I absolutely loooooove standing in line at Wal-mart. Serious. I abhor lines of any sort as a general rule, but for whatever reason, when in Wal-mart, my favorite part is the line. I’m positive it’s because within the 15-20 minutes of line drudgery I have to endure, I get to satisfy one of my favorite past times–people watching. Oh there is lots to see whilest in line at Wal-mart. Lots of colorful characters frequent the smiley face place–at least when I go.
There’s always a set of folk rummaging through the bikini section–folk who have the exact WRONG body type for a bikini. Nope, I’m not judging or saying– however, you know EXACTLY which folk I mean. Then there are the folk who like to start a riot at the cash register because they read a price wrong. “Uh uhn! I got this at the $3.99 rack–why it come up $4.99?! uh uhn. The sign said $3.99 and I want it for 3.99.” Of course, this exchange and others like it are always waaaaaaaay louder than the situation requires.
More times than not, most of the Springer-esque entertainment value I get while at line at Wal-mart come from folk who share similar ancestral heritage as I do. Black folk. Not to say that pink people don’t do some extraordinary things in public, it’s just, I dunno– maybe I’m just more in tuned when Black folk do it. Now let’s be crystal clear. My eye will peruse 100 Black folk in a Wal-mart at any given time. It’s only one or two that does the dummy stuff. If that. Sometimes when I go, being in line is absolutely uneventful. Sometimes, it’s like hitting the reality show jackpot.
Now. Because of my Wal-mart experience can I now say that Black folk who shop in Wal-mart is crazy? Can I say that Black folk in general don’t know how to act in public, they have no idea what their body type is and they have one big ginormous attitude problem? Can I say that and it be true? “Girrrrrrl. I just looooooves going to WAl-mart, you know cause the Black folk is ignorant a shit.”
Considering I’m a Black folk (on occasion) and my experience at Wal-mart is at most 5 Black folk in 100 will cause a scene–how in the world can I logically make a blanket statement about Black folk who shop at Wal-Mart in general? I can’t, can I? Not logically anyway.
Interestingly enough, as with most things, logic has very little to do with how we tend to categorize people. We assume, based on our limited life experience that what we’ve seen in the course of a day is a good indicator of reality. Mainly because we are taught that perception is reality. In truth–reality is reality and our perceptions are always skewed based on stuff that has little to do with reality. I’m not the expert, mind you. I’m simply the messenger.
I bring this up because there has been a lot swimming in my head lately about how Black people are perceived in general. A month ago I watched “Diary of a Tired Black Man”. Which generally pushed the envelope of anger issues of so many Black women and how it is alienating them from being in long term relationships with Black men–or so the the premise of the movie made one to believe. Granted, the movie felt a little skewed and docu-drama-esque, but it made a good point. A lot of Black women come off as “angered” for varying reasons and far too many of these sistahs have no idea where to put that anger effectively, so it doesn’t destroy their relationships.
Of course, I got on the “lynch Slim Thug for speaking out of term about Black women” bandwagon– albeit late as all hell. In case you missed it, Slim Thug was interviewed by Vibe Magazine and he said some half retarded things about Black women that I can’t properly paraphrase. You can read it for yourself here. My friend Dr. Marc Lamont Hill wrote Slim an open letter in response. There has been loads of press, a tweet battle and responses from every Hip Hop blogger venue and writer known to man. *sigh* Believe me when I say, I’ve read so much garbage on the issue on all sides, I’m tired and my advil bottle is almost done–can’t blame THAT on Republicans.
Most of what gives me a headache on the topic is this blanket notion that the limited experiences we have in our lives make up even a cubit of what is actually the case beyond our reality. Slim’s experience as an entertainer is with groupie types. He grew up in an underserved urban community in Texas. He knows what he’s seen growing up. He knows what he’s seen at his job–playing clubs and being a “baller” and what not and he knows only what HE has experienced. Statistics aside, Slim can only talk about what his eyes have seen. Period. Now. What gets my goat is when other folk from similar backgrounds chime in about the same thing based also on their block’s worth of experience and call it ALL Black women or MOST Black women–understandably that annoys the hell out of me.
Mostly because what people complain about regarding BLACK women and call a Black woman issue, is something that Men complain about ALL women. We misunderstand each other–by design. But what happens is, based on our perceptions, we can take two women of similar backgrounds and upbringing–similar education–similar everything–except one woman is Black and the other is white and all of the sudden the problem is with the Black women. *insert chalkboard scratch here* Interestingly enough, the general anger discussion rarely gets doused blanketly upon men. Sure, there are Black male issues that crop up in high profile discussion. But let’s be clear. For the most part, WOMEN are angry at MEN. So why is this a Black woman-White woman issue and not a male person–female person issue?
I’d venture to say that it’s not, because it’s far easier to point fingers at the easiest targets–which is likely NOT the person the other three fingers and a thumb are actually pointing at–OURSELVES. Slim Thug said Black women are difficult and don’t stand by their men–meanwhile–Latoya Luckett broke up with him because he cheated on her AND got another woman pregnant–while they were together. He mentioned that his new woman(who he says is half white and credits the white parts of her that cause her to be so easy going and docile) dotes on his every whim and wouldn’t dare drop him for such trivialities as having sex outside of the relationship raw dog. Nope, because she stands by her man. Plus, he don’t have to buy her all the shit he advertises in his songs to the girls who actually buy his culturally irrelevant records.
The point of all of this is not to rehash a long dead debate. The point of this is to question our thought process and motives in these debates. When Black women chime in with regard to understanding where Slim Thug is coming from when he says the ridiculous things he says about women– I have to question why that is? When Black men chime in, nodding their heads in agreement, again, I have to question why?
It’s long been true that, as a collective group of Coloreds, our self esteem appears to be low. When disparaging and divisive comments based on limited actual experience become a collective affirmative head nod,no matter how MARGINALLY true it may be, I have to question if the reason we do it, is because we want to at least seem to ourselves that we are far removed from the stereotypes. That by agreeing with the ridiculous, we’re saying out loud–oh yes–Most Black People are like this–BUT I’M NOT. It’s like breaking somebody down so we can feel so much better about ourselves. We think it makes us look better, but it’s really our ego playing mind fuck with us.
If you ask me, that alone is quite enough to make anybody angry. And we do it, without even realizing we do it. We do it, without even understanding that the damage we create in the aftermath of our wretched misunderstanding and ego mongering actually helps destroy all that we all hope to build collectively. Subconsciously we know this–but we do it anyway. Consequently, we also drive ourselves further and further apart from each other and the “Dream” we’re supposed to be creating for our children to partake in. I suppose that dream died when being educated became corny. Alas, I digress.
The moral of this story? I can’t call it. Just some food for thought. Thank you for reading this though. Peace and Abundant ‘Blanket Free Statement’ Blessings. Love, -e-