Outspoken Vs. Rude

I’m noticing more and more that in today’s society the definition of the word outspoken—as well as the act of being outspoken—is taking on a whole new meaning.  

In the past, the term outspoken was used to describe individuals who stood up for themselves and for others that they perceived were being abused, belittled or mistreated in any way.  If not that, then they were someone who was not afraid to share their opinions and beliefs even when they were in the minority or the opinion was an unpopular one. 

Today, not so much!  

Today, the term outspoken is being bestowed upon anyone who speaks without a filter.  Somehow, a complete lack of tact has come to be considered a virtue.    

In fact, nowadays, people who are not only rude, but also crude and socially unacceptable often mistake their own lack of manners as the ideal use of their First Amendment rights, complete with First Amendment protections.  Worse still, equally tactless people, as well as those who were supposed to know better, are now falsely associating this vulgarity and lack of manners with the virtues of actual outspokenness.

For those who don’t know the difference and/or who believe that there is no distinction between the two, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that you are, at least, partially right.  You do indeed have the right to say whatever you feel like saying—with the exception of words deemed as inflammatory, words that may incite riots, outbreaks of violence or fights and words that may cause others to react without thought.  For example, shouting “fire” in a crowded room when there is no fire falls into the category of unprotected speech.

The bad news is even more compelling.

You see, the bad news is that doing so—that is, saying whatever you want—has nothing to do with Freedom of Speech.  Not one bit.  Or, at least, not in the way you think. In fact, actual Freedom of Speech protections have more to do with insuring that fear of government retaliation doesn’t impede your ability to be honest than with individual protection or the freedom to be tacky or thoughtless at your whim. In other words, any personal losses incurred based upon your inability to control your tongue don’t apply!  Simply stated, while you have the freedom to say things without government reprisal, saying whatever you feel like saying may cause you more than a fat lip.  Saying whatever you want to whenever you want to may cause you your livelihood in a best-case scenario or your life in a worst-case scenario.

That’s right!

Your job, your social position, your political standing and even your very life can all be affected and/or damaged by simply exercising your misunderstanding of Freedom of Speech and/or improper use of outspokenness.

Now, don’t misunderstand this.  Even with tact and eloquence, there has always been a chance that someone may take offense at your words.  Many good people have lost their lives or had said lives destroyed because they dared to speak truth to power.  But, and this must be clearly stated, there is a difference between having the courage to speak for the underdog and flinging insults and profanity at someone.  No award winning speech ever started with “Yo’ momma so…”  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is not famous for standing in front of a podium and saying “I have a dream, that one day, all these white mother#$%ers will stop oppressing my people.”  Don’t confuse not knowing how to speak to people with standing UP for the people.    

However, even with that caveat, there is a simple solution.

Thinking before you speak is not only a safe solution but, in many instances, mandatory to maintaining health and well-being.  

Before you decide to make that bold statement to your supervisor, your pastor, your significant other, your parents, your children etc., consider weighing the ramifications of your comments verses your current emotional or public state.  Are the words you are about to speak intended to bring clarity or anything else positive in the world, or just be insulting and crass? 

Look, everyone can agree that things said to you in public as opposed to in private may provoke a thoughtless, pride-filled response from you that you would ordinarily never give. So, before running off at the mouth, be certain that you fully understand your particular set of circumstances as well as the actual associated consequences.  

Try to remember at all times that outspokenness is not being loud, ignorant or rude to the embarrassment of those unfortunate enough to know or, even worse, be related to you.  Being outspoken is virtuous, respectful and not done to be vicious or simply for likes. 

And for the love of all things holy, stop praising and/or seeking praise for being insulting and belittling people.  People might be overly sensitive and take offense to things easily, but that is not an excuse to poke them with something sharp and then get upset when they aren’t pleased about.  No, they’re not mad because you “spoke your truth.”  They’re mad because you were a jerk about it. 

Can anybody hear me?

It Is Exactly What It Is!

Let me begin by saying, I’m more than prepared for this particular blog topic to be considered very controversial.  I already know that my opinion will probably be extremely unpopular.  Nevertheless, here goes.  

If I hear another person describing alcoholism or drug abuse—prescription or otherwise—as a disease, I’m going to lose it…backlash be damned!  

