Journal perfessor multigeek's Journal: What do citizens really want?
So, today, as so many days before me, I've done my pseudo-random rounds of various productive and time-wasting tasks. Since I got up I've spent my time surfing the web, posting, cooking (noodles with chopped veggies),
writing a contract/guide for freelancers for my company (reproduction rights, deadline terms, style notes, edit schedule, etc.),
and more of the same not worth noting.
And for hours now (since something like 3:00 P.M.) I've been hearing my next-door neighbors advance deeper and deeper into their drunken party. More than loud enough for me to not only hear it whether I want to or not, but to hear the echoes of their conversation returning from the buildings about a block away.
And what am I hearing? Well, by the numbers, mostly certain ancient four-letter monosyllabic exclamations, as well as "nigga", "gangsta", etc. All for a very extended conversation about what exactly and who exactly (or should I say "essakly") is authentically "gangsta".
Sample comments:
"The Lord is keep our niggas safe" (about who might get shot next in the whole East-West rivalry)
"he be keepin it good cause he be worth, like, you know, a billion dollars" (in a context in which this was clearly meant to be taken as literal truth and referred to a third-rate rapper)
And so forth. For hours.
Now, I know full well what rap-based slang sounds like. For crying out loud, I've done work for Spike Lee (not one of his companies, for the guy (and, yes, he is short and yes, he is a jerk)). Please; my mother did work for the Black Panthers. An old friend of mine seriously dated one of the early rappers (who reappeared years later after a failed gang rubout left him brain-damaged). I know what it sounds like when somebody is just getting into the groove.
That wasn't what this was. This was (and is, it's going on even as I type) illiteracy, innumeracy, and willful general ignorance. You see, I may be sitting within hearing range of gang terrritory, but these are my next-door neighbors. In a highrise. The other tenants on our floor are in film production, magazine design, medicine, you get the idea. And this family grew up here. Right next to me. Their father was there, employed, and determined to better their lives. Their mother stayed at home. They had enough to eat, were sent to Catholic school, had decent clothes. The whole list. I know how they talked when they were kids because I could hear them whether I wanted to or not. They didn't sound like this. Their Spanish was pretty lower-class (drove my stepfather to distraction) but their English was just fine. Still is when they want it to be.
But most of the time they don't want it to be.
By the way, if you're curious (and you probably are) to me they are unfailingly nice, their speech is utterly mainstream American, they are considerate, polite, occasionally helpful. Overall some of the nicest people to deal with out of a hundred and forty-plus households. In other words, one on one I like them quite a lot and they seem to like me. In fact I've found it interesting that the occasional *truly* thug types who come and go from there always seem to put on their Nice manners for me, which leads me to suspect that they've been instructed by their girlfriends to do so.
But that just twists the knife. Because it underscores that a family of (to varying degrees) capable, provided for, intelligent women has CHOSEN to be ignorant, crass, incapable, and generally a blot on their surroundings, screaming down from a one hundred and fifty-foot high terrace "Luis! You gonna come up now? You betta! You so fuckin stupid!" as several hundred of us get to share the conversation with them, bringing in criminals (yes, I'm certain, and yes, there are sordid details) who have tried hard to give a middle class building the broken lights, urine stench, and so forth of gang territory, and so on.
This is what gets people like Bush elected. Milllions of Americans are deciding that they *prefer* to be ignorant, amoral, incompetent. That way it's all somebody else's problem. They'll just put on the WWF and have another burger.
And that, dear slashdotters, is the real bottom line. We are all to subject to a sweet illusion that "if they only understood" then "they" wouldn't allow Microsoft, or Carnivore, or election fraud to happen. And the sad but crucial truth is that much of the world not only would really rather not know, but will consider anybody who breaks their valued oblivion to be their enemy, to be avoided in the future and resented in the meantime.
Now personally, I've focused my life on the approach that these millions aren't, by and large, worth wasting my time on. At this point in *my* life I'm just looking for ways to route around the problem. I'm not too interested in convincing legislators to vote for biodiesel subsidies; I'ld rather find private fleets for whom it would be immediately profitable.
