According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, the "Word of the Year" for 2009 is "unfriend." The dictionary's spokespeople define "unfriend" as a verb that means "to remove someone as a friend" on a social networking site, such as Facebook."
Okay.
At first glance, I pretty much let that one go right by me, as it was repeated over and over on newscasts and in the press.
Again this year, the New Oxford American "Word of the Year" turned out to be one that I didn't happen to use very much, and I wrote it off, initially, as just another cultural phenomenon. It reminded me of the time, years ago, when I happened to pass by a newsstand and saw a picture of a man on the cover of Time or Newsweek magazine (one or the other), who was being touted as having the number one song in America and, right there, next to his face, in bold type, was his nickname, "The Boss." Right away, I'm wondering: The Boss of what, the Boss of whom? He certainly was no "boss" of mine, not to my knowledge, anyway.
It turns out they were simply talking about a man named Bruce Springsteen, who, up to that point in my life, I had never even heard of. I hadn't seen his face, hadn't listened to his music, didn't know he was called "The Boss," and certainly didn't know that he had the country's best-selling recording.
That was one of those times when I really began to appreciate just how culturally separated we all still are, here in the good old U.S.A. As I mentioned, I felt pretty much the same way when I saw the big news about "unfriend." I was, of course, well aware that people were being added as "friends" on each other's social networking sites, but I had absolutely no idea that there was now a verb that described the action people were taking when those same friends were removed from their sites.
In the real world, when you're finished with a friendship, you just don't call anymore, you just don't visit, you just don't return the person's email or text message. You no longer send letters or holiday cards. There's generally no need for a specific action word to represent the changing nature of the friendship. In the real world, when you no longer want to be friends, people can usually tell by your lack of action, or the simple lessening of such actions, toward them. Usually, over time, they do get the idea.
Among "social networkers," however, I guess you actually have to take the specific step of "unfriending."
In reality, I can't be too hard on this year's "word of the year." Actually, I don't remember being all that impressed with the New Oxford American 2008 word, either. That, of course, was the word" hypermiling", which, as you'll certainly recall, described actions people take with their cars to maximize their gas mileage.
And who can forget the same dictionary's 2007 word, "locavore," which, they carefully explained, was a noun that described a movement that encourages people to buy from farmer's markets, or to grow or pick their own food? Locavores, they pointed out at the time, also frowned on shopping at supermarkets because shipping foods over long distances consumed too much costly energy.
Come to think of it, I've been frowning on supermarkets, myself, lately--and not because I want to be especially environmentally friendly. I just don't like the fact that each time I go to one, I seem to come away having spent more and more money for smaller and far fewer little plastic bags of food. Maybe I'm a "locavore" and didn't even know it.
As I looked back, I got the feeling that the "word of the year" thing was pretty much a bust as far as I was concerned, a lot of arcane, ecological,"techno" kinds of terms that weren't in much use, generally -- especially in the black community. But, then, I started looking at this year's word, "unfriend," again, and I began to think that black folks really could get some good use out of it, if we just paid attention to what was going on around us. In fact, I came up with a pretty good starter list of people, organizations and institutions that should be "unfriended" by African Americans," right now, if we knew what was good for us.
My definition of "unfriend," however, goes far beyond removing them from our Facebook pages. I'm talking about totally and finally rejecting, un-electing and refusing to ever support these worthless "unfriends," again. This is meant to be pro-active, clear and permanent on our part.
Here it goes:
---Government purchasing agents and minority business officers who get paid every day, even though they produce virtually no meaningful contract participation for black businesses --- Unfriend them!
--- Teachers in public schools, who, with their union's support, get paid very attractive salaries and great benefits, even though black kids are not really being taught well and are not really achieving --- Unfriend them!
-----Credit card companies and banks that now offer pre-paid debit cards with criminally high fees, designed to appeal to low-income blacks and to others who can't get normal checking accounts or credit cards from financial institutions ---- Unfriend them!
-----Certain elected officials who are not responsive to the needs of their black constituents, despite the fact that black voters are the primary reason they are in office, in the first place --- Unfriend them!
-----People whom you've known, perhaps all of your life, who tell you that because you're black, you might as well stop trying to succeed because it's "hard out here for a black man, or black woman" ---- Unfriend them!
-----People you know who explain that, because the economy is difficult and they can't find a job, they were "forced" to go back to "slinging" --- Unfriend them, definitely!
----- African Americans who say that we shouldn't expect to live and work cooperatively with blacks from the Caribbean or with recent African immigrants because "they think they're better than us" ---- Unfriend them!
-----Black folks who tell you that it's too much trouble to make any attempt to "buy black" for the upcoming holidays, even, amazingly, for Kwanzaa gifts ---- Unfriend them!
-----People in your community who, despite sound evidence to the contrary, continue to carry themselves and talk as if we are actually living in a "post-racial society" ----Unfriend them!
------People in our own community who believe that 96 percent of black people who voted for a new president in 2008, voted for Barack Obama primarily so that one man would have the honor of being the "first black president," and so that we could be proud of him. Those same people who, after being in this country for nearly 400 years, still don't believe that nearly 40 million African Americans need an elected official at the very top of the government who can and will set about removing the long-standing, institutional impediments to black economic advancement ---- Unfriend them, right now!
Whew!
That was a much longer list than I thought it would be, but the more I started getting into it, the more I realized that -- for black folks-- maybe "unfriend" really should be the "word of the year."
I know this: It's definitely a word we should consider putting to good use more often.
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