WE ARE DIFFERENT...

If there is one thing I have said ad nauseum over the past month is, PEOPLE are different.

Black people are not only different than other races, we are also different one from the other. The same applies to women, women are not all the same and they will not respond to stimuli in the same way. I become very exhausted in these conversations where the automatic response is, ‘If that had happened to me I would have done such and such.’

Maybe you would have and maybe you would not have, but at any rate, what does what you would have done have to do with what I would do, should do or might do. Let me say this, nothing. There are some universal truths about a certain group of people but individually we differentiate.

One conversation I was in had a much older woman saying what she would have done in the case of another older woman’s situation. I blinked, because I knew she was just talking and didn’t have a clue. I also understood that there was no talking to her, because she genuinely believes her way is the only way…Whew.

Then there was a discourse about how women should respond when they ‘think’ they know what their man is doing; OR even thinking, egads! I had to interject in this one to be sure. Because running amuck based on thoughts when you could be dead azz wrong just might speak to the relational divide we are suffering. And besides is a man and a woman at least; at a very minimum entitled to their thoughts? Because God knows if my man were to have dismissed me for some of the thoughts that have run through my mind, he would have curbed me years ago. For real. When in the world did we need to be that in control? After awhile all I could say was, WE ALL DIFFERENT, WE ALL DIFFERENT…LALALALALA….

Another was a simple discussion on food. I said I didn’t like beans, unless they were green beans. Oh my God you would have thought I had said I was going to dance naked in the square covered in chicken feathers. They questioned my ethnicity. Saying all Black people like beans. Umm not me. They questioned my upbringing, saying THEIR mamas made them eat whatever she cooked. Umm, mama did too. With the beans she usually cooked meat and rice, so I ate that, with no beans please. And here is the one that gets me every time, the ‘now that you have a little money’ mantra. Umm no, didn’t eat beans when I was broke as a joke, just ate more rice or potatoes thank you very much. Again, we are ALL DIFFERENT…sheesh.

I actually do get folks wanting those they love, like,or are forced to be around to have some commonality. We usually do, women have womanhood, black folks have blackness, readers have books, writers have words. But, that thing that makes us, profoundly us is usually those quirky idiosyncrasies that make us stand out and define us one from the other.

However, I have come to the conclusion that in many cases it isn’t a simple wanting a commonality but to simply have folks cosign and agree with us, even when we don’t. Folks just want to control something...

Well, my LOVES, that ain’t going down here and LOVE YOU, I do…
Be Peace!
angelia