Contrary to popular belief, alcoholism and drug abuse are not true diseases.  That’s right!  As a matter of fact, both are as a direct result of poor personal choices/behaviors instead of responsible participation!  The truth of the matter is no one forced you to indulge.  And, furthermore, no one made you ignore your own limitations.  

There, I said it!  

Cancer is a disease. Tuberculosis is a disease.  Arthritis is a disease.  I repeat, alcoholism and drug abuse are choices.  Yes, choices.  Regardless of whether or not the abuser solicits street level or medically prescribed pharmaceuticals, if we are honest, we know that they both require active and continued dedication.  

I know, I know, some will say many cancers are also a choice because they occur as a result of negligence in diet and/or overall upkeep on the part of its host.  Same for arthritis.  However, many more cancers occur amongst those who are conscientious about all of these things.  Live right or live poorly, cancer and other illnesses may still find you.  This is because diseases like cancer are not only unpredictable but, more importantly, uncontrollable.  Many are born with and/or inherit arthritis and other ills through no fault of their own, to say nothing of those who catch various illnesses because those around them refuse to take proper precautions.

Conversely, I think we can all agree that alcohol consumption requires an acquired taste and as such, a certain level of commitment.  I mean, no one is born appreciating (or even knowing) the taste of a Mimosa over breast milk or some other variation of mother’s milk.  This means time, practice and a little patience are needed when cultivating this particular palate.  Are people sometimes born predisposed to become addicts?  Of course.  Are they born already aware of and involved in the thing they become addicted to?  Absolutely not. 

Now, don’t misunderstand me, drinking alcohol and/or taking prescribed medication in and of themselves isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, they can be useful towards regaining and/or maintaining good health.  However, you can’t cry foul after you put in time to become proficient in alcohol tasting/drinking/drug use just because you find you can no longer handle or control your acquired taste.  Likewise, you can’t play the drug addiction disease card if you deliberately and repeatedly exceed medically recommended doses.

To be clear, I do have a bit more sympathy for prescription drug abusers vs. street level drug users.  Nevertheless, I think it is important that we all understand that each of us has a responsibility to guard our own health.  This is especially true for pain management… which seems to be a major contributor to drug and alcohol abuse.  

Trust me, I get it.  No one wants to be in any kind of pain be it mental, physical, etc.  However, there are other proven methods of pain relief that don’t involve swallowing innumerable amounts of prescriptions, OTC pain killers or alcohol.  

Consider prayer, meditation, hot baths, cold baths, light stretches, etc.  Additionally, make sure you’re getting much needed rest, sunlight and vitamin supplements as needed. Also, remember to stay hydrated.  

In other words, we need to do everything we can to maintain our own health.

However, if after all the negative information regarding alcohol/drug abuse is not enough to deter you and you become one of the millions of people who are willing to meet strangers in dark alleys to purchase God only knows what from God only knows who then, and I hate to say this, you deserve whatever you get.  And, if perchance you become addicted, that’s a price you have decided on and are willing to pay, right?  

Finally, if whatever you purchased and ingested without question results in your or a loved one’s death, remember you/your loved one gambled with your/their respective health and life as if you had eight or nine more waiting in the wings.  

That’s right, you and you alone decided to put your trust in a street pharmacist.  The choice (there’s that word again) was ultimately yours!  You’re not a victim.  You’re the culprit!

Can anybody hear me?

Home

When asked to define “home,” most people will agree that their home is where they are most comfortable and feel most relaxed.  In fact, they often volunteer unsolicited information about items within their home that maximize their comfort level.

From leather recliners to chaise loungers, everyone has that one piece of furniture that puts them most at ease.   Even with differing taste in furnishings, varying size of the homes etc., the dwellings still promote the same feelings of security and pleasure to the owner ​regardless of social standing.

Interestingly enough, during these discussions, most people never mention putting anything in their home that makes them feel uncomfortable or unappreciated.  In fact, even with limited funding, most people go out of their way to make their homes their sanctuaries.

That same need for security within your home is also needed when you exit said home for work or play and, when properly in place, promotes overall health/wellness.  And most people would acknowledge this.  After all, we have laws and rules on the books to protect people from “hostile working environments.”  However, this basic and often taken for granted level of comfort is routinely denied to black people in the United States everyday, resulting in a very different and difficult life for blacks compared to their white counterparts.

