As I near the end of this Third Eye series, which has been an attempt to synthesize reading, writing, observation and interpretation, I notice a marked change in the tone of public life in the areas of Baltimore I frequent.
Applied Symbolism in interpretation
I love the ghetto dollar store toy rack, which has all of the politically incorrect toys I loved as a boy and will not ever find their way into a middle class American Christmas stocking: three kinds of realistic guns, a Dennis the Menace sling shot; marbles for the sling shot; a miniature pool table to practice that venerable bar sport, and even press on tattoos and Ho girl fingernails for the aspiring gangster and gangsterette.
My favorite happens to be one of the best sellers, I am told by the smirking clerk, the Stunt Knife. The Stunt Knife can be set to bend when you stab your little brother or babysitter, or to collapse into the hilt so that you can practice driving that shank all the way into the enemy. It is marketed by a company called Funtastic, which uses a smiley face logo that incorporates the glasses of the smiley face as the two Os in the slogan Let’s Get Goofy!
Advertising is a good way to determine what is important in the society in which a product is being marketed. To analyse this toy as a social artifact one need only examine the packaging, which is built around the blister packed knife.
The knife, the name of the product, and the Let’s Get Goofy logo are not important, as they are the object of the advertising [the branding of the logo and the selling of the toy], not the advertising. Below are the package features from most to least prominent:
1. Two large photos showing how the toy is used, marking this as a toy targeting sub literate children.
2. A TRY ME! inducement
3. A SAFE! declaration
4. 3 equal size triangulated supporting claims: ‘2 styles’, ‘flexing soft tip’ and ‘cool recoil action’
5. 3 hazard warnings
One may gather from the label that the target population is illiterate, compulsive, obsessed with safety, and invests high expectations where purchased products are concerned.
To take this reading technique into the public spaces, crowded as they are with signage, let’s look at one example of a government posting on a mass transit bus concerning housing discrimination. Below the picture of the crippled white lady in a wheel chair who has presumably been denied housing due to her handicap, the following text is printed in blue:
“It Is Not Just Unfair”
This statement, which indicated that fairness is a diminishing ideal, is followed by red underlined lettering:
“It’s Against The Law”
It is clear from the lettering and emphasis of this sign that the government posting these notices wishes to subvert ethics and morality to naked power. A 16th century Christian would read such a statement as a secular challenge to God’s will and might nail a notice on a church door. But the modern materialist is conditioned to regard his faceless master with an additional measure of fear when seeing this, before going meekly upon his way.
White Flight into Harm City?
I have noticed the population of young whites expanding in Northeast Baltimore. These are not hipster homesteaders trying to move closer to cultural attractions and cut down on commuting costs. These are also not locals. Many are not even emaciated yet.
What is happening to bring young college age whites to Harm City? Why are they returning like pale salmon into the spoiled habitat their parents or grandparents fled?
I spoke with Mrs. Biel, the bookkeeper at a local check cashing outfit, and she had this to say about the influx of young whites.
“I have a steady stream of young white people coming to the window to cash checks from parents and to receive Western Union transfers. I get about 20 per week. The money is all coming from parents out in Harford County—mostly Belair and Edgewood. These are heroin addicts. But when I make them give me an address they always put down one of the crack houses on Bayonne or White.”
“I want to say to these people, ‘Look, you might feel fine now, but next year you’re going to be scabbed, and swollen up and losing your teeth.’
“But that would be a waste of time. The one thing I don’t understand about white parents is their insistence on supporting their adult children’s drug habit. Sure, we have our own problems, but buying dope for our kids to shoot into their veins is not one of them. The pure heroin is in town and it’s snowing crackers.”
Baltimore is the heroin capital of the U.S., which is the heroin capital of the world. I wonder, why are upper middle class suburban whites of college age migrating like moths to a flame back into the ghetto of their grandparent's shame?
This is a stunning dysgenic thing.
One generation flees their home in fear of a rival ethnic group.
The second generation knows all of the ease and comfort of the 'American Dream' in rarified suburban bliss [my entire family fled to Harford County].
The third generation begins migrating back to the ghetto their ancestors abandoned as suicidal heroin addicts?
