I'd Like to Erase You

Some of y'all probably read The Root, or as I like to call it, the Washington Post's Essie Mae Washington-Williams.

I don't really read the site. Every once in a while I might stop through, but it's not something I check out regularly. Honestly, I've found a couple of insightful posts over there, but many times what they write, and what I think is intelligent, aren't matching up. That's just me.

For the most part, I just ignore it. It really ain't no skin off my back, even if their bipster commentary provides cover for certain types of white folks. The black community has room for all kinds of viewpoints, and while the viewpoints expressed there might not make me happy, I'll live.

Well, that was until cats decided to show their hindparts for Black History month. Check out this post on black folks the website would like to erase from Black History and this one about white folks who should be issued a hood pass.

Obviously, I have an issue with these posts despite the fact that I'm sure the site was trying to play them for their comedic value. First problem, them joints ain't funny! They are trafficking in the same banal cliches that have been around for generations, and passing it off as witty insight.

How many jokes about black folks being embarrassed does the world really need? I touched on this a while back here, and the message is still the same. If you are embarrassed by the actions of random black people who have no connection whatsoever to you, then you have been infected with the Sickness.

White folks have convinced you that there are Dem Negroes and Good Negroes, and you are desperately trying to jump on team Good Negro. Stop it, you're only embarrassing yourself. Playing that game, the game where black folks have to police themselves in order to prove that they deserve to be respected members of white society is a sucka's bet.

Hell, one of the folks they have listed on the list of black folks to dump is Marion Barry. Yes, Barry is a walking "Just Say No" advertisement, but you telling me that his foibles completely outweigh his good deeds? The Root is saying that it doesn't matter that Barry participated in sit-ins in the South, that he organized voters in the North, nope, all that matter is that he allowed corruption and narcotics to gain power over him. For that failure, he should have his blackness revoked.

Am I the only one who sees that as stupid? I'm not trying to gloss over Barry's problems, they are legendary, but to suggest that dude's problems should get him cast out of the black race shows either shocking ignorance or deplorable arrogance.

I still can't decided whether it's ignorance or arrogance when I consider the list about white folks who could be black. Phil Jackson, Jeremy Shockey, Anderson Cooper and Brian Urlacher? What kind of ridiculous, half-baked nonsense gets green lighted over there? (For the record, Bill Clinton's blackness was deemed a "no." Guess his racist comments during the election were enough to get his hood pass revoked. For more on Bill Clinton's real feelings about black people, check out the homie Temple 3's website and his piece on the Clinton Plan for Africa.)

Are the good folks at The Root unaware that Urlacher was sued by a black woman because he didn't visit his child for months and wasn't paying his child support? Or that he used to bang Paris Hilton? Or maybe that's what solidifies Urlacher's blackness, his unwillingness to care for his seeds and his willingness to sleep with even the most vile of racist airheads to get a nut? Guess that makes him Pale Mandingo Number One, right?

It's pure insanity that an editor read both of these lists and found them insightful, entertaining and valuable. Come on now, nobody raised the question about what the lists said about "blackness"? Why were these particular white folks almost black? A friend of mine noted that it was like the selection criteria read like this: 1. swagger. 2. street cred. 3. weed. 4. talking beaucoup smack.

What does it mean that Ice T's perpetually half-naked wife Coco was considered for honorary blackness? Or that African child stealer Madonna, who has insisted on ignoring numerous troubled dark-skinned babies here in America to steal, er, import, I mean adopt from the motherland, was also under consideration?

It says that the whole damn list was pap, and it was even worse pap for being trotted out as some sort of ode to Black History. It says that often times the people who hurt black folks the most are other black folks who think they're us a favor. (Crack Cocaine sentencing disparity anyone?) It says that obviously Black History month has been hijacked, sidetracked and ransacked by folks who are no longer interested in Dr. Carter G. Woodson's legacy.

It says I need my damn eraser right now.






Share

Can't Fall

I walk a thin line with two gaping maws on each side.

It would be a relief to fall off.

Just slide down one of those dark throats, slowly enveloped then dissolved.

Me would flee, only us would exist. Melded, intertwined, together.

If I chose, I might rest easier. Undisturbed by churning thoughts and wanton wanderings. I would have a home, a place where acceptance was total and complete.