If it isn’t harrowing enough, not knowing if law enforcement will see you as a criminal today as a direct result of your skin color,  hairdo, or outfit, you have to contend with walking passed innumerable statues and shrines that pay homage to the slave masters (both past & present) of your people.

Blacks in the US have no choice but to attend institutions that bear the names of the same individuals who not only enslaved their people but who fought then and whose followers fight now to have them remain slaves in some fashion and listen to the cries and murmurings of those who wish to celebrate that legacy of barbarism under the guise of maintaining the integrity of history and tradition.

What’s even more amazing, if possible, is that this particular level of insensitivity has flown under the radar in a country such as the US, which claims religious, cultural and moral superiority over other countries with differing religions, gods, languages, etc. Yet, somehow, from members of Congress to ordinary individuals on the streets, so many people believe it’s okay for blacks to live with the reminders of these and other atrocities every single day.  Not only that, but if blacks bring these points up in any sort of conversation, those on the other side claim that THEY are the ones being persecuted for being who they are and that it is black people who are oppressing them because of their whiteness.

With all of that being the case, I don’t find it a quantum leap to conclude that black people are being told through situations—such as the excused, if not celebrated, murders of blacks by law enforcement officials, as well as the continued overlooked acts of daily cruelty, as discussed above—that the United States is not their home.  If it were, the individuals who run this country and who are in positions of authority in this country would own up to the truth about its history of flagrant mistreatment of black people.  They would make reparations to them, as other nations guilty of genocide and enslavement in the modern era have to their victims.  They would make every effort to ensure the comfort of ALL the nation’s inhabitants and not just a few.  In other words, they would do everything in their power to make sure blacks Americans would “feel” at home in America.

Not tolerated…and certainly not like they should feel grateful for the consequences of the enslavement that cut them off from their native lands and history.

But at HOME…right HERE.

The cultural differences of blacks would be nurtured and celebrated the same as other cultures of people within the US.  Perhaps there would even be areas of town set aside for the advancement and encouragement of black pride and business, which would be especially important for a group of people who arrived to the US on slave ships as opposed to other groups of people, such as the Chinese and Indians, who arrived in the US of their own volition and with their memories and histories intact.  To be clear, I’m not disparaging them.  I’m trying to make a point.

So, let’s think about it.

What is the underlying message to black people, who continue to be disrespected, murdered in the streets by law enforcement and forced to endure daily cruelty at work, rest or play?

What CAN it be?

America is making it loud and clear that this land is not your home.  If it were, at the very least, the same attention to detail currently in place to make other cultures feel at home when they choose America as their new home would be extended to black people who didn’t choose America in the first place, but had it forced upon them.

To recap, when you are at home, you feel welcomed…not alienated.  You feel at peace, not that little concern is being shown for the continued damage to your spiritual, emotional, physical, psychological and financial capability.

Can anybody hear me?

Tired

Tired . . . Tired . . . Tired. . . .

I don’t know about you but, I can’t do this anymore. I am so tired and fed up with my job and my life! Nothing is going the way I thought it would go. I cannot believe I rushed through my childhood to get to this overrated thing called adulthood!

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suicidal. I don’t want to die! In fact, the opposite is true. I just want to live! I mean really live . . . not just killing time while I survive from paycheck to paycheck. I don’t want to just hop from weekend to weekend with only tedium in between. I want a real life where you get to work and play! Simply stated, this ain’t it!!

I’m not even talking about being filthy rich or anything like that. I don’t want notoriety or the inability to walk the streets! I certainly don’t want to be in constant fear that some knucklehead is gonna kidnap one of my children either!!

I just want to be comfortable. I just want to not worry about EVERYTHING! Bills. Education for my children. Insurance. Employment. Wars. Violence. Constant repairs. Listening to endless complaints and filing even more myself.

It’s enough to make you want to get under the bed and stay there forever.

It’s enough to make you want to be a child again, forever under the protection (and support) of someone else!!

I mean, think about it. There are only about five things you get to do as an adult that you aren’t legally allowed to do as a child:

• Driving
• Sex
• Smoking
• Drinking
• Voting

Let’s face it, you’ve done all of those things by the time you are 21! After that, what’s next?

If you don’t know, let me tell you.

Responsibility!!!

