By Jonathan Alexandratos
My elementary school experience was both mentally and
physically abusive. Most days were
a Venn Diagram of those two categories.
Seeing my second grade music teacher hurl a dry erase marker at us out
of frustration: physical.
Overhearing my fourth grade teacher call us “a waste”: mental. Being swatted in the head with my
classroom-made hall pass by my fifth grade teacher because I didn’t put as many
colors on it as the other students: both.
Being given up on, and relegated to remedial coursework, instead of
imposing upon my teachers the descriptions of their jobs: mental. The list goes on. I won’t attempt to equivocate with
phrases like “at least, that’s how I remember it,” or, “I could be wrong – I
was young,” or, “others had it worse,” or, “I’m being too sensitive,” or,
“maybe,” or “perhaps,” or “I think.”
Fuck it. I know. This is how it was.
What was propagated there was a system that almost ensures
its own survival. I have since
felt anger toward a class of people, elementary educators, who are, surely,
by-and-large, good, honest, well-intentioned, hard-working people, for no
reason beyond the fact that abuse ensures that the fists of a few will silence
the open palms of many. It, abuse,
further guarantees its longevity through convincing people, like the devil,
that it isn’t there. That the word
is too harsh. That it happens to
other people. What results is a
generation of young people that must grow up with the notion that the world is
what happens to other people, and has nothing to do with me. It is a new Lost Generation that rests
in the gap just after the last of the traditionalist educators – the
spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child group who came of age under abuse that, while
still being abuse, could hide in a crowd and find strength in numbers and the
justification of “That’s what my
teachers did…” – are on their way out, and the victims of this practice – if
they have managed to claw their way out of a pit of self-worthlessness,
stagnated learning, and a general hatred of the classroom – are on their way
in, with the conviction never to repeat what was done to them. Many of us never make it to the level
of literacy expected by upper-level schools. What’s worse, many of us never get to feel the excitement of
cracking open a book, the awe of the fateful twist, the passion behind every
fraction of every letter, the wide, dimension-shattering space that exists
between words.
And we don’t get to move to Paris. We don’t get to eloquently explain our pasts. We dwell in society, without a
society. We are the ones you don’t
see, and don’t feel the need to teach.
We are the ones who put our heads down, and close our eyes, and make
sure you have no idea what we’re dreaming. We are the ones you wouldn’t bother making that reference
to, because you somehow know we wouldn’t understand. It has, in your eyes, nothing to do with me.
We are the abused who must both sit for the abuse, and wait
to find out if what happened to us matches your father’s definition of the
word. This group is not - *not* -
the only entity that can, or should, claim this; however, this is the only
group for which I, from experience, can see just how much the song remains the
same. In our feelings that we do
not own the world’s problems, we are often feel that we also do not own a voice
about our own. Because, of course,
these problems have nothing to do with me.
In seeing wave after wave of the flashing screens of the 21st
Century, we sit under a veritable ocean of distractions, for which the high
watermark is still nowhere in sight.
The shockwaves of abuse do not, we feel, resound under water, under the
24/7 pharmacy of the Internet – but that should not stop us from pounding the
wet sand, rattling the coral, and shouting to the smallest air bubble that we
will not be a part of the lineage that abused us. There are distractions, but they have nothing to do with me.
There are some on our side. Some who even saw it coming. Take a look at the documentary A TOUCH OF GREATNESS, about the
1960s-era elementary school teacher Albert Cullum, who never found a child he
couldn’t teach. Take a look at the
2005 Canadian film WHOLE NEW THING, about a young boy’s need to preserve his
identity in a classroom, and a town, that preys on difference. I will leave the plot details a
mystery, as they’re best unwrapped and discovered and felt without
introduction. They are best
experienced the same way many of you will experience many of us: in a room with
frost-covered windows, where we’re alone, together. Where, it turns out, that the bullied and the bully find
out, years later, they were both looking for the same love. Where the tables have not turned, but
merged. Where we discover that, as
Don Grant of WHOLE NEW THING proclaims, “Everything is a love song.” That is, if we survive long enough to
make it that far. Sure, there are
differences between you and me, pasts that have come and gone, apologies that
may never mean a thing, and apologists that downplay themselves for something
unknowable, but they, in this moment, have nothing to do with me.
But until that moment comes, we are lost between a
generation who would insist that the abuse we suffered was a “rite of passage,”
or because “boys will be boys,” or because it was “God’s will,” and an imperfect
generation who must reinvent the wheel, with plenty creating oblong shapes that
get us nowhere.
However, there
will come a day where we will invent something that rolls us all forward.
And plenty will offer reasons not to
go, not to move past a history for which nostalgia has whitewashed
violence.
But these reasons will
have
nothing to do with me.
Andrea’s still not doing well so she rests, guarded by the
pets, while Michonne checks out the wreckage.
She has to quickly retreat because a couple of trucks are pulling up to
the wreckage. This is when we’re treated
to our first sighting of the Governor. From
some nearby bushes, Michonne and Andrea watch the Governor and his flunkies
inspect the downed helicopter. He shoots
two of the occupants and we see the change had already taken effect on at least
one of them. A walker shambles up to and
then right past our girls, totally ignoring them. Cool.
I have a theory about this that’s later confirmed by the show. So yay for me. The pets get all worked up about something
and won’t quiet down so Michonne fixes this by chopping off their heads with
her handy katana. Well I guess they won’t
be around much anymore. The Governor and
his men decide whatever the noise in the bushes was is now gone…that is, until
Merle happens upon them from behind. He’s
got this nifty bayonet where his hand used to be. He immediately recognizes Andrea and then she
passes out. She fades in and out while
being transported and we see tiny bits of the area but not much else.
The Governor walks through town and to a lab-type place
where Dallas Roberts (I love this actor, he always shows up in stuff I watch)
is checking out the pets…who are still alive…sort of. He’s figured out how genius it was of
Michonne to not only chop off their arms but to take away their jaws. She made them docile. Plus they worked as walker repellant because
of their smell. It’s pretty smart,
actually. During their conversation we
learn that the Governor keeps Dallas around because he’s not exactly a yes man and
he makes good tea. Governor and Dallas are
having breakfast with Michonne and Andrea.
Dallas (who I’m sure has a character name but it’s escaped me) asks Michonne
about her pets but of course she doesn’t answer and instead scowls at him with
the meanest look on her face. She spends
most of breakfast eating her eggs and staring at her katana, which is on
display in a hutch. The Governor
explains the purpose of their little community to Andrea (Michonne being all pre-occupied with their weapons). The folks of Woodbury are getting on with life and not waiting
to be rescued. At the end of breakfast Michonne finally speaks and, as expected, says they want their weapons back. The Governor replies they should stay a while
and rest. They'll get their weapons when they finally leave. Hmmm…I’m starting to think
they can’t leave.