But, choosing feels wrong. Neither choice is right.

Look at your cold mercy, your rigid comfort. You would have me forget. You want me to abandon and refuse to understand.

I can't. I see me there, my past, present and future. Not all of it, but too much to pretend it doesn't exist. My rock solid faith has fissures, and doubt escapes like steam. Not enough doubt to turn around, but it's there.

Then there's you.

You claim freedom. No more bondage, just existence and experience.

Kick back, relax and enjoy the ride.

But who's driving? Where are we going? Is there a map, a guidebook, any indication that somebody has a plan?

Nah, we would make it up as we go.

That doesn't work for me.

So, I'm back to balancing. One foot in front of the other, arms straight to the side. Slowly, stepping, then checking, stepping, then checking, trying not to fall.

Trying to stay on that narrow path.


Share

Yeah, You Ain't All That

Arrogant was a word often used to describe me in the past.

Blunt, crass and self-absorbed might have been thrown around as well. Some folks have called me cruel and a bully. I'm not proud of this, but those are the facts.

When it finally got through my head that maybe I wasn't walking the way I wanted to walk, I decided to start changing. Those of y'all who have tried to change some personality traits can imagine how I'm struggling with that task. But, as I struggle, I still progress.

But, with all my flaws, I do have some strengths. I used to believe one of those strengths was a lack of color bias. Growing up in New Orleans, you learn pretty quickly that color bias ain't a fantasy. Folks down here take "colorstruck" to a whole new level, and as a result dark-skinned folks, particularly little girls, can have a hard life. Until recently, I never saw myself as being affected by this. I've always liked a variety of women in all shapes, sizes and colors, so I never considered myself "colorstruck."

Then a friend of mine sent me this link and I had to re-evaluate my self image yet again.

If you click the link you'll find a photo gallery of black women who have made the transition from relaxed hair to natural hair. I like natural hair, my wife has a big ol' afro and I cornrow and twist it for her all the time. It's a quality time tradition we started when she was pregnant with my oldest son, and it's continued through the years.

I always assumed that I didn't have a hair preference. But, when I looked at those pictures, I found myself oddly drawn to the pictures with relaxed hair, even though the person in each photo was the same. I found myself thinking of the relaxed hair as "neater" or "prettier" and that's when I realized I had a problem.

The dreaded Sickness.

That's what my friend and I call it. That friend had the same reaction as me when she looked through the gallery despite the fact that she's transitioning to natural hair right now. We both know that black women's natural hair is neat and pretty and wonderful, but yet we couldn't honestly deny being drawn to the relaxed hair.

The Sickness is insidious in that way. Even if you take the time to educate yourself on the way European beauty standards have been foisted on vulnerable black people, you are still susceptible to that brainwashing. Just when you think you've eradicated all traces of Sickness from your mind, and you're congratulating yourself on that accomplishment, another manifestation of the Sickness will rear its ugly, pimpled head.

It was humbling and startling to come to the realization that I was carrying around this hidden bias. Not only did it remind me that I always have work to do if I want to reach my personal goals, it also made me wonder what other biases are lurking in my subconscious. Are there other forms of the Sickness hidden in the recesses of my poor brain that will only be revealed under stress? Will I be out with my kids one day chilling and then suddenly start regurgitating racist pap that would make Larry Elder proud? It's unnerving.

I guess I'll just have to forge ahead and trust my training in the rules of blackness to keep me safe in the future. It doesn't help that I've found out that most of my favorite movies from my youth were chock full of racist stereotypes as well.

Only the Good Lord knows what's in my mind...


Share

Good Stuff

I peeped this video over at the "We Are Respectable Negroes" blog, and it caught my eye. The joint is mad dark, and a friend of mine even called it scary. Now, she's a punk, but the video does have some shifty undertones.

Plus, the actual poem by Gil Scott Heron was fantastic. Hell, I even copped the brother's new CD after hearing this one joint. And anybody who knows me, (and some of y'all who read this blog actually know me in real life) knows that I'm a cheap bastard so an impulse buy like that is out of character for me.

Poetry is a cool medium man. I remember when I started writing a little of it in high school as part of these two classes. The ladies ate up this ode I did to black women, but then I started trying to cater to them and my stuff sucked. You live and you learn.

Enjoy




Share