Yeah, again again, “You are a racist!” spat at me with derision. All because I own merchandise from Black Rifle Coffee and voted for Cheeto Satan. It doesn’t help that I can trace my whiteness back through Plymouth and Jamestown to England. I am Presbyterian. Oh, it’s worse. I am a covenant partner with the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians. If you don’t know, sorry, but ECO is bad says PCUSA. Also, I am a cisgender man, another evil adjective and another reason to hate me.
I’m not done. I beat my Taiwanese wife repeatedly over seven years of marriage. So in addition to my WASP evils, I am also an abuser of a woman of color, a mortal sin of the worst sort. Let’s add a couple more: I voted for Trump, own a MAGA hat, and like guns.
Despicable enough for you? Here is where I am going with this. My family has been loyal Democratic voters for at least a century. We are socialists when it is impolite to say we are communists. TBH, we are Stalinist or Maoist. At least, that’s what PUDFARB will tell you.
You Can’t Leave
PUDFARB wants me back so they can convict me of a couple of felonies. The first is leaving PUDFARB. You can’t leave PUDFARB. Ever. If you were born there you must stay. If you visited there even for a moment, forever after a repatriation squad is assigned to you. They want you back.
My family is from PUDFARB. My Dad left, married my Mom, raised four kids, had a career designing power systems for radios and radar, and went home to Jesus last year. There is some history with our family leaving PUDFARB. His Mom never forgave him for his career with RCA designing weapons. It was great news when I announced I was taking a bus to my Grandma’s house at age 19. The prodigal son returns. For a while.
The second felony happened slowly. I joined St. Giles Church. St. Giles is odd for the Puritan strains of Presbyterianism. They speak in tongues. They hold prayer meetings where people get healed. There is a lot of Holy Spirit stuff happening there. Terribly evil, PUDFARB says. I love it and that’s the thing. Last I heard I’d been convicted in absentia and I’m being sought so I can serve my time in a reeducation camp.
Why I Live in Richmond
Lately, some of my friends have said that I have to choose. I must either spew invective at our President with sufficient fervor or accept that I am the lowliest of low minions living under the hoof of Satan at the deepest circles of hell. For my family and for these friends there are only two kinds of people: loyal Democrats and traitors. It’s hard to keep a reputation as a loyal Democrat. There are legion venial sins that lay in wait like tiny devils to trip you up and stain you a bit redder. It’s exhausting.
Also, I get pissy when backed into a corner and threatened with damage if I don’t comply with a demand to demonstrate my virtuous fielty to PUDFARB. Trump may be many things, but at least those loyal to him are not constantly evaluating minuscule details of my life to see whether they are المؤمنين للشريعة. I’ll take my chances living in Richmond as a traitor.
Life here is nice. I can grill a venison steak and serve it with GMO potatoes and the only comments I get are, “good steak”. I don’t’ have to spend a half-hour describing how the Buck was raised, whether it was killed Halal, or what it ate before it was killed. The potatoes? Forget about it.
Still a Wife Beating Racist
I’m repeating myself. Among my church friends and around those who lean right it’s no never mind whether I chose paper or plastic at the checkout line. When I try to blubber about being such a miserable wretch with so horrid a list of evil adjectives they let me finish and reply with, “Well, bless your heart.” It’s a much simpler life without the buzzing gnats of micro-angst biting at my balding skull.
When I tell the story of my abuse of my Taiwanese wife more than a few said, “she probably deserved it.” Those are horrid words to a member of PUDFARB. The guy that said it was out on parole for felony distribution of a controlled substance.
My kin and PUDFARB friends say pretty words about inclusivity and diversity. These words are bullshit. Here is who is included: disciples of Mao and Mohamed that memorized 毛的小紅書 and القران الكريم, are a person of color, are more than a little LGBTQ, poor AF, older, disabled, speak English as a second language, born elsewhere, and less educated. The through-line is anyone who is Maoist and Muslim with one or more attributes putting you into the proletariat side of the scale. If you are all of the above, your score can approach 97.
At the Intersection of Fear and Loathing
Another through-line for those included is a core belief in being oppressed by some other. The misery of those included is caused by some other, it’s not their fault. It is the other that has to change in an amenable way. To be included is to be a victim.
My intersectionality score? 5. I am all the bad things wrong with the world. I’m too old and mean to give a fuck about my low score, you and your misery. I don’t want the power over your life that you assign to me. It’s your poison you keep drinking with the expectation that I’ll get better. The bad news is, the older I get the meaner I get. You can’t fix me.
Go Fix Yourself
I voted Trump and count Republicans as friends because life is so much calmer with them. There are manners. People are more gracious. At PUDFARB every moment is fraught with tension. At any moment I could overstep some unspoken rule and find myself facing outrage, claims of abuse and violence and demands that I face a tribunal. In Richmond at most I might get, “Bless your heart.”
My friends let me talk. They listen. We don’t always agree but at least we can be civil. Not so with PUDFARB. There, fights break out when an SJW spots someone with a red Solo cup instead of the approved Non-GMO JoyCode bamboo fiber cups.
Motes and Logs
One bit of preaching before I go. My answer is constant. It’s motes and logs, Matthew 7:3-5: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.“
There lies the difference. PUDFARB is focused outward, on the world and its ills, in an evergreen battle to get the world to come to heel. Popular PUDFARB causes like Climate Change, Racism and Gun Violence lend themselves to perpetual cries to “do something”, doing something that increases the tyranny of the majority and iterating.
With each iteration, they escalate. Lately, their fight is with God’s creation. God screwed up when he made the world. His creation is an existential threat to PUDFARB. Removing the threat will require more law and a bigger government. So they battle against it, forever pushing their rock uphill.

I’ll Take Richmond
We don’t care about the world. The world and people in it are fucked up. They do stupid shit that hurts others. We just stipulate that and move on. Our starting position is MYOB. The battlefield is within us. The war is with our own hot mess. Victory comes over a lifetime as we conquer sin separating us from Christ.
This is my choice: anxiety-filled life under constant reminder of what a shit I am, how I oppress *everyone* and background noise of suspicion that I might be better off in a reeducation camp. Or . . . live at the Capital of the South where it turns out that there is more grace, more sanity than the hallowed walls of City Hall in San Francisco. Give me Richmond. People are better here.
The beautiful thing about my status as a racist, evil bastard is that I’ll never be enough. Nothing I say or do will ever be sufficient. PUDFARB says I was born this way and will die this way. With each attempt at repentance, some new infraction is revealed and I am again the reason for a legion of worldly ills. To which I pay no attention.
So Judgy
I’m judged racist because of things I was born into. My adjectives make me profoundly evil. In addition, I am racist because of the moments when I’ve been violent to PUDFARB citizens. Nothing I say can change my reputation. I am only those slivers of time when I was at my worst. That is my story for PUDFARB.
So be it. It’s actually easier if PUDFARB believes I am as evil as they claim. Being this evil means they leave me alone. Which is good. This last batch of peas had venison sausage in it. Yum.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.