About 15 seconds ago, I did the unthinkable. I deleted a blog post. Yes, I know. A travesty. Censorship. Who knew the “c” word would rear it’s ugly head in relation to my little irrelevant blog?
Why, Envy Why? You may be asking yourself? Why, because despite my best intentions, I gave in to the psychotic whim of an overprotective husband, allegedly.
Sure, I could have kept the post and let the bulldog do whatever it is he wanted to do. For all intents and purposes, the post in question was a blind item that included no names about vague events that happened in the not so distant past. However, apparently my post was powerful enough (to him) to illicit this man’s full attention to the tune of several suspect “threatening-like” e-mails via facebook, some hollow insults thrown here and there about my media acumen, his name popping up in my inbox in varying degrees from his following me on twitter, to his leaving a weird recommendation of me on my linkdn page.
Now to the untrained eye, all this new attention from a man I’ve only seen out a few times may not seem all that strange and if I were a real bitch I would post the range of our correspondence right here on my blog for all to see why my spidey senses were tingling. I have seen enough in my day to know the signs of a human being who is losing a bit of his grip on reality and who may be a card or two short of a full deck, allegedly. My dad always says, “when you argue with fools, who is the fool exactly?” Alas, I am not a bitch (all the time) and because I know of him and how small Philly is…plus Mercury is retrograde– people are capable of any damned thing this month from May7-May 31, allegedly. Call me a punk. It’s true. I’m from Bucks County. We are not known for our gangsta.
Now granted, when I wrote the initial post, I was being a bit sassy about a touchy subject for some people. It was not intended to rile anyone into post stalking me, however, now that it has–there must be a lesson in all of this.
As a “writer”, (or potential writer as I was recently informed) we pretty much write to the tune of our own drummer. If folks like our work-great. If folks don’t like our work-great. But what happens when a topic of our personal blog interest hits too close to home to somebody we may know in passing? Does that give a reader of our wares the right to ask us to remove it? Or kindof, subtext-like strong arm us into removing it? And by removing it, does that make me some kind of a sellout to my (potential) “craft”?
Believe me, I’ve been pondering these things since the initial ‘post removal request’ and at first, I was like–“I ain’t removing shit. It ain’t really about you.” * Carly Simon ringing in my ears ala ‘I bet you think this song is about you’–made more popular in Janet’s rendition a few years back*.
And then it was just relentless. Despite my asking him to leave me alone about it, to move on and whatever, it was clear, like a high school bully that had his sights on my lunch money–He won’t gonna let it go, until he got what he wanted, despite how much I reasoned. He had his family on the brain and my silly little post was in the way somehow. So this begs the question, if I remove one post, what’s keeping all kinds of folks who become uniquely “touched” by my posts to ask me to do the same? Where is the line drawn? What Would Jesus Do?
I ask these things in jest mostly, because I know my random thoughts on this post are simply that–my thoughts. My posts are not meant to do anything more than engage folks in conversation about the things that go on in life. If I inspire a few people to talk about things they think best kept in the dark, so be it. If I don’t, so be it. A little heated debate here and there–so be it. If not, so what? It’s just a blog afterall.
Now don’t get anything twisted, I appreciate any man who is gangsta about his family. I love it when a man gets all bulldog like about his fam. But my question must now be, what exactly does removing that post actually accomplish for him? Whether my post stayed up or came down not one thing I said in it would change the past in the slightest. I didn’t give any sordid details in my post. Interestingly enough though, he gave every sordid detail in his very long and “anonymous” comment attached to the post in question. smh.
I’m thinking–forgive me for being logical here–If he was truly trying to defend his wife’s honor, who’s name or identity was not revealed in the least–why say anything at all? Why not just ignore it, especially since there was no indication it was about him or her or them or it or thus or anything relevant to their actual personal lives??? Especially since, according to him, I’m irrelevant in the marketplace and Noooooobody reads my blog anyway (except him, of course).
I ask these questions, but I know in my spirit that really, there is no good answer to them. People do what they do because that’s what they do. And I do know there cetainly ain’t no logic in love. If I left the post up, I would have to deal with wreckless records until I took it down. Legally, I could make his life a little more hellish being as though half of my family is either a lawyer or a judge. And his correspondence was real suspect in the harrassment department, allegedly.
As a conscious human being though, with a lot more on my plate than somebody else’s bulljank, I simply have too much going on to be sidetracked, just to make a point. Besides, when you argue with fools (or a passionate man) who is the fool really? So yes, I took the post down. If only to entice “keeping it real” from going really wrong. (I did learn a thing or two from the Chapelle Show.) I know, what is the world coming to??! Yes, I get it–I probably set the blog censorship debate back a few minutes in the process. Prayerfully we’ll all recover gracefully.
The moral of this story? I’m still working that one out. I’ll hit you back when it comes to me. I know, at least, there’s one person out there who will be reading my blog posts from now on very intently. As usual, Thank you for reading this. Peace and abundant censorship free blessings. -e-