In this latest episode of the White Male Rage Podcast, I explore the journey of being a better person. Just today I saw a quote that said something along the lines of “you can’t save everyone, but by all means, do your very best to not offend anyone.” Now this quote is about evangelism in the Christian world, but I think that’s a profound statement and a worthy journey to be on no matter who you are.
Listen to the episode here: Dr. Suess and Being Better
Transcript
Welcome to another episode of the white male rage podcast, a podcast where basically I try to explore the world as a white male and try to process through some of the stuff that I am learning. And just basically a journey of, I guess, self exploration and hopefully some other people kind of come along this journey with me and I’m just trying to share what I’ve learned or the struggles that I’ve had. And ultimately if we’re going to be angry and upset at the world, you know, that we are doing so with, with the right things or at the right things, right? So we are angry for justice. We are angry for equality and not pushing for those things. I might’ve said that backwards. So we’re angry because there is no equality or there is no justice or a lack of justice.
And so we’re using that to help make the world a better place in the ways that we can in a co-operative and non savior type of whim. And so this week we’re talking about, well, I’ll give you the inspiration for this week was Dr. Sues, which some of you may know was kind of in the news a little bit lately. And I guess I want to talk a little bit about cancel culture and evolution and what’s too far and what’s enough and who is responsible? Is policing yourself canceling? Is it giving into the culture? Does it mean you don’t have a backbone? Does it mean we’re weak? Does it mean that that we don’t have the spine to continue on and traditions? Do we throw away history and tradition and why do we decide to hang our hats on something that is sometimes vile and awful?
And how do we keep important often times good parts of history in balance with really awful parts of history. How do we celebrate all history in the story of all people while learning from it, not forgetting it and not erasing it. And then finally, you know, like once something is canceled, what is our responsibility in discussing that event or that period of history. And these are a lot of questions that were spawned by Dr. Suess and, I guess, just to give you a quick synopsis of what happened is the Dr. Suess estate or the people that manage, Dr. Seuss’s books decided to stop publishing six or seven books that contained imagery and illustrations that were not good. They were racist. And, some would say that they’re a of their time and we shouldn’t get rid of them.
And I think the important part that in this story for me was that they decided to self sensor, that they looked at this and whether they had pressure from people or whether they just looked at it and said, this is not right. Or somebody pulled them aside and said, Hey, no, this is not cool. They decided personally as an estate, as a company to not publish these books any longer, it wasn’t like threat of getting pulled off of shelves. It wasn’t a threat of getting canceled or whatever it was. They decided we’re not going to publish these books any longer. Is that got a lot of people upset. They, they self policed. And what does that, isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that like what we hope that people recognize that what they were doing in the past was wrong. So they work to rectify it in a way that is good.
And I know some people would say that they’re bowing to the culture of woke ism or you know, social justice, but I don’t think they’re trying to erase their history and I could be totally wrong. And I’m, you know, I’m going to read into this, however I’m processing through it, I suppose. But it seems like when things are getting canceled people, all of a sudden start to love it. And this is not my idea at all. And I wish I had, I watched a Tik TOK that shared some of these same views that like all of a sudden when stuff started to get canceled or we evolve our understanding, or we evolve our speech or our, our imagery or logos, then all of a sudden that’s part of like this great history that we had, you know, Dr. Suess had some pretty awful racist Japanese characters and cartoons back, especially during world war II which Wars and all that, and propaganda that comes along with it as a whole other topic.
I’m sure. But he did have some pretty awful caricatures of other races as well. I also think of like aunt Jemima and when they changed the logo and like, people were really upset about that. People that look like me were really upset by it that they took this picture off of a syrup bottle. And all I can think about when I see people getting upset about this is like, why does it matter? And not from the people who are saying it’s wrong. It, obviously my viewpoint is coming from is why does it matter that it’s not there any longer? Like, why is it so important that we have these awful representations of people kept it as a part of our literature or our logos or icons? Or w why, why is that so important? Why are these objects that can be that are permanent that aren’t people?
