Is It Just Me? Part 1

IS IT JUST ME?.

Or is it nuts out there?

by WHOOPI GOLDBERG.

Foreword: Rude Awakening

First of all, thanks for picking up this book. I'm sure the cover got your attention too. That was the point. Now that you've done so, you may be wondering, "What the h.e.l.l?"-which is one of the names I had for this. Some of the others were Uncivil Liberties Uncivil Liberties (which no one got), or (which no one got), or If You're in Confession, You Can't Have an Autograph, If You're in Confession, You Can't Have an Autograph, which everyone said sounded like a prissy book by a celebrity. And then which everyone said sounded like a prissy book by a celebrity. And then Is It Just Me? Is It Just Me? came into being because it really does say it all. came into being because it really does say it all.

As it turns out, it isn't just me. When I asked different people what was bugging them, it turned out that it was the same stuff bugging me!-and I knew what I wanted to write.

Somehow so many little pieces of courtesy have gone by the wayside. People in your face, in your business, not caring if they are invading your s.p.a.ce, being disrespectfully loud.

Thoughtlessness is the new manners, and I've got to say I don't like it. Now, I'm guilty of some of those things, but I'm aware of it, so I try not to share my cell phone conversations with everyone. I try to remember to say "please" and "thank you"-all the things my mom taught me to do . . . that I don't do anymore. But if I'm slacking on it, and if you're slacking on it, and everyone else is slacking on it, well, you can see just how we may have gotten ourselves to the point of "I'm Annoyed/You're Annoyed."

So over the last year there were days when I remembered to write things down that struck me. Many are written here. They cover the map of my mind, unleashed on you the way they appear in my head. Little things, the way I can comment on them in a book but not on TV.

In no particular order-oh, and I don't necessarily have any answers guaranteed to work for anyone. I can just hear you saying, "Jeez, Whoop, your head's up your b.u.t.t," or "Hey, Whoop, that's interesting." But either way, you might as well get this book 'cause that guy over there just sneezed and didn't cover his mouth, and the look on your face says, "No, Whoop, it's not just you."

Whoopi EAST C COAST.

MAY 12, 2010 12, 2010.

Chapter 1.

Abuse It and Lose It.

People do a lot of crazy things, but when I think about all of the things they should not be doing, the craziest thing on my mind is people drinking and driving.

How long have we been trying to stop drunk driving? Oh, only for as long as I can remember. Think of all those films they made us watch back in driver's ed. And then there's all the public service announcements on TV. I always wondered why they play them late at night, though, while the drinkers are still in the bars getting tanked. Oh well. But when it comes to drunk driving, you can't say there isn't awareness. What's missing is effectiveness.

Maybe the ads aren't graphic or scary enough. At least not enough to reach the people who get hammered and drive. Now, for smoking, it's different. I see thousands of TV commercials showing people stuck in bed because they smoke cigarettes and they're dying of cancer. They make these heart-wrenching pleas, "Don't be like me . . . Don't smoke." It's impossible to watch them and not feel the impact emotionally. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see any PSAs as powerful about drinking and driving. I don't see anybody doing any commercials with the cars burned up and turned to charcoal . . . blood spatters all over the ground . . . some celebrity announcer getting all whispery, saying, had this driver not had that final drink then he or she would still be alive.

But the more I think about it, the sad truth is, maybe no public service announcement-no matter how strong or scary-is going to be enough. After all, disturbing as they are, I've seen plenty of those stop smoking spots, and I still light up.

I think we need to do more.

This subject has always been in my consciousness for one reason. It's basic. I believe that people have to be responsible for what they do. There's a concept, huh? Personal responsibility. Good lord, Whoopi's gone crazy, talking like that!

It's true, though. Actions should have consequences. But the consequences also have to match the responsibility. So, all right, then. If I smoke, I know there's a possibility that I could croak from it. I also know there's a possibility I could croak just because I stepped on the sidewalk. But what I don't like is that I can drink and drive and get caught-and then get my car back!! That's not a consequence. If I drink and drive, if I get pulled over and flunk the test, my car should be taken. Period. That's a consequence. You shouldn't get two, or three, or four, five, six chances.

