Privilege is Being Heard
If an alien, who looked like a human, were to arrive in the not well United States, they would rather quickly sense that something doesn’t compute, something is amiss, something is not good in the hood.
Let’s assume that our alien is from an advanced society — one more aligned with the natural world. The first thing they’d notice is the upsetting and disturbingly manipulative communication style of the president and the lack of substance reported by the news media.
This alien would waste no time thinking about the president they have accurately sized up but they would try to understand why the media doesn’t reflect reality. Our alien would likely go into the streets of various neighborhoods and cities to ask, wearing a mask like everyone else, what people thought about the news on their phones, radios and televisions.
Ultimately our guest alien might deduce that most people understand the news to be entertainment and that a statistically alarming percentage of the people living on this land prefer to be entertained than exposed to or engaged in discussions about the truth.
A second, more focused, survey of the people would most certainly reveal truths about how this entertainment-centric society has come to be. While we the people have learned to carefully measure our opinions — lest we ourselves be alienated, judged as hysterical — we all yearn for the opportunity to be heard. We all have important things to say, in the most basic human act of living; questioning what we see around us, so that we can most clearly understand the world.
Yes our guest alien surveying the people yet again may have even heard about Ronald Reagan, the actor president, who exported gangs, weapons and drugs to Latin America which, since, has become so destabilized that its citizens of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador must choose between death on their home soils or death of broken heartedness after seeking asylum in the perpetrating country that separates family members from one another in yet a further level of despicably immoral psychological warfare.
Military Industrial Complex Catalyzes Inferiority Complex. When people are lied to, gaslighted in every possible conceivable way and in ways one couldn’t even dream about, the consequences are intense and explosive fear, widespread chronic mistrust, zombification and disease on every level. To be sane today amid rampant surveillance capitalism, brokering every man woman and child, is the ultimate super power.
If the somewhat United States is finally nearing its senses about truth and reconciliation, it is most certainly going to experience whiplash. The sudden collective turning toward truth of oppression after centuries may overwhelm. For what feels like forever, certainly to any adult alive today, those who have been listened to (by choice or coercion) have been those with money; and those with money are those who have benefitted directly and indirectly from the oppression of women, indigenous peoples and categorically all peoples of color.
Historically speaking, white women have been (and allowed themselves to be) treated like artificial mushrooms kept in the dark and fed a lot of shit. But those who have learned how to call bullshit as they see it, despite a fetid and fouled climate, in a way that doesn’t leave them hystericized (or “Karened”) and out of a job or a family, are often unable to experience the solidarity that they may intuitively believe to be possible. Nature is their solace; the hope, the teacher, the boss, the parent, the true love.
What does whiplash look like? It is akin to the psychological labels that those doing their very best within an inadequate man-made medical and scientific arena have come up with. Labels like manic depressive, bi polar, obsessive compulsive, narcissistic, and sadistic. Emotional whiplash is the sister to what physically befalls a passenger to a driver not attending to the road. The road of life, the land upon which we derive all capacity for living, has not been attended to by those deigned responsible.
How are so many irresponsible, flaccid people in charge? Because they know someone who put them there. This is another root issue that is changing, but perhaps too slowly to be in concert with the will of the people.
What are some examples of irresponsible decisions said people have made? Cutting down the rainforests and decimating countless ecosystems including some of the most mature humans on the planet springs to mind. But there are many other nefarious and dastardly decisions that don’t pop into the conscious mind when considering the actions and impacts of such a question — like forced sterilization that is still happening in these somewhat United States (see Project South). This “top secret” heinous sabotage which has been robbing women of color of their right to reproduce in Puerto Rico and our most bi-lingual states for nearly 100 years is not just dehumanizing, it is illegal, immoral, lineage extinction.
Elected officials, people who sit on boards and committees, bosses, land owners (i.e. white men) may be justifiably nervous. They know they have held a disproportionate amount of power for much too long. The more “woke” among these power-filled are educating themselves and asking for advice about what to do. Is this noble? Absolutely not. It is one more nuanced form of self-preservation to keep themselves on top and all others quieted and contented to accept crumbs, as Alexandria Occasio Cortez noted about the $2.2 trillion federal Coronavirus Aid Relief & Economic Security act: “we got a nickel, we got a dime, in a trillion dollar bill, so [any of my peers who think] a nickel is more than nothing so we should support it [is unacceptable].”
Whiplash is the experience of being suddenly shoved on a stage you’ve never stood on; of being tokenized or put on a pedestal for the very thing that has subjected you to chronic, subtle and unspeakable trauma. You’ve wanted this moment, this opportunity to speak truth to power, and you are so @#$%& mad that you’re feeling lit like trinitrotoluene (TNT explosive).
Whiplash is also the experience of trusting … again and again … and then after promises and new, more refined agreements realizing that nothing you’ve said really took root in the consciousness of the other.
Yes, it’s great that the media channels now have a “black film” category. But it’s so sadly too little too late. And it is still most likely motivated by profit.
What if all contributions and all opinions were measured equally? (We might learn that humans do in fact have the capacity to only offer their opinions when they have something to contribute that has anticipated value to the collective).
What if those in charge of holding businesses and people in leadership positions accountable (like honoring land treaties) were actually supported — and allowed — to do their jobs?
What if those in leadership positions were rewarded for problem solving and creative thinking rather than silenced or subtly manipulated into being sycophants?
What if it was illegal to earn a bigger annual gross wage than the president (even if you’re the president)?
What if it was illegal to own more than one property beyond one’s residence (to allow for a transition away from estate transfer as the epitome of the American dream) — unless those living in said properties (i.e. multi family housing) were directly encouraged to become shared owners?
What if all businesses were required to directly encourage employees to become worker-owners after five years of employment?
This isn’t rocket science. It isn’t pollyanna pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking either. And it sure as hell isn’t more of the same egregious and immoral extractive capitalism at the heart of all things wrong in American society.
In order to allow all to simply live (which, sadly is not a given shared objective by this current administration), we must all put our big girl pants on and seriously commit to live more simply.
We can dream of being saved by an alien nation or some darling technology that comes down from above to fix things. But this thinking is again just more of the same shit on a different day.
For a bit more uplifting version of this story that includes art, truth and RBG, read Who Gets to Speak for You.
