Rhino Ramblings

A fun Rhino Dog toy

For those who missed my previous blog “And the Winner Is…” you might want to read that first as this is somewhat of a sequel (Admittedly, I do not consider that last blog to be my best writing – so hopefully you went back and read it and then came back and are now finding out my thoughts on the quality I left behind.  Ah well).  To bridge the blog gap and head into a less tiresome rundown of my cultural choices based on critic’s lists (perhaps heading into an even more tiresome and the normal. more meandering thoughts that roam freely in my mind till I wrangle them onto “paper” in an attempt to write simple, coherent, short (ha) sentences of thoughts)- ok back to the sentence at hand – this weekend, I watched Matilda the Musical and a documentary (All that Breathes) about two brothers in New Delhi with a life mission to save kites (the wind-blown birds not the wind-blown toys).  Home run of differences.  I also added 10 new albums, running in style from K-pop (my first of that genre) to R&B to Indie to rap to pop to punk and so forth.  As I mentioned previously, I do not like all the culture I try that is based on my somewhat random selection process.  And I certainly did not grow up with the idea that there were multi-cultural ways to exist.  White, middle class, Catholic, suburban (WMCCS) culture all the way.  Sure we got some sprinkling of life outside that cultural enclave but it was always colored (or actually paled in more ways than one) by the culture I was in.  As I am sure I have touched on in past blogs and will do so in future ones I have and am taking a long path to a multi-cultural and multi-experiential existence.  All of my biases will never go away – but that is ok.  We all have a cultural bias and that is in fact what drives there being a multi-cultural world.  If everyone dropped their cultural differences (oh how that both meets what I felt were the aims of WMCCS in the 60’s and unfortunately we see again in the racist, homophobic, anti-science/knowledge, paternalistic (too nice a word – anti-women is more appropriate), white (I guess white is an appropriate color for wanting to blend everyone to be the same and if not, then shun them for not being so) (RHAPW) push to rid the world of any differences that do not match that RHAPW mindset, then the world would be a homogenous white blob of nothingness.  Through many different events, books, movies and most importantly honest friends, I am able to enjoy the experience of all aspects that the world has to offer (ok – not all, but at least a lot more with time).  A focus point in time for me occurred recently when I was discussing my diverse musical collection that, as noted above, includes rap.  This similarly skin-toned and to a fair extent similar culturally oriented person indicated that much like me they did not like or even fully understand rap.  The focus came to me in a flash –that is OK, because, guess what, rap is not being written for me or others of my ilk.  I also have no like for opera and do not seek out country and western (although I do like some C&W in moderation).  But it is easy to sit back and judge rap as not just “not for me” or “not for you” and therefore consider it bad or wrong or just leave it out of my life.  Instead, “not for you” should, in my ideal hope, either lead to a “that is ok, because it clearly is right for others” (a neutral tone that at least does not rain judgement) or perhaps even better “that is ok; maybe I should use this “not for me” as an opportunity to understand the influences and culture of others, rather than judge them or want them to not exist).  I bring this up with rap, but it goes for any situation where we are faced with a cultural difference – we need to remember that it is not meant for us.  And, OMG, this is such a horrible thought (full sarcasm on here) that also means that the culture I (or you) bring to others, just may not be for them.  I mean I will of course judge anyone who does not agree that Chicago is a fantastic band and James Michener was an amazing writer and Rhinoceros was a major film, … (Hmm- all my cultural biases have a certain whiteness to them, hmm).  But a better approach is to get over ourselves and allow for the world to contain “Not for Me” cultural streams that should be celebrated rather than judged. 

 (OK – I feel much better about this blog – Much more of the “heck if I know where I am going with this” vibe that I enjoy writing)