The MEANing of America

THE

MEANing

OF

AMERICA

By

MICHAELANDRE MCCOY

Published by Michaelandre McCoy at Smashwords

Copyright 2012Michaelandre McCoy

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

TELEVISION

CELEBRITY

SPORTS

MOVIES

MUSIC

CHILD REARING

ADDICTION

POLITICS

RELIGION

SEX

MONEY

NEW TECH

COMMON COURTESY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THE MEANing of AMERICA

Where to begin?

Ok….. I’m stupid, crazy, misinformed, too opinionated, self-righteous, bigoted, a racist, prejudiced, misogynistic, homophobic, a prude, too liberal, too conservative, narrow-minded, naïve, old fashioned, politically incorrect, egoistic and clueless.

Whatever…………….

What I’m not is intellectually dishonest, cruel, unfeeling, uncaring, blind, unaware, one-sided, simple-minded, hypocritical or gullible… unlike many, if not most, Americans.

Of course this doesn’t apply to you, right? Right.

This isn’t only about what it means to be an American, but about how mean Americans are becoming. It’s about how increasingly desensitized we are, and why. And about how a lack of common courtesy, incivility, ill-advised permissiveness, intellectual jaundice, selfishness and stoicness have become the acceptable order of the day.

I truly believe that We don’t like Us very much anymore. I know for a fact that trust and trustworthiness have been co-opted by self-preservation, callousness and greed. We are now far too willing to sacrifice honesty, integrity and forthrightness at the altar of personal Capitalism. In other words, It’s only wrong, if I don’t get away with it.

I often try to explain to younger Americans how I was raised walking almost everywhere I went everyday without giving a second thought to being accosted, kidnapped, molested, raped, shot, killed, abducted or being unmercifully bullied. And when I got home alone, one of the doors was always unlocked so that I could let myself in. And we were never robbed.

I was a little Colored kid who walked through White neighborhoods to a predominantly White school where my best friends were Negroes, Whites, Hispanics and Asians. When I say White I mean Caucasian, but bear with me.

Now that I’m grown, (some would say old), I realize that being raised in the San Fernando Valley, north of Hollywood and Los Angeles, was magical. I didn’t know I was Black until I was in the fifth grade, when a little White boy from somewhere else called me a nigger, and I didn’t know what it meant. My friend next-door told me to beat him up. When I asked him what a nigger was, he said he didn’t know, but his father had told him that if anyone ever called him one, he should sock ‘em in the mouth.

Well, the White kid, never came back to school after that day. And after riding my ten speed bicycle for miles while unsuccessfully trying to find his house somewhere in Lake View Terrace, where I was told he lived, I gave up. But I never forgot. I still owe him that beat down for maiming my innocence.

But this isn’t about being Black. It’s not about being underprivileged, uneducated, under appreciated or any of the other uns or unders. It’s about what it use to mean to me to be an American, how we saw ourselves and how the world used to see us. It’s about self-respect and respecting others. It’s about right and wrong, caring and selfishness and the degradation of the Collective American Soul.

The aforementioned attributes I ascribed to myself were once considered negatives, but somehow today many people throughout the world consider them assets. The publicly proclaimed efforts to overcome ones faults and self-inflicted handicaps are many times lauded and rewarded above and beyond the accomplishments of those who have intentionally and steadfastly avoided the pitfalls of drug addiction, violence, unnecessary risk taking and blatant stupidity. Now, our heroes are often the self-proclaimed flawed; and they are regularly forgiven for repeatedly having setbacks and relapses.

Meanness is now en vogue. Callousness is now rewarded. Stupidity is often applauded. Insanity is the new binding commonality.

Am I mad? No, not really. It’s more like I’m disappointed; in us; in America. If you’re not, then perhaps you’re part of the problem. But that doesn’t apply to you, right? Right.

I’ve never cared much for those who are quick to point out problems without offering any solutions. So where possible or applicable, I’ll try to make a few subtle suggestions at the risk of being ridiculed and/or called those names I mentioned, by some of you mean people who relish in doing that. I’m pretty thick skinned, but not perfect or invulnerable. I’m a lot like you, with one exception; if you disagree with me it’s because you’re wrong and I’m more right………I’m just kidding, right? Riiight

TELEVISION

I could be wrong, (although I’m not), but wasn’t TV once a safe place to go for entertainment? I mean, is it just me or has propriety been run off the tracks for the sake of sensationalism, absurdity, shock value and the promotion of water-cooler talk topics?