Now, remember the woman who was that wrong-way driver on the Taconic Parkway in New York? Yeah, who could forget. Well, there's still a lot of talk about her because her husband says he didn't know her to be a drug user or an alcohol abuser. Folks in her neighborhood were kind of saying the same thing. And yet her stomach contents told a totally different story. If the lab tests were correct, though, you have to wonder, was this a one-time thing? We will never really know. But we do know this: For a lot of drunk drivers, it doesn't happen just once. Not even close. But, hold on, if so many people get caught drinking and driving, and then go out and do it again and again and again, it begs the question: Why is it?

I'll tell you why.

Because there's no consequence.

Oh, sure there are penalties, but not enough to be a deterrent. Not from what I've seen. Not happening. The evidence is that the behavior continues. How many times do we see that drunk drivers like the guy who allegedly killed Nick Adenhart, the Angels baseball player, are repeat offenders are repeat offenders? Hey, why did that dude still have a car? He should not not have been able to have a car. No debate. You don't want people to drink and drive? When they do it-take the car! And then they have to prove that they're clean and able to be a responsible human being behind the wheel. have been able to have a car. No debate. You don't want people to drink and drive? When they do it-take the car! And then they have to prove that they're clean and able to be a responsible human being behind the wheel.

I tell you, if I had my own world? If you drank and drove, and got caught, you would not have a car. Your new best friend would be the bus, Jack. Someone would have to come and get you from the police station. And you would not be able to get your car back until I knew that you had gone through a program and had a certificate that said you have been clean and sober for seventy-five days.

And while I'm good and hot about this, let me unload on the texters. If you get caught texting, your car should disappear for a month. Because, you know what? It's too dangerous to text and drive, same as drinking. You get caught . . . bye-bye, car. You're not a responsible enough person.

Some people might say that is too extreme. Come on. If you're not going to be responsible, someone has to step in like when you were a kid. The minute you're doing something that is affecting the public roadways or other places where you can do harm to others, I don't care if the government steps in and takes your car. You shouldn't have been drinking and driving.

And if a public service message won't get your attention, maybe that will.

Chapter 2.

Politics Has Gotten #%! Nasty.

If you're involved in politics, first of all, let me say this. I feel sorry for you. Seriously. How do people manage to get up every day and do that job? I don't get it. I just don't see how. And it's always been a tough business. You have to have one thick hide, I don't care what party you are in.

And being President doesn't cut you any slack. Not one bit. No matter what a President does, the other side is going to say, "We don't want it." Now, that sort of comes with the turf when you have more than one political party. It's why guys like Stalin and Hitler didn't need to do too much debating. Or vote-counting. Campaign spending? Not an issue. We have give and take. That's at the heart of what's always made our country work, I think. Your side didn't always win, but you shook hands and moved on. It's never been perfect, but mostly, it's been good for the people.

But things have changed. It feels like politics today is not about what's best for the people. Politics today seems to be about my side shoulda won-and we're going to do everything we can do to make you look bad.

And wow, do they ever.

Once, when you heard a politician say it was time to roll up our sleeves, it meant to get down to business. Now it's for the fight. What the h.e.l.l is going on? Senators flipping people off. Congressmen heckling the President, shouting that he lies. Political negativity has become toxic.

I could never go into politics. I don't have the patience. I would have popped that guy from South Carolina that yelled "You lie!" right there in Congress. I'm tired of the disrespect that's being shown to the office. I'm tired of people saying, "Well, we're not going to let our kids listen to the President of the United States." How do you not play his address to the children? What's the message you're sending? Is it really that you don't like his politics?

Hey, while we're at it? I'm also tired of people asking him for his birth certificate. Maybe they'd also like two forms of photo ID so he can cash a check while he's at it . . . Yeah, like they'd ever cash his check.

Presidents have always had their detractors, but come on. Was there ever this degree of p.i.s.sing-on-trees acrimony around President Clinton or President Bush?

So what is it? Is it politics? Race? What is it?

Hard question. I go back and forth about what it is. I know what it sounds like.

But if I were President . . . which would never happen . . . but let's say for these purposes here-let's say if I were were the President-I would say to that heckler, "I am the President of the United States. You may not like all my policies. You may not like what I stand for, but you don't get to disrespect me. We are a civil society. We're not Parliament, OK?" the President-I would say to that heckler, "I am the President of the United States. You may not like all my policies. You may not like what I stand for, but you don't get to disrespect me. We are a civil society. We're not Parliament, OK?"

