Hello, it’s me again, your friendly neighbourhood acerbic bad hijabi, thinking out loud. Apologies in advance for disturbing your demons with my reality vibes haha.
This morning I read a thing that essentially addressed all the questions I have about this GPR residential schools story ripping through Canada right now. From the beginning, when the story about Kamloops first broke and all the performative shirt-tearing elites began their baseless accusation and struggle session tirades, I could see how this wasn’t about abuse perpetrated by the Catholic Church or even Indigenous trauma and holding to account that institution know as the Vatican and any state governments who conspired directly or indirectly with it. Rather, it struck me that the woke shirt-tearing drama troupe decided to make this all about them—everything somehow must centre around the outrage of these particular elites who maybe need a hobby or a hug from their mom or some kind of real love idk. The mom and nurse in me see attention-seeking in all this acting out behaviour of woktopians we are calling activism or progressive. I mean, look at the stupid teddy bear photo op by the drama teacher himself if you doubt my words here. I couldn’t be more disgusted if he was jizzing on instead of holding the stuffed bear—to me it’s really just as narcissistic. The drama teacher derives pleasure from the pain of others and not sorry I find this icky. Wokes derive pleasure from the pain and suffering of others and I’m kind of over that crap, ok? It seems like a step beyond the apathy that allowed all the abuse to take place to begin with—it’s creepy and fetishtic not socially progressive.
Please stop treating me like an idiot. Stop this gaslighting.
Like, y’all just discovered that Catholic Church Elites abused children and the poor and destitute? Please. No you did not. Like, hello how you think an institution run by the Borgia Pope will behave in the world it colonised?? Within the Vatican, the Borgia apartments were sealed off from use for nearly four centuries—what does that tell you, LOL? I mean I could go off on a tangent and write about how that sealing off act seems symbolic on a few levels, when you consider that the Vatican systematically and consistently walled off victim complainants from any accountability or consequences for abusers and even gave the worst abuser public accolades whilst railroading victims behind the scenes. Oops, there’s the overthinking muscle spazzing out again.
Anyway. We all watched Jeremy Irons killing it as the Borgia Pope and maybe we got so enthralled with the romanticising of a historical figure that we forgot about the actual horrid man who moved history in not so pleasant ways. Also you were so busy hating saracens and casting all number of dehumanising projections onto south and east Asians and blaming Jews for everything bad that ever happened and even killing your god that you trusted men wearing embroidered frocks who want you to call them father a bit too much with your kids and your darkest secrets. Now you’ve gone bonkers in the other direction with your infantalising victimhood anti-racist racialising garbage bollocks and you are still blaming Jews for stupid sh1t and still trusting men in dresses with your kids a bit too much only these blokes want you to call them mummy or some dumb pronoun they chose and that’s no better so idk what is the deal with elites and why do the masses still trust you freaks when you wave money at them? Are we this pathetic as a species, really?
As I write this I wonder about how much the western film industry serves as a kind of propaganda ministry for western elites who decide on the societal narratives we shirt-tear and otherwise ruminate upon on some kind of cyclical basis the pattern of which I have yet to figure out. Do we see the Borgia Pope as that fetching + witty Jeremy Irons figure? Do we see Guilano Della Rovere as that annoying hyperbolic whingey villain? Is that intentional—to cast a pervert and corrupt nepotistic despot as desirable and sexy and to cast the truthful responsible figure working to stop corruption as the unsexy bore we should love to hate? Does this repeated mind manipulation seep into our deeper thoughts and form the lens through which we see the world and society? Is this why Muslims typically have resisted the temptation to turn their historical figures into film-cult effigies that could become a literary propaganda accessory and historical revisionist tool? Alternatively, is the uncomfortable dramatic portrayal a reflection of how wrong we get things on the ground, in real meat space life? Am I overthinking again? IDK.
Anyway here they are, the social justice brigade, for hire to manufacture dopamine enhancing outrage. Modern day digital mercenaries much? Drug dealers much? Because yes, outrage and aggression hormones produced by human physiology are a drug the rush of which we can get too enthralled with. Facts. So, you who bang on about colonialism blah blah, you are gonna tell me with straight faces that you just woke up to what the Catholic Church did with help from western society ruling elites? Do you have some land to sell me, too? Oh wait, you have ground penetrating scan results you’re selling me as physical evidence of a crime.
And because someone is already misreading my words, I just said there’s no physical evidence not that no crime was committed—ground penetrating radar is not an underground x-ray machine, anomalies in the soil were detected, that’s it, no exhumations have happened and no physical forensic tests have been conducted. Genocide is punishing a group of people for existing by taking their kids from them and that happened I never said it did not I am saying ground penetrating radar is not definitive physical evidence of anything and wokes have decided it’s the gospel truth and I am not eating that sh1t sandwich today or any day, okay babies? Facts, give me facts without your woke evangelical embellishments. TRUTH MATTERS AND WE ALL NEED THE TRUTH TO MOVE FORWARD NOT MORE WOKE HORSESH1T PSYOPS BOLLOCKS.
Hahahahahaha anyway, where have you been sweethearts? This stuff of hidden abuse no one believes has been real life for many people for many many lifetimes, not just a Twitter hobby for the self loathing who project their misery and guilt onto anything that moves or shows disagreement. You know, FYI. We are talking about watching your abusers and their collaborators have good things and glory and feeling angry about that. This is a human experience not confined to a particular degree of skin melanin or locale of origin. Why does everything need to be tribal? Good grief, you know your sh1t smells too, right? Whomever you are, it don’t matter. The universe seeks balance, it always did and will continue to do so after you die. Your drama show is just silly noise.
