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I was driving down MLK Ave a coupla nights ago and was startled by a large crowd of black men inside a bus shelter near Ainsworth. Something looked to be up and as I drove nearer I saw several men down on their knees, in prayer,no, no…
…They were genuflecting, not to the porcelain god, but to a pair of dice. One brotha had a knot of ones in one hand, was flipping the dice in his other, ready to roll seven if not eleven, thought he was going straight to heaven.
My People, MY, PeOPle.
What’s happened to us? I know we’s oppressed, that the white man ain’t got no love for us, that black, brown and red genocide is what America is all about….But, puhleaaazzzzzeeee?!
Niggas out in the street rolling dice in 2005???!!! That shit was played out in ‘Shaft in Africa.’
Where the hell is black Portland, in a timewarp? What’s the leadership doing besides begging crumbs from the white man’s kitchen table?
“Up! You mighty race, you can accomplish what you will.”
–Marcus Mosiah Garvey
Not if you sittin’ on your ass, profiling, wearin’ your Iverson jersey and do rag, cruisin’ in your Montero, livin’ a pipe dream that you can milk your freedom from fascist Amerikka!
Dummies make great fodder for war, on the streets and in the military. You can be a ghetto souljah or a revolutionary soldier in the fight to create a humanistic society. But where the Black General’s that are gonna lead our people to freedom? Where the Harriet Tubman’s, the Toussaint L’Overture’s? All we got are these ‘Political Jemima’s’ runnin’ around Portland playin’ poli-tricks on the peeps.
MLK said we live in a “thing oriented society.” That was 1967 and, “things done changed.” Black Portland is going the way of the dinosaur - no community, no communication, no leadership, no sense = NO FUTURE!!! Whatchu gon’ do black Portland?
I’m trying to get with this “one and only love” thing. I used to believe it when I was blind, when I simply followed directives implanted in me like computer chips from birth. Now, I’m not so sure. I took an AP English class as a senior in high school and wrote this essay that is indicative of my feelings for many years: ‘Love is the water in the battery of Life.’ Absurd.
I’ve heard said that monogamy is a capitalist plot to get everybody in their 2 story box, with the gar-age and the credit card. At least, the idea is to get everybody to have that idea, in their head, to the exclusion of other more considered options.
But, a bad marriage can cause one to rethink why they even considered that single, spiritually fatal option in the first place. Why did I? Damn!
What is relationship really about?
Am I looking for a soft, easy, unchallenging resting place from the jungle that is Amerikkka?
Or, is it an ‘intellectual Mt. Everest’ I’m after, a titanic, unscalable spirit who will leave me in cold sweats?
Do you, just….KNOW?
Love vs. “In Love. What the fuck?!
Or, is loving to be shared, generously, freely, from a place of conscious choice, a love undivided, without fenceposts, guardrails or borders?
I don’t know.
So I was macking on this Czech for a minute and had to quit it cuz she was temperamental, wacky, an emotional lackey. Once divorced twice burned - ME,not again, oh no, not again, no dramatics/static, fuck the chromatic, head for the attic can’t even go there, NOT there, not one more ‘gin drive me to drink gin, that ain’t gonna haP-Pen, rather put that bon bon back on the conveyor belt like Lucy, more lightheaded highs can be found with less aftertaste, yes, with less aftertaste, I’ve been reduced to seeking that smooth high without the hangover, Diana was right I don’t need no love hangover baby, I need to kick the habit, Cuz see
I can do bad all by myself!
I don’t want you livin’ with roaches!
Muhammed Ali
Niggas in Portland live like roaches. They seem to only come out at night. Livin’ in the margins, under the baseboard of the city. Niggas scurry about, tryin’ to not be seen. We seem small, live small, shriveled. Its like we haven’t learned to walk at full height, still have our knuckles scraping the ground, back bent.
I went to a Portland Public School meeting, big meeting with most of the school brass present. There was one “black table” full of black principals and it was way off to the side, practically in the parking lot. It was quite revealing as there were free tables in the middle of the room and close to the front. Livin’ like roaches. Its the Portland mentality.
We’ve been beaten down, whipped. And now we’ve learned to like it. Livin’ like roaches.