Have profanity and once abhorrent behavior become so common place and acceptable in the real world, that it’s now proudly displayed before the should-be-innocent psyches of our children?

Most times we don’t know that we’re about to be assaulted until it’s too late to avoid the objectionable violent scene, sexual behavior or raunchy language. Covering your kid’s eyes or ears only alerts them to the inappropriateness, and fans their desire to see and to hear what they shouldn’t be seeing or hearing. Finally we give in to the futility of it all and admit to ourselves that they’ve already been exposed, by age five, to things most of us never experienced until our mid to late teens.

Now we gently reprimand them for using such language and attempt to avoid any further explanation as to what they’re witnessing. They know too much too young, and they learn far too much of it watching TV. When I was a child, this barrage of inappropriateness wasn’t permitted on TV, so I had to learn about such things the hard and acceptable way; by gathering all of the misinformation I could from my ill-informed peers.

Perhaps the saddest thing about it all is that I personally don’t want to see or hear it either. My sensibilities haven’t been deadened enough to not be insulted, appalled or grossed out by what I’m watching. I didn’t like the Sopranos, refused to watch Oz, was creeped out by Carnivale and offended by many other shows that were fully meant to be offensive.

Cable TV producers immediately know that they’re making shows that regular network stations would never air. So now that cable has provided an avenue for all of the sickest situations and perverted desires to be explicitly portrayed and exhibited to equally degenerate minds and budding psychopaths who lack the personal imagination to come up with their own original depravities, everybody’s happy.

So now our children can’t safely walk home from school. No amount of security is enough. Many Muslim and Asian countries think we are the spawn of the Devil himself for openly permitting such decadent filth to come into our homes. And apparently we are oblivious as to why they feel this way, or even as to what’s wrong with wanting to repeatedly inundate ourselves with displays of the worst of human behavior.

Not only is it true that we are what we eat, but also that we are what we psychologically ingest. Acceptability has broadened its virtual shoulders to support the weight of any reprehensible idea that we can come up with. There are no longer any lines that can’t be crossed; or at least my narrow mind can’t think of any.

If rape, beheadings, gay sex, porn, murder, bombings, torture, bondage, serial killing, dismemberment, blatantly lying, cheating, wanton infidelity and a host of other former atrocities are now considered the norm, then what’s left to be appalled by? Oh, and I’m just talking about the nightly news. Cable can be worse. Anything and everything goes if someone can make a buck off of it; but at whose expense?

When told, Then just don’t watch it, my mind says, I don’t, but why are They permitted to continuously promote it? It may be because so many Americans revel in it. I told you earlier that I was a prude. I wish there were enough of us that we could influence Them to stop airing this mind-junk. We are what we enjoy; and it’s starting to scare me.

No, I’m not religious. But we’ll discuss that later. For now I’m going to say this: Most of us have enough sense to keep our moral foundations somewhat intact, but if even one in a thousand of us gives in to the curiosity of I wonder what it would be like to…., then none of us is safe.

Watch and learn is a truism that we can’t ignore. Advertising works. We don’t all run out and buy everything advertised on TV, but we all buy something for the first time because we were bombarded with commercials to the point that we had to satisfy our curiosities. The same applies to some when it comes to depravities. If we see it enough, we can become influenced and sometimes seduced by the taboo of it.

Video games and DVDs blatantly promote insane levels of violence. There’s no longer any such thing as too bloody. They’re inspiring, and evoke feelings of power, control, invincibility and immortality.

We only wish we could emulate our heroes by destroying our enemies by any means necessary, and at times with overt overkill. Damn the innocent bystanders and all of those who refuse to stand with us. If only we could smite our real life foes with our righteous wrath and leave them prone and quivering before us in a pool of their own bile. But I digress.

These devices can be used as an outlet for pent-up frustration and aggression, and it’s far better to yell at the screen or smash a virtual face in, than to act out in public. But when does the extreme violence cross over into acceptability? And is everyone capable of maintaining a clear distinction between that which can and should only be attempted in a movie or while playing a video game? When do some become bored with killing onscreen characters and decide to take it to the streets, their high school and college campuses or the local movie theater?

