Stop me if you’ve heard this one already...

Oh wait…you can’t. Well, if this rant’o’mine is heinously familiar feel free to close the window (*sob* you’ll miss all my pretty pics and, possibly, amusing slams) and go back to your tweets, Tumblr, Instagram and Shoutyface posts.

Here’s the thing, a friend (an actual friend, not one of those social media “we've never met but went to the same elementary school – barely an acquaintance" types) posted some celebratory meme about Biden’s big win. Another person, a mutual connection, commented with “don’t gloat.”

Don’t gloat? What the actual fuck?!  No, c’mon REALLY! This isn’t sportsball where I’m jumping for joy, chanting “na-na-neh-na-na” because TAB’s beloved Soxies triumphed over those Stinky Yankees. This isn’t Steelers versus Rams, Pirates versus Angels.

No mon frère – this is real life.

• This is about democracy triumphing over kleptocracy and oligarchy.
• This is about uniting the populace so that we can survive the pandemic.
• This is about ending the terrorism wreaked on immigrant families.
• This is about NO LONGER putting children in cages and oopsie, losing them in the “system.”
• This is about me not losing my health insurance and, thus, croaking since I wouldn’t be able to pay for that next, very-much-needed brain surgery.
• This is about our right to marry who we love. You don’t want to marry someone of your own gender? Cool, you don’t have to. No one’s forcing you. But don’t go denying this to Michael and Jim or Wendy and Sue.
• This is about every woman’s right to do what she wants with her very own bod. Autonomy is cool, dig? Not just for white men either.
  
• This is about an end to the relentless gaslighting, lies and manipulations.
• This is about repairing and improving this damaged republic. This  is about making good on the long promised liberty and justice FOR ALL – not just the white and wealthy.
  

 Ya know, amongst a hell of a lot of other things.

Side note – if you’ve not read John Scalzi’s posts Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is or Being Poor, please do so.

If your reaction to the first begins with a defensive “Not all straight white men…,” or your response to the second starts with “Well but if those people just…,” GET HELP. Seriously, there’s something terribly wrong with you. Not only have you missed the point entirely, you are extra-specially devoid of empathy – solidly lacking understanding of what it means to be a sentient human on this planet.

As long as I’m assigning reading matter, check out Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff and try to put your pale self in Atticus or Letitia’s shoes as they’re stopped for the heinous crime of driving while Black. It’s set in the ‘50s but Jim Crow isn't dead, it just went semi-sorta, but not really, underground. It’s embedded in our respective realities.

What’s made its continued existence as obvious as a pile of rhino turds in the holiday punch bowl? The obscenity squatting in our White House has made it clear that all that shit’s AOK now. He sent the message, loud and clear to his cult of dimwitted bullies and the republican party – “you can take off your hoods now boys!”

 And they have.

Back to this “don’t gloat” idiot, my guess is that he would say “I’m not racist…,” or “I’ve got nothing against equality” and this would be followed by a big old “BUT.” 

Here’s the thing, this person may not actually be conscious of his own racism. He may not actively campaign to take away my lifesaving health insurance. Possibly, he wouldn’t personally deny Joe and Tim or Becky and Ginny the right to marry and or adopt kiddles 

BUT this empathy devoid, clueless twit who’s chiding my fellow Biden/Harris voting friend with “don’t gloat,” voted for the removal of my rights, my survival on this planet.

Yeah, I’m fucking livid. If you voted for Captain Orange Chaos and the Inequality Squad, you voted for the hastening of my demise.

“Don’t gloat?” Fuck you with a plague encrusted, broken spork.