Culture

Metamorphosis (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote about my generation (Gen X) and our political midlife crisis. 

It’s dispiriting how many Gen Xers have reached middle age and basically turned into Baby Boomers.

Consider the following Gen X traits:

Constant whining about how tough we had it

Self-aggrandizement of our resiliency

Sneering contempt for anyone younger than us

A midlife embrace of hatred and bigotry

If any of this is different from the ignorant pronouncements of suburban Boomers in 1979, I don’t see it.

Another trait, the glamorization of our free-range childhoods, is often an excuse for the neglectful parenting many of us received. It’s weird how many Gen Xers boast that our parents didn’t know where we were at night or forgot our birthdays or ignored us 24/7. I’m just going to assume that many of my peers are more honest in their therapy sessions than they are on Facebook comments.

But perhaps our most mythologized characteristic is our supposed ability to take a joke. Really, we cannot shut up about how we never get offended. We apparently possess a steely hide that causes insults and derision to bounce harmlessly off of us.

Oddly, we have not passed this tendency on to our kids. We say that’s because Millennials and Gen Z are wimps. But some of us have the creeping sensation that maybe, just maybe, they are simply nicer people than we are. 

However, it’s much easier to rain disdain upon them for their pathetic displays of empathy. Hell, we go out of our way to offend them. And we do this not to illustrate unpleasant truths, offer keen insights, or toughen them up. We do it because we get the smug satisfaction of offending them. Then we get angry and self-righteous when they get offended.

In truth, middle-aged men mocking people is closer to the behavior of 10-year-olds on the playground than it is to brave truth-tellers seeking honesty.

Punching down is fear that our world is changing. Demanding that everyone laugh at our witticisms is the ultimate old-man behavior. 

Many Gen Xers insist that no matter what horrible things we say, no one can call us out on it, especially if they are younger and all touchy-feely. If they dare to criticize us, we get angry—even offended (which is the real irony).

By the way, not caring about other’s feelings isn’t an admirable trait. It’s a symptom of sociopathy. But let’s say it makes us cool. If we were truly indifferent to others’ outrage, however, we would just say, “You do you.” Instead, it’s “I’m going to make you uncomfortable because I am so pissed off about how my life turned out.”

When did Gen X get so confrontational? When did we get so needy for attention?

When I was younger, I never considered that many of the fun, open-minded guys I hung out with would, decades hence, post unhinged rants about guns, government conspiracies, and immigrant “invaders.”

The question at this point is whether Gen X will help “revive American democracy by coalescing around a bold new political program and bringing the rest of the nation along with them, or [be] another silent generation that stood by as our democracy and society suffered a slow decline.”

Will our eye-rolling cynicism (a very real trait that has its benefits) overwhelm the younger generation? After all, “nearly everything we hoped to change instead grew stronger, meaner, and more entrenched,” which has caused many of us to lean “a little harder into Xer stereotypes of disconnection and cynicism as a result.”

Gen X is smaller than other generations, votes less, and has fewer members in political office. We have long had the reputation of being a bridge generation, more liberal than Boomers and more conservative than Millennials.

But we were the first generation that said homophobia wasn’t cool, that rejected overt racism, and that said maybe climate change was real.

As such, will the final image of Gen X be Trent Reznor, or will it be the Karen?

One thing is certain. Decades from now, when the last living Gen Xer is babbling away in a nursing home, he will rise from his wheelchair—Nevermind CD clutched in one hand, Karate Kid DVD in the other—and scream our manifesto one final time before dropping dead and sending our generation into oblivion.

“Whatever,” he will scream. “Whatever!”


Metamorphosis (Part 1)

We grasp at the tattered, frayed fabric of our identity, especially as we get older.

For Gen Xers like me, barreling into middle age and toward antiquity, we take comfort in the fact that nobody was ever more badass, more cynically cool, more “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” than us.

Yeah, I told you about my ex-friend who went from out-and-proud progressive to right-wing promoter of racist conspiracy theories. But she must be an aberration, right?

Well, recent surveys have shown that maybe she isn’t.

