Rarely asked questions is a series of short, flippant answers to questions that interest me but probably do not interest you—until perhaps you see the words rendered here running across the crystals or the phosphors before your eye. Do I make your clean, green, suburban lawn dirty? Are you keeping it real—paying abstract property taxes on the surreal estate? Oops. Wrong questions:
When you ask yourself a question like that, you are probably asking it in a moment of despair. And you probably are beating up on yourself because you “know” the answer: it’s because “you suck” and “nobody likes you.” Why would you ask the question, when you seem to already know the answer? This behavior confuses me.
So instead of me being confused I will assume that you ask questions for an answer. I will assume that you are not indulging in egotistical neurosis, using my ears as a waste basket. I will assume that you are actually managing a serious investigation. Do I assume too much, Sherlock? Are all of these assumptions making an ass out of me? Should I “keep it real” and shut the fuck up? Kiss my ass…
I don’t claim to know everything. I don’t claim to have all the answers. And, of course, I have to write these sentences in order to defend myself against egocentric interpretations of my behavior. And this sentence will conclude this paragraph with more music to soothe that savage beast within you that is grown and fed on this egocentric language called English—a language heavily influenced by the Imperial Latin—of the empire that produced the white-supreme egos of the Caesars. Anyway…
First, you inherit your social life from the social lives of your intimate social circle—usually this is your family. I am well aware that such a statement flies in the face of the Pilgrims-off-the-Mayflower assumption that you start from nothing and build up a social life all by yourself. (I, by the way, call such successful social climbers “performance artists.”)
The politically neutral answer is that, as I grew older, I lost the opportunity to develop/maintain my speaking voice. The politically extreme answer is that, as I grew older, I was censored and silenced which strategically underdeveloped my speaking voice.
Are you a ‘poor’ kid? Say, yes, when you have a family that really doesn’t have interesting social lives. Let’s stop talking about greenbacks and start talking about fatbacks. Do you have a family that, say, descends from slavery? Is your family preoccupied with this legacy of slavery in very strange and indirect ways? —Does your family care for your social life? Let’s watch these words: did your family ever take care of your social life? Does your family systematically cultivate social activity—not even a family cookout at the park?
The answers for me are ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘no’ and ‘they used to before all the divorces happened.’ Most of my family members sit in front of large televisions watching the artificial social lives of others. Am I blaming my family for my “own” shortcomings? Should I just get out there and really put on a show? Oops, sorry, we’re back on the Mayflower again…
“What’s wrong with my social life?” is not a traditional African question. In the African context (as interpreted by rasx()), it is a contradiction by definition to speak of my social life. The social life is ours—not mine. So, now, when the question becomes, “What’s wrong with our social life?” We can see African societies in Inglewood, Darfur and Port-au-Prince and come up with crystal-clear, African answers.
“What’s wrong with my social life?” is an egocentric question that brings only misery and therapists lots of money. I am very glad that it is rarely asked.
The pertinent, black-on-Black details about Tookie are at libradio.com. And to ask me, “Do I support the death penalty?” comes from an interrogator that is leading me into an implied assumption that I commune at peace with the system that implements the death penalty. Past experience informs me that the interrogator is very likely to be unable to see this implied assumption. It follows that we should not have the exchange at all. So let’s say nothing for now and postpone this discussion.
I do not pretend to assume that this question would come from a devoted listener of American conservative talk radio. This question would be in the mind of a young person “of color” hearing this phrase for the first time—steeped in the cultural mindset where asking a “stupid question” must be avoided at all costs. So read carefully, kid:
In the mind of the ‘wise’ speaker, the Race Card is in the deck of a dealer. The dealer is a hustler playing a game. The game is steeped in deception. So to use the Race Card represents the hustling player that uses games of deception to take advantage of the innocent “moral majority.” Investing heavily in this role permits the investor to assume that dealers of the Race Card are outright liars. There is a rich reservoir of fictional media, decades of popular music and motion pictures, that the investors can draw from that decorates the mind with images of street hustlers and pimps—and it is ‘wonderfully convenient’ that most of the images are of people that resemble the people who would ‘deal’ the Race Card.
I do not pretend that Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton never told a lie but this should not imply that all matters related to the word “race” coming from people “of color” are of deception. But we must see clearly how deception plays a role in, say, obesity. Then we see how many Americans, especially North Americans, are obese. You might want to avoid matters of so-called “race” with such unhealthy people. So, many “good people” of the Americas are too busy fooling themselves to take time to fool with you, tricky kid.
