Dear America:

Come on, guys. I thought we were past this. I’ve been so delighted in some of the advances that I’ve seen in the past few years, and now this. We even seemed that we were at least partially color-blind when it came to electing a president, but there have been a lot of sour notes in the last few weeks.

Now, let me start by saying that while I was employed, I kept up with current events a lot better, but since I’ve been disengaged with the business world, my grasp of politics has slipped some as well, so my facts might be off. If they are, feel free to call me on it.

It all started with this damn “don’t re-nig in 2012” bumper sticker that was making the rounds. I have to say, I was shocked that here in the freaking 21st century, we’ve got people out there thinking that it’s cool or clever to say something like that, and people willing to pay to freely advertise their bigotry right on the back of their cars. The manufacturer of the sticker has pulled the item from their site, but adopted a “Whoa! Can’tcha take a joke? I’m no racist or anything” attitude that’s, frankly, ridiculous. Of course you are. And, as one of Conan O’Brian’s writers astutely pointed out in a comic editorial, the word “renege” means to take something back, so if it’s not pointedly racist, the bumper sticker is actually an endorsement for the president’s re-election.

Yes, the First Amendment grants you the right to post hate speech on your car. But if you accept this, then you also have to accept that people will key and egg your car mercilessly because you have freely advertised yourself to be a bigoted idiot. Moving on.

Next came the Trayvon Martin case, in which a young black man was shot by a Neighborhood Watch member of indeterminate lineage, who was not subsequently arrested and is claiming self-defense. Granted, I was not actively pursuing the facts of this case, but since according the police report the shooter also suffered injuries, it’s clear that some kind physical altercation took place. If that turns out to be true, then what we need to do is take a hard look at the Florida gun laws (which, I believe I can assume, are more influenced by the NRA than anything else) and decide if it’s really a good idea for Neighborhood Watch members – “Watch” being the effective word here – to have the right to brandish firearms.

Because the victim was black, the racial tinge of this story can’t be left behind. Many people – including the media – convicted the shooter on the spot. I myself didn’t even learn of the physical altercation until over a week after I first heard about the case. I’m reserving judgment until I learn all the facts of this case, and I wish the media had done the same. Too many people are using this case to further their own agendas… the scenarios run the gamut from a wannabe gangster verbally and then physically attacking a passerby and getting shot in the process, and an innocent kid walking at night getting shot solely for the color of his skin. As always, the truth is going to fall somewhere in the middle, and in the end I think the only people who will come out of it looking better than stupid are the ones who hold their tongues until the investigation is over.

Then there’s the Hunger Games. I’ve heard about some people Tweeting and statusing their fool heads off, complaining (yes, *complaining*) about the racial diversity of the recent Hunger Games movie. It seems that author Suzanne Collins’s downplaying the racial identity of some of the characters -- and rightfully so, I mean, what point is there in discussing it in a futuristic warzone where you need to pay less attention to race than to whether someone is going to immediately kill you or not? – inadvertently caused some viewers of the movie adaption to be blindsided by the fact that some of the characters were, in fact, dark-skinned.

Oh. My. Lord. Is this really something the average viewer can’t get over in, say, about ten seconds? What would go through my mind would be, “Oh, I guess I thought Rue was white. Either I’m wrong or it’s an interesting bit of casting.” And that’s it. How do I know? Because, in truth, I must have missed that one sentence where Suzanne noted the skin color of one of her characters. I really did think Rue was white. But does it change anything about my sympathy for her? Of course not, because if it did, that would be – say it with me now -- *fucking* *racist*.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but this whole series of incidents has swept the leg of my national pride out from under itself. I understand, really I do. We humans have been bred to identify and favor those who look more like us. It’s in our DNA, the product of billions of years of kill-or-be-killed evolution. But we’ve also proven that we are more than capable of rising above that. We can build a global, peaceful civilization, and the only people who aren’t going to be a part of it are those who can’t get past the fact that we’re all basically the same, and that every person on the planet is closer family to you than fortieth-cousins. If you don’t stop being afraid of this Other that you imagine is waiting around every corner to harm you, you will never advance.

What Beauty Isn't

As I get older, I’m becoming more and more aware of just how much time women spend thinking about their outward appearance. And frankly, it pisses me off. Not so much the fact that they think about it, but more that this society we’ve created all but forces them to think about it so much.

Let’s take as a given that it’s not women’s fault that they think about their appearance so much. It’s instilled in them since birth that they have to compete in the “looks” department. I don’t believe that’s something that you can’t escape… it’s part of our DNA. In the rest of the animal kingdom, it’s usually the male who has to have bright feathers or the slickest dance moves to secure a mate, but humans have mostly flipped things around. The point is that one member of any couple has to make an effort to get the other to take a second look. My issue is that it’s getting to the point where getting yourself to look “good enough” is actually detrimental to your health, which to me seems to be working directly against evolution, the instigator of this whole process.

So let’s ask the main question: where does the modern standard of beauty come from? Who’s determining what the ideal woman looks like in this day and age? Here’s what I think, and it boils down to four important factors:

Factor #1: Outdated Measures of Honor.

