What does the media know about “Ghetto”?

For those people that have not heard about the so called controversial comments of Deion Sanders in reference to Johnny Manziel, I am going to post them, give my thoughts on his comments, and my thoughts on the coverage of Deion’s comments. Many people in the media are taking a chance to make fun of and belittle Deion and his comments. Deion Sanders was a guest on Roland Martin’s podcast and Deieon stated that Johnny Manziel has “ghetto tendencies”. Then Deion was asked to clarify what he meant by “ghetto tendencies”.

 

Deion: “Because he was successful he made it and he let you all know he made it and he was cocky, he was flamboyant and he let you know.”

 

Roland Martin: “So he was a white Prime Time (referring to Deion Sanders) coming out of college?”

 

Deion: “Thank you. And I love him. I love him. They had the music playing when he came in. Put his whole equipment up, who go out there all do your pro day with all your equipment on? That’s some hood stuff. I love Johnny Football.”

 

 

I was listening to Sports Talk 790 AM this morning (04/04/2014) and the hosts of the show were confused on why Deion Sanders would back off his comments about Johnny Manziel having “ghetto tendencies”. The hosts went on and on about how Deion did not use the word “ghetto” in a way that was positive and that he should not have used the word to describe Johnny Manziel. The hosts also looked up the word “ghetto” in the dictionary and its meaning in the Urban dictionary. Of course Deion did not really use either of these definitions of the word “ghetto” when describing what he thought of Johnny Manziel, so the radio show hosts highlighted this fact. Then the hosts stated that he should not have backed off his comments about Johnny Manziel and he should have explained what he meant by “ghetto tendencies” especially if he thought it was a positive comment. While I was listening to the radio show I started to wonder why the radio show hosts was taking this point of view on Deion’s comments. Then I thought about the business side of the media and I think it would benefit others to look at situations from a variety of perspectives.

 

I had to understand that the media has an agenda and each radio station has to be able to sell advertisement space. The hosts of the show could very well agree with the callers but they can’t act like it, because they are under pressure to keep people listening to their channel for advertisement reasons. The hosts have to stick with ideas that are status quo and conservative because most people think that listen to the radio most likely will think in a similar way. Most of the people that own and run radio stations are white men and most of the people that listen to talk radio are white men. The sports talk radio audience is roughly 77% male*.

When we look at the race of Sports Talk listeners they are 51% Caucasian, around 26% are African American, and roughly 19% are Hispanic.* This means that the advertisements and the content of the show are geared towards its target market and it seems to me that a large segment of that market will be white. It makes business sense to have talk show hosts side more with a conservative point of view, versus a more diverse or liberal perspective (liberal meaning classical liberal, relating to freedom, in this case freedom of speech)on topics. By ensuring that the radio hosts use a conservative point of view they keep the larger segment of the market happy and they give more liberal thinkers something to think about and comment on.

What I mean by this is exactly what happened on the AM 790 sports talk show this morning pertaining to Deion Sanders. The radio station had hosts that acted as if they could not believe Deion said something racial and they also stated he should have used a different word other than “ghetto”. The hosts said that Deion should have just said Johnny Manziel is a confident football player instead of saying he has “ghetto tendencies”. For many African Americans and other races as well, there would not have been a problem with what Deion Sanders said because African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites use the same slang and vernacular when they talk.

 

Race is always the number one topic in America to stir up controversy and now the hosts had a famous African American, Deion Sanders, using a buzz word “ghetto” to describe a white athlete, Johnny Manziel. So what do the hosts do with Deion’s comments, they take the conservative point of view and in response to this point of view, the liberal thinkers disagree with this point of view. Now the radio station has satisfied it’s larger target market and the smaller segment of its market by giving both markets what they want. To my point many African Americans called into the show including myself, to disagree with the point of view of the radio hosts.  

