Your Serving Of Awesomesauce

So, I'm not writing stuff right now. Partly because someone told me I've been incoherent lately (which means that before I move on, I need to go back and polish some stuff), and mainly because I've been working my butt off and don't have time for everything.

So if you're here, and you're white, you need to go to this site:

http://www.counter-racismnow.com/

This site is the closest thing I've ever found to the elusive "magical fountain of knowledge about racism" (at least as it affects black folks.) Each post seems to be part of a coherent analysis of the role that racism plays in the United States' society, and it's fucking brilliant. So read it and learn something.

(Warning: The blog is a VERY straight and cisgender space. The Web site with which the blog is associated, http://www.counter-racism.com is likewise dominated, and particularly in the forum there is a LOT of heteronormative and downright homo/transphobic thinking. I ain't saying these guys are perfect, just awesome.)

Mississippi Goddam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBiAtwQZnHs

An old video, but one that I expect most young white people haven't seen. The song was written and performed by Nana Simone in the 60's as a protest against recent acts of racist terrorism. More on Wikipedia. The lyrics allude to numerous acts of daily racism, most of which are still committed to this day. It brings a certain depth of poignancy to the struggles of black people that can never be attained through white-produced media.

Rethinking This Whole "Racism" Thing

Between Tim Wise and Noel Ignatiev, I've been doing me some thinking.

And I'm thinking they're right. (I know, I know... I think the white guys are right, what a concept.) I do think that attempting to disclaim whiteness when dealing with PoC is an utterly stupid idea, because the only thing it could possibly accomplish is to disenguilt the pale people of their connection to and at least former complacence in racism - not a good idea. So if a PoC refers to you as white, live with it.

On the other hand, what good does it do for you to identify as white to white people? 90% of the time, the only thing it will do is get you privilege. If you're very careful - if you make it pointedly clear to everyone you interact with that while you may be white, you are against racism - you may lose a tiny bit of that privilege, but still, "not playing by the rules" is a more forgivable offense than "not being white."

Many PoC have used the phrase, "The master's tools will never demolish the master's house." While I sort of grasped the general concept of "your oppressor will never try to help you unless he can do so without undermining himself," it has become clear that there is more meaning in it. In some countries - and certainly in the United States - being white is like being a member of the Catholic Church.

For those who haven't had the displeasure of being an ex-Catholic (or read about someone having the displeasure of being an ex-Catholic), here's how it works: Every person born into a Catholic family is baptized into the church as a baby. They go through the ceremony, get wet, yadda, and get their name enrolled in the Church's records. And in most cases, your name stays there for life. Even if you apostatize, even if you swear off everything your church stands for, even if you become a dedicated Satanist for the rest of your life, unless you fight tooth and nail to get your name taken out of the roster (and sometimes even then), you are counted as a member of the Catholic Church. This wouldn't be too bad if it was just a clerical issue - whoever's in charge of your new religion probably doesn't care what some fusty old church has to say, particularly if you've become an atheist - but it's not. Instead, the Church will use their artificially bloated member list at every opportunity to try and get power. You don't think Catholic law should become dominant in a given country? Look how many card-carrying Catholics there are in that country! Want to prosecute the Pope for complacency in child rape? You're going after a nation, and I have the papers to prove it. (This is the really insidious part: even Catholics don't have a say in how they're represented. Even if they hate the Pope. Even if they approve birth control or would like to sell the Vatican and use the proceeds to buy food for the hungry, their names still get used to back up the very things they oppose.)

Likewise, when you have the right set of genes to be assumed white and don't do anything to make people think otherwise, even if you don't agree with the principles that Whiteness has dropped on the country, you will be used to support its principles. Answer "White" on racial surveys? Politicians will point to the enormous white majority to justify racist laws. Be yet another pale face in your social circle? Somebody will think of a racist joke to "share," and they won't hold back on your account. Even arguing your innocence of a speeding ticket could cause a problem - the cop might give it to you anyway, or he might let you off and go home feeling happy and secure that he's helped out another innocent white person.

The Master's tools may not destroy the Master's house, but the unfortunate fact is that this concept of white supremacy will not be destroyed as long as us pale people remain complacent. A hundred well-read, well-argued, and intensely frustrated voices of color can explain the problem over and over again, but as long as white people believe that the pale are all on their side, most of them are never going to listen to them. This isn't fair, it isn't right, and it's supremely racist, but it's a fact. And us pale people - be we racially "white" or not - are in a unique position to do something about it.