You see, Biden’s disapproval rating is highest among Gen X, compared to the other generations. Biden also has the highest “strongly disapprove” rating from Gen X.

Many experts believe that the “one-time flannel-wearing, Pearl Jam-listening and SlackerSingles-watching generation has become much more Republican and conservative than it was in the Obama years.” 

Now, there is much dispute over the definition and measurement of political preferences, generational differences, and survey results.

In fact, some experts insist that “Gen Xers have swung a little more toward the Democratic Party over time.” 

Others say that Boomers are the only generation that is solidly Republican.

In either case, don’t tell me that people just get more conservative as they age. While there is a sliver of truth to that statement, research shows that “political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term.” The theory that Gen X is voting GOP just because we’re getting older is shaky at best.

So what in the name of 80s glam rock is going on with these survey results?

Well, if there is a Gen X problem for progressives, “it is very likely a white Gen X problem.” Let’s face it. Gen X is less diverse than younger generations. In fact, over 60% of us are white. 

That means I am an ethnic minority within a generational minority. Yes, sometimes I feel like an exotic bird.

In any case, Trumpism is “more likely to resonate with white Gen Xers… than nonwhite individuals.”

My generation’s drift toward MAGA town is a “sustained white Gen X backlash to the social norms and ideals that have been part of our cultural backdrop” since we were kids.

Like me, many of my peers grew up with Sesame Street. But unlike me, they never appreciated the parts where people spoke Spanish.

Now that they are middle-aged, they are pissed off about woke and diversity and, apparently, basic decency.

For example, one Gen Xer told NPR that his preference for Trump stems from how we were “raised where we don’t think there’s anything wrong to say, ‘Is that retarded?’ or ‘Is there a Black guy down the street?’ You know what I’m saying?”

Yes, I know exactly what this man is saying. He is implying that racial paranoia is admirable and that the natural evolution of language and cultural norms is an oppressive force.

Also, the fact that young people frown at our use of the word “retard” means that we Gen Xers have no choice but to vote for a fascist.

Makes perfect sense.

This outrage over new societal standards is prevalent among white Gen Xers, especially men. And as we know, white men of any generation are aggressively right wing. Hey, perhaps the reason so many white Gen X men stormed the Capitol is because the Boomers got winded or had lingering issues from their hip-replacement surgeries.

I have more to say on the disconcerting overlap between Gen X and baby Boomers. But that will wait until next week.

Until then, turn up the Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy. It might be your last chance.


Survival of the Richest

If you have ever wanted to live like a James Bond villain in your own island lair, I have good news for you.

For the low price of several bajillion dollars, you can buy “a maximum security compound in which to ride out the coming plague, solar storm, or electric grid collapse,” whichever apocalyptic event comes first.

OK, maybe you don’t have a spare several million to drop on a high-tech sanctuary from which to survive the “environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.”

That just means you don’t love your family, because you are sentencing them to death in the inevitable Armageddon headed our way. 

But don’t worry. Because rich people will be just fine.

Yes, our favorite 1 percent of the population — the uber-wealthy — are striving to insulate “themselves from the very real and present dangers” that in many cases, they helped to create. 

Whether they made their money by destroying the environment or fomenting societal upheaval, billionaires are buying bunkers, hoarding resources and even creating private compounds in New Zealand (proving once again that rich oligarchs may praise right-wing enclaves like Hungary, but they actually want to live in a stable, socially liberal country).

These plutocrats are trying to “break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to… escape from the apocalypse of their own making.”

And they can afford it. Since the pandemic, the top 1% “have captured nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world.”

Of course, there are many Americans who hero-worship the rich, and they are perfectly fine with sacrificing themselves if it means that an affluent buffoon will continue to live in luxury even if society collapses.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but witness how many poor Americans continue to vote Republican despite the GOP’s admission that it wants to destroy any semblance of a social safety net, give more money to billionaires, and allow the rich to “exploit the majority so they can accumulate wealth and move society forward as they wish.” 

A large percentage of Americans struggle to pay their bills, but shriek that any effort to make wealthy narcissists contribute more is “class warfare” or “socialism” or just morally offensive.

