Thursday, June 8, 2017

Winners, Losers, & everyone else

While we're on the topic of Winners and Losers, let's spare a thought for those who weren't allowed in the game to begin with - The sad sacks who play by all the rules expecting a fair shake at the end. Those invested wholeheartedly in a level-playing field, and in the intrinsic honour in trying hard and not expecting too much except one's just deserts. Those who look up to supposed mentors and patrons and guides and well connected well-wishers and hope a bone is thrown their way eventually. Those who buy into the myth that hard work and perseverance and playing the long game will put you in the same arena as those who have come by their luck the old-fashioned way - through wealth, power and privilege. Those who have to look their children in the eye to tell them to, "hold on darling - for a little while longer before you can go to the gymnasts class or to jazz ballet or that horse riding school", knowing with that sinking feeling that the idea of equity is as delusional and beyond reach as the idea of equality. Those who have no option but to continue doing without thinking, to continue breathing without feeling, to continue to know their place and block out those delusions of grandeur and agency and control. Those who are condemned to be willfully and carelessly misunderstood until there isn't an excuse to misunderstand them any longer after which they are inducted seamlessly into the ranks of the 'us' without the means to be like the 'us' which is a, "privilege that cannot be come by so easily, my friend. Do you think I was born with this double-storey house, this 55 acre farm, this swan-shaped swimming pool in the backyard, this BMW SUV? I worked my ass off for it, son!" Those who are denied the hopes, dreams and longings of everyone else in a miasma of racial and cultural exoticism where what one wants cannot nearly be what 'I' want - "that is so assumptive of you, come on!" Those who will clean our toilets and vaccuum our carpeted surfaces and detail our cars and retreat back into the shadows finally, with all their energy spent and only eyes showing - eyes gleaming in the darkness with envy and jealousy and desperation and hate...

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