Just Sit Down and Be Quiet

 In my mind's eye, I envision a table full of older Black women sipping coffee and talking about the socioculturalpolitical events of this near-year-end of 2021.

I envision them each pontificating about everything from the mask wearing,  vaccine denying, school protesting nimkumpoops who have swallowed up all our collective cultural air.

Would they hrumphf like I can imagine?

I think so.

They would remind us and regale us with stories of these same types of their younger days who are still around because they are still around.

"Chile, yt folks scared of their shadow," I can hear them saying in my mind's eye.

A fear brought about by the works of their own hands.

The ancient writing in the Holy Scriptures are coming back to me, you truly do reap what you sow.

And maybe that is what has them so petrified that the gun range down the street from me is popping off at all hours of the early morning. Their imagination is running wild and they can't catch it.

We need the elders in the room to step up and quiet down all this noise.

Can we snatch the broadcast rights of some cable news network that just had a Christmas tree light up outside their New York office?

Can someone put the poor scared sheltered boy back in his quiet bedroom so he can leave the rest of us alone, most especially the work of Black women journalists?

Can we just all tell them to collectively shut up and we ignore them so we can enjoy this holiday season?

That is what I can wish to happen.

Just like I wished back in 2007 and 2008 that people would pay attention to the coming tide of racial animus that I saw happening after a young Black man decided to run for office.

Or in 2013 when a Teenager was gunned down and the world erupted with the newly minted use of hashtags and social media.

Or in 2014 when another was gunned down and left to rot in the hot August sun.

All these years later and all this noises is still stoking fears of a boogeyman who has not made a run to to the suburbs to grab sallyanniesuejoan by anything.  

Their imagination running wild.

But there is a cost to being on the other side of this widespread hysteria.

And I just want to tell them to sit down and shut up.

I've taken to turning off the news and just reading excerpts or the highlights. I read major publications that give a balanced approach to what is happening. I've pretty much stopped my "pay attention" posts because no one really was thinking in the common good.

But what if we did?

Tune in? pay attention? ask why?

We know the underlying cause of power, greed, control.

But what if that kind does not have the final say?

In my readings of scripture, there is a passage written by the poet that calls on the Creator to avenge them, to see them, to hear their cry. The passage Carries the anguish of every frustrated emotion and wanting to do something.

Then, later in this same ancient library, there is a reminder that the one who holds up the universe is also the one who will repay. 

That reaping what you sow came back to me.

So as the holiday season has been with us since Turkey Day, I keep thinking of sowing smiles and air hugs, love in my masked presence, supporting small businesses, not crossing picket lines, and thinking of how I can sow love to a world that has forgotten what it was like to not be on hyper alert all the time.

I am not an elder elder yet.

But I have lived some years and have a little bit of wisdom.

My daddy told me to do good and good would follow me.So that is what I'm going to do.

And secretly in my older lady mind if I can project forward myself another twenty or thirty years when I really earn the title of elder and some young'ins or not so young'ins start spouting off with this divisive nonsense again, I can tell them to just go Sit down and be quiet, they need a time out. 

And maybe pick up a book and learn something. 

In the meantime, I'm just going to go on and drink my coffee and make out my holiday list.