But am I saying that the pale hold the sole power to end racism? Hardly! This is only one facet of anti-racism work, and it does not happen a vacuum. People like Noel Ignatiev and I have only come to realize this was even a problem because of the hours of hard work from PoC. And even if the white majority can be made to stop believing in the sanctity of the white race, that effect will not dissuade them of the inferiority of other races. Nor can it end oppressive lawmaking, increased poverty in communities of color, and many other issues that PoC face. In many aspects, PoC have and will continue to take the lead, with white/pale people assisting as is necessary and beneficial. This just happens to be one issue (possibly the only one) that pale people, specifically, must fight on their own.

RACE TRAITOR: The Point Is Not To Interpret Whiteness But To Abolish It

I just finished reading this fascinating talk on abolition. Rather than fighting racism from a white standpoint, Noel Ignatiev suggests that white people might do better to actively defect from the so-called "white race," effectively destroying the validity of white supremacy by making it a class/culture issue rather than a skin color issue. It's a fascinating idea, and it does fit with some thoughts I had also had on the subject, and particularly in light of Tim Wise's talk I believe it deserves some consideration. I admit that it appeals to me mainly because it requires so much sacrifice on the part of the white ally - there is no way to have your cake and eat it too if you follow this principle correctly. It is my feeling that I cannot possibly go wrong by taking the steps outlined, although I will have to read and find out how persons of (other) color feel about it and take their viewpoint into consideration as well.

In any case, it's a fascinating read. It's also a good litmus test for the budding anti-racist - if the idea of forgoing your white identity seems offensive or unthinkable to you, you need to keep working.

MUST SEE: Tim Wise on White Privilege

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc

Full transcript:

'Cause if you know the history of the whole concept of Whiteness, if you know the history of the whole concept of the white race, where it came from and for what reason, you know that it was a trick - and it's worked brilliantly.

See, prior to the mid- to late-1600's in the colonies of what would become the United States, there was no such thing as the white race - those of us of European descent did not refer to ourselves by that term, really ever, before then. In fact, in the old countries of Europe, we had spent most of our time killing each other. We didn't love each other; we weren't one big, happy family. The side of my family that comes from Scotland, hell, they didn't even worry about fighting people outside of Scotland. Highlanders and lowlanders just fought the hell out of each other. So there was no white race, but in the colonies of what would become the United States, what did we see in the 1660's-1670's? We began to see that Africans of indentured servant status (many of them not enslaved yet, they were not necessarily permanently enslaved; some were, others were indentured like many poor Europeans for periods of seven to eleven years - they could work off their indenture and then they would be free labor, technically) realized, as did the white indentured servants, the Europeans (who hadn't even been called white yet) that they had a lot of things in common, like the fact that they were all getting their clock cleaned by the elites. And so they would get together, more than our history books taught us. To fement(?) rebellion against the elite, to try to get a better deal for themselves on the basis of economic necessity and economic justice.

And what did the elite do? When you see that you're outnumbered by black and white folks who are penniless, landless, peasants, you have to do one of two things: you either have to kill them all, but you can't do that, 'cause who's gonna work? Rich folks weren't going to. They had to get poor people to work. The whole point was to be a person of leisure, back in those days. That was the goal, was not to work. So you couldn't kill them all, you didn't want to kill them all, you'd have to do the work yourself! You'd have to build your own levy. Build your own house. No. Pick your own tobacco! Harvest your own cotton... no. We're not going to do any of that. So you can't kill them, but you can co-opt them, and so the elite in Virginia, for example, in the colony, begins to give certain carrots to people of European descent, saying things like "You know, we're going to let you own a little land. Not much, but just a little. And we're going to get rid of indentured servitude, now you're free labor - and by the way, once you're free labor you get fifty acres of land. Just because you're free labor, see, so we're going to cut you in on this deal. We're going to let you enter into contracts. We're going to let you testify in court, and here's the best of all: we're going to put you on the slave patrol. To keep those people in line," right? The idea was, "you're still going to get your clock cleaned. We still don't like you. We still aren't really going to empower you or change your economic subordination, but we're going to make you honorary members of this team, and you're going to help us keep those other people down."

