An issue of mindful speech....

There's been an issue of mindful speech lately that I need to speak up about.

Now that change is in the air and there is a desire to balance inequities, I'd like to suggest a change of terminology which will lead to a change in perception.

I've heard many speeches over the past few days about "helping those less fortunate" and "the lesser among us".

This makes me grit my teeth.

Let me be very clear about something ~ and you are hearing it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

As most of you know, I live on an amount of money that is below the federal poverty level.

Poverty, yes. In strict economic terms. There is nothing "poor" about me ~ not intellectually, emotionally, physically or spiritually.

There is absolutely nothing "unfortunate" about me. And I'm sure as hell not the "lesser among us".

And I'm sick and tired of being referred to that way. It's offensive. And demeaning. And condescending.

There's a tendency to "other" us, to make us something "less than" in both use of language and perception. If you believe this perception exists for any other reason than to allow some people to feel "better than", think again. It's subtle.

We care about the same things. We just don't have a lot of money.

We enjoy a good book, a good conversation, a good joke, companionship ~ just like everyone else. We just don't have a lot of money.

We love, we dislike, we are happy, sad, exhilarated, frustrated, excited or angry, just like everyone else. We just don't have a lot of money.

We are not downtrodden, unfortunate, less than, pitiable or pathetic. Not any more than anyone else. We just don't have a lot of money. Eliminate those expressions from the national discourse.

If there is true dedication to change the way we perceive each other and the way we are going to evolve as a society toward inclusiveness and compassion, let's start with that perception, that use of language. Let's start with the way we talk about each other.

If perception is reality, as Whitehead would have us believe, we are creating that reality with language that denigrates an entire segment of the population.

~*

Monday Morning at 3.00 AM...

So what in the name of Ghod am I doing up at 3.00 AM, writing blog posts?

It's simple really. I've been sleeping more than usual. Whatever my body was doing, I went with it and now I am awake, feeling physically better than I have in some time. Who knows? I'm just here for the ride. I must have had a fever because it broke before I knew I had it.

And at this hour, there's not much to do but sit here quietly and read email. I am signed up on several email lists through Yahoo, the ones where people write in about a variety of things. The list that has been producing the majority of the messages is not a topical list. It's a free-for-all and people write about anything that grabs their attention in the moment except of course, the things that matter.

The majority of it seems to be about daily troubles of one nature or another. Personally, I find it very hard to respond to such things because open bids for sympathy are rather unseemly. There's a big difference between seeking collective wisdom and seeking sympathy. There's also a big difference between working something through and mindless bitching. Working it through and seeking wisdom is a participation exercise. We all get to be involved, to think about the situation and come up with meaningful responses.

The lists are overwhelmingly the latter. People natter on about every petty thing that might go wrong in their daily lives. And somehow, they manage to make it sound tragic.

This got me to thinking ~ which is rather unseemly itself at 3.00 AM but natural inclinations prevail once again.

To me, "tragedy" is a child who lives in a home where the parents are drunks or drug addicts who burn them with cigarettes. Tragedy is thousands of young men and women being killed in a war that has no purpose beyond protecting the business interests of greedy men and women who want to insure their continued wealth. Tragedy is people who are forced to live and work in inhuman conditions because they don't have the power to rise up against their oppressors. Tragedy is not having clean drinking water. Tragedy is a life wasted because someone committed the unpardonable sin of being born poor.

It wouldn't occur to me to engage in the kind of mindless griping that takes place on these mailing lists of privileged, mostly white, middle-class suburbanites with whiz-bang computer systems in their climate-controlled dens. I'm familiar with it. I grew up surrounded by the 90210 mentality that demands pats on the head and recompense for the most minor inconveniences.

It strikes me as self-indulgent and silly. It's taking every ounce of self-restraint to not reply to these messages with a copy of this blog post.

What say you?


Peace,


~Chani