We’ve recently departed a century that saw more deprivation and poverty in fully-developed nations than ever before. Two World Wars and a Great Depression forced our grandparents and great-grandparents to do without. Having a large family was a goal left over from our country’s initial expansion, and thanks to advances in medicine, it became less and less dangerous to do so. At the same time, it became more and more necessary to feed them on pennies a day. Fathers being lost to battle, and mothers having to take on more of the workforce burden, made it almost a requirement to get by on next to nothing. It became a badge of honor, in a way. And from that, some degree of malnutrition and emaciation became the standard. It wasn’t until the flush of national pride and industry came back in the fifties that we stopped being thin out of necessity. So why didn’t we stay in the state of grace that produced pin-up ideals such as Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell? Because of my second point…

Factor #2: Generational Bullying.

It seems like every woman has a moment like this: a close relative -- a father, grandmother, or other authority figure -- who up until this moment might have been unconditionally supportive and loving, says something derogatory about their physical self. It might be part of a joke, or just a thoughtless comment, but it becomes something that she remembers for the rest of her life, and colors what she sees every time she looks into a mirror. Whether this bullying – and yes, that’s what it is – is premeditated or not, it is based solely on the insecurities of the person saying it. Whether they really mean, “I never had it easy, why should you?” or “I used to be young and beautiful, but you’ll grow old too, so don’t get too full of yourself,” the damage gets done. It’s like a mental slap across the face the first time a child hears this, and the first thing a child will do is look to their culture for clues on how to “fix” their “problem”, which leads them right into the clutches of the next factor…

Factor #3: The Fashion Industry.

Humans pass judgment on a person’s external appearance all the time. We’re engineered that way, by a whole host of DNA-instilled instincts that are there to attract us to – or repel us from – another person within seconds. In that light, what one wears becomes an extension of who they are. Actually, that’s not right. What one wears is an extension of who they *think* they are. The whole point of selling clothes is wanting people to look at it and say to themselves, “I think I would look nice in that. That would make me feel good wearing it.” So, if you’re going to design clothes, you want to show them being worn by someone who embodies how you want the wearer to imagine themselves feeling if they were to put it on. You want them to feel tall (because, as in all cultures, height equals power) and thin (see points 1 and 2). You want a living coat hanger, a blank canvas that the viewer can project their ideal image of themselves into, which translates into a woman who is six feet tall and has the body shape of a twelve-year-old boy. On top of that, I’m betting that some of the malnourished-body aesthetic filtered down from the European fashion centers, which were even more ravaged by war than we were in the States. I’m not saying that the fashion industry created the problem, but clearly it has magnified the distortion between how people really are and what they wish they could be. By being so omnipresent, the exaggeration has become the ideal. And speaking of pop culture omnipresence…

Factor #4: People – Teenage Boys in Particular -- Are Idiots.

A good analogy for this point was my introduction to pop music. From 1982-1987, the music I liked never extended outside the top 40. I came to the scene relatively late compared to my peers, and when I found the radio and MTV I was in a new world, more than happy to accept whatever was being fed to me. It wasn’t until later that I figured out that there was so much stuff that I wasn’t hearing, and that what was being pushed on me wasn’t always even good. I started venturing down the hidden side roads that led me toward what I didn’t even know that I really loved. I think it’s the same with men learning what they individually find is beautiful in terms of women… in middle and high schools, it’s the pictures in the magazines and music videos that you’re focused on, and that becomes your ideal. Looking back, it makes me shudder to think of how gullible and open to suggestion I was back then about female beauty. What makes it even worse is that I, and the other boys of my generation, were unknowingly reinforcing the twisted ideal of what our female peers thought they should look like. They liked us, and we didn’t even realize how much power we had, or how under the sway of the pop culture establishment we all were. It worked both ways, of course, especially back in the image-conscious 80s, but guys have never been as susceptible to these tidal forces. And why? Because girls are better at looking past the superficial. So, on behalf of all the men of Generation X (and Y) to the women, I apologize.

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I’ve been thinking about this because I have a young daughter, and as I’m sure a lot of new parents do, I’ve been taking a look at the world around me and wondering why it is the way it is. As much as I wish for things to be different by the time my daughter is old enough to be aware of this, I’m not entirely sure it will. We might make progress in the right direction, but there’s just too much money riding on the beauty industry (by this I mean mainly cosmetics both applied and surgical, and weight-control products) for things to change very quickly.

On the other hand, there’s also a paradox in America. We elevate to celebrity status both women who have no discernable talents but are “pretty”, and people who aren’t conventionally beautiful but are supremely talented in their field. It’s a place where Kardashians and Adeles, Hiltons and McCarthys alike can become the biggest thing around. That’s got to be progress of some sort, right?

I have no idea what kind of body type my daughter is going to be once she’s grown. But I do know one thing… she’s going to be freaking gorgeous. I just hope that, however she looks, the world is accepting enough to realize it when the time comes. I’ll do my best to uphold my end of the bargain… to teach her to accept herself first, regardless of what the world thinks, and to not be the guy I mentioned back in point #2.