And so they got a little taste of power, and it did effectively divide and conquer those coalitions - those rebellions began to stop almost instantly. Fast forward to the Civil War era, you have rich white folks in the South where I come from, standing up and openly admitting that the reason they're prepared to secede from the Union - and the only reason they ever articulated publicly, EVER - was to maintain and extend slavery and white supremacy, not only where it already existed, but into the newly acquired - that is to say, stolen - territories from Mexico, to the west. That was what they said. Now we lie about it. We say it wasn't about slavery. That it was about state's rights. Yes, the right of the states to keep and maintain slaves, exactly. But back then they had no shame, so they didn't try and cover it up. They only said it, but once again the rich didn't want to go and do the work - are you kidding? No. They're going to get poor people to go fight for them. And the poor folks didn't even own slaves. Now think: how do you get poor people, who don't even own the shirt on their back - let alone slaves - to go fight to keep your slaves for you? You've got to convince them that their skin is more important than their economic interest, because think about it: if I am a farmer who has to charge you a dollar a day or two dollars a week to work on your farm, to harvest that tobacco or pick that cotton, but you can get a black person to do it for free (because you own them), who's going to get the job? Not me. In other words, slavery actually undermined the wages, and the wage-based economic floor, of the typical white working-class or low-income person. But they were told, "if these people are free they're going to take your job." No, fool, they got your job. That's the point. And so at some level, again, working-class white people being harmed by white privilege. Relatively, being advantaged, right? Being given a leg up, being given a membership to the club, but in absolute terms being kept economically subordinated by the very thing that gave them a sense of superiority. How's that for irony?

Then in the present era - this hasn't stopped, this is not ancient history - now we have people running around insisting that we should close the border with Mexico because, if we don't, the wages of working-class people will continue to fall, the implication being that the only reason workers are paid like crap in this country is because the border is opened. But if you believe that, you would actually have to believe that if that border were closed, then all these owners of capital and industry would just say "Oh, well, you figured us out. Here, it's a raise." Do we really believe that the only thing keeping bosses from paying people more is the presence of low-wage, medium-semi-skilled labor from south of this artificial border? Is that really what we believe? We know that if that border was closed, it isn't going to be closed to capital. It isn't going to be closed to goods. If you have a border that can be crossed by capital, looking for the highest return on investment or goods, looking for the highest price, but labor is chained to its country of origin, how is that going to work to the benefit of working people? By definition, it doesn't. By definition, it emiserates the working class. Divide, and conquer.

But the best example of all, perhaps, in the contemporary era - in the greater New Orleans area after Katrina - here you have two communities that were the worst hard-hit: the Lower Ninth Ward, mostly black community, 94% African-American, about 40% official poverty rate, heavy working-class community, and right across the canal, St. Bernard Parish Chalmette, 95% white, also working-class, high levels of poverty, economically very similar. And at the end of the day, in those first few days of September 2005, more similar than they probably would have realized. Because when those levies broke, they all got their stuff jacked. They all got their stuff destroyed. But if you had asked the white folks in Chalmette - and I've done it - who was the cause of the problems in the greater New Orleans area part of that flooding, they would have pointed across the canal at those black folks (wouldn't have called them black folks) and would have said "there, that's the problem." 70% of the white folks in St. Bernard Parish voted for David Duke, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, former head of the largest Ku Klux Klan group in the United States, when he ran for governer in 1991. Seven out of ten gladly voted for him, because he was blaming black folks for all of their problems and they bough it. What's the irony? The irony is that while they were blaming black people for their problems, while they were blaming black people for the conditions of the greater New Orleans area in which they lived, nobody was paying attention (least of all they) to the fact that these white elite politicians, either in Baton Rouge or in Washington, whose job it was to secure those levies, to make sure that levy funds were spent in the proper way and that they were spent at all, those mostly white and mostly elite politicians did nothing at the end of the day, it wasn't just the black folks in the Lower 9th Ward they didn't care about, they didn't give a rat's ass about those poor and working-class white folks either. And yet when the people of Chalmette - people of St. Bernard Parish - got back into session, first time they had a city council meeting, parish council meeting after the flooding, the lights aren't even on yet. The water isn't even hooked up, and the first order of business was to pass an ordinance saying that you couldn't rent property in St. Bernard Parish to anyone who wasn't a blood relative. Now I'll leave it up to your imagination as to why they'd want to pass a law - that law had never existed before - but now that it's been emptied out and you don't know who might be coming back, that's a damn good way to keep black people out, isn't it? 'Cause if you're 95% white to begin with, if you pass an ordinance that says that, that's a great w-you can't say "no blacks need apply," you can't say "no blacks allowed," but that was an ingenious way to get around the law. Now, they got caught, there was a lawsuit threatened and they got rid of the ordinance. But my point in bringing it up is to say, once again, "divide and conquer" is working. These white folks in Chalmette need to march across that canal and join hands with the black folks who've been sitting there, more than willing to work with them for an awful long time, and march on Baton Rouge, and march on DC, and march on the Corps of Engineers, and recognize their commonality of interest. But the whiteness, and the lure of whiteness, has tricked these have-nothing-in-their-bank-account white people into believing that they got more in common with the rich white folks on St. Charles Avenue, that didn't lose anything in that flooding, than they have in common with the black working-class folks who live about five hundred yards away.

