Notes from the Underground: Confessions of a Mask. It's Just Another Murder... Or Is It?
After reading the comments online from our local brethren, on the news about the Hate Crime Murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado: I can’t but help concluding that our people confuse “Freedom of Speech” with “Freedom of Bigotry”. And I’m surprised how for certain things they’re extremely anti-American, when for others they conveniently adopt the U.S.A.’s Constitutional Rights for their own personal benefit… Funny indeed! Although usually they twist them however they please (in the usual case to say they have a right to be disrespectful bigot assholes) - as their online comments give testimony all over the net. So much poison and so much mental garbage (mental as in madness mind you!) - anyone can hide behind a monitor and a keyboard. Anybody can be brave that way. If you would find them on the street, they will probably not even dare to meet your glance… (in my case: glare).
Let's go to the definition of bigotry to clear up any doubts just in case:
"A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.The correct use of the term requires the elements of obstinacy, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing devotion. The origin of the word bigot and bigoterie in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of "religious hypocrite". Forms of bigotry may have a related ideology or world views."
(For the Spanish speakers: we don’t really have an exact translation for the word 'bigotry' in Spanish, but we can sure discuss and use its context.)
I wonder if they have ever heard the phrase “Tus derechos comienzan donde terminan los de los demás"? (roughly translated as “Your rights end where mine begin”)?.
Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean that whatever the hell they want to say is correct or the truth. To each its own I guess… Truth is subjective anyway… And clearly this country is full of madmen. Anyone can be a braveheart posting online. Easy shit. In public they would probably win a major prize of kicks and punches to the face… They are like Elementary School bullies: they gather in small groups/gangs and bully the weakest looking kid. Usually, judging from the character of all of my friends who have been bullied when they were kids: the different. The geeks, the dorks, the gays, the lesbians, the goody-two-shoes, the kindhearted, the pacific… Those they are almost sure that wouldn’t really fight back and put in question their masculinity/dominance. It’s the same thing that chimpanzees do, they gather in groups to kill and eat alive the poor lonely chimp… you are either with the group or against it. (If you want an example go to: Chimps Gone Wild) In this case of course, a gay man would be against the group of religiously righteous macho men, etc. Have we really evolved from our monkey mental state? I don’t think so… Instinct may be stronger than what we think. Maybe that’s why I joke that I’m really a lesbian trapped in the body of a cock-hungry-gay-man. If I could I would do women- make all of you faghaters happy, pass on my genes, and all that shit. But alas, I’m not really interested (or have been yet).
All the millions we invest in public education, all the taxes we pay… for nothing. We have a country full of uneducated, ignorant fundamentalists, bigots, indecent, judgmental & prejudiced, hypocrites, unclassy, homophobes… and murderers. (I worry a lot when I think that THESE are the ones who pick our politicians...) Have they noticed how many murders we have every week? And if you, yourself have noticed, do you care?- Do they care? Apparently not…
As usual the religious folks, start handing us Bible verses. Guess what? I have some verses for ya’ too!
For women please read Timothy 2:12
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”
(in other words if you are a woman: shut the fuck up and obey)
Or Proverbs 31:3
“Do not give your strength to women, Or your ways to that which destroys kings.”
(I prefer the oldschool one- sounds more Shakespearean: “Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.”)
For parents:
Proverbs 20:20
“If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.”
& Leviticus 20:9
“If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother, his bloodguiltiness is upon him.”
& Isaiah 14:21
“Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities.”
To your judgment… don’t these Bible verses have the same weight as Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”? Same Bible quote that is commonly used to justify homophobia… Don’t you forget Joan of Arc and the thousands upon thousands of abused and sacrificed women during the Spanish Inquisition Era, and the witch-hunts thanks to the famous (or infamous?) Exodus 22:17. One little misplaced verse responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands...
