Meaning?

I’ve reached a place where I’m grateful for what happened to me in Wheat Ridge.  I’m grateful because it has given me a new purpose in life.   

A man who survived a Nazi concentration camp once wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning.  He stated that the people who survived tragedy of the camp all had one thing in common:  They had something to live for, a family, a career, a higher calling.  He  had a name for this purpose.  He called it Meaning. 

And now I have meaning.  I want to use this blog to speak out for the lower class in this country, people like me who are vets, artist, musicians and poor White Trash who are trapped in a mental prison and are too injured physically and mentally to escape, at least for now.

I fled Wheat Ridge and now live in Denver. 

Denver, along with San Francisco, is the kindest city I’ve ever lived in.   I’m around people who are just like me, lower class whites with nowhere else to go.   I’ve met many men had to leave their hometowns due to societal pressures and pressures from police.  All of these men have gone through the same thing I went through in Wheat Ridge.    They’ve been harassed by police, accused of crimes they never committed and made to feel unwelcome in public institutions like gyms. 

When I walk down the street in Denver, I feel safe.  I don’t have to constantly be on the look out for police.   And when I go to the gym, people don’t laugh at me when I walk by and watch my every move on their security cameras.   When I work out, I draw cartoons sometimes for my own amusement.  People don’t seem to really care.  They are more concerned with their lives to worry about me. 

I like who I am and where I come from.  Lower class whites like me are the most creative and artistic and resourceful people I know. 

The modern day White Trash men I know in Denver are similar to the African American men I met when I was a boy hanging around my father’s church in Mississippi.   The men in Mississippi I knew felt there was little the world offered them, so they turned inward and found validation in God and Jesus and art and music.

The same is true for all of us here in Denver.  We feel like we have replaced African American men as the national projection screen for all the suppressed hatred of the middle and upper classes.   So, we occupy one bedroom apartments all over Capital Hill and go to AA meetings and help our fellow vets and alcoholics with the Twelve Steps  and we play our guitars and draw cartoons. 

Currently, there is a class war going on all around me.   

The people in Wheat Ridge had the right not to like me or ask me not to draw cartoons of them.   But when they crossed the line and violated my civil rights, then everything changed.  Now I feel like I have a responsibility to stand up, not just for me and my family but for countless vets and other men.

And this responsibility has given me the greatest gift of life.  It’s a gift that cannot be bought:  I have the gift of meaning.

Thanks bye,

The last thing any good Christian in Wheat Ridge wants to hear...

When I was growing up in Wheat Ridge, the nice people gained strength from social alliances they formed in churches.

Their strength came from people and institutions in the community.

But we white trash were excluded from that world. 

We had to gain strength from abstract sources and that made us all the more odd to people like the police and wealthy church goers who saw us as superstitious more than spiritual.


The most abstract source of strength is, of course, Love. And the greatest teacher of Love is Jesus.  And all us oppressed people love Jesus because he makes us feel valued in the eyes of God.

One day a nice church lady sentenced me to H-E-double toothpicks:  "Sean," she said, "if you don't stop drawing cartoons, you'll spend eternal life in fire."

I countered her spiritual bully tactic with a quote from Jesus.

"Judge not that ye--"

But before I could finish, she walked away.

The last thing any good Christian in Wheat Ridge wants to hear is anything Jesus had to say.

White Trash Lynching

Jim Goad, author of Redneck Manifesto, writes:

So why am I perturbed by all the trash-bashing?" Because they are talking about ME. For the longest time I didn't want to admit it. Realizing you're white trash is like being diagnosed with cancer: First comes denial, then a "lashing-out" phase, the grudging acceptance. If you're fortunate, you'll be able to turn the bad news into something good.

What happened to me at the Wheat Ridge Wreck center is nothing new.

At least twenty times the Wheat Ridge police have iterrogated me and tried to arrest me but didn't have a specific crime to charge me with. It's happened to every white trash man I know in that part of town. The cops always use code words like "you're odd" or "it just seems strange that..." or "you're out-of-the-box." Now that I have gray hair, there's a new twist, "it seems odd that an old guy like you would date younger women."

When I was a kid I visited my father in Clarksdale, Mississippi one summer and saw an African American man hanging from a tree. Being from the North I'd never seen anything that traumatic. My father explained that the man was lynched for talking to a white woman. In Wheat Ridge, if white trash talks to a woman at the Wheat Ridge Wreck Center, he's accused of stalking. This humiliation is called a public lynching.

