I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up (3 page)

That doesn’t just apply to my son. It applies to everything I say. When I go through life, I ask, “Why?” just like Mr. Boston taught me to. When I see something that’s fucked up, I can’t remain silent because of the sacrifices that Ron Wolf made for me. I’ve worn a lot of hats in my life. I’ve been wealthy and I’ve been poor. I’ve been a King of Comedy, playing to an all-black crowd, and I’ve been a pariah for daring to defend Don Imus. I’ve been a comedian, a commentator, and an actor. I’ve been a “nigger,” an “African-American,” and an “Uncle Tom.” As a stand-up I’ve traveled this country for decades, seeing it at its best and at its worst. And what I’m seeing is terrifying to me. Our culture is at a point where we can ignore one another, where people don’t ever have to engage with others who don’t think the same way that they do. The
tools
for us to come together are themselves falling apart—and the biggest tool for people to come together is
communication
.

We are failing to communicate in this nation on a fundamental level. It’s not even political correctness. I am obviously not a PC person, but it’s much worse than being extra-careful about how you say things. We are at a point where people can say things that are
nakedly
untrue, and everyone around them will smile and nod—and then repeat it, and on, and on. Well, just because a song is
popular
don’t make it
factual
.

Communication is a relationship between two parties—and half of communication is
listening
. I can’t remember the last time I
watched a news program or interview show where one party stopped and considered what someone else is saying. It almost never happens. Everyone comes in with their talking points, waits patiently for their turn to spout their perspective, and then the people watching at home parrot what they have just seen. That’s not communication. That’s
repetition
.

One of the harshest criticisms of old-fashioned education was that it only got students to memorize and repeat names, dates, and numbers. They didn’t get the perspective to know what these things meant. Well, our culture doesn’t even get that far. We’re not repeating names, dates, and numbers, which are
facts
. We’re repeating talking points, aspersions, and allegations, which are
opinions
—and dubious ones at that. Shut the fuck up!

We live in the information age, but we’re less informed than ever. The Internet is the most powerful repository of human knowledge that has ever existed, yet we’re too fucking self-absorbed and stupid to actually go out and learn things for
free
. Why learn something when you can just look it up, right? That lazy mindset is pervasive. People genuinely believe America is the greatest, smartest, and strongest country in the world—and that
they
are therefore great, smart, and strong. Let me tell you something: Intelligence is not contagious.
Shut the fuck up!

It used to be that people would grieve when one of their loved ones passed. I’m not
that
old to remember that this was the universal reaction. When you got that phone call, your heart skipped a bit and you paused. You remembered, and you reflected. Maybe you cried a little bit. Now people’s
immediate
reaction is to Tweet or update their status. A human being has
died
and people run to express as publicly as possible how
they
feel. The right to bear arms doesn’t mean you need to go out and shoot guns; the right to free
speech doesn’t mean you need to go out and shoot your motherfucking mouth.
SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I hope this book will make people reflect, and possibly learn something. I’d be very glad if it makes people laugh. But if readers are to take one thing away from it,
just one thing
, it’s this: If you’re ever at a point where you’re not sure what to do, stop for a minute and
think
. Examine the issue from the opposite point of view, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel. And if you’re ever tempted to repeat one of the absurdities I discuss,
I want you to shut the fuck up
.

T
HE
American dream is in dire need of a wake-up call.

The
only
national consensus that exists is that
we are fucked
. We’re fucked today, and we’re going to be fucked in the future. No one seems to know the way out of this mess, and I can see why. That’s because the first step to getting better is doing something no one is willing to do: identify the nature of the problem.

Healing and getting better works the same way with people as it does with countries. If you are in denial, if you think everything is fine, then things are simply going to keep getting worse and worse until you hit bottom. When it’s a person that hits bottom, it’s somewhat of a positive: He can turn his life around. He can get the help he needs. But when it’s a nation that hits bottom, there might not
be any going back. That means a country breaking up, or political repression, or economic collapse. No matter what form it takes, it means a great deal of suffering on a huge scale.

But our leaders don’t tell us that we have a problem. They encourage us to maintain our delusions. They flatter us so we can stay fat, ignorant, and lazy. Every political leader anywhere on the political spectrum proclaims loudly and openly that America is the greatest country in the world. They’re lying—
and they know it
. It’s Chicken Little, but in reverse. The sky is falling, but we’re supposed to act like everything’s fine.

It may sound alarmist, but that’s only because the
facts
are alarming.
There is no standard of living by which America is the best country in the world
. In terms of life expectancy, we’re 36th—tied with Cuba, and behind Israel. We trail
every
Western European country in terms of life expectancy, with one exception. In terms of literacy, we’re 20th—behind Poland and Kazakhstan. We sit here making Polish jokes and laughing at Borat while the Kazakhs sit in their homes
reading
. In terms of murders per capita, we’re worse than such allegedly violent nations as Iran and Libya. We boast about being the world’s one superpower and winning the Cold War. Yet our national debt is at a record $14 trillion, and the creditors are the Chinese. Russia’s national debt, on the other hand, is $150
billion
(dollars). We laughed when the Russians invaded Afghanistan and failed to remake the country—and now are repeating their mistakes.

