Here’s an image a friend of mine posted to instagram recently:
And, as I explore leftist concepts in my emerging political identity I really tried to take these questions to heart, so here’s my attempt to answer them:
How has capitalism disciplined you?
As I’m writing this, I’m working a double shift on Valentine’s Day, 2025, if that gives you any idea off rip. My shift started at 3PM and ends at 7AM, Saturday, the 15th. If I had a girlfriend or a partner, I think they’d be pretty bummed that I chose to work the graveyard shift on the one, universally accepted “day of love.” Capitalism I suppose has instilled in me this idea that if you don’t work, you’ll never survive. If you don’t sell what you love, what you’re passionate about, what you enjoy, with others, for profit, you’re really unsuccessful. To this day I still have “Stories” that I want to make into comic books and sell, and for a time it was my “dream” to “live off of what I create” and that meant my art. I would be able to live comfortably selling art. While my artist career is really just beginning to bud, I’ve already had the experience of putting my art on the market, my first book of poetry, that didn’t even break even the cost of self-publishing. But with my stunning work ethic of course I went and sat tables and sold my surplus books in person as well, and I was able to break even and make a small, homely profit at the 2019 Boston Art Book Fair, but still, no where close to paying off the credit card I had used to publish the book.
It’s difficult for me to think that I can “reclaim” my artistic hobbies, because in the back of my mind I think “you’ve made this, now show someone” and sometimes they say “wow this is good! will you sell it?” and then the dollar signs flash over my eyes. It seems I can’t make art for the sake of making art, like I’d rather do something else. It seems dull to mindlessly swirl paint on a canvas, spending all that money to do it (art is expensive) and not get anything back in return. Still, I want to create, I’ve consolidated all the devices and tools I may need for the future to create, but right now I don’t create. Every once in a while, when it hits me, I create, poetry I know, I write for myself, but it feels conceited to constantly draw self-portraits, and I don’t want to worship false idols with fan art either, although that can be fun.
I suppose in a way, Capitalism has disciplined my mom, better than me, because she introduced me to investing, and starting a ROTH IRA. Even now, I’m a spend thrift, but I’m working with her to start saving money, something I know friends would have bragged about back when I was in my 20’s, where they had a minimum of ten grand where I was struggling to pay a $90 phone bill month to month. I’m doing better now, and no, I don’t have readily available some liquid 10 grand, but I’m working through learning and trying to manage financial independence so that I’m in a better place than I am right now before retirement.
How has Gender disciplined you?
I grew up in a West Indian Christian Family. While we vote liberal the way we act and present ourselves is conservative, so as far as gender roles and norms go there is a lot I have to learn and unlearn. My mom was always a big proponent of my brother and I needing to know how to clean and cook, and while we don’t do it often enough, the lessons are firmly rooted within us. Of course, as a black man in America that grew up during the 90’s hip-hop trends and beyond, I also had to confront “no homo” social faux pas and bottle up many of the intense emotions I felt as a growing youth. It’s different now, and while I don’t say EVERYTHING that’s on my mind I know that my teenage self would not recognize or even be able to comprehend how much more expressive he could have been. While I don’t dream of making out with my male friends I do love them, and I struggle finding the right time or way to say that to them. Sexually, and recently, I’ve been coming to terms with transexual pornography. It, for a long time confused me. But now that I know trans people also, are not a monolith, I imagine it must be liberating to be in some cases, so incredibly beautiful and also have a huge dick, to be able to catch the eye of men and women alike, and baffle them all the same. Not that that’s the goal of any trans person but for now that’s how I see it.
How has the patriarchy disciplined you?
This question feels redundant, not gonna lie, because the patriarchy is in control of not only capitalism but also gender, no? I see it that way. Still, I grew up with a single mother. I could be sassier if I chose to be. I think the patriarchy disciplined me to be obedient to authority, where my “breaking points” or times when I resist feel like extreme moments, and maybe I’ve been disciplined/conditioned to think that they are. Like whose rules am I following? Still, I get in line, I try not to stand out, I, for the most part, do the “socially acceptable” forms of resistance. I speak my mind at the appropriate forums, I don’t immediately lash out with violence (not that you should.) But also, I want to live a peaceful life, and that’s not determined by the patriarchy. The patriarchy probably wants me to be a soldier or some shit, fiercely loyal and nationalistic. I just want a zen garden and video games.
How has the nuclear family disciplined you?
Again, raised by a single mother, my dad tried to be in my life as best he could be he was definitely dealing with his own shit. When I was 19 I met a girl I thought I would marry and be with forever. She broke up with me, I got psychosis and long story short, I was arrested trying to get in touch with her on the other side of the planet for 6 weeks. Since then I’ve given up on the idea of trying to start a family and raise kids of my own, not because she was “the one” for me but because it no longer seems to appeal to me. Some of my best friends have children and I’d been in the room with them, life didn’t seem any more rewarding or fulfilling for them. Constantly tired, grumbling, drinking with me as a temporary escape but can’t get too drunk in the event that they need to clean shit from a small human buttocks. Yeah, “who will take care of me when I die” but honestly I might do you all the favor and go jump off a cliff somewhere because goddamn I can’t take it (I will continue to take it, however.) If someone comes around and wants kids I’m open to it. I don’t know if I’ll be happy about it, I’m not looking forward to it, but I’m leaving the card on the table, just in case. My brother talks about wanting to get a vasectomy but frankly it seems like too much work to cut and undo so I’ll just wear condoms or live the rest of my life only performing cunnilingus on women with no penetration.
