Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Old Tapes...
The inspiration for the pieces “BWB” and “Self-Portrait”
“Old tapes”: that’s an anachronistic phrase in the era of I-pods, You Tube and downloads. CDs are almost going the way of the 8-track or cassette tape (ask your parents).
I was fourteen, growing up in Winston-Salem, NC. I pulled out a pick to comb my afro (had one then). It was one of those folding-handle jobs: one side red, the other green, Black Nationalist colors. I was too young to know that or how it mattered. What I was doing was fixing my “do,” getting my ‘fro right, looking at model cars and toys in King’s Department store as my mother shopped for clothes; reminiscing when this was my whole focus in the world.
He was big: bald receding hairline, hair on the sides like Larry of “Moe, Larry and Curly” but greasy and laid flat with flakes of dandruff. He had a pot belly lapping over his large belt buckle. I was a little over five feet tall and 110 lbs. He was over six feet and outweighed me by about 200 lbs.
“What you doing, boy?”
I was startled, and turned around. I was as respectable as my parents had taught me to be in situations like this: “Nothing,” I said, and turned away.
“What’s in your pocket?”
“My pick!” and frankly, that’s all that was in my pocket. This man, who hadn’t announced who he was or why I was getting the 4-1-1, was beyond annoying me.
“Up against the wall!” he barked.
The wall was again, a shelf of model cars and toys only kids would like. “This isn’t much of a wall,” I quipped.
I was grabbed by the throat and left arm, shoved hard into the toy shelves. An avalanche fell on my ‘fro denting my styling. At this point, I was in shock.
“Who are you, man!?”
“Store detective…” He flipped me like an omelet. I was being bodily frisked…against my will.
“I didn’t steal anything,” I said, “the only thing in my pockets is a pick you prick!”
“SHUT UP, boy: I knows nigras steal!”
Bad English and an epithet! Outweighed and outmanned, I went “Michael Evans (Good Times)” on him, trying to engage him in “the dozens”: “’Knows’ isn’t the proper verb tense, and it’s ‘Negro’ in 1976!”
“Boy, don’t you sass me!” A fat finger wagged in my nose as he jerked me to meet his eyes.
Turning me back around, to continue this unauthorized search, I spied four white kids in the shoe department donning four pairs of Keds and robbing Colombo/Col-DUMBO blind!
“Err, you’re missing something…”
“Boy, I ain’t missing nothing!”
“I’ve had it with boy, I’ve had it with insults, and I’ve had it with YOU!” Luckily, my mom showed up, because I didn’t necessarily have a plan, I was just fed up.
“What’s going on?”
“I was frisking him.”
“For what,” my mother asked.
“I think he stole something.”
“YOU THINK?" To me: "Did you steal anything?”
“No ma’am. I was picking my hair, and he grabbed me and pushed me into this wall for nothing!” Her arrival made my words leap out staccato; the emotions made my voice crack. It also made her crack.
“YOU,” she pushed her finger into his fat navel and made this man-mountain wince in pain, “GET me the store manager NOW!!!”
Fat boy had some speed. He ran and got the manager, who knew my mother, and knew me since I was born. I’d never seen her so upset, and I to this day never heard my mother SWEAR so beautifully, if there’s such a thing. By the time Mildred Dean was finished dressing them up one side and down the other, they were both sweating mightily; the fat mall detective’s matted hair dripped water and oil on his cheap store-brand polyester shirt.
“I…I…I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
“Better be. By the way: am I paying for this?” My mother held up a dress.
“No. No! Please take it as compliments of the store,” the nervous manger replied. My first example of leveraging a situation…
*****
King Department store closed soon after that, something about losing too much revenue in items stolen from the store (not by me). Security cameras have replaced rude, blind-as-a-bat racist mall cops but technology hasn’t changed the human heart.
In post soul America, there’s no black/white music charts, American Bandstand and Soul Train. You can see teens sharing music through their two-terminal ear buds; no discussion as at my prom whether and how much Top 40 music or black music would be played. They’ve thankfully, blended into their own culture, and if any are of the Neanderthal attitudes of the past, it was taught to them by parents afraid of a global, uncertain future; romanticizing a secure white picket fenced past that except for a 1% privileged few never really for most existed.