Doesn’t Baltimore claim to be the home of one of America’s most well-known morose, white substance abusers? I’m talking about Edgar Allan Poe, of course. A hundred years ago most heroin addicts WERE white. Only idle rich people could afford to be addicted to narcotic drugs back then, even when narcotic drug use was legal (before the Harrison Act of 1914). It wasn’t until the middle to late 20th Century that poor people gained access to enough disposable income to support an expensive drug habit. So it’s back to the future for Harm City.
FYI: this epidemic of heroin use among young white people is nationwide. For example, it’s in all the suburbs and small cities in the Midwest. What is particularly puzzling about the current epidemic is that our young people have been educated for the last 50 years about what a danger heroin use is. Plus it is just common sense that one cannot be a heroin user and expect to lead any kind of normal life. The evidence is long-standing and abundant that while one can be an occasional recreational user of pot, booze and pills for years and still maintain relatively normal relationships, once a person starts using heroin he will soon become a full-time heroin addict, unable to hold a job or keep a place to live and likely to meet an early death from overdose, disease or murder (Unlike when heroin was first marketed by Germany’s Bayer corporation as a cough medicine in 1895; then it was believed to be less addictive than morphine). So why are so many young whites today ignoring these self-evident dangers? One can only surmise that “hillbilly heroin”, oxytocin/oxycodone, is serving to delude white recreational drugs users into imagining that heroin addiction is manageable. However, we do know two things for certain about most heroin addicts, regardless of ethnicity or background: A. They seek to numb their pain, whether physical or psychological (heroin does a bang up job of covering up both); B. They are depressed and despairing, they believe they have little to no hope of a better future. In the case of young white addicts, they have probably been made to feel guilty about their very existence, which doubtless adds to the ennui and sense of hopelessness in those individuals. Poor young blacks are being taught that they have no chance at material success because the “White Man” will keep them down and thus they turn to crime as their only option for a “fulfilling” life. Likewise young middle class whites are being taught that their race is the author of all the rest of the world’s troubles. How then if you are a “sensitive” Liberal young middle class white person do you “prove” that you don’t support “greed”, “racism” and “environmental destruction”? By slowly killing yourself with dope? Apparently so! Is this more evidence that America is a dying country? No doubt!
By the way, if Mrs. Biel at the check-cashing store is still wondering why white people keep sending money to their addict children living in the Ghetto; tell her it’s a White thing and that she probably wouldn’t understand. LOL!
Now Jeremy, you have gotten my hopes up, that our legion of idle poor will produce a bumper crop of poets and horror authors! Perhaps, when I sally out into the hood tomorrow I might begin addressing the local dignitaries as Poe instead of Yo!
Knowledge of the harm a drug does seems to do nothing to deter users.
It is interesting that your black heroin addicts tend to come from poverty and that the whites tend to come from the middle class and up. I have seen this with cigarettes also. In the late 70s in the high school I attended the only people that smoked cigarettes were the poor kids. If a middle class or rich kid was going to smoke it was going to be something better than tobacco. Cigarettes are now being embraced at an incredible rate by young people from all economics levels among blacks and whites in Baltimore and surrounding areas, despite a $7 a pack price tag.
I think you are spot on concerning the increased affluence of the under class enabling addiction. Last week at work I witnessed a parade of middle class customers buying groceries with EBT cards as the junkies stood by with the pin number and collected 50 cents on the dollar. My best guess is that 25% of every welfare dollar intended for food purchase goes to heroin and crack addiction.
High levels of addiction were often reported among early 20th Century Amerindian and Pacific islander populations, with most observers and anthropologists citing cultural decline as the root of this ennui. Perhaps, as you suggest, our 'white guilt' and 'black oppression' narrative has firmly taken root in the minds of the generation, that, I would like to point out, is in any case enslaved to the debt-based retirement plan of the Baby Boomers. How much hope of material abundance can Millennials have when they will be outnumbered by the combined parasitic classes of the retired and the indigent?
Do you know J.B., if any one has done the math on this? If all of these 60 year old hippies live to be 95 what does age 55 look like for the 20 year old of today?