28 Jan 04 The Covenant of the Potent Cave…..

I was watching The Believer and it got me thinking about our whole race vs. belief thing. The movie is about a young Jewish man (Ryan Gosling, Murder By Numbers, Remember The Titians) that is struggling with his own Jewish beliefs and in the process becomes an influential pawn in an anti-semitic underground movement. The movie is great, and makes you consider your own beliefs and what we can become if we are too damn smart for our own good. It is one of the only modern nazi-ish movies that focused more on anti-semitism rather than hatred against blacks.

The movie reminded me of an arguement I had with someone a while back about Judaism. They told me that they were a quarter Jewish and I told them that that was impossible, as Judaism is a belief system and not a race. This went back and forth for a while until we both agreed that it was a hard pill to swallow no matter how you look at it. But I ask you, are race and religion mutually exclusive entities? Now I know that there is a Jewish bloodline and all, but realistically it is only a systems of beliefs. And this is not to say that it is the wrong system of beliefs, neither is Christianity, Buddhism, Catholicism, or Facism for that matter. They are all a just a system of beliefs that people adopt in order for them to have hope in their lives. So if these are just belief systems, how come race comes into play whenever these are discussed? Are we born into our heritage or are we conditioned to it?

For me I have never been able to understand why someone's system of beliefs is so important to other people. Christians try to convert Catholics and Catholics try to turn Jews who in turn shun everyone else that isn't a member of “the chosen people.” What does it all matter? I'm not a religious person at all, my mother is a Thai Buddhist and my father was a Baptist and I'm just floating somewhere in the middle. But if we all believe in the basic goodness of our fellow man and believe in treating them all as equals then why should it matter at what angle we approach God? Now I'm not saying that I agree with the practices of every religion but I can respect most of it. I've seen people almost get in fist fights over theological discussions that were basically just “My god is better than your god….” crap. Is that what your God teaches you? Hatred? Fear? I doubt it, if anything the most important lesson in any religion is tolerance. What happened to that? What happened to “Love your fellow man”?

Now when you throw race into the picture you open up an entirely new can of worms. Nazi's believe that blacks and Jews are the lower races on the hierarchy of existence. Why? It doesn't make any sense. Now I know that none of you out there are Nazi's or anything, but can you honestly say that you don't look at black people, hispanic people, or Jewish people differently? Maybe I'm wrong and jaded because I work around a bunch of low rent, secretly racist fucks that will lean right over to me and refer to a group of Chinese people as “chinks”. I know everyone reading this is an intelligent and tolerant being that has the sense to look at the world with open eyes, but what about the rest of the world? Every day you see race be such a huge fucking issue. In 2,000+ years we have been able to do amazing things with technology, science, and philosophy, but we are unable to conquer this tiny fucking hurdle. At work we have these giant murals painted on the walls that depict different scenes on the boat and feature various and diverse groups of people. Some guest wrote a letter to Michael Eisner about how there were no blacks in the paintings, like he gives a shit. There are though, it's pretty obvious, but I guess they weren't painted black enough. What if they had been? What if they looked the way cartoons drew black people back in the 40's and 50's, ultra-dark skin, big-lips, and large underbites? I'm sure she'd be outraged then wouldn't she? My point is what is the big fucking deal about the color of someone's skin or the content of their holy book? We've come so far as people to not be able to deal with this. Personally I don't see race at all, some of you may disagree but I know what is in my heart. You know what I think of when I think of different races; dwarf, elf, hobbit, and human. Everyone on this planet falls into that last category, we are all just human. Who knows, I might be wrong and have just played way too much Dungeons & Dragons in my time.

But fuck what do I know? I'm just a lowly, young cynic trying to figure all out myself. Who am I too judge and comment on this scary world. A world that I both hate and love unconditionally at the same time. Are we all just frightened sheep, or are we the shepard tending to the flock of our own destiny? Who knows.

I burnt our my brain on networking protocols, MIME and S/MIME setup, and a bunch of other shit today which caused me to lapse into a bit of a coma. In otherwords I fell asleep while studying stuff and took an extended nap and therefore won't be able to sleep tonight. This means work tomorrow will suck. Oh well, life goes on as always.

Oh and I also watched Once Upon A Time in Mexico today. I liked but of course Johnny Depp stole the show away from the rest of the cast. I'm sorry, I just don't like Antonio Banderas, he just irks me in the worst way. I still need to watch El Mariachi, which from what I've read is a lesson in low-budget film tricks. Director Robert Rodriguez supposedly made it for $7,000, which is a miraculous feat for an action movie.

Ok, I'm hungry, I'm going to go and masticate.

Good night, love you all. Take care.

Related Links

Leave a Comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website