Blacks Love Nice Cars and Nice Clothes

I was at Wal-Mart, getting my oil changed. You know how you just pull up and wait for someone to come out, with that big old PDA-looking thing to kind of pre-register you for your oil change? Well, before any employee could make it out to take down my information, an old man comes out. He looked to be about average sized, sixty-five to seventy-five years old, white guy, white haired, just your kind of salt of the earth factory guy, from back when we had factories everywhere.

We made eye contact, and he veered off of his path, toward me, as I sat in my car, he was smiling. He made that circular motion we make when we want someone to roll down their windows, that motion that came from a time when almost no one had power windows. I rolled down my window to see what he wanted, and he immediately struck up a conversation as if we were familiar with each other. I was fine with it. It is so easy to be virtually familiar with people you will probably never meet, not that we do not necessarily ever want to meet. This took a little more skill, but I talk for a living, and write a lot, from children s' books, to college papers at the masters level, to lots of professional writing of various genres. Communication might even be a pastime of mine, even though I feel more accomplished at it outside of the home. . I had nothing better to do, so we talked.

He commented that he noticed I was driving a KIA. It was just kind of matter of-fact, no apparent judgment. Obama has got to stop the spending, it can't work, the old man worried out loud. He said that he would not be surprised if we had to let General Motors die. General Motors would simply join the companies he had already seen go the way of the dinosaur; Studebaker, Edsel, Packard, Checker, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, etc. The old fellow strongly disagreed with the economic stimulus package, in general.

I wondered, Does President OBama see any alternative to trying to save the American car industry? What would that do to Michigan and the rest of the upper Midwest? I suspected this old fellow had already gotten through to his retirement, using the same plan that no longer works. What about the people who need time to come up with a new plan? Later in the day, I was watching the local public access channel. Education was the topic, a local superintendent was the guest. He pointed out that Michigan is a good generation late in responding to the current realities. I was reminded of one of my professors, who mentioned that the industry has not brought in new blood in a generation. When he was an up and coming teacher, and then a principal, he had high school drop-out friends who were making way more than he made. They were working in the auto and auto supply factories, and at the time, seemed clever to not invest in a college career that offered no apparent advantage for the money and effort.

I don't know what stream of thought led him to say to me, a black man, "you know, blacks just love nice cars and nice clothes." I think it was because we were inferring how Americans had monumental issues with misplaced priorities. Maybe he was giving an example of a particular wasteful behavior he had noticed during his interaction with black folk over the years. I grew up with that wasteful mindset. I know it to be true among blacks, and many, many others. I have changed dramatically over the years though. I'm driving a six and a half year old KIA, by choice! I really did not take offense, but I was glad our talk was interrupted by the oil change clerk. "Remember", the old man said, as we parted, the Bible is your blueprint for how to live, have a good day." I wondered if he was a high school graduate? Whether he was or not, he gave me a lot to think about. I do not know what I learned from him, but that may reveal itself another day.

The very next day, I was back at Wal-Mart, getting some primer for the bathroom walls. As I walked away from my register my eye caught an older white fellow at another register, checking out his merchandise. I looked at him and was not quite sure, was it the old fellow from yesterday? I just could not really say. I am not saying that all old white men look alike. I am just saying that I could not tell if he was the fellow from yesterday, or not. The lesson from our encounter stareted to crystallize for me. Life is typically not black and white in my opinion. It is instead, endless shades of gray.

Stay Out of the System

It is absolutely imperative that our youth stay out of involvement with the wrong side of the criminal justice system. Avoid probation, juvenile detention, and gang activity, among other negative activities that rob chances of long-term success. This is easy to say, not so easy to do, necessarily. Many kids are essentially born into gangs. The Bloods gang for instance, calls children born to their members, "blood drops." There is often a stated expectation that children born to gang members are part of it, from birth. Far too often, when a person becomes involved in the system, they never really seem to come out. When a minor becomes entangled in the juvenile court, and or, prison system, they essentially run the risk of graduating from the juvenile system, to the adult system, missing countless days of school along the way. The implications are staggering.

First off, involvement in the juvenile system, especially the juvenile penal system, means that kids are usually not present in the school they truly belong in, during their time in “juvie”. They are falling behind every day they are imprisoned, becoming less and less likely to ever become successful students in the classrooms they belong in. Many juvenile penal systems do have teachers available, but the nature of the job makes it highly unlikely that the quality of education will be as good as in the student’s home district.

Falling behind and never catching up is a recipe for losing hope and dropping out. Who wants to continue at a task that rarely, if ever, produces positive results? It is no secret that prison officials look at the failure rates of students, as young as lower elementary school, to project how much cell space will be needed in the future. It truly saddens me to think that somewhere, people are making plans to lock up a significant percentage of the kids running around on America’s playgrounds today. As the years go by and some students lose hope, and drop out, somewhere someone is taking note, and deciding how many extra cells will be required. Some states now budget more money to lock people up than to educate people. My state, Michigan, is one of them.