If any other minority was profiled by the police, accused of a crime with no evidence and attacked from behind and beaten like I was, they'd be classified as a victim. But with white trash like me...well, we don't have the luxury of being victims. Everything that happens to us is our own fault. We are the only minority that is expected to transcend our upbiringing. In their minds I created the attacks myself and got what I deserved. After all I was perturbed by the Wreck Center employees invading my private notebook, stealing my ipod, being rude to me, laughing in my face, talking behind my back, refusing to swipe my gym card unless I handed it to them properly and, of course, making amplified, trash-bashing old guy jokes while I walked by. And so I joined in the fun and mocked them back with my cartoons. Turns out they can dish it out, but can't take it.

Like Rich Swanson implies in his letter posted on my blog, my mere presence is a threat to the safety of his staff. So he, the Mayor, the police made up their minds to get me out of their gym and their city. After they did an intense investigation of me, they realized they had a problem. I hadn't committed a crime. So, they just made one up. Now I'm branded with the Scarlet Letter S on my head.

I was jumped many times when I was a child growing up in Wheat Ridge. After a point, I got sick of it and started fighting back. I got creative at defending myself.

But now I'm too old to fight back. When the thugs from the Wreck Center jumped me on my porch, my mind knew what to do but my body couldn't do it. So, I just turtled and took my beating like a coward. I became their punching bag and kicking post for some built up ethnic rage or projected guilt that had nothing to do with me.

So now I'm sick of these people like Rick Swanson getting away with lies and I'm starting to learn how to fight back with my mind.

Maybe that's what Jim Goad means when he says If you're fortunate you'll be able to turn the bad news into something good.

Other Blogs by Sean H.

Don Juan de Colfax
12 Step Art

Plans Underway for Wheat Ridge Wreck Center Protest

I hope to do caricatures of all the Wheat Ridge Wreck Center Employees for the protest. This is the Mayor talking out of both sides of his mouth, saying he's interested in open communication but not interested in people like me who communicate openly.

Other blogs:
Don Juan de Colfax
12 Step Art

An Ongoing National Lynching

"If I was talking about White Trash, I'm merely be another torchbearer in an ongoing national lynching."
--Jim Goad

"White Trash, old man. Stay out of the Wreck Center. And if you call the cops this time, we'll kill you and your cats."
--voice of one of my attackers

Like I've stated, I'm a member of the most hated class in America today, White Trash.

If Rick Swanson, the supervisor of the Wheat Ridge Wreck Center, sent a letter like the one to the left to any other minority in this country, he'd be in deep trouble. He would be called a bigot and a racists and respected less than the Klu Klux Klan who at least are honest about their sick prejudices.

But as Jim Goad states, we White Trash are the only cardboard figures left in the ethnic shooting gallery. It's so uncool for sophisticated and educated types to hate anybody but us. We are the objects of your jokes and the fodder for you wars. Just sign us up and send us out to the desert to die while you drive your Mercedes Benz down Colfax on the way to Sears to buy your twenty dollar khaki shorts or you fourteen dollar Dockers.

But if I were anything but White Trash, the city officials in Wheat Ridge would not tolerate and vague letter like the one above. If I were any other minority, Rich Swanson and the management team at the Wreck Center might have given me the chance to defend myself before they tied my hands behind my back and put the rope of slander around my neck.

The Mayor and the police surely know what everybody knows, that there are two sides to every story, not just theirs.

But when you are White Trash, nobody wants to hear your side of the story. That might mess up the stories they make up amongst themselves.

Sure, I was wrong to draw cartoons that made fun of employees.

I don't like them or respect them and maybe I could have expressed that in a more adult and appropriate way.

Not only were they consistently rude to me, but they stole my cartoons and my ipod. They violated my privacy and read my personal writings and left my notebook out on the counter for everyone to read.

When I'd walked by them I'd hear them making jokes about old men and how they snore, among other insults. And the police told me they watched my every move for months.

Later they give out my personal information to good ol' boy thugs who came to my home and used me as their punching bag.

Sure, any manager of a business has the right to ask me not to draw cartoons that offend. He even has the right to ask me to leave his establishment if I'm harming his profits.

But did Rick Swanson and the police have the right to violate my First and Fourth Amendment Rights?

The only people I know these days who study the Bill of Rights are White Trash. We have to know our rights to protect ourselves. If I had not known my Fourth Amendment rights, I'm certain the Wheat Ridge Police would have arrested me at the Wreck Center on the night they interrogated me.

The High School's nickname is the Farmers. The city was build by men who plowed the Earth on the same strip of land that is now gated off so that White Trash like me cannot even put the soles of our feet on the same soil we grew up on.

My mother lived in Wheat Ridge for over thirty years and worked hard and payed her taxes. Maybe a few of her tax dollars even helped build the Wreck Center.

She even died in a hospital in Wheat Ridge, the one on 38th, just down the street from the Wreck Center.

Other Blogs by Sean H.
Don Juan de Colfax
12stepart

Hi

Dysfunctional Communication

I was the last one to find out I was stalking women at the Wheat Ridge Wreck Center.