My tapes, however were not imagined, they were as real as my sister going out to Civil Rights marches and rallies and my four-year-old body racked with terror that each time she walked out bravely to be spat on, kicked, punched, hosed, dog-bit and jailed would be the last time I’d see her.
It’s supposed to be a post-racial America after the election of the nation’s first black president, yet the Southern Poverty Law Center states the number of hate groups in 2011 reached 1,018, and their rhetoric is reinforced by talk radio hosts that can tweet/sound bite the familiar southern dog whistles and hide behind the worn excuse: “I’m just an entertainer.” Targets on web sites can get Gabrielle Gifford almost killed and disabled for life; and a teenager can die for a hoodie, an iced tea and a bag of skittles because of a “stand your ground” law in 31 states that puts a target on every teenager’s back, specifically African American male teenagers because they “look dangerous” wearing their hoodies in the rain, or picking their hair.
My Valkyrie left me peacefully in 2009, joining my father ten years after his death. I miss them both.
I am Trayvon Martin.
“Old tapes”: that’s an anachronistic phrase in the era of I-pods, You Tube and downloads. CDs are almost going the way of the 8-track or cassette tape (ask your parents).
I was fourteen, growing up in Winston-Salem, NC. I pulled out a pick to comb my afro (had one then). It was one of those folding-handle jobs: one side red, the other green, Black Nationalist colors. I was too young to know that or how it mattered. What I was doing was fixing my “do,” getting my ‘fro right, looking at model cars and toys in King’s Department store as my mother shopped for clothes; reminiscing when this was my whole focus in the world.
He was big: bald receding hairline, hair on the sides like Larry of “Moe, Larry and Curly” but greasy and laid flat with flakes of dandruff. He had a pot belly lapping over his large belt buckle. I was a little over five feet tall and 110 lbs. He was over six feet and outweighed me by about 200 lbs.
“What you doing, boy?”
I was startled, and turned around. I was as respectable as my parents had taught me to be in situations like this: “Nothing,” I said, and turned away.
“What’s in your pocket?”
“My pick!” and frankly, that’s all that was in my pocket. This man, who hadn’t announced who he was or why I was getting the 4-1-1, was beyond annoying me.
“Up against the wall!” he barked.
The wall was again, a shelf of model cars and toys only kids would like. “This isn’t much of a wall,” I quipped.
I was grabbed by the throat and left arm, shoved hard into the toy shelves. An avalanche fell on my ‘fro denting my styling. At this point, I was in shock.
“Who are you, man!?”
“Store detective…” He flipped me like an omelet. I was being bodily frisked…against my will.
“I didn’t steal anything,” I said, “the only thing in my pockets is a pick you prick!”
“SHUT UP, boy: I knows nigras steal!”
Bad English and an epithet! Outweighed and outmanned, I went “Michael Evans (Good Times)” on him, trying to engage him in “the dozens”: “’Knows’ isn’t the proper verb tense, and it’s ‘Negro’ in 1976!”
“Boy, don’t you sass me!” A fat finger wagged in my nose as he jerked me to meet his eyes.
Turning me back around, to continue this unauthorized search, I spied four white kids in the shoe department donning four pairs of Keds and robbing Colombo/Col-DUMBO blind!
“Err, you’re missing something…”
“Boy, I ain’t missing nothing!”
“I’ve had it with boy, I’ve had it with insults, and I’ve had it with YOU!” Luckily, my mom showed up, because I didn’t necessarily have a plan, I was just fed up.
“What’s going on?”
“I was frisking him.”
“For what,” my mother asked.
“I think he stole something.”
“YOU THINK?" To me: "Did you steal anything?”
“No ma’am. I was picking my hair, and he grabbed me and pushed me into this wall for nothing!” Her arrival made my words leap out staccato; the emotions made my voice crack. It also made her crack.
“YOU,” she pushed her finger into his fat navel and made this man-mountain wince in pain, “GET me the store manager NOW!!!”
Fat boy had some speed. He ran and got the manager, who knew my mother, and knew me since I was born. I’d never seen her so upset, and I to this day never heard my mother SWEAR so beautifully, if there’s such a thing. By the time Mildred Dean was finished dressing them up one side and down the other, they were both sweating mightily; the fat mall detective’s matted hair dripped water and oil on his cheap store-brand polyester shirt.