But if all the big policy issues that /. talks about are to be effectively addressed, and ideally, hacked, then we have to be honest about what the variables of the system are. And *should* plays no part whatsoever. I don't want to hear anything about what the public *should* care about. Find out what they actually *do* care about and why and we can work from there.
Keeping it real (real tired, that is)
Rustin
And for hours now (since something like 3:00 P.M.) I've been hearing my next-door neighbors advance deeper and deeper into their drunken party. More than loud enough for me to not only hear it whether I want to or not, but to hear the echoes of their conversation returning from the buildings about a block away.
And what am I hearing? Well, by the numbers, mostly certain ancient four-letter monosyllabic exclamations, as well as "nigga", "gangsta", etc. All for a very extended conversation about what exactly and who exactly (or should I say "essakly") is authentically "gangsta".
Sample comments:
"The Lord is keep our niggas safe" (about who might get shot next in the whole East-West rivalry)
"he be keepin it good cause he be worth, like, you know, a billion dollars" (in a context in which this was clearly meant to be taken as literal truth and referred to a third-rate rapper)
And so forth. For hours.
Now, I know full well what rap-based slang sounds like. For crying out loud, I've done work for Spike Lee (not one of his companies, for the guy (and, yes, he is short and yes, he is a jerk)). Please; my mother did work for the Black Panthers. An old friend of mine seriously dated one of the early rappers (who reappeared years later after a failed gang rubout left him brain-damaged). I know what it sounds like when somebody is just getting into the groove.
That wasn't what this was. This was (and is, it's going on even as I type) illiteracy, innumeracy, and willful general ignorance. You see, I may be sitting within hearing range of gang terrritory, but these are my next-door neighbors. In a highrise. The other tenants on our floor are in film production, magazine design, medicine, you get the idea. And this family grew up here. Right next to me. Their father was there, employed, and determined to better their lives. Their mother stayed at home. They had enough to eat, were sent to Catholic school, had decent clothes. The whole list. I know how they talked when they were kids because I could hear them whether I wanted to or not. They didn't sound like this. Their Spanish was pretty lower-class (drove my stepfather to distraction) but their English was just fine. Still is when they want it to be.
But most of the time they don't want it to be.
By the way, if you're curious (and you probably are) to me they are unfailingly nice, their speech is utterly mainstream American, they are considerate, polite, occasionally helpful. Overall some of the nicest people to deal with out of a hundred and forty-plus households. In other words, one on one I like them quite a lot and they seem to like me. In fact I've found it interesting that the occasional *truly* thug types who come and go from there always seem to put on their Nice manners for me, which leads me to suspect that they've been instructed by their girlfriends to do so.
But that just twists the knife. Because it underscores that a family of (to varying degrees) capable, provided for, intelligent women has CHOSEN to be ignorant, crass, incapable, and generally a blot on their surroundings, screaming down from a one hundred and fifty-foot high terrace "Luis! You gonna come up now? You betta! You so fuckin stupid!" as several hundred of us get to share the conversation with them, bringing in criminals (yes, I'm certain, and yes, there are sordid details) who have tried hard to give a middle class building the broken lights, urine stench, and so forth of gang territory, and so on.
This is what gets people like Bush elected. Milllions of Americans are deciding that they *prefer* to be ignorant, amoral, incompetent. That way it's all somebody else's problem. They'll just put on the WWF and have another burger.
And that, dear slashdotters, is the real bottom line. We are all to subject to a sweet illusion that "if they only understood" then "they" wouldn't allow Microsoft, or Carnivore, or election fraud to happen. And the sad but crucial truth is that much of the world not only would really rather not know, but will consider anybody who breaks their valued oblivion to be their enemy, to be avoided in the future and resented in the meantime.
Now personally, I've focused my life on the approach that these millions aren't, by and large, worth wasting my time on. At this point in *my* life I'm just looking for ways to route around the problem. I'm not too interested in convincing legislators to vote for biodiesel subsidies; I'ld rather find private fleets for whom it would be immediately profitable.
But if all the big policy issues that
Keeping it real (real tired, that is)
Rustin
What do citizens really want? More Login
What do citizens really want?
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