Of course everything is dealt with personal convenience. With all the bratty misbehaving kids you find in the street… if the religious folk would REALLY follow the Bible as they claim and defend to the death as the “Word of God” (whose God?) as they should, then we wouldn’t have so much overpopulation and the little minds that share this misogynist rotten male chauvinistic vision would be in a dreamland of Fundamentalist Utopian proportions. And women would have to keep utterly silent, like one of those monks/nuns who take a vow of silence and other such ridiculous shit we humans do…Of course when it is to THEIR advantage they quote the Bible, word of God, blah, blah, blah. When it is NOT convenient, then "oh you have to see it in a historical context". Catch 22 huh?
They are so self-righteous, so quickly… preaching morals in sexy kinky lingerie. Of course, before it was the whole deal about the murdered kid being gay, now the question turns into “Was he a prostitute Drag Queen too?”… May I ask what’s the difference between charging for sex and doing it “pro bono” or charging in other ways as many do for example with sex for housekeeping? Aren’t there thousands upon thousands out there who love casual sex so much they would certainly shame professional prostitutes with their numerical achievements? (I sure have met a few!) So many women with their legs on the air, giving birth every year, different father for all her kids… the kind you find at the welfare lines usually screaming and hitting their children which they still don’t know if they really wanted… (Oh wait I’m starting an anti-pro-lifer debate… let me get back on track…) Oh! wait but of course, only women are whores, for men’s duty is to put his prick inside every possible vagina and to submit every woman he meets for it is his biological imperative or so the macho men and macho-women of this Island usually preach… So the difference between promiscuity and prostitution is just in the cash payment? If so , the term is terribly slippery… (and like Margaret Cho says: “What about Slut Pride?”) I've always said it: whores have dignity 'cause at least they charge for it. There is nothing wrong with OWNING your sexuality however you want and like as long as you are responsible. Our misconceptions of sexuality usually sprout from a misguided and usually religious point of view. I just love it how Puerto Rican misogyny blurs the vision of the local people…
With the current economical situation, which they love to do protests and strikes and all that shit, how can they judge a person for getting into prostitution? Sometimes you need to make money no matter what, is either that or be at the mercy of dependency or the government, and that is not simple either. The system is geared towards heterosexual people, preferably with kids. I myself was unemployed for 2 years. (I didn’t get into prostitution mind you! Not for me definitely. ) I had the fortune of being able to count on my parents and a good friend and my savings to survive. But not everybody has the same luck. So what I have read all over the place now is that apparently since he was supposedly prostituting he deserved to die? Right… I’m honestly baffled. Is this the extreme they have to take so that they can feel better about the horror of a dismembered and burnt murder victim? ‘Cause it’s not going to change what happened… If you ask me getting minimum wage an hour at a Burger King in this moment where you buy 6 items at the supermarket and they charge you 50 bucks- prostitution sure sounds like a good idea. After all he may be able to at least enjoy his job… much more than flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. The usual available jobs in this country are “Professional Food-stamp Collector” or getting yourself into politics so that you can execute in “The Art of Zen Meditation where you do as little as possible, preferably nothing, for four years, without the necessity of a college degree, and where you charge more than a doctor thanks to the people you tax”… I’ll let this one go now too, since I’m changing the subject once again (sorry, couldn’t resist!) and I may hurt politically sensitive eyes…
Here’s the deal: a Young gay and occasionally transvestite boy who had just begun to live has been brutally murdered in a cruel and inhuman way (or as I like to theorize lately: perhaps in the most human way possible? The cruel, vile, unmerciful, hateful, vicious…). This kid could’ve been the son/daughter of any of you, s/he could’ve been your best friend (My best friend was murdered two years ago by the way), s/he could’ve been your niece/nephew, your grandchild, the kid of one of your beloved coworkers…
There you have him…Juan Martínez with his rosary-chain around his neck (don’t mistake him, he’s still religious! And probably thinks God forgives him for killing that "abominable faggot"), dressed as a ‘caco’, all in White like a Virgin Mary or the KKK, arrogant, with a ‘papi’ on his side ready to defend him… Probably representing his real dad, who probably never cared to tell him that you don’t bully kids at school… Probably like one of his teachers who failed to instruct him that all humans no matter race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, country of origin, are all the same. Unless you think that homosexual men and women, and bisexuals, and transgender men & women, and all the ‘bugarrones’ (and we have tons and tons of discreet straight- make no mistake like Bush loved to use- macho men, most of them married with children or who have a girlfriend…) aren’t human too. And if you by any chance DO think we aren’t human: CONGRATULATIONS MY FRIEND, you deserve the Nobel Prize for discovering and confirming alien life on Earth.