Why are these things that are not people more important than people? And I think a lot of people struggle with then maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think a lot of people feel like they’re losing parts of themselves for some reason, or that we’re only caring about these issues in these images, because the woke social justice warriors have gotten a hold of it. And I don’t know if there’s like an idea that we, that we have so much invested in it. So why would we change it now? Like, what’s the point of changing it now, if it’s always been that way, it’s a part of our culture, part of our history, right? That’s one way to look at it. Which I don’t think is the right way to look at it. I think we should continually be getting better and continually evolving and growing our empathy and understanding of the viewpoints of other people.
I mean, shouldn’t, we be trying to get better every day, like in every facet of our lives. I think, especially when it relates to other people, we should be trying to be better citizens and better neighbors and showing more empathy towards other people. And so I have to ask, what’s the purpose of holding onto views that are no good? Like, what is that, why is that so offensive to us when people say what’s, you’re saying is wrong and I wish you wouldn’t do that anymore. I don’t know why people struggle with that so much. And yeah, and this is not for everybody else. I mean, this is even me as a person. Like, I even think of like arguments or fights or times that I’ve been challenged and continue to be challenged, right. I’m not anywhere near perfect or have anything figured out. And I’m sure I do all kinds of things that offend people without knowing it.
But I do know that how I react when somebody says you’re really not cool, or however they want to phrase it you’re really ticking me off. Or what you said was offensive or what you said was wrong, or you approached this the wrong way. I mean, I know the first thing that I do is I have to sit with that for a while. And I know that sometimes isn’t even rational or logical or needed. Like, I know if somebody very close to me says, what’s your doing is upsetting me. I know that I’m a processor and I know that’s not always well, I know that that makes people upset sometimes because it takes me longer to come around. And it probably should, like I said, if somebody says you’re making me mad and what you’re doing is wrong, nine times out of 10, I know deep down that they’re correct.
But sometimes I just have to, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t have to, I shouldn’t have to go through the cycle of trying to understand and justify it. And part of that journey for me when I’m doing that. And oftentimes it’s internal, I’m an internal processor which is funny because I processing right now, like through a podcast, but in like direct confrontation, face-to-face, I’m an internal processor, I guess. When I’m arguing with myself, what I’m trying to justify in my mind that I’m not wrong. What I find mind is that my arguments don’t hold up. I mean, I think a lot of that comes through. I think a lot of that comes from being challenged a lot in listening to people that yeah, when I finally get there, I realize, you know, that I’m probably am upsetting somebody and usually in situations that it doesn’t need to be that way.
Like we all understand that conflict is inevitable in life. I don’t think that we could paint a rosy picture or believe that in life we’ll just go through without ever having been in conflict. Conflict is necessary. Conflict helps us to grow, but necessarily conflict does nothing but hurt other people, right. Or not even engaging with the conflict, like this whole journey that we’re going through. That I’m going through as I’m talking to myself is a journey of, of breaking down and building back up and a journey of just being vulnerable and being hurt because of that. And then being vulnerable again, and then being hurt and rinse and repeat it is a journey. And so processing through that and realizing that some of the things that I do are not cool, like I should be okay. With that, I should be happy that I can look back and say that I have more empathy for other people or I’m slower to talk, or I’m slower to, to assert myself in situations that don’t need me, you know, like I feel I’m becoming more aware that because of like what I look like a tall white male, you know, I have certain privileges or expectations or I’ve come to be comfortable in asserting myself.
And so as I’m going through this cycle of vulnerability and hurt and growing and vulnerability and hurt and growth, hope I’m to like slow down and process through this stuff. So hopefully when somebody comes to me and says, Hey, Jeremy, what you said is really hurtful or it like takes away the voice of some people that don’t look like you or however they want to word it. You know, I hope that I’m more receptive and willing to hear that because it happens probably more than I think, I mean, I’m learning a lot and that even goes to like, let me give you a perfect example of a personal thing. Like in my life, you know, the last few episodes I’ve said something like, if you want to support me directly, you can go to buy me a coffee.com. Right.
