wdym wart on the ass of humanity
I wasn't a good person as a teenager. I come from a very conservative family, so naturally this influenced me a lot growing up.
My mum is accepting of gay people in the sense she thinks they should have the right to marriage and such but she's hit or miss on trans people (really depends on the person, but her best mate has a trans daughter which has really helped to turn her view around). That said she was also the kind of person who's like "Yeah I think the gays should be able to marry I just don't want them shoving it down my throat" and thinks two men kissing on television is shoving it down her throat somehow.
My dad is worse. I love him but Christ he's a bigot. Racist towards certain groups, generally homophobic with exceptions for certain people, generally transphobic with exceptions for certain people, massive Trump supporter. My younger brother is too (which is weird cuz he married a Mexican woman but whatever, she's also a Trump supporter or was at the start of 2025, I haven't heard if her opinions have changed since then). You get the idea.
My dad was also very abusive when I was growing up. This has changed somewhat now that I'm old enough to beat the shit out of that old man if I have to, but as a child a lot of my opinions were formed as a survival tactic because I would be punished for expressing anything different. If you repeat a lie enough times you start to believe it.
My mother's opinions have slowly changed. With me being back in the States and being involved in certain communities she's had a lot more exposure to people she normally wouldn't. It also helps that she's homeless, so she's seen her "peers" on the streets who are mostly marginalised. Her eyes have been opened to how things are and she's changed much for the better. She's talking about protesting these days, she sticks up for people in her community, she still describes people by race but that's a work in progress. She asks people's pronouns when she can't tell instead of just making harmful assumptions. She's becoming much more socialist as she's realising how little future young people in this economy have and how the wealthy are hoarding the wealth. She hates Elon Musk now.
My dad's stuck in his ways. Would buy a Cybertruck if he could afford it, which is weird cuz he hates electric cars and previously hated Elon for making them. Loudly pro-Israel. Has referenced "kill 'em all" in regards to Gazans on more than one occasion. My dad is also a big conservationist and taught me how to love and respect the natural world around me. Beat me with a belt when I littered as a kid one time because the rule of the land is leave no trace. But he also thinks strip mining and oil drilling is fine and in the same breath whinges about how the climate is so different from when he was a kid ("It used to snow here in September when I was a kid, now we don't get snow until November, if at all") and cheers on industrialisation to ease traffic except when it happens in his little town and encroaches on the wild spaces he loves. Very much a "rules for thee not for me" kinda person.
People are very hypocritical, self-conflicting creatures. I don't reckon I'll ever quite understand them.
I was a lot like him for a long time, but I was always more moderate of a right-winger. I supported gay marriage because I believe in personal liberty and this hasn't changed (I'm louder about personal liberty now). But I thought being trans was something unnatural and a mental illness that should be worked through in therapy (see: conversion therapy) because I was in an echo chamber and didn't understand (or bother to understand) the science behind being trans, or how far back trans history goes, or what is most beneficial to trans people. I cared less about their well-being and more about their conformation with the exception of ones that were persistent enough to go to lengths to pass (like Blaire White). I didn't like feminists much and viewed them with suspicion at best. I was never racist and never hated anyone for their race, and I thought DEI was good, but I certainly held some prejudices and thought the "War on Terror" was a good thing instead of being about oil. I viewed Black crime in America as a culture issue brought on by gangster culture and rappers instead of a direct side-effect of white supremacy's attempt to keep Black people subjugated and easy to control (gestures to the CIA crack). I was of the mindset that slavery was "a long time ago" and something people should just "get over" because I wasn't able to see how the ripple effects of it were still hurting people today (which is weird because of the Stolen Generations and such in Australia, but the Stolen Generations and White Australia Policy felt so much more recent than slavery did since it was still happening up until the early 2000s through adoption). This was my failure as a privileged white man to understand these things, or bother to try to understand these things or where other people were coming from. I thought a capitalistic free market was the best economic system because I failed to see that capitalism doesn't breed innovation, just monopolies where it buys out anything better and profit is always put before productivity, beneficiality, safety, and long-term survival.
Weirdly it was my heavy hyperfixation on Nazi Germany and "dark" stuff that's usually looked down on that broke me out of a lot of this. I read Mein Kampf to get into Hitler's head because I couldn't fathom how someone could do something so evil and realised how much of Hitler's talking points was parroted with different terms but the same essence by the people in power around me. I got into true crime and the Junko Furuta case opened my eyes to how quickly "casual" misogyny turns deadly. I got more into science and sociology and how humanity interacts with different facets of itself. I made friends with people I otherwise wouldn't have, I hurt and I learnt and I loved so dearly. Love and loss can make or break someone. In my case it broke me down and built me up better.
And also it did a lot to realise that the "average person", statistically, is a middle-aged Asian man (Chinese or Indian) with black hair and eyes from a city. I am none of those things except a man. Did a lot to help me stop centreing whiteness.
There's a lot of people I wish I could apologise to.
I'm not proud of where I've been. I'd beat the shit out of the person I used to be if I saw him today. Or maybe I'd be kind because he's a hurting child, who knows really. Maybe I could get through to him cuz I've been there too and made it out.
But I am proud of how far I've come from the person I used to be, and how many harmful things I've unlearnt by just knowing when to shut the fuck up and listen to the people I surrounded myself with that aren't like me. I'm proof that change is possible and that not every bigoted arsehole is a lost cause.
On one hand I hope that there comes a day I get to stop "learning" and I finally become a "good" person. On the other hand I hope I never run out of new things to learn. I think it's a good thing to always strive to become a better version of yourself for the people around you, and for yourself as well. Anger and bigotry and hatred poisons the heart. It's deadlier than any toxin because it also poisons the people around you. It poisons the generations after you. It's up to you to break the cycle and unlearn that and become someone your children and grandchildren and community will be proud to speak of and call theirs. I'd like to meet my maker with a clean conscience and tell her I did well. Or at the very least that I did my best.
