upon the abuser's confession of abuse. It only becomes a Maddening Master if it is chosen as a necessary contingent.

   Freedom is contingent upon our decision to see our own memories as they were, to know what occurred was ignoble; that it was unavoidable due to circumstance at birth; that it was a People's Choice, not a God Punishment Choice.

   And, to know freedom depends upon not waiting for an abuser to confess their wrongs.

   Freedom depends upon us learning from our experiences. Looking, Learning and Letting Go so as to grow forth without the handicap of regret.

   Freedom occurs via knowing our worth is not contingent upon another's score card, especially one whose self-worth is made contingent upon keeping us wrong and worthless.

   Experience has taught me that bigots only gain the ability to abuse when we give them that power. When we validate their inhumanity, either by letting their warpness distort our worth meter, or by giving them approval by silent condoning or denial of our feelings in order to make nice.

   I'd like to share a few thoughts with you that I've used through the years to reaffirm my worth when the going gets rough. When I realize I'm derailing my own Soul Train:

My ability to believe in God as I choose, to vote, eat, dress, smoke, think, live, strive or whatever I choose, is not contingent on others giving me their approval.

My ability to be a friend is not contingent upon giving up the time of my life to be everybody's sounding “bored,” nor captive audience for their favorite fears or ongoing gripes.

My daring to risk is not contingent on whether I succeed or not, according to others. Nor upon their possible censure of me seeming foolish in their eyes.

Living my idea of success is not contingent upon whether or not others agree with me nor understand my goals and interpretations.

My ability to choose happiness and how I achieve it is not contingent upon others' choice of attitude. Nor on their willingness for me to be happy or to matter.

   Which I guess all goes back to:

   It might be worth creating your own cheerleading hurrahs! It's not hard. Simply consider the areas in which you have given the Control Panel of your happiness over to others. Areas in which you have become contingent upon another's validations and/or confessions. Then create your own mottos to free yourself from living a Contingent Life. For instance:

   My ability to create a terrific homelife with my chosen family is not contingent upon my mom, or anyone endorsing my life style, mate or methods.

REASON:

It's One Life To A Customer Per Journey! She had her chance and choice. We all do. Now, this is mine. I have different priorities, different pressures than she knew, maybe even different soular destinies and objectives.

   My success is not contingent upon what others may deem as worthy of pursuit.

REASON:

No one knows my passions as well as I do. And another's advice may be based upon their fears, upon their self-created limitations, upon their not wanting me to succeed further than they have, or in a venue they do not understand or have control over.

   Why let so many unknowns rule my journey? My life?

   Approval for my life and style is only contingent upon my conscience — not upon the world-at-large believing in (or endorsing) me. Heck! Even God hasn't received a global endorsement of existence let alone endorsement of actions. So, why deny the urgings of my heart and soul by lingering in the waiting room of Life for others to give me a Go For It Prescription?

   That would be Pure Poppycock!

   I'm simply offering starter suggestions because only you know the details of how you may be living your life contingent on others. It may be at the home front, the office, with the in-laws, even the subtle toxic deposits in your memory bank may cause you to live and limit life contingent on what you were programmed to believe as a kid, whether by kid-peers, relatives, spouses, siblings or judgmental teachers.

   It's easy to spot the Contingency Corkers that stifle our life when we become aware of our self-reprimands. As in retarding a natural inclination with: But what would (fill in the so-&-so's name) think?

   A best uncorker is: Screw it!

   Outside of God's opinion that is always available via the urgings and advice from our conscience, what mortal opinion matters?

   When all is said and done at the Pearly Fates, I doubt that denial or rationalizing will cut the mustard crystal.

   I doubt we'll be able to excuse our not having lived life to the fullest, our not having dared to activate all the potential we had access to during our journey, I doubt if all the possibilities that a fear alliance denied us of accomplishing will be excused by us saying: “Gee, nobody told me it was OK.”

    'Tis a Thot

Copyright © 2004 by Krystiahn