Why is it that we believe that by repeatedly exposing our youth to church mores, proper etiquette and acceptable public behavior, that they will hopefully learn by observing the way we interact with others and emulate us? But for some strange reason we assume that repeatedly exposing them to unacceptable behaviors will have minimal influence or effect. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and we know it.

TV is a learning tool whether we like it or not; and there are scores of programs that are excellent, informing, teaching and enlightening. All TV is not bad. In fact I think all children could benefit from watching many of the programs found on cable and network TV. It’s not the device; it’s the programming I often object to. And if you think for one second that I don’t believe that the average adult isn’t also detrimentally affected and influenced, you’re wrong. A lot of that crap isn’t good for anyone to see.

I know… you want specifics.

Donald Trump is a mean-spirited egomaniac who loves to make himself look more powerful by publicly belittling, criticizing, berating, humiliating and insulting the foolish, desperate hopefuls that subject themselves to his insipid and more often than not, unfair ridicule. Yeah, I said it.

And he isn’t alone. Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan, Judge Judy and many others are equally repulsive. And many Americans cheer them on as they embarrass the bejesus out of someone before sending them home to the pity, solace or ridicule of their friends, family and coworkers who may never let them live it down.

Aren’t we better than this? Is that kind of public dressing down a necessary or acceptable form of entertainment? Do we get our kicks out of watching others squirm or cry? Is their embarrassment, shame and failure a valid source for our amusement?

Should they, or we, be ashamed of ourselves for making the buttholes in this world rich for crapping on us regular folk? You can criticize someone without being mean. But it’s the meanness that keeps us tuning in. It’s the humiliation that keeps us watching. It’s the unfairness and injustice that makes us laugh and shake our heads.

Part of us sympathizes with the victim while a bigger part whispers that they’re getting exactly what they deserve. And in some cases they do, because they’re so much like Trump and his counterparts, themselves. How low do I have to be to profit from the psychological pain that I am inflicting upon you? I can’t wait for you to be fired Trump. I don’t wish any harm to come to you, just a cessation of the public forum you’ve chosen as your private little fiefdom.

Dr, Phil, who I admire, and his contemporaries are a little better, but even they have, on rare occasions, compromised their loftier ethics for fame and fortune at the expense of those poor help-seeking souls who are allowed to publicly air all of their dirty laundry for his ratings and their free trip to an institution for psychological intervention.

Good luck. I hope that the public back home has a short memory and soon forgets just how pathetic your life was before coming on his show. I hope your friends and family can forgive your infidelity, drug addiction, child molestation, psychosis, spousal abuse and other abhorrent behaviors that they never knew about until everyone you know started whispering about you behind your back.

Sometimes getting help can cost you your reputation, stature, privacy and dignity. But it shouldn’t. Doing this in public is borderline cruel, but then, nowadays anything goes… for a big enough paycheck.

If a good friend of mine, who I professed to care about, told me their deepest darkest secret, and I sold their story to a national tabloid for money, what kind of person would that make me? Some things should remain private. If I did that to you, how would you feel? Mortified?

I once told someone that you’d have to be crazy to pay a Psychiatrist an exorbitant fee to listen to your problems. The response I got was, Exactly.

Touché!

The Jerry Springer show is inexplicable; and it embarrasses me to no end that people in other countries may be privy to this televised train wreck. I pray that the scenarios are faked because I’d hate to think that there are truly that many pathetic nutcases roaming the streets in American neighborhoods. He’s almost convinced me that our Nation is becoming a Freakdom.

Maury Povich continually confirms just how dysfunctional so many of us are.

Jackass: Please, somebody stop them, and keep them far away from impressionable children.

MTV: Do you have to go overboard trying to push the limit, all the time? Is irreverence so important that you seek it out and encourage it at every turn? Is that truly who you are?

Saturday Night Live: Is there a line? What line? You come a little too close a little too often.

You go out of your way to insult a lot of people that I respect.

The Simpsons and South Park: Is it true that most parents are clueless and stupid while most kids are devious and manipulative?

Punk’d: Asinine, juvenile and borderline cruel.

Survivor and Big Brother: Lie, trick, deceive, backstab, undermine, demean and betray for a buck.