When it comes to opulent show-offs, Americans love “the wild philistinism and the bullying and the offhand cruelty, the compulsive self-aggrandizement and the giddy vengeful sadism.. all of it so oafishly performed that it could not possibly be mistaken for anything but what it is.”

The GOP knows this. So they have leaned into promoting crass morons born into wealth as avatars of the American Dream. 

Republicans have long insisted that “democracy and unfettered capitalism always traveled together,” but recently they have “ignored the ‘democracy’ part of that equation and continually doubled down on the idea that the American system means that businesses should be able to do whatever they wished,” while insisting that “any oversight must be Soviet-style communism.”

The result is that Republican legislators will gleefully derail bills to provide free breakfast and lunch for school students because they don’t want kids to get dependent on government. Seriously — this is an actual top GOP priority. Hey, for Republicans, hungry children do not even exist.

So if Republicans get their way, and rich people continue to tear the world down while plotting their escapes, what happens years from now, when only the wealthy can afford to survive?

Well, the truth is that islands are more dependent, not less, on society. So that approach won’t work.

Also, underground bunkers have air filters that break down and require strenuous effort to fix. You really think some pampered blue blood can handle that degree of manual labor?

And when it comes to armed compounds, remember that the hired thugs who protect the wealthy are people too. If the economic system has collapsed and money has no value, do you believe rifle-toting mercenaries are going to protect some rich jerk out of kindness and love?

So no, the wealthy will not survive.

There, don’t you feel better now?


Stressful Times

As opposed to many writers, I’ve never suffered from depression. I’m grateful to have avoided this killer.

So does that mean I’m a bubbly, upbeat dude who makes lemonade out of lemons and greets every day with a smile?

OK, I didn’t say that.

I don’t get sad. I get mad. 

People in my life know that I have a short temper. Many of them have told me to relax and not get so angry. 

I find this advice odd, in that you would never tell a depressed person to just cheer up. Yet my negative emotion, anger, is somehow viewed as a choice.

I’m betting before long that we will diagnose chronic fury the same way we diagnose chronic depression. We will have a pill to treat anger that costs too much and comes with devastating side effects.

Until then, more Americans like me will continue to battle high blood pressure and a propensity for tirades.

One factor that triggers rage — not just in me, but in many people — is stress. This malady is so malicious that it can change the body at a cellular level. And Americans are more stressed than ever.

A recent study found that over half of Americans suffer financial stress. Massive numbers of Americans, especially ethnic minorities, suffer from health conditions that stress their bodies. And our “unequal society contributes to people in the United States aging quicker, becoming sicker, and dying younger.”

Yes, we like to proclaim America as the land of opportunity. But in reality, it has become the land of unrelenting stress and punishing inequality.

How unequal are we? Consider that “students’ standardized test scores rise with their parents’ incomes — and disparities start years before students sit for tests.”

Also consider that the United States “continues to underperform on an annual list that ranks inclusivity as experienced by marginalized groups in countries across the globe.” Currently, the United States “ranks 118th in the world for racial inclusion.”

It doesn’t exactly make you want to shout, “USA! USA!” 

To top off this survey of our stressful nation, please note that stress can begin in the womb, accumulate through difficult childhoods, and cascade right into adulthood. So yes, a whole generation of kids are currently being set up for stressful, miserable lives.

And as a final insult, studies show that people who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to be suffering from stress. That explains a lot about the America that we live in.

Is it any wonder that I feel so angry all the time?


The Latest Data

It’s time for another update on how my fellow Latinos are doing.

First, the good news. 

Ongoing efforts to mobilize Latino voters are paying off, and Hispanics are poised “to become a consequential voting bloc influencing contested races in the 2024 presidential election.”

So instead of leaving it to Black women to save America over and over again, perhaps we Latinos can step up for democracy this time.

Your other bit of good news is that scientists are testing new technology on immigrant workers that will “send alerts when the core body temperature rises critically or when other alarming signals indicate heat stress.” The innovation could save the lives of many Latin American immigrants, who often toil in brutal heat to keep the nation’s economy humming.

