I was in the checkout line, when this sister wheeled her cart into the line behind me. The cart was filled with cases of soda and bottles of juice. She began placing her items on the conveyor and ended up dropping a bottle of red juice that splashed all over my pants and onto the floor.
Now, I could have been pissed she didn’t mutter a cursory, “I’m sorry,” and I was a bit perturbed by that, but I was more intrigued by what she did say, because it brought about an Aha! moment that had been developing within my inquisitive brain for some time.
She said to the cashier, “Can you get someone to clean this up? This juice just fell and busted.”
Wow! *a moment of silence for the juice, because my grandson loves juice*
Initially, I couldn’t help thinking that I must have missed some kind of miracle, because I have never, ever, seen a bottle of juice, of its own volition, hop out of a shopping cart or from a shelf and commit suicide by spilling all its bodily fluids.
Strange thinking makes for strange bedfellows. Yeah, think on that. Also, think on the fact it’s completely not part of this incident. *moving on*
The point of this, is that I have heard this from too many corners of society but, most interestingly, in the religious or black community or the religious black community, where we speak of incidents as if they are happening through no control of ours. How do I know whether she was religious? I don’t, but this has nothing to do with my basis.
What is revealing is that it’s almost a reflexive action for us to quickly look for someone or something to blame when WE do things we feel might lead to consequences and repercussions. As if most things in life are due to third-party intervention, with little input from us.
Blog Break: *You come down here and try to take my cornbread, it’s gon’ be some consequences and repercussions.*
Umm, yeah, keep reading.
Whether this woman was religious or not, I hear these accountabilities and responsibilities placed on others and inanimate objects, all the time. Take for example, gun violence. The gun is blamed for the violence. An inanimate object is given a human quality that would almost convince us that guns eat, shit and sleep like we do, and then get dressed and go out and murder people for no good reason JUST LIKE HUMANS, when the reality is that it is the person with their finger on the trigger that killed someone. Personal responsibility. Accountability.
Countless times, I’ve read news articles that state a car struck a pedestrian, especially if it was a cop rushing to another crime scene (hint, hint, Georgia, Atlanta, specifically), when the reality is that someone driving that car struck the pedestrian. Not saying a car can’t do that through some type of failure on some human’s part, but it is a rarity that a car strikes a pedestrian with no assistance. Yes, people have been run over by their own cars. Drunk people have mastered this. People have had their cars fall off the jack and crush them, but somewhere along the line there was human intervention, whether correct or not.
I went through that whole list of disconnected examples to say that it almost appears to be part of the American cultural makeup to place blame and responsibility elsewhere. To animate the inanimate, to make blame placing easier. Maybe that’s why so many American cartoons feature animals going on adventures with humans, living human-like existences. Or maybe this has nothing to do with anything, and I’m the one that’s reaching. My check would have cleared had they not deposited it that day.
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