So many shows, so little time. All the rest of you know who you are.

I give high praise to shows like The Amazing Race, So You Think You Can Dance, and The Biggest Loser for having competition without condescension; which brings to mind a recent disagreement I had with my wife.

She couldn’t understand why I didn’t think it was funny when a contestant on the Amazing Race was struck in the face by a rebounding watermelon she had just attempted to slingshot. I explained to her that the young lady could have been seriously hurt, permanently blinded or disfigured. Luckily she wasn’t, but we didn’t know that at the time. To me it wasn’t funny because my empathetic sensibilities are still in tact.

Shortly thereafter we both witnessed a young verbally abusive man get into a physical altercation with a senior gentleman who was asking him to stop cursing so loudly at a tennis match. The two of them took a header down the arena steps, and my wife gasped at the thought that the elderly man might have been seriously injured. I looked at her and explained that she was now feeling the same way I had felt about the aforementioned young lady and the watermelon. There really wasn’t anything funny about it. She finally agreed.

Kudos to Oprah and Ellen, who’ve proven that you don’t have to out everyone, or to be harsh and overly critical, to have a good show and to keep an audience. You don’t have to be famous at someone else’s expense. You don’t have to put them down to build yourself up, or to make them look stupid to make yourself appear smart.

Lately that seems to be what gets Americans off. Can we not feel good about ourselves without bashing, demeaning, ridiculing or being downright rude to others? Do we have to glorify that behavior and subsequently reward it? Whether it’s physical, mental or emotional, do we have to cause pain to entertain?

Many comedians and a lot of late night talk show hosts enjoy crossing that line daily, and they have found a loyal audience for it. Leno and Letterman just barely get a pass because they’ve skillfully learned to straddle the line without being unduly insulting and offensive. Others can’t wait to make public officials and celebrities look like buffoons. No blow is too low if it gets a laugh, and unfortunately many of us love to laugh at ridicule and cruelty.

Meanness has become an aphrodisiac. Some have just substituted words and images for leather and a whip. Take that!

Some cable news shows have become notorious for exaggerating, disfiguring, mocking, debasing, obliterating and downright ignoring the truth. Any lie is a good lie as long as their loyal fan base and other seemingly mindless minions will swallow it whole without examination or reprisal. In fact, they may be giving some of the people exactly what they’re begging for; an unfiltered criticism of the other side, the demonization of the opposition, and a forum for falsehoods. Tea, anyone?

Network news shows used to have a whole laundry list of what they wouldn’t show or repeat, but lately the credo has been It was horrible and disgusting! Now let us tell you about it and/or show it to you! I know they’re trying to keep up with the cable channels, but we don’t have to make every reprobate famous, do we?

If I do something reprehensible enough or foolish enough, will you air it tonight? Will ya, please? Can I write a book about it? Will you show me doing it? If I jump, will you promise to spell my name right? If I get arrested, will you do a complete background story about my life? Can I please just have my 15 minutes of fame? You owe me that much!

Alas, they have ratings too. And we don’t like to watch unless they sensationalize something. Everything? Anything?

And TV commercials! Tampons, menstrual cycles, strapless bras, erectile dysfunction, menopause, birth control pills, colorectal screenings, rub on pleasure enhancers, prostate exams, liposuction, depression drugs, etc. Is nothing sacred anymore? Don’t answer that! Are any children watching? Should we explain any of this to them?

Some of the ads are tasteful, but I was raised during a time when such things were not publicly discussed. I must be getting old. I used to think some hotdog ads were risqué.

And when did it become permissible to say, bitch, damn, hell, erection, ass and other previously banned words on network TV? "What does that mean mommy?" I personally don’t need to hear those words during primetime programming.

I once wrote a poetic piece called The Devil that I performed on stage in high school. My senior advisor respectfully asked me to remove a certain derogatory remark, and to substitute it with wording that suggested the same thing without causing the inevitable objections. I did so, once he explained that truly smart people, like Bill Cosby, can express themselves without resorting to profanity and appealing to our lowest common denominator. I loved Richard Prior, but he had trouble consistently doing that. Bill got the TV shows. He opened doors. He’s still one of my heroes.

