It's a shame that stories I wrote in 2016 can still be relevant today. In light of the wildly sexist attacks levied at women in politics, particularly Vice President Kamala Harris from our "friends" on the right, it seems appropriate that I remembered a time when an emotionally disregulated man who was having trouble dealing with his big feelings, called me a "clueless cunt." Does he kiss his momma with that mouth? Probably because men like this are — deep down inside — really pissed off at their mommies, and all women have to suffer because of it.
So here's an updated version of that story.
It’s hard sometimes to ignore nasty comments. Most of the time I do, but there are occasions when a comment is so rich with symbolism that it deserves a second look. I’m not going to actually respond to this person. I just want him to know that I agree and think of his jab as a compliment. Thank you sir, I am a clueless cunt.
In a world where a Donald Trump is possible, people like this person are nursing the wounds of very fragile, bruised egos.
I’m not really going to spend my time discussing this specific human fecal-corn, but I would like to talk about why his assessment of me might be spot on.
When, in life, we perceive that we have lost something, we fight harder to get it back. The problem is, because we think we lost, we have manifested that loss as something that was real and that we should get back. We begin to make a series of errors in judgment in our attempts to get it back.
For instance, President Obama represents a perceived loss of the old world to an angry few in our nation. In America, the symbology of power was historically defined by white men. Women and minorities were innocuous elements in that world. So when a black man with a fancy education wins the prize that traditionally had gone to the white victor, it truly upsets what these Americans, many of them men, understood as real and correct.
After Obama’s election and the hardening of this loss as reality, when very little had systematically shifted, a poorly-informed, loud and reactionary group of Americans took root in right-wing politics. This group rejected the pursuit of knowledge and diversity.
Back to Trump.
Trump walks on to the world stage. He says that Mexicans are bad, claims that blacks need him as their great white savior, claims that women are many terrible things — including a drain on company resources — and he encourages schoolyard bully behavior. Suddenly, a throng of irrational, angry people wants to reclaim a world where women were meant only to bring coffee and blacks existed only to sow fields or mind white children. They revere a world where being Latino meant that you were picking grapes or tobacco, not pursuing or achieving a better life. They miss the world where their human-rights atrocities were not so public.
After they have fallen behind in areas necessary to be competitive — education, skills training and cultural literacy — they don’t see their problems as of their own making. In fact, it is a classic Darwinian scenario. Instead, they see them as the direct result of theft by these other groups who used small loopholes to become more educated, more employable and better able to adapt to the natural cultural shift of a globalized community.
So here we are at “clueless cunt.”
I don’t disagree with this comment. I’m a cunt. My vagina has done amazing things. She has created life, given and received pleasure and doesn’t care if she makes bitter old fucks uncomfortable. She’s a lot like the rest of me.
And yes, I am clueless.
I am clueless because I do not understand how you can be in denial and lack the self-actualization to realize you haven’t prepared yourself to function in a society that has drastically changed in an attempt to be fairer — more like the America of our Constitution.
I am clueless because I fail to understand how you feel all is lost, when almost every institution created to prevent the mobility of women or ethnic people still exists to keep them from moving forward and claiming what was built on their sweat and tears.
I’m clueless because I think the anger is misdirected. I don’t think these people are angry with Obama or me (or VP Kamala Harris); really, they are disenchanted because they were duped by a generation of bad right wing politics to believe that Jesus and guns were all they needed to stay competitive, and now they can't function in a world that's left them like the relics they are.
I don’t get these things, so yes, for all of the reasons I shared, I think he’s right. I am a clueless cunt, and he’s just looking for meaning in a world that has left him behind.
He's got a lot of company including a geriatric former President who can't stand the dying of the light.