Pull. Head. From. Ass. Rinse. Repeat as often as needed.
I grew up in a devout catholic prairie enclave where the seminary was shut down and where there was a disproportionately high rate of “mental illness” amongst the catholic male populace. My Indo-Guyanese dad—who came straight from the sugar cane fields and remnants of plantocracy and whose illiterate mother lost 12 children between he and his next surviving sibling—had more emotional and psychological resilience than any white dude who supposedly had white privilege going for himself. That’s what I saw growing up a brown grrl in a white world, in case anyone cares—your silly privilege constructs don’t play out on the ground in messy human experiences. I was born just after the Second Vatican Council created the big foufra it did and caused the massive haemorrhage of membership from the church—I have to wonder if on some level that painful transformation was an attempt at some kind of accountability strategy on the part of that particular Pope. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, isn’t it? Food for thought perhaps.
My brilliant uncle who was the eldest son marked for priesthood had a sudden breakdown early in his seminary training and he became a science experiment for psychiatry, which in my estimation exists to pathologise trauma survivors and abuse victims and protect their elite abusers and the institutional settings that produced them and allowed the abuse to happen. Walter Freeman was saving the world one lobotomy at a time with his special surgical ice pick he would jam through eye sockets and into the brains of his victims back then and my uncle got saved along with thousands of others. How does society ultimately protect abusers and let the abuse ring flourish— pathologise the victims and render them unable to tell their story of what happened. This is the human condition.
My grandparents handed their son over to people who said they could fix him and those people broke him some more and then my grandparents spent their lives caring for him at home. And all the good catholics went to church and prayed and said shhhhh the church. Even my grandparents. Even their family. Everyone did. They still do. No one wants to know what happened because then they have to face it and do something about it. This intergenerational family pain shared by many other families in silence and secrecy and shame isn’t your flipping social justice crusade Woktopians, seriously fcuk that and get another hobby cuz our pain isn’t your playground. It’s also not an excuse to persecute everyone who believes in God FYI or set churches on fire you goons and ghouls, so harsh miss me with that too, mmmkay? Making this about race is egregiously classist and racist and a bloody lie!
So, yeah, pardon me if I just snort in derision when woke bougie drama queens want to educate me about intergenerational trauma carried by families and communities because of abuse perpetrated and hidden by the Catholic Church. I don’t appreciate liars and glory-seeking d1ckbags cloaking themselves in rotting empty virtue whilst they eat the pain and suffering of others for hedonistic pleasure. Spare me your woke sermons, mmmkay?
Tuam, Ireland—google that sh1t and read about it. Watch the documentaries, listen to the humans talking, process that stuff on a human level. I dare you to watch and read—you can’t handle the truth, to quote a famous movie line. Duplessis Orphans—google that sh1t and read about how they are still waiting for accountability and ask yourself did they receive an apology from the Vatican? Watch The Keepers, and go purchase Jean Hargadon Wehner’s book about her trauma journey and healing therefrom. Then go look for Teresa Lancaster’s book. Know that I watched that documentary and wept through many parts of it and that Jean taught me a great deal about trauma responses through taking courage to tell her story. Her courage facilitated the imparting of knowledge that helped me figure some of my own stuff out and put pieces of a larger intellectual trauma and neurobiology puzzle together. Her suffering is likely not uncommon and we need to talk about that more openly. You don’t see these survivors projecting the sh1t out of their trauma in some blame to society tale of woe, and they all could blame every one of us, like millions of others on this spinning rock could. How does that relieve suffering now? Ego jizzing is not helpful, it’s an ego-driven response to suffering and it’s abusive. Press pause on your ego please.
We need to stop this ridiculous racial tribalising and revising of history and we need to reject this racially hierarchical thinking that’s infiltrated media and public discourse—elites who seek glory for themselves and who deny or block accountability are not the ones to lead a healing or truth-seeking endeavour. By definition, narcissists cannot lead healing, we are trying to heal from their abuses, LOL.
Victimhood obscures accountability and truth. It also denies the opportunity to grow and heal to the ones who most need it so that others can have their emotional needs met. That’s a bit predacious, so why are we doing that? Saviours happen at the expense of those whom they save. Those of us healing from intergenerational and actual physical and emotion trauma cannot live in your world built of lies and extremist constructs. We also cannot become pawns in your silly ego chess game. Look, we aren’t here to hold up your abstract house of bullsh1t or make your career as a professional saviour. If you are trying to save anyone you designate as a victim that is your projected identity. Stop. Before you act begin with a simple question—is this choice you are making to do a thing about serving truth (or God, if you believe) or ego?
Ego is not your amigo.
The illustration is a reminder that JK Rowling, not any child actors, created Hogwarts and the Harry Potter world. I drew the characters here deliberately not to resemble the actors to make this point. Also I confess I wanted to cast Hermione in my image—a Desi girl. And if Ron Weasley looks like any actor it might be Sean Penn in his Spicoli days and I’m ok with that and any resemblance is not intentional!
There will be entire areas of literary and cultural study devoted to the analysis of Harry Potter and Hogwarts, like there are areas devoted to studying Lord of the Rings/Tolkien. Rowling is that profound of a thinker, on the level of Tolkien and Lewis—a world builder with human frailties and fierceness and she is here to stay wokes so cry harder about that and damn, every day I love her more as I watch the way she leads without trying by doing!
The best leaders are not trying to lead, sort of like the best teachers are not trying to teach. Maybe this is why Brandon Stark had to become king at the end of Game of Thrones, because he never sought to and never even dreamed of it and that made him the right man for the task. A king is just a man with a fancy chair and hat and sceptre. A king is just a man.