The voice or the echo?

When you are a child, the adults in your life control your every move.

You are told what to do, what not to do, what to think and what to believe is true about the world around you.

Your opinion matters only in how closely aligned it is with the caregivers needs. Don't believe me? Look at the children that might be in your life (or your friends’ children if you don't have any). How often does a parent truly pay attention to what that child is saying? And, even more telling, how often does that parent take to heart or act on the information?

Now, granted, you might be thinking that the parent doesn't act on it since the words are coming from an unformed, immature and undisciplined mind. But think this through - how often have you seen a child spend hours on a task that doesn't make sense to you? And yet that child has the discipline to see the project through. (It doesn't matter what it is or if it even works, that's not the point) I can't count the number of adults who don't have 1/10th that discipline.

As a result of all that parental control one of two things will happen. The child will eventually rebel against the perceived lack of internal control of their life. They will then begin to distrust everything that comes out of the mouth of any 'adult'. This includes family members, teachers, bosses, friends, police, or any other authority figure. People who take this path tend to lead lives that do not include a load of circumscribed rules. They will follow their own internal voices to whatever destiny awaits. Hopefully it is one that is in alignment with who they are inside and therefore beneficial.

The other outcome is actually less desirable. The child will fall into a pattern of seeking out authority figures to help run their lives because they never feel like adults. They will gravitate to the strongest person they can find and become mired in subservient dogma. You see this time and again in people who don’t seem to have personalities of their own. They follow behind another person agreeing with everything that occurs, bad or good. You will also see this in people who don’t seem to have a style of their own. They are chameleons that morph and change according to the group they are currently with. It’s almost impossible to discern who the real person is because it’s so deeply hidden, or completely non-existent. People like this have no opinion that isn’t part of the group opinion. Get them alone and question them and it’s like talking to a wall or an advocate for someone else.

The above is one of the things that I am trying to change in my own life. I’ve caught myself doing the chameleon thing. Changing from one personality to the next depending on the group I am with.

Some of it comes from being black, but not having a lot of ‘black’ attributes. I don’t speak in slang or Ebonics. I love to read and listen to other types of music besides hip-hop or rap. I am a huge science fiction and fantasy fan. Some of my favorite characters include the X-Men, SpongeBob, and hobbits.

When I am in a group of black males I bury all of this. I don’t let any of it show. My vocal intonations change. I use slang or cuss a lot. I drink too much. Everything that makes up the real me is completely submerged in order to either fit in or avoid being judged. My sense of humor becomes cruder and even what I think is on a different level. I do this because I am tired of being told that I ‘act white’.

When I am around a white or educated crowd, I am much more reserved and quiet. My encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek trivia rolls off my tongue. My speech patterns contain no slang, no Ebonics, and no deliberately mispronounced words. I talk about music and technology and writing. Of course, I do a bit more nodding my head. This is because I know that I am not the sharpest knife in the block and I usually need a moment or two to formulate a witty response. I do this because I am then thought of as ‘well spoken.’

In a mixed crowd, I sort of combine the two. I use more slang and my humor becomes kind of crude again. But it’s more controlled. I watch what I say carefully, gauging my response to the type of crowd. I talk about the weather and taking care of my house and other safe subjects. I do this because I am then thought of as a ‘good host’.

Where does all this come from? Perhaps as part of a childhood that included being shuttled back and forth between parents. Maybe it’s from going between the hood and the subdivision. Or maybe it’s from the lessons learned moving from an urban area, to a rural area to the suburban area of central California. I don’t know and at this point it really doesn’t matter. I’m not a child anymore. But there are times that I still feel myself slipping into that long ago role.

The voice or the echo? Every time I get into a conversation with a new person I wonder which one I am.