This is a brilliant, powerful, and utterly illuminating piece. One of the biggest flaws I have noticed in anti-racist work (at least on the blogosphere), from people of any color, is the simple inability to connect with white allies. They express the problem, they express their rage, and they have that right, but it is rare for someone to actually communicate, to cause the white person to truly appreciate that they useful in the battle against racism and in fact have a sizeable stake in it. This communication may not be cathartic, and one often feels that the other party does not deserve such treatment, but it is vital in the acquisition of allies - something that other marginalized groups have already discovered. Tim Wise (likely by virtue of being white himself) has managed to communicate with the white mind, bringing to light one of its greatest flaws - to believe, because of the repeated affirmation of their whiteness on all sides, that even the most disenfranchised white person has more in common with their own oppressors than with their fellow oppressed. This is, in a word, bullshit - and I will try to remember that in the future.

(I will also remember to double-check my sources. I wasted a huge amount of time transcribing the talk, optimistically thinking that I was doing something useful, when there was already a PDF version available. Oh, well.)

(Via stuff white people do.)

So Far: Outlaw

Time for a return review on one of Hulu's fall shows: Outlaw.

I've just watched the second episode, and I think it's an appropriate time. I enjoyed the pilot and all, but it didn't really deviate from my predictions, so I didn't have much to say about it (Other than the fact that the real murderer was a WASP male, which was just kickass). The second episode, on the other hand, left me with a lot to say.

A quick recap (spoilers!): In Arizona, a white police officer is charged with violating a man's civil rights after he gets into an altercation with a Latino man, resulting from the recent anti-immigration law. Cyrus Garza takes the side of the cop (surprise!) and gets him found not guilty.

Let me just say I have no quibble with the way the story played out. I felt that it was perfectly reasonable to find the cop innocent - especially, as Garza points out, since he was following the law. I don't believe one could safely claim racial profiling in this case because of Reyes' proximity to the Mexican border - the fact is, there aren't a lot of white immigrants coming in from Mexico. So I agree with Garza.

However, I have a complaint, and it's a biggie.

The other day, my sister came to me, having read some anti-racist blogs, and confessed that she now found the Avenue Q song "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" horrifying. When I asked her why, she explained with a question: "Who does it help?"

Who, indeed? While the song makes a point - nearly everyone harbors some racial prejudice - it doesn't deflate some high-and-mighty darkie who thinks that he or she is better than the white man. It just excuses white people's behavior because everyone else does it too, ignoring the power factors that make it a much bigger problem when a pale (presumed white, usually is) person does it.

So when I saw this episode, I had to ask myself: Who does it help?

And therein lies the problem. It plays out like some kind of knee-jerk "white victim panic." Ohnoez, innocent white cops will be forced to follow this law and be prosecuted unfairly by those mean ol' pro-alien liberals! We're DOOMED! And while the story doesn't deny (explicitly or implicitly) that real victims of color do happen, giving the center stage to the rare, non-overtly-racist, actually-had-reasonable-suspicion cop is just white-serving. Not that there would be anything wrong with that if media didn't tend to serve white people already. But it does, so I was really hoping we'd see a case of actual profiling.

There's one thing that I'm not sure on, and that is the eventual "not guilty" verdict. On the one hand, oh boy, all the darkies came out of the woodwork to support poor Whitey! YAAAAY! On the other hand, maybe it will do something to reassure the paranoid that POC are perfectly capable of being reasonable and fair and not letting their bad experiences bias them. So it's a good/bad thing, in my opinion.

Then there was one thing that really got my goat: the fact that Al - the Black Best Friend, of all people - was the one upset about the issue. The one guy who probably knew exactly what he was talking about got shut down not only by Garza (who apparently has never lived in this kind of area) but by all the white people, and then it turned out that they were all right and he was overreacting. Uh, gee. Way to go, writers.

That pretty much sums it up. Good story, unfortunate choice of plot factors, kind of on-the-fence about its overall benefit level. If a PoC wants to take this on and cover something that I missed (goodness knows being a white kid there's probably something), I'd love to hear from xem.