But that leads to the bad news.

You see, recent studies have shown that Latino kids in states with more anti-immigrant laws “are in poorer health.”

Yes, bigotry is lethal. The study found that Latino children living in states with more anti-immigrant laws and policies—and its “resulting inequities in access” —are more likely to suffer chronic physical health conditions and mental health issues.

On a related note, Latino kids nationwide are also being kept ignorant about their own history.

Recent research has shown that “most of the seminal events” in U.S. Latino history “are not a subject of study in high schools across the country.” The study found that “87% of key Latino topics were either not covered in U.S. history textbooks or were mentioned in just five or fewer sentences.”

And speaking of education, you will be disconcerted to discover that over half of Latino college students considered dropping out last year, which is a substantial increase since 2020 and comes “after Hispanics had made significant gains in higher education.”

As if that weren’t enough, another study has shown internecine strife among Latinos. The study says that most Latinos who struggle with Spanish say another Latino “has made them feel bad for it.” So it’s bad enough that we have white supremacists targeting us. But here is fresh proof that we can be our own worst enemy.

Take it from someone whose abuela was constantly muttering “sin verguenza” about my lack of fluency. That attitude doesn’t magically make someone bilingual. 

Well, that’s about it. As usual, the bad news seems to outweigh the good.

Oh, and one more thing. The recent surge in hate crimes, which includes spikes in antisemitism and Islamophobia, also includes a “significant increase” against Latinos.

So there’s that.

Aren’t you glad that I led off with the good news?


Cutting the Fat

Americans are huge. Like really big.

We all know this. In places like my home state of Wisconsin, it seems like more people are obese than not.

But we also know that help is on the way. For example, the wonder drug Ozempic has shown amazing results in helping people lose weight

And that’s not all it can do. Some studies imply that Ozempic can curb addictive cravings and behaviors. 

Wow, that is some pharmaceutical breakthrough. It just goes to show you how American ingenuity and hard work can…

What’s that? Ozempic isn’t an American drug?

Nope, it is made in Denmark, and it is having such a massive impact worldwide that it is reshaping that country’s economy.

Now, I have no interest in peddling Ozempic. I just find it interesting that this astonishing drug didn’t come from America.

After all, we constantly hear that the reason Americans pay so much for prescriptions is because drug companies need that money to fund their research and development. In fact, Americans spend more on prescription drugs per capita than citizens in any other country.

So all that cash must be funding some life-changing meds, right? Actually, research has shown that there is “no relationship between what pharmaceutical companies spend on R&D and what they charge for new medicines.” The record profits aren’t going to the development of new drugs. They are going to the executives and the companies’ bottom lines.

And Big Pharma isn’t just rifling through American wallets. It’s also raiding the US Treasury. 

Last year, the eight biggest drug companies paid just above 2% in US taxes on a combined $110 billion in profits. Hey, Pfizer even got a tax credit.

So with all that cash, why didn’t any American drug companies invent Ozempic? This medicine wasn’t developed in our uber-capitalist free market (which is really just a rigged economic model for big corporations, with nothing “free” about it).

This drug came from semi-socialist Scandinavia, the supposed failed states of the North Atlantic that conservatives hate.

It’s almost like giving enormous corporations boatloads of money doesn’t benefit the average citizen.

But don’t worry. I’m sure the next time you desperately need medication, the heavily subsidized pharmaceutical companies of America will hand it over to you for cheap. 

And if you believe that, you must be taking some serious drugs.


Gonna Live Forever

What a time to be alive!

Ha — no, it sucks right now.

But if you live in, say, New England, you will at least get more of this life than your fellow Americans in, for example, Mississippi.

Oh, we all know that blue states consistently outperform red states when it comes to, well, just about everything, including life expectancy.

But did you know that the poorest counties in New England outlive the wealthiest counties in the Deep South and Greater Appalachia by an average of two years?

Yes, if you want to die fast, move to a red state, where “generations of elected officials — most of whom have been Republican in recent decades — have resisted investing tax dollars in public goods and health programs.”