Things are bad now and they’re only going to get worse. Half of U.S. students who begin college never finish. Whether that’s due to financial reasons or they just can’t handle it, that remains a terrifying statistic for our future as a nation. Let’s add to that high school dropout rates and kids who don’t go to college to begin with.

There
is
a standard by which we’re #1 in the world. We have more of our citizens locked up in prison than every other country.
Every
other nation, from dictatorship to democracy, has fewer of its people locked up. How is that the Land of the Free? How can we claim any moral high ground when we have so many of our own people behind bars? You can look at that as a gross misapplication of justice, which is evil, or you can look at it as a consequence of a nation rife with criminals. But how can a nation rife with criminals be considered moral?

I am not claiming for a second that telling people hard truths is an easy thing to do. It’s
very
difficult. A person can’t hear you if they refuse to even listen. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, and the person I lied to is
myself
. Five days a week, I go for a five-mile run. I used to pride myself on being able to jump on a treadmill and start going with no warm-up necessary. Today I have Achilles tendinitis and it’s
very
painful. I’ve got to stretch, coax, and pray that my tendinitis won’t flare up if I go for a run. I’ve been running for a very long time, since before I ran from the Crips in high school. It took a lot of physical pain and many bullshit explanations before I could admit to myself that
that’s not me no more
. I’m
not
that young dude I liked to think of myself as.

When I looked up the causes for Achilles tendinitis, I found that one of them was being a middle-aged athlete. As athletes get older, they can’t run as fast or as far as they used to. It’s understandable why a record-breaking athlete believes that the rules don’t apply to him. He made his career by overcoming insurmountable obstacles. After his glory days are behind him, he’s too respected to have someone sit him down and tell him that his time has passed. The athlete goes on believing that he can keep running forever, that he’s the one guy who can beat time.
That’s what America is like
. We’re
that fat, middle-aged athlete who thinks he can do what he used to do.

Our recent history is full of examples of us thinking that the rules don’t apply to America. We’re the one guy that can cut taxes in a time of war. We’re the one country that can beat Afghanistan—even though nobody else has. We’re the one nation that can gut school spending and somehow produce an educated workforce. That’s what I see when I see appeals to blind patriotism. It’s saying that we are somehow so
inherently
different as a nation that we can violate socioeconomic principles without any consequences.

There’s no country in the world that can sit America the middle-aged athlete down and tell him, “You’re too old for this. Why do you keep embarrassing yourself? At a certain point, you’ve got to hang up the cleats. Stop! That’s why people play golf! It’s not disrespectful and it’s not embarrassing. Golfers live longer, anyway.”

We’ve all heard the expression “Put your money where your mouth is.” Our money is in our mouth, and that’s the military. Besides prison population per capita, the other standard we lead the world in is military strength. But are the most militaristic nations the best societies to live in? Nations that spend a lot of money on their militaries are not exactly happy utopias where the general population thrives. At the rate we’re going, what’s going to be left for the military to protect? Burger King?

Every empire that has ever existed has been brought down by circumstances similar to the ones we are experiencing now: overreaching, doing more than they should, and ignoring the signs of their own demise.
Everyone
thought it wouldn’t happen to them. But when it did, it wasn’t some twist ending. It was
inevitable
. We need
to remember that we’re not the only power in the world. There are seven other countries in the G8 summit, and by and large they’re doing just fine. They’re doing better than fine, because they don’t have to carry around the burden of being the “world’s only superpower.” Being a superpower simply means we can kick everybody’s ass—but that’s
all
it means. It’s not like being a
supercomputer
, solving problems with finesse, ease, and efficiency. It simply speaks to our great strength. And who relies on their great strength to solve problems?
Assholes
. That’s what
makes
them such assholes!

What does that look like to all the other countries? No one ever dares to raise
that
question. When you’re a teenager, being able to kick everybody’s ass made you the baddest dude in the neighborhood. But as you outgrow that juvenile mentality, being able to whup everybody doesn’t make you any cooler. The baddest dude in the neighborhood generally becomes the brokest, and it’s the nerds that eventually run shit. That bad asshole never gets it. He thinks his skill set, being able to outfight everyone, is the most redeeming one. Well, it’s
not. No one
thinks it is, except for him.

To most people around the world, America is a bully that throws its weight around. We’re the dude who gets drunk all the time and starts bar fights, knowing he’ll win.
No one
wants to be friends with that guy, yet they pretend to like him because they fear him. The instant that motherfucker gets it, they’re all happy that it happened.