So called "Ghetto Wedding"
While I was mooching around on my "people account" I happened to take an interest in the trending topic #ataghettowedding. Many put their two pence in, and I'm ashamed to say, so did I. I regretted it almost immediately. Stereotyping, stigmatizing, and ridiculing people because of (presumptions) about of their disadvantaged social background has to the be the basest, most disgusting humour conceivably possible.
American ghetto culture fascinates me, both in terms of it as a "subculture" and it's evolution as a socio political grouping of people. But the purpose of this post wasn't to bore you with my vulgar curiosity or parade my ignorance before you.
During my pursuance of this trending topic, I came across the first picture in this post. Several tweeps posted it in their twitpics: it was meant to objectify the people in the photo as low class ghetto trash for the amusement of other tweeps.
My first reaction was, I felt immediately attracted to the wedding depicted, everything about it: it's simplicity, it's humour, it's humanness, warmth and lack of pretension. It made a deep impression. It was a photo that made me wish I could know the people depicted. I felt doubly ashamed about the deadshit, crass and stupid tweet I posted for this trending topic.
I have my own prejudices, they are as stupid, unattractive and destructive as any other. Well, this is what my prejudices look like: The couple in the 2nd WASP wedding photo (WASP is an acronym for White Anglo Saxon Protestant, it's generally, but not always, used in a pejorative sense) make me want to run a mile. There's something self consciously stagey and boorish about them that subverts the"elegance" intended. the couple in the first photo seem natural, at ease and sincere. Compared to them, let's be honest, the WASPS look like well, vacuous wankers. They're the kind of people I cross the street to avoid. Their "hale fellow well met" (and well fed) appearance revolts me; it affirms and suggests a kind of life style I find empty and nauseating.
You know why Kurt Cobain is my hero? (Apart from the fact he could shoot himself up in both arms, I never could get the hang of that) because he once told a friend that he was embarrassed to be in a limousine. He was clear sighted and courageous enough (sadly, but the good ones always are) to see that life is, in the main, empty and without meaning. It takes courage, self knowledge and humility to come to this realization. He was never fooled by bullshit, vainglory or materialism. He was never trapped inside the empty "Sparklicious" bubble of nothing.
If I ever make it to America, I'm going to the bridge in Seattle he used sometimes to live and sleep under, it's only symbolic, it's not a shrine, it's nothing but a place. But it's the only way I can say "thank you" to a man who made the world less farcical to me.
The tragedy of Kurt Cobain is that he so acutely felt the dissonance and tension of external, meaningless, material trappings with meaningful, emotional reality, that he was unable to reconcile them into some kind of world view he could live with. As far as I'm concerned, he failed at nothing, they are irreconcilable. His heroism lies in the fact he knew this. He refused the Faustian pact, he refused to compromise.
Would there were more like him.
Life is not just a McHappyLand for us to walk through like infantalized Zombies. It's exhausting to be sensitively responsive to life, it can burn a person out, but it's better to live this way than to have no greater awareness t than an amoeba. It's more honourable to die young and to live on your own terms than to be sucked into the race for longevity filled with "stuff".
Anyway, to return to the beginning: I'd rather be a guest at a ghetto wedding any day, than kiss WASP ass and loathe myself ever after.
Cheers,
May We Always Have the Freedom and Courage to Choose To Live Meaningful Lives
Love to All
SFE