But I'd say it an inch from his face . . . But I wouldn't shout. Because A, I'm not a hypocrite, and B, I'm too cool to stoop.

So what's the deal? Is it race, or a total lack of acceptance in the turnout of the election? To make matters worse, all the talking heads have been incredibly disrespectful on both sides. There's never been a shortage of partisan goons to push everybody's b.u.t.tons, but never like this before. This feels different.

Debates that used to be about finger-pointing are all about finger-biting. Middle-aged folks are disrupting town hall meetings. Tea Party people are taking their tea bagging to the streets . . . People are scared. It's kooky.

A few years back, when I appeared at a rally for John Kerry, I made this joke . . . I'm a comic, after all. It started this ugly storm of controversy. You may or may not remember all that, but if you do, let me ask you something. Did you ever see what I said?

No, n.o.body did. Because if you go back to those newspapers right after the incident, try to find what I said.

Go ahead. I want you to see if you can find what I actually said. Here's a big hint: You won't see it.

It was a joke about Bush. But all of the newspapers that said that I said something terrible never actually printed what I said. That drove me crazy. It made it sound worse because it was left to folks' imaginations. They print other controversial things. There's a way to do that. You know, whenever someone curses or is crude . . . what they do in print is put in some dots and dashes. "He's a big old P-dot-dash-exclamation-point-Y." That's what you would see.

We saw it when Vice President Biden whispered his F-bomb to the president at the signing ceremony for the health care bill and he didn't know his microphone was live. Good ol' Joe. He's the cool uncle who sort of has this Restless Lip Syndrome. Whether you like his politics or not, that guy always keeps things entertaining. And when he leaned in to whisper in the President's ear, all the TV stations and the newspapers used the punctuation trick when they quoted him saying, "This is a big f***ing deal."

Not the case with me.

No one took a moment to say, "Well, where is it? Where is the quote? What exactly did she say?" And here's the real p.i.s.ser. Even if I said something about the President, when did that become a no-no?

I've messed with Presidents from Reagan to Obama. Although . . . to be clear . . . I never once heckled them. And certainly not in a joint session of Congress. Puh-leeze!

Do you see there's a difference? I comment. I skewer. I joke. That's part of what I do as a comic. And it's a cornerstone of America's First Amendment rights. I mean, we're not in Iran or China, where it is courting death. So what was the result? It became economically unfeasible to make any protest or comment. It also got very vindictive, and I got no support from Democrats who were there.

As I think about it, maybe it was the beginning of what we're seeing more of now.

Which takes me right back to why I would never run for President. I wouldn't. And know why? Same reason a lot of folks don't. Or who don't go for cabinet appointments or judgeships.

Who the h.e.l.l wants to be subjected to all the prying? Ask yourself. If you had the shot, would you want all your business hanging out there like that? I hear you. Who would?

Let he who is without sin run for office, because everyone else would never pa.s.s the test. Or put up with it.

Too bad. It would be nice to have more people running our government who have lived different lives. But we've made it impossible for those people to step forward. There's too much scrutiny. First your bank accounts get pawed through. Then they start pontificating about your affiliations with subversive groups. You know, like AAA and Sam's Club. And suddenly, some distant cousin finds himself as the lead story on the news. Why? Because someone investigating you ended up discovering poor old cuz smoked pot in college. And what really upsets you is that he never shared.

And then there was that library book you checked out on-gasp!-human anatomy. Hey, judging from what most politicians are into these days, at least it was humans.

The whole process is a barrage of invasiveness. What have you done? Who did you do it with? . . . And then there's all those forms to fill out.

Now, of course, I am not perfect. I am really really imperfect. imperfect.

That's why I'll never run for office. Because you have to be too clean. I am not clean. I've had a lot of mud. Forget the skeletons, I've got the mud. And, know what? I don't want to have to explain me to anybody.

I think we're all better off with me here on the sidelines, doing me.

Chapter 3.

Group Insult.