“I…I…I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
“Better be. By the way: am I paying for this?” My mother held up a dress.
“No. No! Please take it as compliments of the store,” the nervous manger replied. My first example of leveraging a situation…
*****
King Department store closed soon after that, something about losing too much revenue in items stolen from the store (not by me). Security cameras have replaced rude, blind-as-a-bat racist mall cops but technology hasn’t changed the human heart.
In post soul America, there’s no black/white music charts, American Bandstand and Soul Train. You can see teens sharing music through their two-terminal ear buds; no discussion as at my prom whether and how much Top 40 music or black music would be played. They’ve thankfully, blended into their own culture, and if any are of the Neanderthal attitudes of the past, it was taught to them by parents afraid of a global, uncertain future; romanticizing a secure white picket fenced past that except for a 1% privileged few never really for most existed.
My tapes, however were not imagined, they were as real as my sister going out to Civil Rights marches and rallies and my four-year-old body racked with terror that each time she walked out bravely to be spat on, kicked, punched, hosed, dog-bit and jailed would be the last time I’d see her.
It’s supposed to be a post-racial America after the election of the nation’s first black president, yet the Southern Poverty Law Center states the number of hate groups in 2011 reached 1,018, and their rhetoric is reinforced by talk radio hosts that can tweet/sound bite the familiar southern dog whistles and hide behind the worn excuse: “I’m just an entertainer.” Targets on web sites can get Gabrielle Gifford almost killed and disabled for life; and a teenager can die for a hoodie, an iced tea and a bag of skittles because of a “stand your ground” law in 31 states that puts a target on every teenager’s back, specifically African American male teenagers because they “look dangerous” wearing their hoodies in the rain, or picking their hair.
My Valkyrie left me peacefully in 2009, joining my father ten years after his death. I miss them both.
I am Trayvon Martin.
Self-Portrait (repost)
Langston Hughes said: “I, too sing America.
I am the darker brother.”
I am the one
Burning under the hot sun
You derisively nicknamed
“Buffalo soldier”
Because of my Afro?
I am also the Cherokee:
Befriending the runaway,
Giving my daughter to him in marriage,
Joining him to my tribe,
Creating the Seminole.
I am the Irish overseer:
Bursting into the slave quarters,
Raping my own great-great grandmother,
Siring Julius Goodwin and a host more mulatto children.
I am the offspring of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming:
Some of us destined for the last class,
Others hair so straight; skin so bright to crossover as white
So, when you call me “n----r”
You obviously
Can’t see
You vituperate
A pureed pedigree
As everyone has had
Their piece of African me!
As would be the case
Someone related to Egyptian race
Would decipher the hieroglyph
“America”
Into three distinct words:
“I am race?”
Check your attitude!
For pride in
My negritude
Allows me to enlighten your case
As you point your
Jeering finger
At me through space,
You will inevitably
Pimp-slap your own damn face!
Without me, though you wouldn’t hear it
Would you have the hairstyle “The Bo Derek?”
Would dreadlocks, locks and fades have left the east side venturing to the west side?
And hip hop become hip POP?
Forced here in chains and cargo crates,
It was you who gave me great chase
Bring me to this place
That by GOD’S
Grace
The cane came together
Where Ezekiel’s dry bones
Dotted the landscape:
“Son of man: can these bones live? O Lord GOD, thou knowest! *”
I am the darker brother:
I am the Mende; the Ashanti; the Yoruba; the Igbo.
I am the Seminole; the Cherokee; the Choktaw; the Sioux;
I am the Irish; the Italian; the German; the Arab; the Jew.
I am the melting pot: I am all of you!
As Langston Hughes said,
I say again to you:
“I, too sing America.
I too am America.”
I, too!
For Trayvon Martin. Photoshop art by Cynthia Manor, Austin, TX
* Ezekiel 37:3
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
BWB...
Driving While Black…no, he was
Walking While Black…
Being While Black…
Trayvon Martin’s crime was
Iced tea and a bag of skittles, the riddle of walking
In a hoodie in the rain during an intermission of the NCAA All-Star Game.
His English teacher said his major was “cheerfulness.”
Other than his hoodie that most teenagers wear,
George Zimmerman became Klansman and executioner,
The 2012 version of Emmett Till’s asthmatic whistle that got him tragically killed.