The result is that people in the West Coast’s poorest quartile of counties live 2.4 years longer than those in the richest quartile counties in the Deep South.

Yes, even having money won’t save you in a red state.

But why is this? Well, a recent study implies that conservative, “laissez-faire political leaders tend to create systems that have looser health insurance regulations, leaner Medicaid programs and fewer public and non-profit hospitals.” 

The policies that “can meaningfully change life expectancy” — such as reducing drug overdoses, expanding Medicaid, adopting gun control, and protecting abortion and maternal health — are nonstarters in red states.

Another interesting fact is that in the Deep South, “the region with the distinction of having had the continent’s most repressive formal slave and racial caste systems,” white people have a lower life expectancy than their counterparts in Canada and Western Europe, and they have per capita suicide and psychiatric disorder rates far higher than their Black, Asian or Latino peers.

This is because racist white people “reject policies designed to help the poor and reduce inequality because of animosity toward people of color as well as being unaware that the poor include a great many white people.”

The researchers conclude that “three centuries of formal white supremacy hasn’t served whites very well.”

By the way, we Latinos have much higher life expectancy than whites in America, which researchers call the Hispanic Paradox.

So as a Latino living in California, I am virtually immortal.

How cool is that?


Fight the Bad Fight

You have to admire someone who takes a moral stand.

We’re talking about people who battle against injustice and refuse to back down. We’re talking about Gandhi, King, and the Dali Lama.

We’re talking about privileged white guys upset about diversity, and…

Hold on. What are talking about again?

Well, it seems that a political group, headed by that slimy xenophobe who slithered around the White House during the Trump years, is trolling corporations in an effort to destroy all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The group is “morally opposed to diversity” and accuses many firms of “being unlawfully woke.” So they are harassing companies and trying to persuade them to return to the good old days when ethnic minorities wouldn’t even get job interviews.

This sounds like a horrible joke, but as conservatives have reminded us time after time, they have no sense of humor and view every evolution in American culture since 1950 as a deathly serious threat to the nation.

So they are out there, protesting any attempt to acknowledge that racism still exists.

And it’s not just this one ineffectual group.

In our favorite state, Florida, the Disney “governing district — whose current board was hand-picked by DeSantis and took control of the district in February — abolished all of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs,” stating that these initiatives “were illegal and simply un-American.”

Yes, these guys are standing up for American values. See what I said about taking a moral stand?

But maybe these principled warriors are unaware of studies that show “if racial economic gaps for Black Americans alone had been closed 20 years ago, gross domestic product (GDP) in the United States would have grown by an estimated $16 trillion.”

Wow—if America weren’t so invested in maintaining the racist status quo, we would all be a lot better off, economically.

These studies also show that if we had more DEI programs, and if they had succeeded in closing the racial gap for Blacks just five years ago, GDP would have grown by $5 trillion, “which includes an additional $13 trillion in business revenue and 6.1 million jobs created per year.”

Again, those studies didn’t even include Latinos, Middle Easterners, and other ethnic minorities, so the total loss to our economy is likely even higher.

Crunching the numbers, DEI actually seems like a good thing for companies to invest in, assuming that they want to make a buck and not flounder just to appease a bunch of belligerent bigots.

In fact, other studies show that “diversity in a workplace plays an important role when it comes to testing an AI product,” which as we all know, is the wave of the future.

Or it could be a planet killer and destroy civilization — opinions vary.

In any case, research implies that current AI models are prone to outputting racist images and text. However, there are many “clear examples of how diversity within the workforce can improve the efficiency of testing to prevent racial bias in AI,” making a better product and improving the efficiency of cutting-edge technology.

But apparently, all of that is immoral.


Pain and Fear

Recently, I wrote about how Americans are more or less screwed. This is true whether you are Black, White, or Latino (but yes, as usual, it is better to be White in America).

Well, there is more horrific news on the horizon. You see, it is now extremely painful to be an American. I don’t just mean the pain of knowing that half the country is perfectly happy to vote for a triple-indicted racist who is threatening to destroy democracy. That’s a given.

