Chocolate City

When I started this blog a few months back, I thought I would stay far away from all things politic. But, as is the frequent case in my Life, I was telling the set-up for a joke and just didn't realize it.

So, what's a barely awake black woman to do when, at 5:30 am, she's confronted with Mayor Ray Nagin, telling all who would listen that God (not Redd Foxx or Groucho Marx, but God) spoke to him and told him that New Orleans was meant to be a chocolate city and that the hurricanes represented The Divine's displeasure with the US?

What to do indeed! Well, write about it of course - no other realistic choice. (And don't forget that earlier this month Pat Robertson knew that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon was being struck by God for keeping the holy land divided)

I had to write about the insanity that seems to creep up on each of us. True, it leaks boldly from the mouths of the prominent and the outrageously famous (Tom Cruise's pronouncements about post partum depression and anti-depressants); while we think we are holding it together and feel free to guffaw at their expense. We think we see the world through a real and rational lens, but all along our view is distorted and we're the only ones who don't know it. The joke's on us.

Remember when many among us thought that it made sense to invade Iraq (I wasn't in this group, but so many seemingly rational people were)? Decisions were made out of fear and a need to feel safe, when we felt anything but. So, we decided to strike first, and if what the experts say is true, we are less safe now than we were before we rolled in. So many lives lost and broken.

Now, please don't get your patriotic feathers ruffled. We're all in this boat together. Because we all succumb to fear and stress. Some of us may fall harder and with more people watching, but none of us is immune.

I can remember when the sight of a past boss could make me want to commit violence (and I've taught peaceful conflict resolution for years). I just, with a little unconscious trick of my mind, turned all her shortcomings into monumental failings. I managed to see her as the key to my losses, the reason for my stress, the symbol of everything that brought me discomfort. You see, in the end, we've all had the desire to strike out, to end the wrongs that we think are being done or prevent the horrors that we think might be done to us. I am not much different than my fellow US inhabitants who called for the invasion of Iraq. (Some might argue degree, but it's a slippery slope, my friend)

We try to find a reason for our distress and without fail we point our fingers outward. It's always someone else's (person, family, company, country) fault. They are always the problem. But, how do you tell the difference between them and us? At the heart of things, or even in the DNA of things, there isn't much difference between us. The difference is primarily in our heads, a matter of perception.

We're all swimming in the insanity of this world we have created. Some of us feed on it greedily, while most of us are numbly unaware of its affect on our lives and our thoughts.

As for me, I'm vigilantly trying to figure out when I'm acting out of my insanity (or the insanity around me) and make myself breathe a little slower, act with peaceful, powerful and creative intention, judge those I see caught up in it with a light heart while lending an ear and a hand. I have a t-shirt that sums it up:
Humankind - be both.

I guess when all is said and done, what could be better at 5:30 am than a little chocolate and a big laugh?