When, in the course of human events….

Nah, that doesn’t sound right. 

Maybe it works to introduce other acts of verbal brilliance, but not the ones committed here.

There comes a time in all of our lives when you have to either dazzle ’em with brilliance or baffle ’em with bull.

Pretty sure I’ve said that before, but at this point it’s become necessary to either dish out a heapin’ helpin’ of “I told you so”, or reiterate a point or two in the context of our current times.

Furthermore, I think we should explore my uncharacteristically gratuitous use of apostrophes in place of proper spellin’ in the vanguard of today’s post. 

I’ll put that on the back burner for now and make a determination later on whether you and I have the time and patience for such an innocuous calorie burn.

In recent days, I’ve perused the vast suppository of content I’ve inserted into this vast network which Al Gore created for the purpose of sharing information and pictures of nekid ladies.  Whereas it was initially just a 15 day experiment to slow the spread of insidious doldrum on the internet, I sit here nearly 12 years and 830+ posts later wondering if my efforts may have to be stepped up to a state of double or even triple blogging to combat the nonsense.

For what it’s worth, I’ve already walked the dog this morning.  That means I won’t be stepping away from this post to regather my thoughts into something a little more cohesive.

If you must know, she’s (the dog) a little ticked off at me right now for having the audacity of buying a step stool for her to use to jump on the bed.  She feels emasculated.

Ever since I ripped up the carpet and installed laminate flooring in the master suite, she hasn’t had the necessary traction needed to jump on the bed.  That look on her face the first time she jumped and missed was a little amusing, however I’m getting tired of her referring to said flooring, the bed comforter, and gravity in general as a cold heartless bitch.

It takes one to know one.

I’ve considered putting down a throw rug designed to really tie the whole room together, but then that would cover up all of the indiscriminate reminders the laminate flooring provides of why my days are better spent in a chair in front of a computer instead of on my knees with a ball peen hammer and a misplaced can-do attitude.

Even as I type, she keeps coming into the Bloggery where I’m firmly planted (in front of a computer), and nudges the faded hunter green bucket from Dick’s Sporting Goods which used to house about 5 gallons worth of scrumptious, yet huckably concussive baseballs.

That’s right.  She’s now taking her anger out on an innocent bucket turned rarely used ottoman.

I’m pretty sure I had a point for this post.

The problem is that I really can’t say that it went off the rails because that would imply it was on rails in the first place.  With that in mind, let’s put this thing back on the rails.  Just ignore the periodic bucket nudging.

In March, 2011, I was in the waning months of year 42.  I was on staycation, most likely entertaining delusions of grandeur and a misplaced can-do attitude around a clean garage.  I suggest this because a decade later, I’m on staycation this week (technically known in the pandemic as “off line”), and chumming the same waters about that gosh darned garage.

Over the course of those days at home all those years ago, I coined the phrase “White Liberation Theology”. 

Naturally I’ve linked to the post about it in the event you feel the compulsory desire to reread something you probably read a decade ago.  At the same time, I have to spoil the ending right here and now for those of you who didn’t read it the first time around if I’m going to keep this post on the rails.

White Liberation Theology is the rejection of White Guilt.

I’ve been thinking about White Guilt a lot lately, mainly because it’s been incorporated into my performance objectives at work.  For those of you not in the know, the latest fad amongst large companies these days is to subject their labor force to the whims of social justice.

Just to be clear, my position in the financial services industry requires that I develop and foster productive relationships with a wide variety of internal and external customers.  At the same time, I need to maintain a working knowledge of a plethora of systems and processes so that I can effectively maintain those productive relationships which I’ve developed and continue to foster.

Every year, I write a lofty self-assessment which parallels the previous paragraph.  I work in pithy phrases and a heavy smattering of the company vernacular to drive my point home.  I’m given to understand that such word-smithery contributes to adjustments in my compensation for the next year.

At the end of 2021, I’ll write a similar piece.  The only difference is that I’ll need to include what I did to recognize the racial bias ingrained in my own non-diverse honkeytude.  I’ll have to infuse a list of my privileges and outline what steps I took to keep them in check.  It won’t stop there with just a laundry list of stuff I did to give the social justice warriors occupying the office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion a warm fuzzy.  Instead, I’ll have to expand on what I learned in the process.

Allow me to reductify.

Work with me here.  That’s a Harry Potter term that I’ll be more than happy to take the credit for making up if someone hasn’t done so already.

This year, I will need to read some articles, watch some videos, and engage in meaningful discussions which will characterize me and my ilk as racially biased.  Evidence will be provided, and I expect most of it will be pretty darned persuasive and designed to trigger cognitive dissonance in me and the aforementioned ilk.

Through that process, I will be presented with all sorts of tools to recognize those biases and combat them.  I will be encouraged to live the life of an antiracist.

Quick side note on the word ‘antiracist‘. 

Am I the only one out there that thinks that word looks like something else which is a lot less palatable?

Glad I could plant that seed.

Back to the reductivity.

My performance objective is to learn to believe that I’m something I’m not, and then to try not to be the something they say I am, when I’m really not.

It would seem to be that if they would just accept that I’m not what they think I am, then they wouldn’t have to spend so much time convincing me I’m something I’m not and persuade me to not be what they think I am.