Read.

I'm not going to qualify this further. The content of this blog post proves that it should be read.

http://stuffwhitepeoplesay.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/912/

How To Be A Peach Person

In my introduction blog, I covered a bit about race labels and why I don't like identifying myself as "white." I proposed "over-privileged peach-skinned bastard" as an alternative, which I later shortened to "privileged peach person."

After a bit, it occurred to me that there were facets of this "peach" thing I wasn't covering. For instance, I don't feel it's appropriate to refer to all white persons as "peach" - white supremacists and clueless middle-class WASPs, for instance, can keep on being white. It's more than a race; it's a mindset. So what exactly is a peach person?

To be a peach person, you must meet all of the following requirements:

1. You must belong to the "white" race.
2. You must be aware that as a light-skinned person, you are more privileged than persons of other colors, particularly in the company of other light-skinned people.
3. You must acknowledge and accept that you have no special right to this extra privilege, but that you have it anyway.
4. You must be willing to employ that privilege, as well as other resources at your disposal, to try and make that privilege available to persons of other colors. How you do this is up to you. Call people out on racist remarks, lobby to get persons of other color into influential positions, band with persons of other color to form an interracial alliance, whatever you are able to do.
5. You must accept that the superiority of fair-skinned people is an illusion, and remember this at all times. As others have said, check your ego at the door. No matter where you go or who you are with, remember that light-skinned people are not nicer, purer, smarter, or more human than people of other colors.
   
6. You must own your white heritage. No matter what you call yourself, you are still the product of a long line of oppressors - a line that shows few signs of letting up - and as such, persons of other color will be disinclined to trust you. You need to accept the stigma of being pale, just as other races have been forced to accept their stigmas.
   
7. You do not need to make an official commitment or label yourself an "anti-racist" or anything else. You only need to be willing to accept that your skin color is only your skin color, and the privilege you have exists only because you were born into a profoundly unjust society, and that you have a responsibility to try and correct the imbalance that granted you that privilege.

That is what it means to be a "peach person." To call yourself peach is to disown your "white" ego - to accept that you, too, have a color, and are no different (essentially, if not culturally) than those of darker shades. You are not "lowering yourself to their level." You are declaring that the level you thought you occupied before - that white people believe themselves to occupy on a daily basis - is an illusion, perpetrated by a pale-skinned society so caught up in itself that has almost forgotten it exists.

(I cannot take credit for everything in this list. In fact, I really cannot take credit for any of it. It is thanks to the excellent anti-racist blog, Stuff White People Do - and the many lists of advice for anti-racist allies that they link to - that I have come to understand any of this, much less condense it into a single train of thought. The owner and contributors have opened my eyes tremendously, and I thank them for knocking me off my own white pedestal.)

An Apology

As I have mentioned, I am white (unfairly privileged peach-tone, as I prefer it). As I have mentioned, all peach-toned persons from the United States are racist, whether they mean to be or not. Having thought about myself, I've realized that I've (unintentionally) had a number of racist thoughts/perceptions through the years, and I need to apologize. By having these thoughts, I have unintentionally contributed to a system which marginalizes minority races, especially those of darker skin color, and that is unacceptable. So here is my apology.

I'm sorry for not trusting blacks and Latin Americans as implicitly as I do other races just because of your skin color.
I'm sorry for assuming that Hispanic Latin Americans are shoddy parents just because you shop at Wal-Mart and buy beer.
I'm sorry for seeing a black person in town and thinking "Whooooa, cool!" You are a person, not a novelty item.
I'm sorry for thinking that I might date a white girl or a black guy, but a black girl would just be too weird.
I'm sorry for ogling the Asians who are out shopping for groceries.
I'm sorry for being so ignorant at age 20 that I was actually surprised to learn that South Africa had urban cities in it.
I'm sorry for referring to everyone of a darker color as "black" or "Hispanic" or "Asian" or "Native American" (or whatever other label you can think of), but failing to specify when someone is European-descended.
I'm sorry for opposing affirmative action. (I do, however, think that there are better alternatives. Though since I'm peach-toned, I could be wrong.)
I'm sorry for instinctively dissing hip-hop because it was invented by dem underedumacated black doodz.
I'm sorry for even having to use the phrase "dem underedumacated black doodz." Especially since you've probably had more schooling than I have.
I'm sorry for ignoring media by and about persons of darker color because I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to relate to it.
I'm sorry that my perception filter allows me to look at a crowd of all-peach people and fail to notice anything odd.
And finally, I am very sorry for feeling that I was superior to my (racist) dad.