And I gave that link out and I was challenged recently that what I’m doing is not, should not be for like monetary benefit. And that really challenged me because I’m like, well, I’m giving up time and all this stuff, and I should be able to, to like, be compensated for it, but like, why you’re not like this is just a processing thing for me. And hopefully helping others process through it, but like this isn’t my hurt or the knowledge that I have gained, isn’t necessarily mine to profit off of. And I’m still processing through that. And I understand completely. So I’ve taken in, I’ve taken that link down off my page and I’ve put up on my website, different people that you can support directly people that I have learned from and organizations that have helped me process through some of this stuff.
And that was a perfect example where like, somebody, I read this on an Instagram post and I talked to somebody else a bottle because it’s cool. Like, would I be wrong for doing this? And they like unequivocally, and without pause said, it would be wrong. And I had to think about that because in my mind, I said to justifying it, I started justifying why that, you know, why disagreed. And as I’m processing through that it just makes sense. And I know people won’t agree with that. And people will say that I need to, I don’t know, you know, there’s entrepreneurs out there, but that just recognizing that comes from a place of privilege and a place of expectations.
But it’s an evolution of a view that I had before I hoped it’s an evolution of me getting better of meaning, understanding my position in life. And I go back to this question again, why do we do stuff that makes people hurt? And the Dr. Suess Debacle, that’s a bad word for it. But this Dr. Seuss thing where people in particular are upset that they decided to self-censor themselves. They could say liberal woke agenda, that they’re stopping the publication of these six books. And I don’t know, like if you, if you said you have a sibling or a best friend and somebody else said they just called them like a Butthead every day, and you said, Hey, that’s my best friend. Or that’s my brother, please don’t call no Butt-Head. And that person says, you know what? You’re right. I shouldn’t that wasn’t very nice. And then they said, I’m not going to call you a Butthead anymore. Like, why don’t we celebrate that? Why don’t we say, wow, thank you for not hurting this, these people’s feelings.
And, and we have this as we’ve talked about in other episodes of like this winner take all mentality. And if there’s winners, there must be losers. When you have that mindset, of course, like it would be weak to admit to, to wrong. I I’m hopefully challenging you that it’s okay to evolve your ideas, to not hurt people. When people say that what you’re doing is hurting them. You should listen. And I’m not sure you should bend to the whim of every person that has ever said that to hurt their feelings. You know, I’m not saying like, I’m not saying being wishy-washy and just doing whatever other people say, that’s not genuine. And I don’t think that brings about real change. That just makes you it doesn’t solidify it in yourself. I think you have to wrestle with some of this stuff. And I think you have to be open to the fact that you might be wrong or you might be causing offense, or you might be causing hurt.
But to need to understand why you’re doing that, I need to understand why I’m doing that. No, I don’t want to talk at you. I need to understand why I’m doing that. So I don’t repeat it. So I don’t continue to do that. So if you like what I’m doing you can subscribe to this podcast. And I just, I appreciate that. And I appreciate you spending time listening and processing through this with me and hopefully being challenged and maybe getting mad or, or maybe agreeing I don’t know, but allowing me just to speak my journey of what’s going on. I hope that you are being challenged to continue to evolve your views and, and knew to be a better neighbor. Like I said before, to be a better citizen of earth, to just exude love and not hate and to seek not to cause offense intentionally or even unintentionally, you can join me over at my website, white malerage.org.
I’m on Facebook at the same name, I’m on Instagram. I don’t post a lot on Instagram, but I do share a lot of stories on Instagram. So if you want to, to go there and hopefully be exposed to other people that that think way different than I do that are challenging me. I invite you to join me on that journey as well. And if you’re interested in learning more, check out that, who to support page on my website, and you can see some of the people, like I said, that have shaped me that I think are doing good things and will hopefully take you further in your journey. So share this podcast with somebody who you think might benefit from this journey. If you liked anything, just give it a nice rating. So it can be spread further, but supporting me, not necessarily going to support the people that will challenge you. All right. Y’all I will talk to you
Couple of weeks, bye.
Jeremy P. England 