Racism and hate.

Racism is an interesting word. It gets a lot of attention.
I used to be racist. It's true. Not proud of it. Not proud of many things.
That is why building the DFP has been so difficult for me.
(well apart from the obvious difficulties of a 'movement')

Because everything this helps men with I have either done or experienced in some way.
What does this have to do with racism, I am a white male.
I should have the easiest least challenging path you could have.
As far as gender and colour goes without the stigmas, taboos and social limitations about why you/'they' can and can't do something.

I mean I may or may not have to explain it to you (the pro's and con's of being different.)
I also didn't design this social construct. But it is there.
I will explain to you why. Simply my understanding of it.
Myself a white male born in a first world country.
My life was not amazing, but it also wasn't some of the 'life or death' war-torn hell scenarios someone could possibly and DO live.

About three years ago I did some work with/for the Australian indigenous youth or depending where you are from in the world or
your conditioning around the word.
I worked with young black kids who hadn't had a good experience with life as much as a young kid or young man should or 
could have.
Either due to home environment, street culture or sometimes through no fault of their own - racial profiling or racism.

Now I am going to use all the words I have available to me.
They are just words. I don't like to hate or be negative to anyone - to the best of my ability.
I am actually in the process of teaching myself to love others more as well as myself.

Because by being able to speak the way that I do and the words that I
use I have the ability to actually help these young men.
Well most men in tough times, but that's not what this post is about.

Racism is hate, whether is be 'I hate blacks' 'I hate whites'
*insert colour or race as you will.
Don't confuse this with discrimination. eg 'Chinese people are the worst people at travelling through airports efficiently.'
That is not racism, it's discrimination, but also a fair assessment.

When I saw my past with a racist mindset, I hated people, for colour or race.
That's it. I mean I hated a lot of people, but racism brings the most shame.
And also relevance to what I am talking about.

The 'crazy' thing is though as I grew, learned, explored, I realised I started to have Jimmy my indigenous mate, I worked with a Vietnamese bloke and he was kind of nice and insert the thousands of other encounters with people. 
Long story short, I realised I was full of hate and had to directed it in the way that I did. As most of the people around me did that,
either obviously or on some low key level.
Australians.. I know.. Racist pricks.

Another long story short, with that hate I found myself in prison very quickly.
Even the 'system' kept the Asians with the Asians, indigenous (blacks) with the indigenous and you can figure out the rest of the set up there.
I thought it was it normal to have this separation between us.
But also why the hate? It's kind of destructive.
After spending a day in the Asian unit, I realised the feeling of hate was mutual.

That was almost fifteen odd years ago. Just to clear things up I am no longer racist. Because I learned to love myself and travelling a lot of the world. I found racism
was created by us.

But not in the way you might think.
Because ever since then I have experienced the same kind of stigma and judgement (from a 'criminal history') another race might have with getting jobs, opportunities in life and even as far as one partner left me when I told her about my past ie I can't introduce 'you' to my parents.
Of course we need to entertain the idea that some races actually have those challenges because of the colour of their skin or social stigma.

I am not going to say being a white male from a first world country is the same, because its not,
I chose my path and at times probably didn't make it easier for myself.
That being said though. If life was a score card of good and bad things, I would well and truly be in the green, but I will get to that or you possibly already know that. You may even be what I am explaining, you will always 'hate' me because of what I 'was'.

Because people who go to prison are bad and always will be.
Is that true? Or accurate?
That's a different conversation altogether.

Let me ask you,
is racism OK?


It's yes or no.
(or unconscious behaviour - ie you don't over eat by choice right?)
Hate is a choice. Judgement is a choice. And racism I believe comes from laws and ideals that weren't changed all to long ago eg slavery, 'white only' laws and so on.
It would have been illegal for people of colour to do certain things at certain times in history. I am sure somewhere in the world there may still be similar.

This leaves behind hate.
Even when the 'laws' change.
I mean why you would hate people for no reason?
You learn it, from your culture and you hate because like most of
society, the world, no one taught you, me, most people how to love.
Love yourself, other people and things as a whole.
(Easier said then done a skill set I am still learning myself as I mentioned.)

We don't have to like everyone, we don't have to agree with everyone, in fact we never will. That is the beautiful thing about life. Freedom and choice, that believe it or not people worked very hard for for generations to attain what we have now. Choice. Love or hate, good or bad, McDonald's or Dominoes.

But unlike or McDonald's. Learning to repair the damage done to you,
others and being able to say I am now these things 'a good person' vs not.
It's pretty fucking difficult,  as I experienced, not the work required, not the time, not the money. But simply the ability to get others to see me as
'different' or 'OK' again, to even see myself that way.
Which is truly where I believe is where racism comes from.
'They' are going to do something wrong. 'They' always do this.

And the kicker is when someone doesn't love or respect themselves,
'they' generally do the wrong thing.
I am going to shift your focus away from crime and race to allow you to see it differently.
If you went to the fridge and your intention was to have one beer, but you had six and also ate an entire pizza.
Would you feel good the next day? Honestly.
And what if you did that everyday? And everyone in society judged and ridiculed people that could never 'just drink one beer and not stuff their face'. How do you think you would start to think and feel towards yourself?
More importantly act?

What I am getting at is we don't talk about the shit that is right in front of our face. The hate, the problems, the stigma, the shame and trying to move forward as a society. Even just trying to lose fucking weight.. or be happy.
Even with my limited understanding I worked out that no one man can move forward or far without 'fixing himself',
so why would anyone else. If no one talks about it,
no one wants to talk about it.

One - because it's hard to talk about our 'real' shit.
And two we know people that have made mistakes, failed or otherwise, we point our finger, laugh, or outcast them.
At the very least treat differently.

