The Futility of Whining

I guess it’s time to offend some folk. Again.

Quick sidebar: while this blog boasts a whopping 19 registered followers, based on the number of negative emails I get at times (was the Black Folk and their clubs thing really THAT off point?) that appear to have been forwarded again and again, I manage to piss off way more than 19 people whenever I talk about that which disappoints me.

Hate all you like. Please register. These low numbers are squashing my chances with advertisers.

Anyway, I am here to discuss my experience in our nation’s classrooms.

Everyone knows that kid who whines. No matter what happens, this child has a gripe. This is unfair, that isn’t right. Because this kid whines all of the time, but takes very little action, he tends to piss off classmates and teachers alike. He gets beat up by a bully, he whines. The other kids won’t play with him? He whines. The kid who eats his own boogers won’t give him the time of day? He whines.

In my experience, this young person is usually one of the brightest in his class. His tests and quizzes constantly boast high scores. You’d never know during classroom discussion, however. He never gets called on because what may be a right answer may also be another complaint, and teaching, frankly, doesn’t pay enough to be someone’s bitching board. Even Oprah got out of that business.

This kid has something to offer. By helping other kids learn their lessons, he could build a friend base strong enough to put the bully on notice. By toning down the whines and even replacing them with sarcastic quips on occasion, he can get the teacher on his side, because no one practices sarcasm better than our nation’s K-12 educators. The booger kid? Non issue. The whiner knows where the Kleenex are. If he just treated the kid like an equal in need of a face wipe, he’d have an ally for life.

Experience has taught me that constant griping only serves to eventually make folk ignore, and then despise, you. Griping with no real action is the most punk of moves. People may listen at first, a few of the guilty minded may try to help out, but in the end, everybody just laughs you off and no one takes you seriously.

No one takes Black people seriously. I said it. Anyone who writes in and says, “What about President Obama?” needs to check themselves. Unless you are writing me on stationery embossed “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” and I can make out a “B” and an “O” in your scrawled signature, get over yourself.

Beyond the silly (“Why don’t white people like us?”) and the plain stupid (please insert slavery conspiracy theory here), there comes a point where we have to see us as the rest of the country, if not the world, sees us. Bear in mind, I am talking about other minorities residing in the United States as well.

We are seen as professional bitches.

Honestly. That’s what we do. Most of our leadership is viewed as folk who gripe and gripe and basically follow the logic that if you gripe long enough, you’ll get something in return. My mom used to say squeaky wheels get oiled. Life has taught me that if a wheel squeaks long enough, it usually gets ignored, or worse, replaced.

Something goes wrong? “The Blacks will gripe about it.” Need laws in place to benefit everyone else? “We’ll let the Negroes whine until something we can all benefit from gets passed.” All that complaining isn’t stabilizing our neighborhoods, keeping our uncles off drugs and providing jobs for our college graduates.

Arguing our gripes are without justification? No. I am saying that griping, and calling attention to our griping, has not produced results that make our lives as a whole any better. What it has provided us is crumbs off of the table, and even that allotment is shrinking. Those crumbs are only enough to keep the professional gripers living well while the rest of us just wind up and prepare to gripe some more.

Let me be honest: everybody has a beef with this country. Latins are angry they are good enough to be the foundation of the infrastructure but not able to be citizens upon arrival. Asians and Indians wonder how they can be better educated than everyone else but still not be at the top of the power and economics heap. Finally, white males are mad they cannot enjoy America as it once was, where even the lowest achieving of them at least could offset his mediocrity by being able to call me “nigger”.

America is about money. If you can find a way to make enough, and channel what you make as a community towards your best interests, you get farther than if you spend most of your time whining about what you don’t get. Especially if no one is listening to your whining anymore. People have pulled back the wrapping and seen that you are asking for someone else to do for you what you should have done for yourselves long ago.

I am getting tired of turning on Black radio stations (not the minstrelsy ones…the few talk outlets left here in the US) and hearing constant whining justified by conspiracy theories glossed over with who knows what. Do we honestly feel that if we commisserate long enough, it will make a difference? Time has not borne out this theory.

I won’t argue whether we are owed anything. I will flatly state that whatever we are owed ain’t forthcoming. You can’t force anyone to do anything on your behalf without money or guns, and we have too little of both. That we have we use abusing and humoring ourselves. Thinking that griping is the solution is like that kid in class figuring the bully will stop punking him if he complains long enough.

I know this sounds Washingtonian, but I used to theorize that Jose Ruiz comes up from Mexico, gets a lawn mower, and proceeds to make a living cutting grass. Laughable? Yes. Put the tacos on the table, though. Twenty years later, Joe Ruiz, Jose’s son, works for Ruiz and Sons, and they have graduated to some trailers, those riding lawnmowers, and a much larger clientele doing landscaping for developers in suburban subdivisions. Twenty years after that, just after Joe’s passing, his granddaughter, Sonia, an MBA, runs RuizCorp, professional landscaping concern that does lawn maintenance for corporations nationwide. People, like politicians, listen to RuizCorp and similar Latino businesses. They have money and votes, the bread and butter of American politics. These business owners never once have to gripe. If they even look irritated, the power structure will come to them offering solutions.
Point out where simply complaining produces those results…Waiting on a people who first enslaved you and later took you for granted to do on your behalf just to shut you up is asinine.

You are not going to blow things up. You can't employ your own graduates. You won't even spend the money to erect a monument to the man who fought for your civil rights. This is how people view the situation. Do you really think your complaining is fazing anyone?

Ya'll know better...