 

On the show I pointed out the fact that Deion just like any other American can use words the way they deem fit and that the media cannot dictate how people choose to use words or formulate sentences. I also stated that just by using the word “ghetto” does not automatically mean something negative or bad, nor does it mean it should be associated with African Americans. I also pointed out the fact that the etymology of the word “ghetto” comes from the word “gheto” or ghet” which was used to describe the part of town Jews were forced to live in. This is from Princeton University:

 

**Etymology

The term “ghetto” actually comes from the word “gheto” or “ghet”, which means slag in Venetian, and was used in this sense in a reference to a foundry where slag was stored located on the same island as the area of Jewish confinement (the Venetian Ghetto).^[2] An alternative etymology is from Italian borghetto, diminutive of borgo ‘borough’.^[3]

**Story

The term came into widespread use in ghettos in occupied Europe 1939-1944 where the Jews were required to live prior to their transportation to concentration and death camps during the holocaust.

The definition of “ghetto” still has a similar meaning, but the broader range of social situations, such as any poverty-stricken urban area.

 

 

 

 

 

*http://www.talkers.com/2011/10/20/qualitative-aspects-of-the-talk-radio-audiences/

 

**https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Ghetto.html

Unique

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta or Lady Gaga is considered by millions of people to have one of the most unique personalities in the world. Lady Gaga often has on clothing that seems extravagant when compared to other celebrities or super stars. Her videos are noticeably extremely different than other music videos. All that is Gaga, is making millions of people go Gaga over her seemingly “unique” style.  People love Gaga so much that she has hundreds of different products that she sells and millions of people buy.
If people did not really love Gaga’s style or unique-ness, then why would 64 million people purchase her music along with all the other products she promotes or sells? If  people did not believe that Gaga’s personality was unique and interesting, then why would a company like Miracle Whip and other large companies, pay her to promote their products? Lady Gaga is not the only famous person who can convince millions of people that the personality they possess and the style they have created should be watched, adored, and imitated.
Although Robert Kelly has been accused of taking advantage of underage girls, he was able to get 50 million people to buy his music. Jay-Z, someone who glorifies material goods, glorifies the objectification of women, glorifies the accumulation of money, and glorifies the selling drugs, he still manages to get 50 million people to purchase his music. Tim Tebow is an NFL football player is not one of the top players in his league but he is able to sell millions of his team jerseys. Lebron James is a very famous and productive NBA basketball player and he is also able to sell millions of his team jerseys. NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball players convince millions of regular people to spend millions of dollars on sporting events, merchandise, clothing and apparel. One of the main reasons that people purchase music, attend concerts, purchase tickets to sporting events, bobble head dolls, want autographs is because people believe these entertainers represent the successful parts of the country and their culture. These people are supposedly unique because they have been able to amass millions of dollars and they are considered famous and the fame coupled with money influences people to believe they are unique.  But how unique are these people? Can the idea of individuality and uniqueness be harmful or helpful to our society?

Lets examine the similarities all humans share.  Humans are born from a female and will one day die.  All humans need food, water, and shelter.  We all wear some type of clothing which may or may not include footwear. 

What about human rituals and religions, lets see the similarities humans share.  There are more people in the world that belong to and practice a religion than those that do not practice a religion. There are more people that believe and recognize a God or Gods than do people that don’t believe in or recognize the existence of a God or Gods. There are more people in the world that celebrate holidays in the month of December than do not. An example of these celebrated December holidays would include: Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, Hanukah, 3 Kings Day, DongZhi, Las Posadas, Feast of Lady Guadalupe, St Nicholas, and Advent.

So if humans have more similarities than differences why are so many people concerned about their individuality and uniqueness?  Lets examine how many people view uniqueness and individuality.  Many of us purchase clothing that we think will make us socially acceptable or  “cool” and this is applicable in school or in the work place. There are also people that purchase materials based on their favorite entertainer, which sometimes help people  help them to socially fit into social circles.   Think of all the people that choose to wear things because of someone famous? Look at the explosion of the Air Jordan and all of Michael Jordan’s products, Lebron James products, or even Michael Jackson products adn style.   