Every occasion I waste time reading comments online of my fellow Puerto Ricans in public forums: I feel ashamed of being Puerto Rican. So much idiocy, so much fallacy, so much mental garbage, so much retrograde conservative thinking, so many people who don’t think twice before opening their mouth-holes or writing… so much prejudice, so much hate, so much hurt self-esteems… It’s SO easy making yourself feel better by injuring others. It’s easy to become the Flower Queen of the garden by making all the other flowers wither and die- when all you have left are stubs, a few decrepit dried up petals and a cane full of venomous thorns.
The murder of the boy is worthy of the Godly standards of Spanish Inquisition, and why not- aren’t we full of Hispanic blood? Didn’t we do the same to the Native Taíno tribes? Didn’t we do the same to the Africans? And here I thought we had reached the XXI century… how disappointing… how medieval. Got Dark Ages?
¿Qué nos pasa Puerto Rico?
As I tell everybody: Bienvenidos a Puerto Rico, la Isla del Encanto Espanto.
I dream and think: “maybe someday I will surf into a public forum and won’t find so much ‘cafrería, so much disrespect… so many people who don’t know the value of the word ‘dignity’. If you ask me, I’m a Citizen of the World. My patriotism has been killed by this bunch of cacos and cafres and ignoramuses and rebels-without-a-cause. I am completely disgusted in what our culture has become. Honestly: Hooray for Globalization! After all we were all born of an uterus… not from the Earth like the Biblical fictive character Adam… and that idiot doormat of a woman, Eve. I’ve always celebrated characters as Lilith and all the other succubi- at least they know who they are, genuine females (not mere man-ribs), whom have been demonized by the male chauvinistic patriarchal Abrahamic religions…
It was misogyny, what killed this kid. Don’t doubt it. Homophobia comes from the hatred of women and everything that is perceived as feminine. Symbolically speaking, who did they kill then?
Cogito ergo sum;... itaque nihilum sunt.
Title inspired from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky & Confessions of a Mask (仮面の告白, Kamen no Kokuhaku) by Yukio Mishima
Artwork: Mort de Jeanne d'Arc by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (1819-1898)
Let's go to the definition of bigotry to clear up any doubts just in case:
"A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.The correct use of the term requires the elements of obstinacy, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing devotion. The origin of the word bigot and bigoterie in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of "religious hypocrite". Forms of bigotry may have a related ideology or world views."
(For the Spanish speakers: we don’t really have an exact translation for the word 'bigotry' in Spanish, but we can sure discuss and use its context.)
I wonder if they have ever heard the phrase “Tus derechos comienzan donde terminan los de los demás"? (roughly translated as “Your rights end where mine begin”)?.
Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean that whatever the hell they want to say is correct or the truth. To each its own I guess… Truth is subjective anyway… And clearly this country is full of madmen. Anyone can be a braveheart posting online. Easy shit. In public they would probably win a major prize of kicks and punches to the face… They are like Elementary School bullies: they gather in small groups/gangs and bully the weakest looking kid. Usually, judging from the character of all of my friends who have been bullied when they were kids: the different. The geeks, the dorks, the gays, the lesbians, the goody-two-shoes, the kindhearted, the pacific… Those they are almost sure that wouldn’t really fight back and put in question their masculinity/dominance. It’s the same thing that chimpanzees do, they gather in groups to kill and eat alive the poor lonely chimp… you are either with the group or against it. (If you want an example go to: Chimps Gone Wild) In this case of course, a gay man would be against the group of religiously righteous macho men, etc. Have we really evolved from our monkey mental state? I don’t think so… Instinct may be stronger than what we think. Maybe that’s why I joke that I’m really a lesbian trapped in the body of a cock-hungry-gay-man. If I could I would do women- make all of you faghaters happy, pass on my genes, and all that shit. But alas, I’m not really interested (or have been yet).
