The writer of the New York Magazine's article about the Park Slope Halloween stripper censorship ends the piece with the lines:
'No one can throw a fit quite like a Park Slope kid.'
Very good, in one line you just defiled the character of thousands of kids you don't even know. Including ones who aren't even born yet. True sometimes kids are brats. And sometimes, writers.
In the interest of truth in reporting, maybe you should have written:
'Now it's time to go in for the jugular, that's what we're all waiting for, right? Isn't that what sells magazines, we get the chance to feel good about ourselves by attacking people we don't know? Feel the rush, yeah, yeah, those kids are little bastards. Let's drink some kiddie blood and make some money!'
I don't think you know the kids I know. Ones who struggle and suffer through their insecurities, who face difficult challenges and gather the strength to walk through them, often with grace and understanding. Who worry about the world, their parents and siblings and pets. Who love greatly. Who grow up among parents with worries and pressure and insecurities that prevent the deep connection and validation they crave.
In this case, it wasn't even the kids throwing the fit, it was the administrators of this puppet show and the Middle School who decided that even though this is a free country sometimes things get a little too free. Women with too much freedom, run them out of town! PC never meant free.
But NY Mag, I'm not mad at you. You are poisoned with the same poison we are all poisoned with, and its not fun. We'll keep spewing that poison of externalized self-loathing at each other forever unless we find a way to be truly helpful to the struggling souls we share this world with. Even though I don't know you, I think it's what people really want deep down. But what are the chances of rising above it, when half the time it's what you get paid for?
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2 comments:
ok, i spend a lot of time in park slope and most of my friends live there..hell, i'd probably still live there if i hadn't gotten sick of paying way too much rent money for bad apts (that's not to say that all ps apts are bad, only most of the ones in my price range). i gotta say, though, that i think you made their point for them. when i read the article, i took that comment as a play on the idea that park slope residents get up in arms about everything, a sort of a "park slopers throw fits about everything so why wouldn't their kids". case in point.
ok, enough time spent here, i'm off to find other places to spew poison.
I don't throw fits about everything, and neither do my kids. But you don't have to believe me.
I think I got a little hyperbolic, and I regret that. I just know a lot of very cool kids here. I don't like to see them so mischaracterized.
But thanks anyway for your comments. Watch that poison, I'll watch my tantrums. I hope you now have an excellent affordable apartment and ideal neighbors.
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