But in America we are confused about individuality,and uniqueness. What is individuality? How would a person determine someone’s individuality? In America it seems like being unique or displaying your individuality reflects a person’s clothing, their shoes, their designer purse, their jewelry, their automobile, the movies they watch, and the people they hang with? It seems as if individuality has been tied to personal choices of consumption or the perceived quality of the things people purchase.  How did people come to believe that purchases make them unique?  The ironic thing about this ideas is that people are not purchasing items that are an oddity to others, people are making purchases similar to purchases made within their culture.  This is why Asians, African Americans, Mexicans, etc usually wear the same type of clothing, purchase the same type of  music, and purchase the same jewlery.  This is also why people in small cliques or social circles also make the same type of purchases in regards to clothing, food, jewlery etc.  But how did people start to look at  individuality and uniqueness in this way?

Marketers and advertisers have been able to connect the idea of finances to the idea of social status and individuality. Social classes are built upon the idea that money creates status based on a person’s ability to consume expensive things and attain profitable assets. Who ever purchases things considered valuable will be accepted into certain social classes. Lower classes are considered lower class because they have less money, assets and less of any ability to purchase the things the middle class and upper class could purchase. The middle class is the middle class because they are in between the lower and upper class in regards of money, assets and purchasing power. Upper class is upper because it’s above the other classes in terms of money, assets, and purchasing power.

America has focused on individuality for several reasons, one of the first reasons that America focused on individuality was to ensure citizens realized that they were different from the people of Great Britain, who America won its independence from. Then America saw that millions of immigrants were flooding the through the doors of America and there had to be a way to welcome these people with open arms, especially if America wanted to have positive economic growth. America started to be known as a melting pot, meaning people from all types of backgrounds come to America and then melt together into one large American culture. Then the multi-cultural movement started where cultures different than the one’s in America wanted to be able to maintain their cultural differences and identities but still be accepted by America.
Before this shift to multi-culturalism America was going through the industrial revolution. Soon businesses were facing a problem with the growth of the country and improved technologies, because products made by businesses started to pile up on shelves and manufacturing plants. The pile up of products was from the efficiency of production and manufacturing coupled with the marketing and advertising ideas of the past. Marketers and advertisers were advertising products based on consumer need, and with the improvement in technologies, people’s needs had been satisfied thus the pile up. Marketers needed to figure out how to change the public’s view on why they should purchase products, if they did not products would continue to pile up on the shelves and companies would lose money.
There was a shift where businesses went from advertising products based on consumer need to advertising products by attaching the products to a person’s individuality. When this shift happened the social fabric of America changed because now the lines between needs and wants were blurred. Now it was unclear to many people whether they actually needed a new computer, new pair of shoes, new car etc. Now if you did not purchase certain things you were not expressing your individuality.
In actuality the things peopled purchased actually reflected the purchases of the culture those people belonged too. That’s why we see that a majority of African Americans listen to, dress, and dance like things associated with Hip Hop. This is why people who belong to a Christian culture may purchase art, jewelry, videos, concert tickets, movies etc related to Christianity.

So why am I talking about individuality and uniqueness? There is a huge focus on individuality and uniqueness all over the globe. There are millions of groups and organizations that claim they celebrate and want to protect the rights of certain individual groups like the NAACP, National Negro College Fund, ASPIRA, Association of Hispanic Arts, Hispanic Genealogical Society, Latin American Studies Association, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Native American Heritage Association, National Congress of American Indians, 100 Black Men of America, National Council of Negro Women, National Council o f Women’s Organizations, National Organization for Women etc. It’s true that these groups have created a safe place for individuals that have historically been oppressed but they also separate these people from other people. It’s great to be able to belong to a group of people that are similar to you especially if the group you belong to has been discriminated against, but how productive can that group be to reducing discrimination if they isolate themselves from those that discriminate against them. How will people know your wants, needs, or concerns if you don’t meet with them? How will people know that the stereotypes they constantly hear and see are invalid if they don’t get to talk to or spend time with that group of people? Separation makes things worse unless improvement is not that group’s goal. If the goal of men, women, African Americans, Jews, Homosexuals etc, is to prove their differences should be accepted and celebrated, then these groups should not continue to separate themselves from other groups. If we want to reduce discrimination against people we need to work, play, talk, and worship together. If groups were able to work, play, talk, eat, and worship together then people would be able to see how similar we are and recognize that we all have the same faults, problems, limitations, abilities as any other human. Being able to have firsthand knowledge of the similarities between people will enable people to see for themselves.

