I hate this place. I really hate this place. I have three half-Korean adult children. Two of them currently call Chicago home. One builds beautiful violins and the other is an amazing cartoon artist. My youngest still resides here in Grand Rapids. MI. He is a fantastic chef and he is learning three Asian languages fluently. These kids are amazing considering what they went through as kids with us as parents. The youngest kid called the other week to catch up with me. He stated that he was ready to move out of Michigan and eventually move out of the country. When I asked what brought this decision on, he said he was tired of the racism here. Tired of racist jokes, racist comments, and racist humans. He's expressed his battles with racism over the past few years working in various kitchens. My first reaction was to find these people and start making a necklace out of their teeth. That's the natural reaction for a parent.
Back in the ‘90s when my kids were born, their mother and I had no idea that racism would still be a thing in 2022. Hell, it feels worse now than back then. I told him that had we known things would be this bad is this country 24 years later, that we absolutely would have reconsidered having kids. Had I known that school shootings would become the norm, cops could actively get away with killing people of color, that my own flesh and blood would be suffering from racist, backwards-thinking, knuckle-dragging mouth breathers, then I definitely never would have brought my kids into this hellscape.
I'm sorry to get so heavy here, but I have a platform that might reach a few people and I want to use it. And I need to vent cuz this shit is important. I truly thought that we as a species could evolve. That's the natural order of things, right? We evolve. It's what we do. It's what we should be doing. Becoming better than those who came before us. I used to have hope. That went away years ago. Now all I can do is encourage my kid to get out of dodge as fast as possible. This place doesn't seem to be getting any better. The threat of safe, legal abortions is at risk. That greasy orange cupcake scam artist is talking about another run at a presidency. They've moved from shooting up high schools to elementary schools. I hated my high school with a passion, but c'mon!!!! Elementary age kids??? The saying used to be "no women, no children".
There was a small pocket of racist turds in our scene years ago. They don't exist here anymore. Know why? Because we didn't put up with their posturing. We didn't show fear. We didn't back down. They don't exist here in our scene anymore.
I'm grateful that I found punk rock. I truly am. The music and lyrics inspired me to stand up to all of these bad people in this terrible world. Bad Religion taught me some amazing things that my school wasn't teaching me. The DIY scene taught me to "think global, but act local." Bands like The Clash taught me that there's a bigger world out there and it is absolutely possible to just get along and treat you fellow human with respect and kindness.
That's all any of us should be doing. Why does this still need to be said?
OK. I've vented enough. I'm grateful that I am surrounded by the people in my community and that we, for the most part, are good humans doing good things. In the name of punk and everything it stands for, get out there and put some positive vibes in the world EVERY DAY. We need it now more than ever. Stay positive.
