Is It Too Much To Ask?

 At the beginning of the year, I decried the practice of regular blogging in order to give advance argument to myself against moments and tendencies such as this: ranting to the entire world whenever the ignorance and decline of human civilization smacks me so hard in the face I want to never leave home.

Today,  I decided to do the “grown-up” thing and become an official commuter, with consecration of the moment occurring as I purchased my very first monthly Metra Pass to carry me from the “A” zone of downtown Chicago to its neighborhoring zone “B” where I live in Hyde Park.   No more scrounging around for change in the mornings or evenings to run to a bus stop with nerves wrecked to know if the bus going was mine or the bus coming will ever be.  No more toes stepped upon by every CTA bus rider with a case for being disabled, defeated, tired or otherwise prioritized to step ahead of me as we boarded.  No more cattle calls of “Back door!!!” to a harried bus driver upfront who is not responsible for the mechanics of the vehicle he or she drives–or I suppose not the extra block I must walk in rain or snow when he does not hear me.  I was going to have a schedule displayed on my refrigerator of exact times for the prompt and reliable regional transit train just three blocks from door, with a coffee shop underneath if I should so choose, a civilized milieu of suburbanites around me, precision to calm my Type-A nerves and no more “cash back” after nonsense 7-11 or Walgreens just to get on the bus to get home.

Is it too much to ask these days to spend your money, contribute to the well-being of society, and feed the GNP with some expectation or reward of politeness, gratitude and concern from the individuals you give your money to?  Apparently it is.  My observations that the general dispositions of society have sunk so low that I feel like I am committing a crime when I spend money anywhere but steadfast and cheeryMcDonald’s, given the lack of customer service help or enthusiasm to any of my questions, reached a new low today as I made my prideful purchase.  For one thing, a White lady circumnavigated the cordons of the Metra station commuter line to sneak up to the next counter with 5 minutes left before my train pulled out of the station to take me home.  A brother called her on it, with a boisterous “Did you know?!?!” scenario for 5 of us in line to participate in, in which I must admit she pretended pretty well that she did not know where the line began. 

However, I was not pretending when I only purchased a monthly pass to move about with for a month and thought I would be legally riding the train in 5 minutes for it.  In my typical downhome smile, I could not stop a nice “Hi” before I stated my reasons for approaching a clerk at the Metra station.  I did not think I looked like a robber, but these days I feel the need to clarify.  My greeting was unreturned, so I rushed to the heart of the matter: “I would like to buy a monthly pass from Zone A to Zone B.”  How’s that for information?  The bland clerk behind what I hope was not bullet-proof glass told me it was $85.50.  I was astonished.  “What happened to $63?”  She did not speak.  She only pointed to a sign.  Apparently, rates went up on February 1st and I was always the last to know.  I swiped my debit card and ran to track 5. 

Understand, she did not tell me that my Zone B train would be on Track 5; I had heard this announcement over the PA system.  Nor did she tell me “Thank you for riding the Metra,” or “Enjoy your ride,” or the most critical piece of information that is pertinent to this blog post now: “Your montly pass was purchased today but it won’t be valid until March 1st, just so you know.”

Instead, I ran off in counterfeit peace and harmony that my transportation was no worry for the next month.  I settled into law and ethics professor Dorothy Roberts’ latest tome, Fatal Invention, and determined to relish at least her complex preface during a 15 minute train ride in near silence versus a jerky 45-minute carousel ride on the #6 bus.  It was enjoyable until the conductor snaked through the train in search of evidence of riders’ tickets.  Unsure of the protocol that is customary among ordinary riders who did not bother to flinch as they displayed tickets in neat plastic cases upon the ticket grips that Metra provides riders, I held out my ticket to a gentleman who started questioning me immediately.

“Do you have a ticket?”

What did he mean did I have a friggin ticket?!?!?  I was $85 poorer for one.  It was fresh, newly minted, untarnished byfingerprints and coffee stains.  I showed it to him for a closer view and waited for him to smile, thank me and move on.  I did not receive that kindness.  I received a lecture and wrecked nerves instead.

“Your ticket is not valid,” the conductor stated.  “That’s for March.”

“I just bought it today,” I countered.  I pointed to the date stamped on the back of the ticket in order to verify that I was okay to ride the Metra until March 21st.  He did not go away.  “It does not start until March,” he insisted, with nothing for me to say to that without employment of something I try not to do: assign blame.  “Well,” I said, “I thought this was like buying a subway ticket which is good from the date that you purchase it for whatever time you purchase it.  Your fellow Metra teammate who just sold this to me did not bother to point out that I would have to wait until March 1st to get my money’s worth for the $85 I just spent buying this monthly pass.”

“The ticket is $3.00 ma’am,” the conductor tersely informed me. 

“I used my debit card for this,” I told him.  In short, I did not have $3 for him.

“You do not have $3 for this ride today?” he grumbled.

Perhaps his belief that I was not hijacking a ride on the Metra was confirmed by the fact that I had a fresh new ticket in front of me that had obviously cost me more than $3 and that was displayed in earnest cooperation; thank God for ignorance at times.  Correct me if I am wrong, but in Western United States at this moment the date is February 21, 2012.  March 1, 2012 will not come for another 9 days.  If the translation of “monthly pass” for commuter trains means that passes are invalid until the very first day of the month and not on a cycle coinciding with the day one purchased it as most electronic transit fare systems are, should not a customer service clerk my ticket pays for alert me to that fact.