Who would want that? By choice? No one. Which is why racism will never be solved anytime soon and the increasing problem in men will grow,
even for white males in first world countries.
Depression, anxiety, breaking the law, abusive behaviours etc even suicide.
Which is why I started 'all this in the first place'.
Which is why I do what I do.
People in my life are dead.
And it's not a great experience.

And if you are already judged, have stigma around you, find it hard to create opportunities and people around you start dying.
Guess what you are going to do? Or be as a person?
Whether you have experienced this is or not,
the way I have explained things I don't think it should matter.

My sister asked me why did I share this photo the other day?
She was concerned about her own reputation. Because of something I did.
Because of what society will do,
for what reason?
I mean this isn't the picture that was used and the description isn't very accurate (not that it matters or anything) but this cost thousands of dollars and bought more hate, judgement and problems then most things in my life.

Like I said not only have I experienced that stigma and judgement that I have noticed is similar to racism for 15 years.
I got to experience it all over again on a different level.
While I was teaching indigenous kids about fitness, health, self-respect, mindset to give you a basic idea.
From this 'incident' for a few weeks back in that period of time,
I received hate, judgement, even death threats.

But also me being me I just told people to go fuck themselves.
Because I know me. And when you can understand yourself,
do the 'right' thing, for the most
part. You learn to not judge yourself, you learn to not hate yourself, for the most part.

My previous hate and way of thinking, more recent or not,
may seem more intense then yours.
Because I do most things intensely, love, work, try to improve etc. Intense. 
But also like you, I sometimes lose my way ie do the wrong thing.

Unlike most people I also represented and to this day represent myself.
​Imagine going to court on weapons and drugs charges and getting yourself off (pun not intended).
Most people don't even believe what they say because we are conditioned
to not talk about all the things we do 'wrong' there for thinking everyone else must do the same.
Whether thats legally, morally, spirtually etc it's irrelevant.

The reason why I share this article occasionally is to explain to you the importance of not showing such massive interest in peoples failures or mistakes, I am just strange set of circumstances where my life and career has been basically telling people how much of a fuck up I was how, how 'bad' I was. So although challenging, at the end of the day worked out fine for me.

This just became another reference point to use in helping me show men, even when you try, even when you do the right thing 95% of the time.
No one gives are shit. Because people are full of hate, shame and guilt.
That most people are simply playing a role.

I took those 'jobs' as a financial loss.
The racist white guy from Melbourne goes on to wear a financial loss to help indigenous black men not live the same or similar life that he did.
I mean that's are a good headline, but hate sells, people failing sells and the same way you can't hate if you are not consumed by it. People who write and read this stuff are usually that way inclinded.

As to love others, including yourself, it is incredibly hard baseline to get back to and then live that.
Because of fear and hate. 
And most people don't love themselves.

So we hate, blame, write nasty articles, posts, texts to each other, about 'all the things that they did' and that traps us in our own prison because you then can't
share and heal your own flaws and problems. That we all have.
Because it wouldn't make any sense would? To treat others as your treat yourself if we treat others like shit.. we how do we treat our-self?
See what I am saying?

Well I managed to break that cycle. Some what.
You should try this love/freedom deal, it's not bad. Could get used it.
And even if you try it out, don't like it, go back to being how ever you want.

I mean like I said though, if you have lived the same or similar to me.
It can at times be incredibly difficult to get back to a base-line 'normal',
but so is living like most people (or how I used to).

It's been almost a year since I wrote a blog. I still write everyday from, journals, emails, posts etc. I started writing these years ago, one to get a handle on my thoughts and then be able to express them through words. But I know also men learn and take in information in different ways. 

Hearing, reading, watching. I wanted to make sure I had all bases covered.
As I said though. It has been 12 months since I typed one of these at. And what has happened since then, it's been a hell of ride to say the least. I think I experience more in the last year then most men do in ten. Or even there whole life.
The highs and the lows.

Someone once suggested me, fail faster, make mistakes faster. It didn't make any sense. My understand of life was you wanted to avoid failure and mistakes, having said that even with this in mind,
I was still failing and making mistakes spectacularly. Not the good kind.

You see if you don't make mistakes doing what you want, becoming who you want to be. You are going to make mistakes and failure by default, either becoming too comfortable that the weeds start to grow or even worse, your life becomes so dull from playing it safe, suddenly poor decisions seem like great ideas.

Although I lived 10 years in 1, I felt ten years in one. I had already gone to the point of no return with failures and mistakes not doing what I wanted with my life. I figured it was time to go all in and take a chance maxing out on dreams and burning desires. So that's what I did. But a common mistake I and many men make is not making the main thing, the main thing.

What do I mean by that?
Well think about the one or two big things you wanted to pull off in 2019?
Did you do it? Or 2018? What about great thing you achieved or attained - are they still standing strong at this point in time?

By biting of more then you can chew, making important decisions based off emotion and not facts. You set yourself up for spectacular failure.
If you can look at your life truthfully and honestly, it's very easy to see where things went wrong or right. Ignoring the facts that limit you from moving forward and also being ignorant to the facts of the past setting you up for the same or similar thing. You can do a lot in a short time. But there is a big difference between scoring the championship winning point and watching it on TV.

Living is hard, life is hard, that's the deal.
I hope that by sharing my wins, spectacular failures and anything else in between.
With enough vivid details and understanding as possible. You may be able to take some wisdom and experience away from this and simply 'not do what Dan Fitts did', well that was what I called the program I used to teach in Schools.
But that was sometime ago. 

I don't need to teach you what not to do, as entertaining as those stories are, 
I am now here to share with what I am doing that is working,
​that I have tried and tested. 
That you can add to your own life. 

So let's get into it. 

God Speed.

Dan