That’s right…responsibility. Before you even get to “enjoy” this thing called adulthood, you get weighed down by a thousand concerns that are dropped on you all at once. You worry about completing college/trade school, then living single for a minute before getting worried that you’ve been that for too long. Then you worry about getting married and before you now it you’re having babies. Adorable, lovable, utterly helpless, dependent and self-centered babies.

Now you focus on the children until they get tired of the attention that they once demanded and cherished and the vicious cycle begins anew, only it’s them finding out the horrible truth about growing up and not you.

So, right about now, childhood should be starting to look really good. How many are with me?

Can anybody hear me?

Think Like A Fool

It seems as though we are constantly inundated with self-help books targeted at women—each authored by men with no credentials other than being male.  Somehow, by that status, they are able to tell women how to trick, trap, hold, keep, etc other men.

After reading more than my fair share of these mind numbing attempts at brainwashing females into twisting, contorting and otherwise rebirthing themselves in order to gain desired male company (see The King of Masks), I have had it!  I have come to the conclusion that I would rather be single!

Does anyone remember the days of old…where men decided they wanted a wife while they were yet completing high school and well before the completion of higher education?  Do we remember how they tailored their dating specifically towards the search for wife and not just to see how many illicit children they could father without any other contribution outside of spermatozoa?

By prom time, he had it already figured out.  You were the girl for him.  All he had to do was graduate and become gainfully employed in order to secure a home for his intended.   He already had a car.  It wasn’t the flashiest model but, it still looked pretty good when he escorted you about town.

That was when men and women looked forward to getting married and there wasn’t so much discussion about so-called gold-diggers other than in reference to individuals who literally dug gold for living.  That was when men were real men, and looked forward to taking care of his wife and children, instead of resenting it.  Men understood what was expected of them and were not upset to demonstrate financial success before taking a wife.  This he did before asking for her hand from her father.

Nowadays, when a woman even attempts to seek financial information from a man, she is labeled as greedy and/or a gold-digger instead of as an individual concerned for herself and the welfare of future children.  I think I like the ideology of so-called third world countries, where people are more honest.  The families decide on a dowry long before any wedding will take place.  Each family knows what is expected of them, and the bride and groom each know their respective roles.

But, I digress.  I guess women’s liberation sealed our fate.  Instead of focusing on equality in salary for same-level employment, women focused on equality in maleness, often taking jobs that were allocated for men if for no other reason than the sheer bodily strength required to perform the task.  Can we at least admit that men’s bodies are built differently from that of female’s bodies?  Can we admit that each sex has a different — not lesser/greater than — role on this earth?   What was wrong with that?

Today, it is nothing to see women sweating it out on construction sites.  Sadly, it is also nothing to see men seated while women stand above them on buses, trains etc.; for men to sit back while their dates pay the tab for the date; for men to move in with women and be completely financially supported by their girlfriends/wives; for men to stay at home while their wives go out to earn a living for the family, etc.  If you’ve trapped that kind of a male, (I just can’t call that a man in all good conscious), don’t try to think like him.  Throw him back!

Is this what women really wanted when they said they wanted equal rights?  Can anybody hear me?

Born This Way

”I was born this way.”  This is the latest excuse/permission for individuals from all walks of life to be rude, crude, lazy, and socially unacceptable. In the past, the excuse of the day was “it just happened.”  Either way, people refused to take responsibility for their actions.  When they did something wrong, instead of making strides to change or correct the wrong, they simply made up a reason/illness/disease to explain away their wrongdoing.  Nowadays, everyone has an even more outlandish excuse for why they should be allowed to be anti-social. They simply blame God.

I was born this way. With that, they absolve themselves of any responsibility to grow, change, resolve, restructure, amend, reshape, make restitution etc., for any anti-social behaviors.  I was born this way.  With that, they dispel the need for discipline, restraint, self-control.  I was born this way gives them the right to be — ill-mannered, ugly, etc.

Note, you never hear a “respectable” person touting that they were born this way.  You only hear folk who don’t want to obey rules using this as their mantra.

However, I was born this way gives everyone the right to be anything and everything.  I was born this way excuses all liars, murderers, rapist, thieves, etc. to give in to utter madness and lawlessness.

So, what does that mean?  Should they not be arrested?  Should they not be prosecuted?  Should they not be jailed?  After all, it isn’t their fault….they were born this way.  Can anybody hear me?