What Makes an Older Adult Stop Talking
I am still talking, writing little things… but I very much understand now why older adults stop talking. I may be getting ahead of myself because experience informs me that many, many of us colored folk never started talking in the first place.
Further, talking has to be distinguished from shouting—which is something I have never done (outside of song) to the disappointment of the many, many of us colored folk that do shout (or have been blasted by shouting). Here in the rasx() context, shouting and saying nothing are pretty much from the same root. And the root came from the seed of childhood shaming and abuse. Wholistic poverty, without regard to material wealth.
Too many of us Black folk are shamed into talking loud and saying nothing. Almost all self-described Black adults would agree that they do not like all rap songs. So there are valuable contributions lost because they were killed in childhood. What makes an older adult stop talking includes a similar kind of killing except that the adult realizes too late that they are the killer.
For example, an adult realizes that they have been in upper-class, white-owned public parlors condemning racist police officers for the murder of Black people while they themselves have used the legal system—the family law legal system—to abstractly kill other Black people through defamation and perjury. This schism of contradiction can be contained in the body of a socialite youth but, as the killer gets older, weird things begin to happen—and this includes falling ‘silent.’ The killer realizes that the child under this family drama is the real victim of these murderous lies. The child presents certain kinds of toxic behaviors that the killer fails to understand comes from their killing until it is too late.
The black killer failed to understand that Black people are not easily replaceable—and the fact that the killer did think certain socioeconomic classes and genders of people were so replaceable overwhelms them with the realization that they are just as “white” as any racist officer of the goddamn law—and “whiteness” has nothing to do with physical appearance. The killer had to get so old and meta-physically deteriorated to learn such basic things.
The killer failed to imagine that certain socioeconomic classes and genders of people were already well beyond these old-age discoveries just like any vainglorious, egocentric white person would. The child under this family drama has always protected its killer custodial parent (while the custodial parent underestimated its sensitivity and complexity because of its gender) and in so doing the adult child will help to kill just like the custodial parent. The old killer finally sees this and it is too late.
It is too late. The killer opens its mouth and sounds come out but it has stopped talking. It had seduced itself for decades into thinking it was a victim and a hero of the gender. It has never thought of honor and justice was something that can be paid for…
So I am still talking but much of what I am talking about is uninteresting to properly-assimilated ‘killers’… the properly-assimilated in the 21st century must be a corporate-sponsored socialite-and the socialite must filter everything through its social value. It follows that I have been spending most of my wretched life surrounded by white killers (and white prison guards) of all skin colors doing nothing of socialite value. And me will continue doing “nothing” (being “full of shit”)…
Me tell you like my father told me:
Keep living.
This is dedicated to my youngest son…
…who may reject this outright and deny his inheritance for the sake of a child’s love. My son, what happened to almost every material thing held in my hand that made it into your mother’s house? Did love make you fail to remember the true answer to this question? My son, you asked me why did I pay for “everything” for my youngest child, my daughter. Did love make you forget the nuanced reasons why you asked me this question? My son, why is there a capitalist reduction to every motherfucking thing—even from a household economically sponsored by a former or current Marxist?
Keep living and be saved alive.
Be strong and be doing.