Individuality and uniqueness can be determined in more ways that just with the purchases people make and the clothing they wear. A person can be unique based on what they think and how they behave, and how a person thinks will in turn affect their purchases. Its not very unique to make purchases because the people in your culture or another culture makes similar purchases. The purchasing habits of a free thinker is what should be considered as unique because they are using their own thoughts for the basis of the purchase, not social norms.

I Think We Are Free

It was Saturday morning in 2001 and I had nothing on my schedule to do, so I decided I was going to sit in my apartment and watch some college football. Of course I could not just watch football without anything to eat or drink so I headed to the grocery store. Once I was inside the store I picked up some bananas, apples, and a case of beer, some hamburgers, hamburger buns, and some soda. I paid for my items, thanked the cashier, jumped in my car and headed home. Once I sat down on my couch and cracked open my beer, I thought to myself, “It feels good to be free living in America.” This took place 11 years ago and so much has changed since then so I want to examine this idea of freedom.
The word “Free” means without restraints or to be able to do things without coercion, violence, or threat of violence. So without any restraints, coercion, violence or threat of violence I was able to leave my apartment, go to the store and purchase items that I wanted to purchase. It seems that everyone is free to consume and entertain themselves the way they want, which gives people the illusion that they are completely free. People forget that consumption is a key component in a capitalistic based economy, which is what we have in America so making purchases will be encouraged. Entertainment needs to be purchased for consumption so the purchasing of entertainment related products and services will be encouraged. , so their So, I am free to consume and entertain myself, what about other aspects of my life like education, health care, government, economy, job market, business, driving, purchasing a home?
Although a person can freely purchase things, there are restraints and controls within our system that affects what a person is able to purchase and the quantity of purchases. The amount of money a person has affects their diet, allowing them to only purchase what they can afford. Where a person lives will affects the food available to them, schools available to their children, transportation choices and the businesses they are able to utilize. A person’s school will affect their learning potential which will affect their ability to attend college and earn a living. All of these things are a direct result of the government, economy, and market place in America.
Money is a way to control what people can purchase and the quantity of purchases. The economy, job market, and government help to determine how much money is in existence which in turn affects the purchasing of money. The government, economy, and the market place also affect how many jobs are in existence as well. The number of jobs in existence is going to affect how many people will be able to have a job, which will restrict the amount of money people will have to spend.

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Not everyone wants to work for someone else so maybe entrepreneurs have less restraints and controls than individuals that work for someone else. But business owners need money for business licenses, legal fees, business insurance, equipment, websites, employee salaries, buildings, utilities, phones, etc. Depending on the credit rating and the economic wealth of the individual will determine if this prospective entrepreneur will be able to even start their business. Entrepreneurs need capital but the economy, government, and job market will strongly influence how much capital is available to entrepreneurs so they can start, run, and sustain their businesses.
So what if a person did not like some of the controls and restraints placed on them and others? Could this person do something about their perceived injustice? What if other people did not like a certain policy, procedure, or law? Can people still use freedom of speech and protests to demonstrate their dislike for a certain issue? Yes, people can protest but they can only protest the way the government says they can protest. People must do whatever the government says they can do which totally conflicts with the idea of freedom and being free. If a person just looks at some of the recent policies, laws, and executive orders signed they will see that people’s freedoms are slowly being taken away.
President Obama signed HR 347 giving the government the power to arrest and charge an individual with a federal offense if they protest around any person that has a secret service security detail which includes domestic and foreign politicians and their family members. To restrict and aggress against the public further President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act giving the government the ability to indefinitely detain American citizens for things the government considers threats to national security. So the question has to be asked, are citizens acting freely if the government tells citizens where and how to protest?