Fast forward a decade or two in the life of someone who has been negatively involved in the penal system, and now has one or more felonies. This is the case for too many of my friends and relatives. Their options for employment and upward mobility are severely constricted, compared to the group of people without felonies and criminal records. Even after they have paid their debt to society, they often cannot vote, are limited in the type of jobs they can have, and are at great risk for a return trip to jail. My heartfelt advice to those who have not yet been put into this unenviable position is simple; do whatever you can, to stay out of the system. You will lose a big part of your freedom, forever, if you do not.

Zero Tolerance (Absolute Truth is Disastrous)

My brother, the philosopher, by way of his bachelor's degree in philosophy, and the hundreds of books he claims to have read (which I do not believe), has talked with me about the concept of situational morality. Even though I tend to zone out when he and I are talking, largely due to his tendency to lecture me about things I could give two craps about, I listened about situational morality. It makes a lot of horse sense to me.

Another of his statements, which is so brilliant that I bet he stole it, is "hell is other people." He exemplifies that statement in the way he interacts, he can be that hellish other person, as can I, and most other people can be. If we were totally honest with each other, about how annoying we are to each other, the world would be at war, on an interpersonal level. I feel that God had an obvious good idea when he allowed us to keep our thoughts to ourselves. We would be so pissed off that other people dared to think what they thought about us, that we might completely forget that they also loved, respected, and even liked us. It is far better, in my opinion, to put up with, and find the joy, in dealing with each other. Focus on the positives, and yes, ignore the negatives, when they are small enough to do so. Do not look for perfection from other humans. You do not have it to offer in return.

Do not think that you can hide behind simply being honest, when you choose to hurt or dominate people, because they will see that you are using the truth as a sword, instead of as a flashlight. That will be part of the truth about you, and it will be a sword against you. Even though I am a hypocrite for only quoting the bits of the Bible that work for me here goes: "judge not, lest you be judged." In my own words, quit trying to look down at people for being human, and stop trying to be so absolute in how you see things.

I am not saying to give up on your standards, but understand that if you are judgmental, you will be perceived as intolerant, and condescending. In short you will have become part of the communication problems between you and others who have differing opinions. If people feel that you look down on them, or simply impose your world view on their lives, why the heck would they open themselves up to that? What's the payoff?

To Bee or Not to Bee

To Bee or not to Bee

I was raised as a worker bee. I realize in hindsight, that the work ethic instilled in me by my parents and environment presupposed that I would find an organization to employ me. I cannot recall a single discussion with anyone, during my childhood or adolescence, that ever even toyed with the concept that I might use my own creativity to self-design a legal avenue for my livelihood. There was a clear expectation that I find someone or somewhere that had work I could do.

We are all products of our environment. My formative years in Joliet, Illinois, during the 1960's and 1970s were impoverished, but tempered by the fact that there were lots of jobs. I hated being broke, and my family needed the money, so I worked a lot, from grade school, passing papers, through high school, working thirty or more hours a week, as a stock boy at the grocery store. I was so tired at school, working half way through the night. I'm sure that I was only half the student I could have been. I was not thinking about the value of my education. I was focused on fattening up my next check.

I do not recall even entertaining any thought, of ever really being wealthy during my entire upbringing. I was too busy working. I felt very fortunate when I could get enough extra work to make another fifty bucks. That really seemed like big money back then.

I was a total worker bee. I just wanted to find a company to work for.

It was completely beyond my schema to consider that I could create a business of my own. The concept that marketable creativity could emanate from me, was in a pre-embryonic state, in my mind.

It took a sea change in how I viewed myself to go to college. I was not ready when I got out of high school. I still chose to stay close to my mental constriction as a worker bee, and chose to pursue an education degree. I do have to take a moment right here, to say that I never regretted my choice to be a teacher.

As I began to matriculate through college, I became aware of the dramatic differences in personal expectation that people had for their futures. It became obvious to me that some of the people I had come to know had literally been raised with the expectation that they would assume positions of leadership, early in their adulthood. I was fascinated by the contrast in our expectations and perspectives. I had been raised with the expectation that I would seek out someone to lead me, and sign my checks of course. They fully expected that they would be the leaders and check signers.

My paradigm has changed. I still work my day job, but work on creative writing, during my down time. I am pursuing my masters', degree, as an administrator. Go figure. The years have changed me, and my perspective.

I happen to have found the children's book writer within me.

I see value in doing what my muse requires. My actions are not always like the worker bee anymore, I have sought to fulfill my own vision, as opposed to laboring exclusively on someone else's. I have unleashed my first and second books into the world. My metamorphosis continues. I hope you enjoy Willie's Dad, the author's reading, and invite you to tell those people who could find value or a measure of redemption in the story.