Should I have asked?  I had supplied to greeting.  I had given the smile.  I had clarified the price raise with my own eyes on a poster upon glass since apparently human explanation was too much effort.  I was supposed to also explain the terms of my ridership as well.  I was a rushing commuter trying to catch a train in less than 5 minutes, with obvious hurry at unfamiliarity of the station.  I should have had the service of this explanation.

By that point, the train and its riders had made it to the convenience I enjoy of not having to spread out too far from downtown Chicago where the ridiculousness reaches epic heights with each new block accounted.  I was already in my “Zone,” just one stop from where I would get off normally and with a post-workout walk to do if I was going to be put off the train from there.  I would have taken that.  The “fine” given to illegal riders was out of my question.  Thankfully, there was neither.  By happenstance, the busy conductor who was responsible for checking tickets as well as announcing stops as well as checking for running riders in between each 30-second stop also did the job of customer service as well: “This ticket is not good until March 1st, which is why it says March on it, so you can’t use it until then.”

I told him “Thank you.”  I looked around to see familiar skylines signaling Hyde Park and my possible stop.  He ran on to verify I was actually in the right place over the loudspeaker.  I unboarded.  2 blocks into my 3 block walk home, a familiar homeless man who has several posts throughout the neighborhood and who beams each time he recognizes me bummed a cigarette from me.

 

My response to Tavis Smiley’s “Ambivalence” about Viola Davis’s and Octavia Spencer’s Oscar Nominations for playing maids in “The Help” (originally posted as comment on TheGrio.com)

Go Octavia and Viola!!!! I love Tavis, but even he himself states he had maids in his family.  So did I.  So did many African-Americans.  Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, spotlighted a domestic and the interior struggle she had with her profession. Dianne Carroll played a maid to a White family in one of my favorite films, Claudine.  These characters were mothers, lovers, comediennes, multifaceted; they were not Mammies. We need to start separating the singular accomplishments of Black artists from the “Black” conversation as a whole in order to truly determine the merits of the work. If this conversation had concerned Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball or Denzel Washington in Training Day, then I could understand the attack; neither of those roles represented the pinnacles of these actors’ contributions or potential and what would have been rewarded had they been White actors. But The Help does for Ms. Spencer and Ms. Davis.

The first time I noticed Viola Davis was in Antoine Fisher. In that film, she did not have one line as the Black mother who had abandoned her son to foster care, molestation and abuse, and a potentially devastated life. She was living in squalor when Antoine Fisher finally tracked her down in the projects where she could barely look him in his eyes. The only line she gave us was a single tear drop at her humiliation, shame, and regret as Antoine confronted her. I did not know who she was or what her name was, but I knew she was going to be a star. And now that she is, she is being condemned? What is a more dignified and controversy-free role: an irresponsible mother who abandoned her child to continue in poverty over triumph, or a Black woman earning an honest living with conviction and being good at it? But no one complained about that because it was Denzel’s film.

 I love The Help. I think these women did a fabulous job.  It is no secret African-American women have been maids.  It is not like they were supporting characters in a film about White women; they had depth, confidence, real stories, fullness.  I agree with Tavis that the entertainment industry as a whole seems to spotlight and privilege the prurient and perverse when it comes to Black Americans.  I agree that our heroes are largely unsung as a whole in the media.  But at what point do we accept–as Claudine did–that we have also been maids and garbagemen, and the best-looking and hardest working ones at that? 

 It is an insult to all the slaves, maids, lower working class, uneducated and prematurely imprisoned Black people in this country to deny their narratives. For what…heroism? Heroism is always going to feature the extraordinary; who are we to silence our race’s most mundane and ordinary people–often the keepers of our richest wisdoms and stories? Although it is one of my favorites as well, we are NOT all The Cosby Show and we would be creating a lie if all of our art had to pretend that.  We need to relax and not let others set the standards for what we should be proud of.  These two women have been working in Hollywood for a very, very long and admirable time.  We should be standing by them for winning roles that were substantial, thoughtful, and lovely. We should not be debating and stirring up “messiness” when other actors and races are only celebrating. It is not Ms. Davis’s and Ms. Spencers’ responsibility as artists to change history–but only to portray it.

Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But
to be angry with the right person, to the right
degree, at the right time, for the right purpose
and in the right way… that is not easy.
– Aristotle.

            One would be hard pressed to find any public demonstration or clue as to an inherently “mad” or “angry” person lurking on the surface or even deep inside of Michelle Obama.  In the elite class of  First Ladies in which she resides and with 50 predecessors before her, Mrs. Obama ranks among Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jacqueline Kennedy in terms of recognition, studiousness, diligent work and an identity of her own entirely separate from her world-leading husband.  In terms of public visibility and community exposure that the African-American Obamas have had to consider their primary job it seems, she ranks second to none.  While former first ladies hosted scant events in the big home during the week and rushed to country abodes in order to be ornaments of the home, Mrs. Obama has a packed scheduled of global dignitary events with hubby, media appearances, and even hauling lumber on Extreme Homemaker (in a delightful episode that covered a rehab for a home of female veterans).

The first and only time we have seen the First Lady angry is when she should have been: after having been called as such by a new book without having to do a thing to earn it but be among the most popular people in the world.  I will not dignify the book which made such accusations by giving it more free promotion than it has already earned with such a disrespectful publication during a time this country has other realities to address; there is no time for theatrics.  I will only provide a glossing of Black women who are never mad or angry–except when they needed to be.  And she changed the world with it.

 

Angry Black Women:

Harriette Tubman

Billie Holiday

Fannie Lou Hamer

Rosa Parks

Angela Davis

Rae Lewis Thornton

Sethe-Beloved

Claire Huxtable

Tyra Banks

Oprah Winfrey

Delores Cross

More to come on why…..