This may sound like a boring government or economic class but I will give some examples of how this affects you and every person. In America lately there has been a focus on the overall general health of Americans and apart of health is eating habits. Eating habits are a direct result of culture and purchasing power. Foods that are healthy for people are more expensive than foods that are bad for people. Its more expensive to purchase food for a family that is full of salads, raw fruit, raw vegetables, whole grains, protein, amino acids etc than it is to purchase processed foods. This is one of the reasons why many people that are poor also have bad eating habits and are generally in worst health than their richer counter parts. Rich people live in rich areas that have stores in them that carry expensive healthier foods because people in that area can afford to purchase those expensive healthy foods. Poor neighborhoods have to buy foods that poor people can afford, which is usually low quality foods and lots of processed foods. Eating healthy is apart of primary preventative health care that’s why I did not bring up the health care system that involves doctors, clinics, and hospitals.

People are free to ingest whatever food, liquid, vitamin, medicine that the government says is legal. People can apply for and work whatever job the government deems legal. People are free to purchase whatever they can afford and what the government deems legal. People are free to be entertained based on what they can afford and based on what entertainment forms are legal. People are free to travel based on what they can afford and what they qualify for (drivers license, passport). In other words people are free to do whatever the government says they are free to do. If a person does something and that the government deems illegal and is caught they will be fined, imprisoned, or threatened with fines or imprisonment.
The reason that Americans can’t see this as a lack of freedom in this country is because, government, the police, and taxes have been a part of our reality all our lives. Combine that with nationalism where Americans are constantly being told the American way is the best way, so it should be as no surprise that people would willingly accept our system as the best and truly free. Why would anyone question what they believe to be truth especially when it seems everyone else believes it to be true also? They wouldn’t and that’s the trick, no one in their right mind would choose to be oppressed, so if you don’t know you are oppressed it’s easier to deal with.
Many people will not look at this writing and the examples used within it, as legitimate examples of a lack of freedom in America, but that does not mean that they are correct. We must remember that freedom means free to do something or not do something without being coerced, threatened, incarcerated, physically harmed, or killed. If a person violates any law of the United States and is caught, just about all of these aggressive things could happen to that person. So the very things that are supposed to protect and empower people like the government are the same things that hurt, damage, control, and restrict people.

Are we free in American?
How would you describe American freedom?
Does the government set us free or restrict us?

More Distractions

He did not think very long about his reaction to the bad news he had just received, so it’s not surprising that he chose race as the reason why he could not stay inside of our business. He screamed some profanities at me and then he turned to me and said, “So, I’m not welcome here any more because I am Mexican?” I told the customer, “No, you are not welcome in our business because you continually curse out our employees and you have video taped our female employees two times. We have warned you what would happen if this behavior continued, so I’m sorry you have to leave.” The funny thing about this man’s comments was there was only one white person that worked for our business and this guy had not seen this person. As a matter of fact there were more Mexicans in our business than any other race, so his comment was totally crazy.
At another business I had a customer that was being extremely rude to my staff and I had to ask him to leave. This customer was African American, just like I am African American but he chose to tell me that he thinks he has to leave because he is black and our business is racist against black people. The majority of my staff was African American; the majority of the customers are African Americans so his argument is weakened by the fact African Americans dominate the demographics of this business. But why did this customer choose to ignore his own actions and focus on his race, and blame his race as the reason for him having to face up to his negative behavior? The customer in my first story choose to use race as an excuse for the reason something bad was happening to him instead of looking at alternative reasons for the consequences he was facing.
I, myself am guilty of trying to use race for the reason I have experienced certain things, so this way of thinking is not foreign to me. But how did we get here? What has caused most of us to become conditioned to think in such similar ways? How have we become so distracted from the real truth, even when that truth is right in front of our face?