All the millions we invest in public education, all the taxes we pay… for nothing. We have a country full of uneducated, ignorant fundamentalists, bigots, indecent, judgmental & prejudiced, hypocrites, unclassy, homophobes… and murderers. (I worry a lot when I think that THESE are the ones who pick our politicians...) Have they noticed how many murders we have every week? And if you, yourself have noticed, do you care?- Do they care? Apparently not…
As usual the religious folks, start handing us Bible verses. Guess what? I have some verses for ya’ too!
For women please read Timothy 2:12
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”
(in other words if you are a woman: shut the fuck up and obey)
Or Proverbs 31:3
“Do not give your strength to women, Or your ways to that which destroys kings.”
(I prefer the oldschool one- sounds more Shakespearean: “Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.”)
For parents:
Proverbs 20:20
“If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.”
& Leviticus 20:9
“If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother, his bloodguiltiness is upon him.”
& Isaiah 14:21
“Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities.”
To your judgment… don’t these Bible verses have the same weight as Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”? Same Bible quote that is commonly used to justify homophobia… Don’t you forget Joan of Arc and the thousands upon thousands of abused and sacrificed women during the Spanish Inquisition Era, and the witch-hunts thanks to the famous (or infamous?) Exodus 22:17. One little misplaced verse responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands...
Of course everything is dealt with personal convenience. With all the bratty misbehaving kids you find in the street… if the religious folk would REALLY follow the Bible as they claim and defend to the death as the “Word of God” (whose God?) as they should, then we wouldn’t have so much overpopulation and the little minds that share this misogynist rotten male chauvinistic vision would be in a dreamland of Fundamentalist Utopian proportions. And women would have to keep utterly silent, like one of those monks/nuns who take a vow of silence and other such ridiculous shit we humans do…Of course when it is to THEIR advantage they quote the Bible, word of God, blah, blah, blah. When it is NOT convenient, then "oh you have to see it in a historical context". Catch 22 huh?
They are so self-righteous, so quickly… preaching morals in sexy kinky lingerie. Of course, before it was the whole deal about the murdered kid being gay, now the question turns into “Was he a prostitute Drag Queen too?”… May I ask what’s the difference between charging for sex and doing it “pro bono” or charging in other ways as many do for example with sex for housekeeping? Aren’t there thousands upon thousands out there who love casual sex so much they would certainly shame professional prostitutes with their numerical achievements? (I sure have met a few!) So many women with their legs on the air, giving birth every year, different father for all her kids… the kind you find at the welfare lines usually screaming and hitting their children which they still don’t know if they really wanted… (Oh wait I’m starting an anti-pro-lifer debate… let me get back on track…) Oh! wait but of course, only women are whores, for men’s duty is to put his prick inside every possible vagina and to submit every woman he meets for it is his biological imperative or so the macho men and macho-women of this Island usually preach… So the difference between promiscuity and prostitution is just in the cash payment? If so , the term is terribly slippery… (and like Margaret Cho says: “What about Slut Pride?”) I've always said it: whores have dignity 'cause at least they charge for it. There is nothing wrong with OWNING your sexuality however you want and like as long as you are responsible. Our misconceptions of sexuality usually sprout from a misguided and usually religious point of view. I just love it how Puerto Rican misogyny blurs the vision of the local people…
With the current economical situation, which they love to do protests and strikes and all that shit, how can they judge a person for getting into prostitution? Sometimes you need to make money no matter what, is either that or be at the mercy of dependency or the government, and that is not simple either. The system is geared towards heterosexual people, preferably with kids. I myself was unemployed for 2 years. (I didn’t get into prostitution mind you! Not for me definitely. ) I had the fortune of being able to count on my parents and a good friend and my savings to survive. But not everybody has the same luck. So what I have read all over the place now is that apparently since he was supposedly prostituting he deserved to die? Right… I’m honestly