Downlo

What we have is not a war against fakery, it is a war against that which displays itself as fakery; we’re all supposed to be pretending that we’re naturally wide-eyed and soft-skinned and blushing and blemish-free. Women are expected to be photorealist portraits of femininity, not expressionist canvasses; lies are tolerated only in so far as they are told convincingly. But when we start being too overt about the fabricated status of natural femininity, there’s a lurking danger that we might start to question their absurdity, or realise that we can invent altogether new images in radical moulds.

Perhaps, then, instead of demonising fakery, we should embrace a proliferation of artifice, in a style that refuses to acknowledge the existence of any such thing as ‘natural’.

Langston Hughes didn’t write the poem “A Dream Deferred” just because he thought the words sounded pretty. “Dreams deferred” by the poverty of circumstance happens every day in America. And it doesn’t just happen to poor kids. The biggest detriment, being born to people not equipped for parenthood, is a burden many face.

If Lindsay Lohan can’t get over having a ex-convict, drug-addicted, rage-aholic father and a “cool” enabler mom when she had the benefit of fame and money, how can anyone be surprised that a poor kid would struggle with overcoming an overworked mother who thinks beating the crap out of you is the answer for everything while a non-existent sperm donor father travels in the wind?

I read, constantly, of people heaping pity on “poor Lindsay.” Or poor whomever wayward starlet of the moment is running around sans pants and good parenting. But the sympathy always seems to dry up for the Keishas and Keyshawns of the world. You’re just lazy. Why didn’t you get on that cross town bus and “exceptionalize” yourself out of a poor, messed up life?

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I understand the impulse to believe that anything can be over-come if you just work hard enough. And the belief that this is a one-size-fits-all solution, no matter who you are, what your situation is and what you can physically handle. But the dirty open secret is that many don’t work hard at all to get what they want, and what we’re really talking about is fairness and creating a level playing field in a society where the breaks and rewards are afforded to a select few, and everyone else must navigate an elaborate system where class mobility is more American “dream” than American “reality.”

[…]

Telling someone they need to be exceptional to get out of an exceptionally bad situation isn’t new advice. It’s a tale as old as the Dickens novel “Great Expectations.” But even poor, beat down Pip had the help of a mysterious benefactor, secretly guiding his path out of poverty and parentlessness.

[…]

What do you get when even a calvary of one isn’t coming to save you?