How has race disciplined you?
Not gonna lie, until recently I did not feel like the most “black” black American. While your eyes will deceive you to that fact, the truth is my mother and father are Jamaican, grew up on the island and are legal immigrants. I wasn’t raised with the history of African Americans, let alone the history of Jamaican people. In my head, for the longest time, I was just an American. I’m STILL, just an American, but because of the color of my skin, people will think otherwise, or add the prefix “Black” to my American status. So I took a course on American history at Bunker Hill and it opened my eyes to the injustices that black Americans, TO THIS DAY, still face. This was literally like 4 years ago. Up until that point you could say I “didn’t get it.” But I didn’t grow up listening to rap music, I had no concept of the word “nigger” or “nigga,” I never got my hair braided, I’ve never grown an Afro, Black Panthers were a FUCKING ANIMAL, and although I went to an elementary school with predominantly black children there was still a white girl in my class and she for a time, growing up, was my best friend. (Shoutout Frankie.)
My Black Identity is new. Like the year 2025 new, and I’m still learning and growing and accepting the fact that even when black kids make fun of you as children, thats just cause children are cruel and you do not need to carry that with you into your 30’s.
Black People, Black Americans, are incredible. I have to learn two histories, there’s and the history of my island ancestors. In some ways the culture is shared but in American Identity Politics there are factors that divide us on myriad levels, so it’s hard, at least for me, to gather all of this history and knowledge together and firmly declare that “this is who I am.”
I know, without a doubt that I am American, and I honestly don’t try to claim to be anything but that.
How has religion disciplined you?
This goes back to patriarchy for me and obedience. Like I mentioned earlier, I grew up Christian and I was an ENTHUSIASTIC Youth member of the Church. I loved God. I still do, or whatever is up there, and I think I love the Buddha a little bit more, and I’ll explain that. I stopped going to church when I was 16, because the actions of my peers didn’t really match the Bible verses and scriptures we read every Sunday. It didn’t seem or feel “Holy” or “Righteous” to me. I discovered Zen Buddhism around the same time. “Warrior Zen” they called it, with the “Hagakure” and “The Book of Five Rings,” but I eventually went on to read “The Unfettered Mind” and since then, the Koran/Quran, the entirety of the King James Bible, and The Buddhist Pali Canon. I don’t know what else is left. For a while I dabbled in occult as well. Actually there’s still quite a few occult books I want to read now that I think about it, but I have to make time for that. Occult and crystals and I collect tarot cards with interesting art, and sometimes I use them when I feel really confused. If the Christian “God” is no longer present in my life, spirituality definitely is. I call myself “Agnostic” but sometimes that feels like grasping at straws. I want to believe there’s a God, something out there greater than us, some intelligent origin to our lives but I can’t shake the dissenting voices and opinions that say this that and the other. The people that call anyone with faith an idiot. And I like to mask it, say things like “God is within” or “God helps those that help themselves” or “God wouldn’t bring you to it if he wouldn’t bring you through it.” Things that I grew up with, things that give me hope to keep the faith, at least in myself, but with the world around me I understand why the Buddha left. Why he sleeps until the next great awakening, why there (in my opinion) are “evil” Buddhas, and the violent, almost enraged expressions of the Wisdom Kings. I feel like I fucking understand that now.
How has class disciplined you?
I feel like I’ve seen my family in particular go from middle class in the 90’s to working class now. I don’t have a college education, but I’m working on it, and I think that degree with boost my financial standing, but for a while I was fine in 2015 or whenever, making $15 an hour, only worrying about the next day at work, and the party I may go to on the weekend. If I could afford some booze and some weed, I’d be fine. Entering into my 40’s, it’s different now. I want to invest, I want to stay current with technology, I want to be entertained. I want to be able to afford to travel. All of these things cost money, and with my “work ethic” I thought that I’d always chase a higher paycheck. It’s gotten me to where I am today, and while I don’t work in a finance office I still wear a suit to work, and if you’ve never bought a suit, even a cheap suit, from coming from a working class family, feels expensive. More of that “work ethic” hammered into me however. I feel like if I got Universal Basic Income I’d still work. It’d just supplement my paycheck.
How has heterosexuality disciplined you?
Man this goes back to GENDER. IS IT MY FAULT FOR BEING REALLY GOOD AT ANSWERING QUESTIONS!? I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t exactly want to kiss the homies goodnight but I do want them to know they are loved, and appreciated. Back when Sasha Grey was still doing porn I bought her book “Neu Sex” where in it, she argued “everyone was bisexual some just leaned into it more than others.” I don’t agree with her but I feel like I can see where she was coming from. I’m not struggling with anything however. I might struggle to explain why I’m jerking off to some genre of hentai if you ever caught me in the act but other than that I feel fine with my sexuality. I’m not seeking to be in a relationship with either party but I’d prefer it if women, FEMALES, were seeking a relationship with me. And at this point ever a trans woman. I can give a handy, that’s like the least you can do lmao.