I am not asking for forgiveness. I am not attempting to make reparations or whatnot. What I did was inexcusable. This is just me saying that I was a jerk, I realize that now, and I regret it and want to do better. Now I am done apologizing, and I'm going to spend my energy on more constructive things, like learning how to erase the internalized racism I'm currently dealing with and how to call it out when I see it in others.

Introduction

Hello, my name is William, and I am here to talk about labels. I know I bear a ton of them: human, white, blonde, European-descended, fair-skinned, able-bodied, female, daughter, sister, low-class, obese, transgendered, FTM, male, brother, pansexual, part-time crossdresser, in the closet, blogger (as of now), writer, English language persnicketor, caveman, environmentally conscious, animal welfare supporter, meat-eater, atheist, agnostic, panmaterialist, pacifist, activist, homeschooled, country boy, unemployed, self-taught, slacker, single, Zac Efron fangirl, single, cat person, dog owner, racist, anti-kyriarchal, food lover, adrenaline lover, American. (I'm sure I've missed a few.) All of these apply to me in some way, even though I don't necessarily agree with or want to use all of them. No doubt all of them have colored your perception of me, making you less or more likely to take me seriously, less or more likely to view me as shallow or immoral or worthless or potentially annoying. Some of them seem like outright contradictions - humans are good at that.

So here's a breakdown of my favorite and least favorite labels - the ones that I identify with and the ones I'd rather leave behind.

White, European-descended, fair-skinned

I don't like to call myself "white." First of all, it's simply medically untrue (I'm also a persnicketor). Secondly, the term "white" brings up so many associations of Anglo-Saxon superiority, Aryanism, and other stuff that I just do not subscribe to. If you have to lump me, I'd rather be called "White" than "Caucasian" (my ancestors just are not from Georgia and that term is SO flippin' racisto), but for common usage I prefer to be referred to as "fair-skinned," "European-descended," "North European-American," "light pink," or even "unfairly privileged peach-toned bastard."

Female, male, transgendered, FTM, gay, bisexual, transvestite

I am female-to-male transgendered, which means that I am biologically female and perceived as female in the outside world, but as far as I am concerned I am male. Here on the Internet, I prefer to use male pronouns and a male name. I enjoy wearing women's clothes very rarely, and only on my terms.

White, obese, slacker, American

This particular set of labels will get me pegged pretty quickly as yet another water-buffalo American, shuffling down the sidewalks in singleminded pursuit of my next Big Mac. Well, I'm here to tell you that I don't eat Big Macs (or fast food, if I can help it), I don't shuffle, and unlike some people I actually take responsibility for my own obesity and am trying to repair it.

Caveman, meat-eater

With all respect to the American Heart Association, American Diabetics' Association, etc.: sorry, but you're wrong. The anti-meat, pro-carb guidelines currently in place are based on faulty data, half-baked assumptions, insufficient studies and a whole lot of hyperbole. That's why I won't eat hot dogs or processed hamburgers and sausages if I can help it, but I will happily sink my teeth into a whole, chemically-minimal piece of beefy goodness. (I also work out. That's the other side of being a caveman. And to soothe any further concerns about my health, I also eat plenty of green vegetables and fruit, and my blood sugar has been almost completely under control ever since I started eating this way.)

Atheist, agnostic, panmaterialist

Again, all of these are true. I am an atheist in that I do not worship any gods. I am agnostic because I do not know for sure (and not because I'm "between religions" at the moment - I'm just not interested in that kind of a relationship right now). I call myself a panmaterialist because I appreciate the fact that everything that exists in the universe now came from the same place, has existed forever, and can never be destroyed, only configured into new shapes. Even human minds will live on in the minds of others, sometimes for generations after the original has passed. Everything that exists is part of a living, ongoing network that cannot truly be destroyed.

Zac Efron fangirl

It's true. I can't help it. Looking at Zac Efron makes me so happy that I just want to squee, because he is that pretty. You could say that Zac Efron is my one weakness.

Country boy

I'm not a cowboy, just so you know. I've lived in the country my whole life, yet I've still grown up into a middle-class type of young adult. I don't even like cows that much. But I like to live out here, I like to take long walks and photographs, and the fresh air is to die for.

I'll extrapolate more on these and other labels in other posts. These are just the ones that stand out to me as the kind that I identify with the most or the least, or that other people are most likely to consider when they decide what kind of person I am. That's what labels are for, after all.