Let me see . . . We've had the New Deal. We've had the Great Society. I think this era has a name too. Know what I think it is? I think it's the Fugliness. And not because of all the bad plastic surgery out there. I call it that because politicians aren't just ugly with each other. Now it's whole groups of folks . . . and often, the politicians won't come out and say who they are talking about-like Arizona. In Arizona, they keep saying "illegal aliens," but to me, that's ALL illegals . . . British, Italian, Greek, Africans, Chinese, Canadians . . . It's a long list of those not here legally. So let's find them. Make them go through the process, right? I'm down for that.

However, that's NOT what they mean in Arizona. They mean Mexicans, so why not have the b.a.l.l.s to say what they mean? Come out and say, "We want the right to check the papers of anyone WE think might be an illegal Mexican." Because if they had to look at those words, they would have to look at their own BS-and see themselves the same way we see the n.a.z.i period when they did a similar thing.

Or how about when they talk about the welfare system and they always just love to flash somebody's picture up abusing welfare in some flamboyant way. Like folks all over the country are just sitting around drinking and partying-enjoying the good life on the dole.

Ahh . . . nothing like it.

Guess what? People on welfare generally don't want to be there. They want to get off welfare.

But, you see, politicians like to label groups in order to manipulate public opinion to their way of thinking. And nothing gets attention faster than demonizing somebody. Put a face on the problem, but don't leave off the devil horns! They say, "Oh, look at those people over there collecting fifteen checks and beating the system, taking money out of your pocket." Well, yeah, there are people who are doing that. There are people who did that in the white-collar sector too. It's not just welfare recipients that double-dip.

How about Enron, or Bernie Madoff, or any of those Wall Street bailout guys who were broke but still throwing lavish parties? Want to talk about abusing a system? The bill for the ice sculptures at those parties was higher than that junk mortgage they sold you. But we don't feel like they're the ones doing it to us. Somehow when talk turns to people on welfare, they're the culprits, they're the people who are s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g us. It's always, "We were able to make it. Why can't they?" . . . Which sounds a whole lot like, "I have my ice sculpture, where's yours?"

But I think that's probably changed a lot now since the recession. Because I think people started to see that unexpected things come up, and folks can't be so certain where they're going to be. And if that's you, you want there to be a safety net in place. You want the welfare system to be there for you. The whole reason for these programs is to help when the unexpected happens-to anyone.

Like health care. I'm glad that the coverage pa.s.sed. Because the truth of the matter is none of us knows when we're going to need it. And all those folks who say, no, no, we're never going to need it, they have to take a look at what's going on. Who ever thought they were going to lose their job? You worked for folks and you thought you had a lifelong job with them. No more.

So because n.o.body knows if they themselves are going to end up needing a.s.sistance, I'd be very cautious before I insulted a whole group of people over stories you see about the bad apples taking cruises and drinking champagne in welfare hot tubs.

Like I said, there are those people, they do exist. But, come on. We all know a small percentage of frauds don't make up the entire system. It's like pregnancy. Pregnant teenagers don't make up that entire picture. Black people on welfare don't make up that entire picture. Most folks don't realize the people who benefited most from Affirmative Action were women . . . and white women were topping the list. Why? Because they were able to go into the work force and into colleges in a way that they'd never been able to before. They are the biggest recipients of Affirmative Action-women! But when you listen to people talk about Affirmative Action, it's all, "Oh . . . all those black kids . . . getting everything just handed to them." So you've got to pay attention. 'Cause there's a lot of information out there that is sort of semi-right but not totally.

And here's something else. I know what I'm talking about when I talk about the value of welfare because I was on it.

And thank G.o.d for the welfare system.

It helped me through a very tough time. When I went on it, I knew I was going to get a job eventually. And when I did get on my feet, I sent the check back. Yup. I didn't need it. I wrote a little note that I put in with it and said, "I've managed to get myself some work and I don't think I'll be needing these anymore. So please remove me from the roll."

Many people do that, send their last checks back.

You don't hear about that from detractors, do you? No, because detractors don't care about the facts. That's the saddest part about so many things. Facts no longer seem to matter. And then when the truth comes out, it's way the h.e.l.l back on page ninety with little, tiny, unreadable print.

They save the big type for the insults. Why? Because every cause needs a demon.

Chapter 4.