Mamie Till allowed an open casket view
To look at the ugliness that they’d visited on her son.
That brave act steeled backbone in the Civil Rights Movement;
A personal tragedy in a pre-racial reality.
Now, in the post-racial reality of having a
Black president, Trayvon’s spirit cries out for justice,
And the DOJ has a black attorney general, the force of law being:
“Hate Crime” – defined as “a traditional offense like
Murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias.”
For the purposes of collecting statistics,
Congress has defined a hate crime as a "criminal offense
Against a person or property motivated in whole or in
Part by an offender's bias against a race, religion,
Disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation." (FBI.gov)
Every black and brown parent hugs their kids closer tonight;
Every black and brown child hides their Obama t-shirts and posters,
Else flirt with disaster.
These were the fights they’d see only in February/September-October
– once-a-year – in Black and Hispanic History (Month), or You Tube reels.
The young would roll their eyes and say:
“that’s old; it don’t happen anymore.”
Well…
Trayvon’s blood was spilled on a police department’s
Floor as his father called his cell for THREE days
And NO ONE answered until they got their “story” straight.
They’d protect Invader Zimm through Florida’s
“Stand Your Ground” law, because if they
Prosecute Zimmerman, they risk [for themselves] lawsuit!
Trayvon’s blood calls out to God as Abel’s
Did for Cain’s slaughter of him.
And just to remind you – Trayvon’s “sin” so to not long ponder this riddle:
Driving While Black…NO, he was
Walking While Black…
Being While Black…
...with the deadly weapons of a hoodie, an iced tea and a bag of skittles!
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Bootleg, II
 |
| Prohibition |
Chinua Achebe would say “Things Fall Apart” (still):
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell
Speaking his intentions to make the young president
And his beautiful family “one-term residents”
In the Presidential Mansion affectionately to its
Previous supremacist management known as: the “White” House.
“I want my country back”; “I want Obama to fail”:
The incessant wails of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh,
Two right-wing talk show hosts that as standard bearers
Of “conservative family values” are two jokes: Beck – 2nd marriage,
Limbaugh – 4th, with Elton John making a million-dollar payday
At the reception with his lifelong beau in tow…
Both men had issues with drug and alcohol abuse as
They railed at others’ abyss; both dropped out of college,
(Beck has a boondoggle online for a fee),
Rush couldn’t even pass ballroom dancing,
Yet these Neanderthals dictate to a gullible electorate
What THEY should say, act, think or be! Glenn Beck
Actually got too crazy for FOXNEWS – imagine that?
And Rush seems to have it in for pretty white females
That obviously eclipse his intelligence! Sandra Fluke
Executed her constitutional right to address congress and
This Troglodyte called her a “slut, prostitute”
And more, eventually forced to apologize as his
Sponsors dropped from his once burgeoning list like migrating fireflies.
Sarah Palin was still game-changing when she placed
Targets on her web site and announced: “don’t retreat: RELOAD!”
Resulting in an unstable member of our human family almost
Ending the life of Gabriele Gifford and Christina-Taylor Green (9)
Born on September 11, 2001, the full-circle of a short life of tragedy.
Yet, she offered no apology, only reinforcing the narrative that as a
VEEP barely vetted; she wasn’t ready for prime time or the office of president.
Big government bureaucrats became Tea-bagging impediments,
Killing legislation that in elation they once sponsored: “hell no!”
Exclaimed the-then House minority leader John Boehner
(which, if you haven’t added him, one of Words’ alternatives is “bonehead”),
Moments after the phrase “President-Elect”
Began sinking in to the sinking reality their
Former standard-bearer left them.
An economy crumbling – a byproduct of libertarian
Laissez faire myths of “trickle-down” that even David Stockton
Disavows, the once-mighty “rubber-stamp”
Congress defeated in 2006 midterms – “impeachment is off the table”
The only negative appraisal I have of former
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 562 laws versus “bonehead’s” 12:
Girlfriend got it done!
And we will be undone if the current four horsemen of a
Red apocalypse bootleg the same stale stance, should one
Perchance win the nomination and whitewash the
White House again – with inane theories and ignoring
Science as the world globally warms, wars and rumors of – and spins.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)