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You read it right. I said right “thang” instead of right “thing.” It’s a play in word, a slang way of saying “thing” just like my once favorite pastry place in the Bucktown area of Chicago called, “Sweet Thang.” It’s just my way of breaking the monotony of the word and catching your attention.
Contrary to the lightness of the title though, my subject is rather serious. It’s about doing or saying the right thing and the fact that many of us often struggle to do or say what we feel is right because of restrictions we or some other people or factors have placed in our psyche.
Remember the children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”? This will help me drive the point of this article. Let me help you with a short synopsis of the story. The story goes like this:
Many years ago there lived an emperor who cared only about his clothes and about showing them off. One day he heard from two weavers who are actually swindlers that they could make the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they said, also had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not fit for his position.
Being a bit nervous about whether he himself would be able to see the cloth, the emperor first sent two of his trusted men to see it. Of course, neither would admit that they could not see the cloth and so praised it. All the townspeople had also heard of the cloth and were interested to learn how stupid their neighbors were.
The emperor then allowed himself to be dressed in the clothes for a procession through town, never admitting that he was too unfit and stupid to see what he was wearing. He was afraid that the other people would think that he was stupid.
Of course, all the townspeople wildly praised the magnificent clothes of the emperor, afraid to admit that they could not see them, until a small child said:
“But he has nothing on”!
This was whispered from person to person until everyone in the crowd was shouting that the emperor had nothing on. The emperor heard it and felt that they were correct, but held his head high and finished the procession.
It might be just a simple children’s story but this one, just like many others in the same genre, teaches lessons many of us adults can truly learn from. Think about the prevalence of swindlers in our community and how they prey on their targets’ idiosyncrasies. Swindlers like the Nigerian scammers are all over the Internet, costing $198.4 million cases of fraud based on statistics of 2007. Their scams range from finding someone willing to accept donations of millions of dollars from a certain deposed corrupt government or military leader from an African country to a friend who got stranded in London or a country in Europe, needing financial help and asking for your credit card info to come home. The Internet is rife with all kinds and forms of scams. The key to avoiding falling victim to these scams is to be well informed and to know your resources – places and links to check before embarking on any transaction involving money. Also, remember the age-old adage that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Why do so many of these scams continue to proliferate in our society? Not only is it because people are so desperate for money now that they are willing to believe the incredible, but that those who got scammed wouldn’t come forward out of shame and fear of ridicule. Like the emperor and his ilk who didn’t want to be thought of as stupid, these fraud victims would rather suffer in silence than admit in shame that they had been had.
Speaking up or standing up for what’s right and true doesn’t always come easy. The truth is, more and more people are having a hard time doing so especially in a not so friendly, if not altogether hostile environment. Being fearful of the consequence of being vocal about what we honestly think and feel is not uncommon. What if we are the lone voice that echoes the sentiments not welcome or acceptable to these people around us? Are we prepared to reap their ire or can we even defend our stand when faced with an overwhelming opposition?
We do get scared of stirring emotions and debates we aren’t sure we can handle. That’s only normal. What isn’t normal, I think, is not even trying. To just keep quiet while so much lies and untruths are being passed for facts and to know that they could later cause irreparable damage to others is inexcusable.
I was having a phone conversation with a slightly older friend one afternoon and she brought up the difficult task of reconciling expectations with reality. How she sometimes find no easy way to give her opinions and pass advice to her children without being misconstrued as being either too critical or overstepping her bounds. What should a mother do when confronted with a choice to speak up her mind to raise awareness of an existing problem at the expense of peace at home or that other option to simply ignore her observation to avoid a probable conflict? The answer is even harder. .. I guess this is when a mother needs to have a feel of the situation and act accordingly.
Another important lesson from The Emperor’s New Clothes has to do with the current political climate in the U.S. With the advent of a new brand of GOP politics, where extreme conservative views are running wild and are dominating the party, I find a lot of of swindlers ( people, leaders, politicians and corporations) who insist on making voters believe that health care reform is bad for us, Medicare and Social Security are a Ponzi scheme and Democrats want big government messing with our private and individual choices like those bad socialist countries do and making us believe that they want what is good for us, the people.
Baloney, baloney, baloney. These new crap (oops, did I say crap and not crop?) of GOP leaders in the US Congress are nothing more than this emperor, who insists he wears the finest suit but is, in fact, naked.
The child in me cries, the GOP political machines are so transparent I can see them spewing lies, lies and nothing but more lies.!