Profanity has its place. Sometimes when we’re portraying certain types of individuals, in certain situations, it would be disingenuous to have them saying heck, shoot, darn, shucks, lady and lowlife bum. There is a time and a place for almost everything, but it’s not during primetime. Give us prudes a break. Push meanness and inappropriateness into the late night hours if you have to.

And before I forget, wasn’t the whole point of paying for cable channels to avoid having to watch endless commercials? Network channels were broadcast for free because the sponsors were paying for the broadcast.

Greedy cable renegers have gotten deep into our pockets and are now getting paid heavily from both ends. And instead of protesting, we just keep on putting more and more money into our visual vice devices. We pay goo gobs of money every month for channels we never even watch, and for some channels we really shouldn’t be watching. Why can’t we unbundle the channels and significantly reduce our cable bills by cutting out the chaff?

CELEBRITY

Excuse me, but when did simply being obnoxious or self-absorbed get equated with having a talent? Since when did being a screw-up or dysfunctional become a marketable commodity? Paris, Kim and their ilk, The Jersey Shorers, The Real Housewives of Wherever, Octomom, Jon and Kate, Bachelors and Bachelorettes, Castoffs, Voteoffs and countless other undeserving and seemingly talentless individuals now comprise a huge segment of our celebrity population. Why?

Do they sing, dance, act or write? They’re famous for doing what; getting on other peoples nerves?

There are thousands of brilliant talents all over America who are dying to catch a break. It seems that their main mistake was being truly talented in some way, so instead they’re waiting tables and greeting customers while these pseudo-celebs are getting rich on their questionable notoriety.

Apparently, being disagreeable and/or borderline insane will get you your own show. Getting arrested, thereafter, will make you rich. Sitting around picking each other apart without a script must be hilarious or at least mesmerizing enough to get you renewed for a second season. Is being glad that we’re not them, enough to garner a loyal fan base? Huh? I told you I was clueless. I just don’t get this.

These people can not only be mean, detestable and show little or no respect for others, but relish in giving there own uninformed or oftentimes senseless opinions about things they have little or no knowledge about. And we love it because it allows us to point at these misguided individuals who are dumber than us. We are amused by stupidity, an unwarranted sense of self-importance and the occasional incomprehensible rant.

Some are most famous for their unauthorized sex tapes that began circulating on the web. Does that qualify them as porn stars? They make more than porn stars. Now they’re famous for just being famous, and today, that seems to be enough.

It seems to me that scandal used to ruin careers; now it only seems to elevate popularity. Getting arrested every two or three years has proven to enhance careers and inflate incomes. What? The ‘wronger’ I am, the more you like me? The more I screw up, the more infamous I become, and subsequently the more in demand I will be in the future?

Americans love a good comeback. We love to forgive and forget, and the time period between accusation and forgiveness is becoming shorter every day, unless you kill someone.

Oops, no, that’s not even true anymore. Some will even justify murder and applaud your acquittal, no matter how guilty they believe you are O.J., Robert and Casey.

I mean, a bloody knife or a smoking gun in the hands of the rich, famous and loved, are apparently not considered lethal weapons. Many feel that if a well-liked celebrity did it, then their victims must have deserved it.

I was a big fan of two of them, especially O.J., but guilty as hell is still guilty as hell. O.J.’s blood was at the murder scene and Nicole and Goldman’s blood was on and in his locked car. No preservatives were found, and he lied about how he cut his finger while retrieving a cell phone from his auto. If Nicole was your sister, you wouldn’t need one additional shred of evidence to convict. It was beyond obvious.

Later he was found guilty of kidnapping some individuals in Las Vegas. Kidnapping? I thought that’s when you force someone to unwillingly go from one location to another. All they were told to do was to sit down in a room they were already in. That’s not kidnapping, it’s unlawful restraint, which carries a much lighter penalty. And is there no penalty for the supposed kidnappees who were receiving and selling stolen goods?

O.J. was only there trying to get his stuff back. I thought we all had the right to take back stolen property that is legally ours. Shows what I know.

Remember, it was never proven that O.J. knew that one of his helpers showed a gun that he was legally carrying.

To my knowledge, no one was struck. No one was bound. And the individual that set up the entire meeting was never charged with anything. What? Some guy orchestrated the whole affair and he got off scot-free, while the others went to jail?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m