baffled. Is this the extreme they have to take so that they can feel better about the horror of a dismembered and burnt murder victim? ‘Cause it’s not going to change what happened… If you ask me getting minimum wage an hour at a Burger King in this moment where you buy 6 items at the supermarket and they charge you 50 bucks- prostitution sure sounds like a good idea. After all he may be able to at least enjoy his job… much more than flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. The usual available jobs in this country are “Professional Food-stamp Collector” or getting yourself into politics so that you can execute in “The Art of Zen Meditation where you do as little as possible, preferably nothing, for four years, without the necessity of a college degree, and where you charge more than a doctor thanks to the people you tax”… I’ll let this one go now too, since I’m changing the subject once again (sorry, couldn’t resist!) and I may hurt politically sensitive eyes…
Here’s the deal: a Young gay and occasionally transvestite boy who had just begun to live has been brutally murdered in a cruel and inhuman way (or as I like to theorize lately: perhaps in the most human way possible? The cruel, vile, unmerciful, hateful, vicious…). This kid could’ve been the son/daughter of any of you, s/he could’ve been your best friend (My best friend was murdered two years ago by the way), s/he could’ve been your niece/nephew, your grandchild, the kid of one of your beloved coworkers…
There you have him…Juan Martínez with his rosary-chain around his neck (don’t mistake him, he’s still religious! And probably thinks God forgives him for killing that "abominable faggot"), dressed as a ‘caco’, all in White like a Virgin Mary or the KKK, arrogant, with a ‘papi’ on his side ready to defend him… Probably representing his real dad, who probably never cared to tell him that you don’t bully kids at school… Probably like one of his teachers who failed to instruct him that all humans no matter race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, country of origin, are all the same. Unless you think that homosexual men and women, and bisexuals, and transgender men & women, and all the ‘bugarrones’ (and we have tons and tons of discreet straight- make no mistake like Bush loved to use- macho men, most of them married with children or who have a girlfriend…) aren’t human too. And if you by any chance DO think we aren’t human: CONGRATULATIONS MY FRIEND, you deserve the Nobel Prize for discovering and confirming alien life on Earth.
Every occasion I waste time reading comments online of my fellow Puerto Ricans in public forums: I feel ashamed of being Puerto Rican. So much idiocy, so much fallacy, so much mental garbage, so much retrograde conservative thinking, so many people who don’t think twice before opening their mouth-holes or writing… so much prejudice, so much hate, so much hurt self-esteems… It’s SO easy making yourself feel better by injuring others. It’s easy to become the Flower Queen of the garden by making all the other flowers wither and die- when all you have left are stubs, a few decrepit dried up petals and a cane full of venomous thorns.
The murder of the boy is worthy of the Godly standards of Spanish Inquisition, and why not- aren’t we full of Hispanic blood? Didn’t we do the same to the Native Taíno tribes? Didn’t we do the same to the Africans? And here I thought we had reached the XXI century… how disappointing… how medieval. Got Dark Ages?
¿Qué nos pasa Puerto Rico?
As I tell everybody: Bienvenidos a Puerto Rico, la Isla del Encanto Espanto.
I dream and think: “maybe someday I will surf into a public forum and won’t find so much ‘cafrería, so much disrespect… so many people who don’t know the value of the word ‘dignity’. If you ask me, I’m a Citizen of the World. My patriotism has been killed by this bunch of cacos and cafres and ignoramuses and rebels-without-a-cause. I am completely disgusted in what our culture has become. Honestly: Hooray for Globalization! After all we were all born of an uterus… not from the Earth like the Biblical fictive character Adam… and that idiot doormat of a woman, Eve. I’ve always celebrated characters as Lilith and all the other succubi- at least they know who they are, genuine females (not mere man-ribs), whom have been demonized by the male chauvinistic patriarchal Abrahamic religions…
It was misogyny, what killed this kid. Don’t doubt it. Homophobia comes from the hatred of women and everything that is perceived as feminine. Symbolically speaking, who did they kill then?
Cogito ergo sum;... itaque nihilum sunt.
Title inspired from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky & Confessions of a Mask (仮面の告白, Kamen no Kokuhaku) by Yukio Mishima
Artwork: Mort de Jeanne d'Arc by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (1819-1898)