What you may not know is that Americans are “developing new cases of chronic pain at higher rates than new diagnoses of diabetes, depression, or high blood pressure.”

Chronic pain—defined as pain on most or every day— is not “just a result of car accidents and workplace injuries but is also linked to troubled childhoods, loneliness, job insecurity and a hundred other pressures on working families.”

Yes, here in the greatest country in the world, our residents suffer from massive levels of economic insecurity, income inequality, racial discriminationloneliness, and general unhappiness.  Chronic pain is “tightly woven into the bundle of diseases of despair, and causation probably runs in several directions.”

Pain is more common among the lower classes, and some studies show that the less education you have, the more likely you are to endure constant agony. Basically, people with master’s degrees rarely suffer chronic pain, but high school dropouts are probably twisted in anguish on a daily basis.

If you’re lucky enough to escape the torment of chronic pain, you likely still suffer from the deep-seated fear of simply living in the USA. Perhaps it is because the “incessant rat-a-tat of bloody headlines makes people feel—viscerally—that the risks they do encounter are unbearably dangerous.” Perhaps it is because the business models of so many media outlets depend on scaring Americans senseless. Or maybe it is the fact that the tactics we embrace to make ourselves feel secure — such as living in gated communities — are actually more likely to turn us into paranoid wrecks.

And that’s when our tactics don’t backfire, quite literally, and actively endanger us.

For example, we all know that gunowners are more likely to use their weapons on themselves or a loved one than any imaginary intruder.

But maybe you didn’t know that although suicide rates are falling around the world, “one high-income country is a particular exception to the downward trend: the U.S.”

Yes, between 2000 and 2018, the U.S. suicide rate jumped 35 percent. Now, you might yell, “The answer is guns! And you’d be mostly right.”

But you will never convince Second Amendment absolutists that an AR-15 is anything other than a source of comfort and a member of the family.

This fever pitch of fear is what “we have come to accept in our culture of violence, [and] this is the country we have become.”

Pain and fear bind all Americans together.


Part 3

Being an American is a lot more difficult than it should be. That’s especially perplexing when one realizes that we live in the greatest country in the…

Sorry, I dissolved into a maniacal laughing fit before I could finish that last sentence. I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

In any case, I recently wrote about how exhausting it is to be Latino or Black in the USA. To complete my trilogy of terror, I will focus on White people. After all, if White people are having issues, the country is really in a downward spiral.

Perhaps you’ve heard that studies show that White people are more prone to “deaths of despair.” Research has shown that White people are “dying at unprecedented rates—killing themselves, quickly or slowly—from drugs, alcohol and suicide, causes of death shown to be spiking for this demographic.”

This ghoulish trend is most prevalent in rural areas—you know, those wholesome places that constitute the “real America,” and where nothing bad ever happens.

Except in reality, New York City is “a lot safer than small-town America.” But we’ll ignore that inconvenient fact for now.

It’s important to note that “midlife mortality is still significantly lower for White Americans than for Black and Native Americans.” But the fact is that White people are dying off faster and in more gruesome ways than they used to.

Overall, it is statistically, culturally, socially, and politically better to be White than any other ethnicity in America. That will likely remain true for the foreseeable future.

But White people are struggling more, and this is a key reason why racism is on the rise. It is a factor in the weird craving of many White people for the 1950s, when they or their parents were unquestionably in charge and looking forward to a limitless future. 

White people who are suffering, and there are many of them, often work for a solution within themselves, their community, or their government. But many others are content to blame ethnic minorities, immigrants, gay people, trans people (the latest boogeyman), urban “elites” or really anyone who is different or who isn’t in their exact predicament. 

In that way, their problems become all of our problems.


  • Calendar

    March 2024
    M T W T F S S
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    25262728293031
  • Share this Blog

    Bookmark and Share
  • My Books

  • Barrio Imbroglio

  • The Bridge to Pandemonium

  • Zombie President

  • Feed the Monster Alphabet Soup

  • The Hispanic Fanatic

  • Copyright © 1996-2010 Hispanic Fanatic. All rights reserved.
    Theme by ACM | Powered by WordPress