AX065218
Just a vent. Nothing new. This black girl did something a little different today-I began to listen to those who can’t hear.
Ever listen to a conversation between two people in a crowded place (say a bar or the Red Line) and notice one person responding in some crazy fashion to questions asked by another and wonder ‘why won’t the other person just say something to get them on the right page?’  All of a sudden, we realize it never really mattered in the first place because the person asking the questions already got what they wanted-some attention with a splash of compliance.

 Sound familiar? It should.

 Before I get into my spiel about active listening, let me prologue this mug for a few: It’d be only saying too much to acknowledge the overabundance of false outrage/umbrage concerning the AIG executive bonuses that has been inundating our news over the past few weeks (’ ‘Course they didn’t deserve that money…but of course they did after all!’). Couple that with play-by-play on the Madoff shenanigans (’…whose pockets are the Feds going to attempt to hit up next?’), Congressional mea culpas (kinda),  the usual celebrity deaths, more Big 3 layoffs…and you’ve got one big unhappy American populace.

Or wait-haven’t we heard this before? The usual suspects have been captured and detained: greed, unconcerned legislators, a large group of people duped into drinking the Flavor Aid, delayed response, plans to do things different the next time around but no real concept of how to actually effect that change. I…coulda sworn we been here befo’.

Holy Brangelina-we HAVE! We were here with the rise and fall of housing bubble; we made a trip here with former President Bush, his contract cronies and the Iraqi war; we did a stint back in the day with the hyped up stock exchange back before, during and almost after the Depression; and as far as my memory will recall, we kicked it here for a minute with the rise of Walmart/Enron/Countrywide and them getting away with bloody murder while everyone watched. They told us they were going to do it and they did. We didn’t even ask how. With a grand sweeping display of speeches, hoopla and excitement, the name of that game always changed but the rules hadn’t: keep the people happy or mad enough to spend/not spend, come or go, give or receive, support or collectively deny. Everything…but to listen. So…this? What we hearing on the ‘news’? Not so much.

What’s most disconcerting about this whole big mess of an information decline is that NONE of what we are ‘hearing’ is new nor really that unexpected. Maybe it’s my refusal to believe in this stage of the technology era that much is kept from us. Like the analogy used above, we’ve gotten more accustomed to the noise that we forget to listen to what we should be.  With this ability to ‘hear’, thoroughly scrutinize and take action comes a responsibility to ask questions, follow (or make) directions but most of all: listen to what’s being said. I wish I could trim this post down to something specific like, about how people need to stop being mad about the loopholes discovered in that big ass economic smorgasbord of a stimulus bill when nothing was hid from public scrutiny or how they should have been mad about that shit a long time before (have y’all actually read that mug?) or even how Madoff was OBVIOUSLY pulling the cashmere over simple rich folk…but I digress. Maybe we have every right to be mad…but don’t we also have every right to render ourselves proactively informed?

 If you can’t hear what they’re asking or they’re saying, ask them to speak up. If not, don’t be mad when your ass gets suckered into something kinky like goat sex or watching ‘The Game’.