As we shop for new material goods, watch sporting events, watch movies and we play video game after video game, we continue to participate in activities that have a very small impact on the improvement of our lives. But why do we continually buy things we don’t need, watch television shows, movies and listen to radio stations that focus on entertainment and never think about trying to consume other types of media that are not totally focused on entertainment?
Although, median income has not improved, businesses are shutting down or going over seas, employment is unstable; we continue to see an increase in the number of people with televisions. Businesses continue to spend large sums of money on advertising campaigns. So we have more people watching television and more money being spent to advertise to this increasing market. If companies continue to pay millions of dollars on 30 second to 1 minute commercials, thousands of dollars on other types of advertisements, there must be a reason and the reason is that the advertisements work.
Television programming exists because of the money corporations pay them for advertising space. If this type of advertising system did not work corporations would not invest millions in this medium. But this massive marketing machine that exists in America is causing unintended consequences. This large and effective advertisement campaign has connected people’s emotions to their finances; therefore people believe they have to buy the latest thing whether it’s a service, food, and material thing. Because we are so distracted from thinking and analyzing our behaviors we have not stopped to think about the impact of advertisements or the impact of consuming large amounts of entertainment. This distraction is so powerful that many of us have begun to just accept the messages on television, internet, magazines, and radio as truth without further investigation or thought.

The television, radio, magazines, and internet are so effective because of a few reasons. One reason is that television, radio, magazines, newspapers, are 4 of the main sources that people claim to get “credible” or “reliable” information. The second reason is people believe that the people on television, the radio, newspaper writers are authority figures. The third reason is since most people get there information from these sources, it becomes widely acceptable for other people to accept these sources as credible or reliable, thus if information is gathered from alternative sources that is contrary to popular belief, it’s dismissed as conspiracy theories. The last reason is that these sources use a similar form of learning that most of have got all our lives.

As a child our parents told us things and we were supposed to believe them, they did not give us tools to analyze and properly challenge the validity of their ideas. In school teachers used the same teaching style, standing in front of the class and telling children what they should know, and not giving students the tools to effectively analyze what is being taught. Teachers and parents did not give us the tools to become independent learners thus we are conditioned to depend on authority figures (no matter who that authority figure is) for sources of reliable information.
Television, newspapers, magazines, and radio present their information just as our teachers and parents did, by showing us things, and telling us things. Many of us assume that since someone that is a newspaper writer, a person on television, or radio talk show host, that they must be an authority figure and someone that we can believe. And like our parents and teachers, the television and radio does not give you the skills to be a critical thinker and it does not tell you the importance of using critical thinking to analyze the truth of their messages.
We must realize that these forms of media are just giving us someone’s perspective, point of view, and opinions of a certain situation and that what actually happened could be concealed or distorted. But we happily accept these perspectives, point of views, and opinions of people we believe are experts, authority figures without analyzing the information they present. What this does is help keep the mainstream thoughts on topics alive in our society and cultures because we are too distracted with entertainment to search for truth. And if we are presented with the truth, it’s usually contrary to popular belief so we dismiss this truth and keep the mainstream, common thought alive.

Based on the information I have presented, it should not be a surprise why there is so much hate and fighting among humans. Thus if the popular belief is that blacks are lazy, stupid, marijuana smokers, most people are going to believe blacks are lazy, stupid, marijuana smokers and this thought will be validated by the images shown by television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. It does not matter if the message spread is comedic or satire in nature, because most people are not going to use critical thinking to examine the validity of the message. Instead people willingly accept the thoughts of popular as there own and when they see or hear something that validates their popular belief, it will not matter if that message is real or fiction.

So what has happened is that we have become distracted from really important issues because we think that entertainment is more important than continual education and we believe our individual differences are what should be celebrated. We are conditioned to believe that our differences make us very unique, and no matter what you must, “Keep it real”, or “Do me”. What is really going on, when we focus to much on our differences is that we build up virtual walls that separate us from other people. Since we are already distracted with entertainment, trying to make money and buying material things, we never take time out to question the validity of stereotypes, differentiating needs from wants, or why we do the things we do. We don’t think about how valuable each human life is. We don’t think about how easy our minds can be deceived or corrupted. Just think how much people could accomplish if we all worked together and we did not become distracted with silly things such as money, individualism, entertainment, material things, racism, sexism, sexual orientation, and religion.

Are there any businesses that could benefit from humans fighting and constantly arguing with one another?
Are there any businesses that could benefit from the death and incarceration of humans?
Are there any businesses that could benefit from wars, where we kill each other?
Is there a good way to determine fact from fiction?
Is there a good way to evaluate our thinking and behaviors?
Is it important to evaluate our thinking and behaviors?

