"But they Family..." Oh?

They say experience forms an individual’s operative definitions for their day to day functioning. Based off of the personal, business and vicarious experiences of close friends-and friends, who feel they are close enough to tell me all of their business, though all of my body language says “This is inappropriate, I don’t know you like that-Please stop!”

My definition of family is as follows:

Family (N): A group loosely connected, usually by blood, that doesn’t know how to act if and when they come together because society is confuddled by and ever changing concept of family and morality.

When I am confronted with the threat of Family (Yes it’s a threat), I think fights, drama and baggage from a past that, I haven’t gotten over but, I have pretended like I have forgotten. I am not above admitting that I have had all types of  awful issues in my family ranging from, but not limited too; drug abuse, physical abuse, elder abuse and financial abuse. Calling to mind something my aunt used to tell me, “you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” She ended it with a period, but I would have ended it with a question mark, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family?” Why can’t we choose our families?

 I think people who don’t like their families choose without announcement. They choose to move far away. They choose to spend every major holiday with their friends, girlfriends or significant others. They choose not to travel for family events, using any formidable excuse as a crutch, though they would figure out a way around the aforementioned excuse for a trip to the Bahamas with close friends. People choose people who like what they like .  It follows that If you aren’t a hooting, hollering, arguing, intrigue interested person (I, personally, don’t care who experimented with coke in the 80’s or who was a ‘barfly’ before it was acceptable.), you might not be moved to associate yourself with a family that has those qualities..

Hence, an unsurprising practice of those who have assimilated to a new socioeconomic/socio-educational spectrum (which, in these times, aren’t always mutually exclusive) is distancing themselves from people who don’t exhibit attributes of that group. But then again...

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Since my great-grandfather, great aunt (who doubled like my mom), and great grandfather died, I have this laze fair attitude toward family; I don’t believe in supporting people who don’t support me

. It's like, “Oh, you are over there talking about me, negatively…ok, one less person to buy a Christmas gift.” (yes, I am a thug)



Effing with me will put you on the chopping block, immediately, with as little hemorrhaging of time and emotion as possible. You don’t get a pass because you’re family. I need something stronger than a similar parentage/bloodline,  to substantiate me doing things that I don’t want  to do. Or as Snoop said, “you gotta get yours, but fool I gotta get mine”; anytime someone asks me to do something, I find myself doing a “what have you done for me lately inventory” and a ‘what do you have the potential to do for me in the future inventory”?  AKA will you-getting yours-contribute to me getting “mines”, now, soon, in the distant future? Some people will always prove to be a burden and summarily useless to me, in the ways that I think matter, and this is where the conflict- “But they family”-comes up.

Calls to mind a movie called Bilal's Stand which depicted a family, whose patriarch had just been violently murdered, wanted Jamel , whose business acumen had been holding the cab company afloat, to temper, if not give up, his dreams of higher education and autonomy to continue the cab company. There was money to bail a nephew out of jail, but there wasn’t enough for Jamel’s state college tuition. I remember thinking “how familiar, how black and how ridiculous”, begging the question, When does someone earn the right to their own life?  When would Jamel get his portion of the support from the sweat equity he invested in his family? If the answer is never, is he wrong to focus inwardly and leave his family behind. In this instance, there was a dramatic scene where the mother expressed that the more capable, responsible an asset you are to your family-the less ownership you have of “you”-because your family needs you. You are only free to “do you”, if your family doesn’t need your skills ie; “baby making”, drinking excessively, spending money you don’t have or being reckless in some way. Similar circumstances in Zaidie Smith’s novel N.W. 

Regardless; I work hard and I believe
 

However, in  the ‘black family”, there is this need to stay together, a played out vestige of slavery, be it in poverty, be it in prosperity. People who buck this (usually the really successful/unsuccessful)are always criminalized . I always wondered what life would be like if family was likened to a business model, keeping only the beneficial, truncating the non-performing and rewarding the deserving. People who like being surrounded by people,or those with negligible skill sets  may find the results disturbing.(LOL)

However, with the example of Mama Scrappy on LAHH , that ‘almost show’ about Shawty lows fifty-eleven baby mamas, and children –who all live together, and Bridezillas glorified in their emasculation their husbands. All of these examples of “how not to treat” one another put into the open without a advisory label, which is criminals. Concomitantly, these housewife shows and matchmaking shows only highlight the main contributory factor of this “anti-family,” sentiment in America. Turn on any T.V and it’s no wonder why people know more about maintaining their cars than maintaining relationship; and that goes for the business, family and romantic variety.