This question would come from the person who first ‘meets’ me through email correspondence and then they have a chat with me on the telephone. They may notice the extreme ‘disconnect’ between my writing and my speaking. I know exactly how this happened. The politically neutral answer is that, as I grew older, I lost the opportunity to develop/maintain my speaking voice. The politically extreme answer is that, as I grew older, I was censored and silenced which strategically underdeveloped my speaking voice. Undergirding all of this is my recognized speech impediment, ‘the Moses stutter’ I call it which let me know at an early age how I can be misunderstood by the misinformed. For most people, when a person stutters, they are lying and/or in fear. This is a terrible assumption to make and it had a profound affect on me—as I am rarely in fear for myself and I hate lies.
The excellent work of Jeffrey Wright in Basquiat suggests to me that this great painting talent shared the same vocal vibe with me. Often, there is a terrible tension in my voice and at times it represents the desire to say so much at once that nothing is said. Other times it represents a struggle not to speak of what is so obvious because my words will only cause pain. It often represents the explosive raw power of the soul doing more damage than construction—it is the American wilderness Jim Morrison may have been writing about…
This question comes from the reader of the rasx() context Blog because the posts here are laden with “defensive” nods to cynical people. You see, reader, the professional public persona appeals to the voyeuristic sickness of its targeted audience. The goal is to trick the readers into thinking that they discovered a voice of unbiased innocence or to convince the reader that they have gained privileged access to an expert specialist. The reader is then seduced into thinking that they are condescending to a questioning inferior or ascending to the expertise of a specialist, exploiting the discovery for their own needs. When, I, the writer of this egocentric language (in this case the English language), fail to play the role of the questioning inferior or fail to fight for the assigned role of expert specialist, I am on a collision course with the cynical observer. In this collision, my Web presence ends up like a mangled, fuzzy mass of road kill on the information super highway.
The reason why the cynical observer is so ‘important’ to me is that my first cynical observers are my very own parents—especially my mother. I didn’t catch my father in the act until I was much older. The first insult I present to the cynical observer is the presumption that I know anything about them. The feeling of insult comes from an egocentric misinterpretation of my motives. What is not explored by the reader, you, is the ‘negative realization.’ You true afro-centrics should be aware of the Negative Confessions—but too few modern Africans know about negative realizations. Realizing what does not exist has equal priority with what does exist. In the rasx() context, it more powerful to say, ‘You do not have satisfaction,’ than it is to say, “You are depressed.” In the former case, you will be looking for satisfaction; in the latter case, you will look for depression. So “strangely” speaking the negative attracts the positive—and this is only strange to people who are not of reality of science.
Most of these people are obedient employees who live alone without an equal—sometimes with inferior dependents—including adult dependents—that watch a lot of commercial television. This negative observation immediately disqualifies them from providing me any wisdom about being a human being—they may have great advice about how to get a home mortgage or a promotion at a W2 labor camp but little else.
So, my knowledge of you is largely based on ‘seeing’ what is not there instead of telling you what is there. My classic confrontation that requires the healing powers of the negative realization was when I was faced with the unsolicited comment or even a lengthy lecture about how I should conduct myself in the area of human relations. I used to get so upset about this which provided fuel for the confrontation. But eventually, progressively, I stopped studying war and took an informal survey of every person that went with me into this little battle. I realized that these people were not leading a lifestyle that featured intimate, day-to-day, years-in-years-out constructive human relations. Most of these people are obedient employees who live alone without an equal—sometimes with inferior dependents—including adult dependents—that watch a lot of commercial television. This negative observation immediately disqualifies them from providing me any wisdom about being a human being—they may have great advice about how to get a home mortgage or a promotion at a W2 labor camp but little else. They may have passionate sentiment and few failed experiments but nothing lasting. What is even more interesting is that my colleagues who do have lifestyles that resemble participating in authentic community have never confronted me in such a manner. This does not mean that these successful people endorse my every breath; it only means that they did not confront me in such a warlike manner.
But the cynical observers outnumber the active human beings. How do I know this? I take wild guesses at divorce statistics and the number of single-parent, single-dependent households. More of you are not in a family way than those that are. This writing is not out here making feel-good hallucinations. These words intend to represent the messenger most of you are trying to kill or wish away. Is my direct, explicit recognition of the cynical observer a confrontation? The non-innocent answer to this non-innocent question is no. My behavior serves to repulse the irretrievably cynical and the rest of you Hedonist, Existential Cynics will observe me from the shadows to see how I will perish along this path. But remember, “On a hot sunny day, under the shadow is rescue.” But as the day grows old, no one of The Son will find you.
This article was originally serialized over several days in the rasx() context, the kintespace.com Blog.