DISTRACTED

I sat down in a hard metal seat awaiting my turn at the barber’s chair.  The shop was full of men and their words were flying from one mouth to another mouth; constantly bantering back and forth expressing their opinions in very colorful ways.  I wanted to start a conversation about something but before I started to open my mouth, a sign on the wall gave me pause.   This odd sign on the wall of the barber shop read, “We don’t talk about politics and religion in this shop.”  I thought this was strange and it made my mind begin to wander to my past.

I wanted to know the content of the conversations that I’ve had in the past.  I thought about the conversations I had as a teenager and most of the conversations I had were about sports, girls, sex, parties, television shows, movies, and drugs.  Then I thought about the conversations that I had with my friends as a college student and I soon realized that the content of those conversations were the same as when I was in high school. 

Once I remembered what my friends and I used to talk about, I started to listen to the conversations of the men in the barber shop.  Two guys were talking about the physical features of women they had sex with.  Three other men were talking about who was a better basketball player Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan.  Two other people were talking about how many of their family members were strung out on drugs and the difference between marijuana and crack.   I wandered why everyone is always talking about the same things? 

 Then I thought about why I did not talk about politics, religion, social issues with my close friends.  The reason I did not talk about it was because I did not read, listen, or watch anything that would give me a good source of information on these topics.  My friends and I all listen to, read, and watch similar material so my friends would not spark a conversation or debate on these topics either.  Then I wondered why I did not seek out information on religion, politics, or social issues so that I could talk about it with people and I realized that I did not believe these topics were very interesting.

This made me think about other people and how they don’t want to talk about politics or religion because they think that its boring and they may think that it does not have much of an impact on their life.  So I thought about the concept of boredom and then I realized how just about anything can be made to appear amusing.  For example driving a truck, taking items out of storage, and selling a household item are not interesting actions, but millions of people tune in to watch Ice Road Truckers, Storage Wars, and Pawn Stars everyday.  The History Channel also has very interesting television shows on war, the economy, religion, politics so these topics can be just as interesting as any other topic. 

 What seems odd to me is that even if people watched television shows on politics, religion, social issues they still would not be able to share what they saw with other people, because most people don’t watch similar shows and because its taboo to talk about these topics in certain public settings.  When people are gathered together in a social setting, a setting where chances are good that someone in the crowd has knowledge of religion, social issues, or politics, we are told that its taboo to talk about politics, economics, and religion.  It seems odd to me because the very important things we need to talk about with other people can’t be talked about because our societal norms have told us we can’t talk about them so we continue to talk about entertainment.  This is why I think many of us believe that these topics don’t impact our lives very much, because we think if its important everyone would be talking about it.  That’s why its hard to get more people to realize the importance of these topics, because no one is talking about these topics.

Because of this constant focus on entertainment we have been distracted from more important issues.  Now having a beer and arguing about who is a better end of game scorer, Kobe Bryant  or Lebron James is more important than finding out what our local and national governments are doing.  Having the newest designer purse or finding red bottom shoes is more important than finding out how a Presidential Executive Order is going to change your life.  It’s nothing wrong with having an argument about sports and there is nothing wrong with purchasing expensive items but when these types of activities dominate our minds and discussions, we easily lose focus on more important topics.

 The purpose of me writing about this is not to say I do everything correctly in my life, nor am I saying that a majority of my life is lived correctly.  I am not saying that all the people around me do these things either.  My purpose is not to bash people not interested in politics, religion, social issues etc.  My purpose is to bring light to the fact that many of us are too focused on entertainment and we don’t take time out to examine what we think and what we do.  In each and every one of our lives there is an area that needs improvement; there are areas that we don’t think about and that we should start to think about.  Politics, religion, social issues etc. do impact our lives in a major way and we should strive to at least check out politics, religion, and economics.  

 I want people to question the world around them more.  Ask your self and others, why does society wants us to focus so much on entertainment and material things?   Why does society want us to stop talking about religion, politics, and economics in public settings?  Now very few people talk about ways to improve the quality of their lives and other people’s lives, instead talks of entertainment dominate our minds and discussions.  Why have we become so distracted?  Who benefits from our distraction from things that have a significant impact on our lives?