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There he sits, the old white man and do not know what is going on at once. Now he is to blame. Oh great! He - that's the synonym for the group of people that has ruined the world. He is the weapons lobbyist, the misogynist, the chairman of the board, the politician, the dumbbell, and Nestlé in personal union.
He embodies everything that the people he felt really belong to despise. You know, the cool tattooed environmentalists, the young women who hack Nasa. They despise him suddenly.
As much as I understand the penchant for simplification-you could say I invented it-it hurts me every time I read about the old white man. I know too many of them. Too many men over 40, sitting helplessly in their kitchens, staring at the wall and imagining things differently.
They had gone to bed yesterday, after a night of drugs, loud music and funny nonsense they had been talking about. Plans they had discussed about hemp plantations in Guatemala, their band that was sure to be big soon. They had dreamed of the movies they wanted to do, the books, the great art. And had been convinced that there would soon be something. The world that existed only by seeing through her eyes, would discover it. For sure.
What to talk about with the child?
So they went to bed, as always, without washing and without taking off their leather pants. That was not bad when you're young, it does not smell bad, and it looks lovely. And then they woke up earlier, and someone had stolen their youth from them. They no longer smell good, their hair has become thin and many buddies have died.
You had something with the heart, the drugs, an accident, a cancer, and not even 50, and what's that in the mirror? This is really not a young person anymore. This is an old white man, and what was just possible, is no longer possible. Living cheaply, sleeping on the floor, somehow working at concerts, that's what the others are doing now. The young.
And the old white man meets those who are still alive, and who just stood with him in a bar, and they have bald and bellies, and the wife is gone, the child they see every two weeks, that is at puberty, and the man with the belly does not know what he should talk to the child. Parents are not there to talk to children. You should watch them feed and feed and make silly jokes before falling asleep, but so - what do you talk to a strange young person.
And the others, who still live with their wife, and who is always called Beate, have a tired round about their mouth, they do three jobs, and it still does not work out, it's not enough for anything. There's mold in the apartment, and they're still worried they'll be kicked out soon.
The lovely, the pleasing
One of the annoying taciturnities of those who believe in the law, and that is actually what all people do, is the generalization and devaluation of groups of people they do not consider themselves part of. The "old white man" has become a collective term for the evil of the world. As if there were no old black dictators, young white fascists, dull white women. Of course, the metaphor comes to mind when you see a bunch of fair-skinned U-40 board chairmen or home secretaries, but old white men just are not just young people anymore.
So what , it happens, if you survive the youth. Old white men have been Leonard Cohen and Stephen Hawking, they are the fathers and brothers, the weary rock stars and artists, the failed, the charming, the pleasing, the sea rescue and doctors, the kindergarten and the sick, the firefighters and actors. You can not be for equal rights and verbally exclude a large part of the population.
In order not to offend them with bullshit, I recommend to all those who have made it a little too easy to develop a new framing. Something more precise. Powerful fascists, emotionally underdeveloped egomaniacs. Behavioral on-the-world shit. With this little puzzle I say goodbye to a quiet weekend.