It came as a big surprise to me.

But that's how dysfunctional communication works.

If I have something to say to you, you're the last person I'm going to say it to.

It's much easier to say it say it through someone else who will pass the message along to another person and by the time it gets to you it might not even be true. And if it isn't true, then no skin off my nose since I never said it anyway.

So, the police officer told me that Rich Swanson, the supervisor, told the police chief. The police chief then told the police officer. But before all of this happened, the women I wasn't stalking had to tell someone. So, they apparently told other employees who told the managers who told Rich Swanson.

Or that's what I have now heard.

But I could be wrong.

Maybe Rick Swanson never said what he said. Who knows?

And even if he did say what he said, he can just deny it now.

Rick Swanson apparently talked to everyone in Wheat Ridge about me except for me. I only met the guy once. I recall it was the week after my mother had passed away and someone had broken into my truck in the parking lot of the Wreck Center and stolen my CD player and the CD with my mother's last words on it. All I wanted was to ask Mr. Swanson if his security cameras might have caught the thieves on tape.

"I'd talk to the police if it were me," he said.

Gee, no kidding. I never would have thought of that. What a caring and sensitive fellow this Mr. Swanson is.

I guess his solution to every problem is to call the police.

I had to hear from the police what he said behind my back and could never say to my face.

"You're stalking these women, aren't you?" the police officer said.

"I am?" I said.

"Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're following them around, seeing what they are up to."

"Oh, I didn't know that. Do you have any evidence?"

"Evidence?"

"Yes, like proof? Do you have dates, times photos?"

"Well, Rich Swanson and the employees here have been watching your every move on the security cameras and they think you have drawings in your bag of women. Can I look in your bag?"

"Don't you need a warrant? Don't you need probably cause? Have you ever heard of something called a Fourth Amendment?"

"Well, if you don't want to show me what's in the bag, that's fine. But I'll have to arrest you."

So, I showed her the drawings. It turns out they were of Rush Limbaugh and President Obama, not of employees at the Wreck Center. I guess what happened was the employees at the Wreck Center saw me on the cameras drawing while I worked out. Based upon this, they were confident I would be arrested, or that's what I have heard.

When the police officer saw the drawings of Rush Limbaugh and the President and realized how wrong she was, her face turned bright red.

But she's not going to tell you that.

And she's not going to tell you this. She's not going to tell you the difference between the real stalker and the token stalker.

These days every women needs a token stalker for social proof. It's the latest fad.

These days a woman can hardly be taken seriously unless she can say she's being stalked. She must have a nice outfit, the right hair and makeup, a boyfriend, maybe a husband and, of course, a token stalker.

But not a real stalker.

A token stalker is different than a real stalker who actually stalks her. That's too scary. Instead a woman only wants a guy like me to be under suspicion of stalking her. After all, if some guy is stalking her, it must mean she is desirable. Right?

The fact that accusations of stalking have hurt me and my family is not significant to these people.

Since this has happened, my book sales have declined and I've had five speaking engagements canceled. I've met women who agree to go out with me and then change their minds. My social life is non-existent and I have concluded that my only hope for a better life is to move out of Colorado within a year.


I'd leave now but I have an obligation to take a class for PTSD at the veteran's hospital.

I was hoping to mediate with the Wreck Center management, Mayor and Police Chief and come up with a solution that would be best for everyone involved.

But it's too late for that.

I'm willing to admit I drew cartoons that made fun of employees. I was more than happy to make amends and set things right. Now I draw cartoons of them to defend myself. I feel I have no other options.

When I emailed the Mayor about the stalking accusations, he avoided it. He would not even use the word stalker.

I found the Mayor's email on his website where he boasts that he is a leader who knows how to get things done and that he believes in open communication, the kind of communication that I and the police officer shared:

"It just seems odd to me," the officer said, "that an old guy like you dates younger women."

"I'm sure it's odd to you and to everyone in Wheat Ridge," I said. "But I don't just walk up to women younger than I am and risk public rejection and humiliation unless they give me plenty of non-verbal signs. And the younger women I date are highly educated, often sophisticated and non-discriminatory types. I've never once forced a younger woman to go out with me."

The truth is the Mayor isn't interested in open communication.

When I tried to inform him that the Wreck Center employees had invaded my private notebook and stolen my cartoons and ipod, this was his reply:

Sean,

Well...I have now asked you to respectfully stop.

Thanks

No, thank you Mayor.

By the way, if you read this and see the Mayor, please tell him I think he's a hypocrite who has moral convictions galore which he cannot live up to. Tell him I don't think he's a leader, but a self-serving schmoozer. Tell him I don't respect him, not that it matters.

I'd tell him this to his face but he is too much of a coward to meet with me.