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I have such fond memories of my terror. Red, Orange, Green, so many colors, so little time to determine which colors meant what level of terrorist threat. I was scared. And I was getting close to full memorization of each color and what action the color required me to take that day. It was really important for me to know how I was supposed to feel each day; Tom Ridge’s announcements were like my daily cup of coffee: a huge shot of espresso.
But then, on November 4th, they seemed to evaporate. I can’t recall what happened that day, but suddenly, I have heard not a word since about colors or dirty bombs or guys named Mustafa. Suddenly, we are at peace. The hordes threatening to slither out of the coastal swamps and salty seas, dagger in mouth, intent on filleting Uncle and Mrs Sam, have faded to black.
Today, we fight our enemy in his homeland, before a threat materializes in ours. Or so we are told. Oh, where have all the color coded alerts gone?
My brotha, Eugene, was talking about not having received hate mail behind his militant activism.
My response:
“The hate mail is the silence; the hate mail is the contempt they show you by their absence. The hate is a scent, an energy. Its coming at you on the QT.
For all of their “seriousness” about “issues” they are strangely silent, absent and unaccounted for. Too busy being white, numbing out on privilege, nodding off to all the lullabies this country sends them on “The GREaT WHItE mAN.” “The BeAUTIFuL WHite WOMAn.” Gurgle, gurgle.
You talk about TV; its a 24/7 blowjob of the white man; how great white people are, how kind they are, how SHOCKED they are by the injustice they cause and prolong, how in love with money they are, how in love with themselves. You and I are not included in their “American”, bro, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Did you ever see that movie “The Drop Squad?” Some revolutionary brothas kidnap a sellout kneegro and try to indoctrinate him to be a down with the cause N-I-G-G-A.. The only way to get to most of these white folks is to make a DropSquad-move on ‘em, pull a “Patty Hearst,” kidnap these muthafuckas and re-educate them. Start a concentration camp for recovering racists.
There is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much silence, too much denial, baby. But, you have to remember: its in the service of maintaining power,privilege and control. Its like convincing a child that dessert for every meal is wrong, when their parents have been feeding em that shit from birth.
They can tell you they “believe” this or “believe” that, but their “actions” tell you what their REAL value system is. The words are a smokescreen. Fat taking muthafuckas!!
White Folks to Racism:
“If loving you is wrong, I don’t wanna be right!”
I see racism everywhere, or so I’m told. I am crazy, or at least, this is what some of my white “friends” tell me. They don’t actually tell me I’m nuts. Its more subtle than that. What happens is - When I explain my experience with race and racism; when some current event happens and we’re kicking it; when I discuss a dynamic between me and some white person: they tell me I’m nuts when they say….
‘Are you sure that’s what it was really about?’
‘I know black people who do the same thing.’
‘Aren’t you overreacting?”
‘You see race everywhere!’
‘I don’t think that’s about race at all.’
My Racial Translation Program outputs those White Folk responses as follows:
Nigga, you crazy!!
Fortunately, there is an antidote for my insanity: Checkin’ in with a nigga. Running what I’ve seen and heard by em, then throwin’ up my mitts and going, “…dog, is it ME?!” Usually, the response I receive is, “…BEOTCH, you know it ain’t you!”
Thank God for Beulah’s over the counter remedy.
A once upon a time ‘brown bunny’ is now a blue eyed white man and ya’ll still ain’t satisfied. This ex-brotha has done everything in his power to be what he was taught by his culture to be: a junior grade white boy. But he did you one betta cuz he took it to the skin when most of us be taught to be white by word and deed only. Isn’t that really why the contempt for MJ is thick as molasses?
Michael bought into the REAL American dream which is to be eternally young and eternally white, impervious to the reality of race and racism, insulated. But America is not down with its escapees of Niggerdom; on the contrary, once a nigga always a nigga, degree or no degree, Grammy or no Grammy.
‘The real collective unconscious terror’ is that beneath that sickly epidermis, Michael’s jism can still plant dusky fertilized seedlings into the bellies of paper mache dolls from the suburbs. OR, his popularity might encourage white girls to relax their racist indoctrination and strap-on a MJ- from- the- hood. Fear of genetic annihilation - the dominant brown and black consuming the recessive white.
So even the plantation coon, the “yes, massa minstrel”, the “bar of soap bowing Tom” who does whatever da boss man dictates, can’t win. You can’t win whether you speak the King’s English or talk that hoodoo voodoo you be spittin’ on the block.
To quote Sergeant Waters from “A Soldier’s Story”, no matter how hard you try,
‘they still hate you!’
“If you try to integrate with him, he condemns you. If you try to separate from him, he condemns you. If you lay down flat on the sidewalk and say ‘walk on me mista white man’ he still condemns you. He tells you, ‘turn over, nigga, roll over on your back’… You can’t please the white man!”
Malcolm X
“Gary McKinnon, 39, of north London faces extradition over claims he gained illegal access and made alterations to 53 U.S. military and NASA computers over a 12-month period from 2001 to 2002.
McKinnon, who is contesting the extradition request, appeared at Bow Street Magistrate’s Court in London on Wednesday.
District Judge Christopher Pratt granted McKinnon bail to reappear for an extradition hearing on July 27.
As conditions of his bail, he was ordered to provide £5,000 security, report to his local police station, not apply for any international travel documents and not use any computer equipment allowing him to access the Internet, the UK’s Press Association reported.
Janet Boston, representing the U.S. government, told the court: “On one instance, the U.S. Army’s military district of Washington network became inoperable.”
INOPERABLE
I was driving down N. Greely Ave coupla nights ago when I saw the neon sign.
Sal’s Famous.
That was the pizzeria in “Do The Right Thing” the one that got torched at the end of the film after the NYPD lynching of Radio Raheem. I hung a left on Killingsworth but before executing the turn, I noticed one of those nigga crunching monsta trucks, candy apple red with a nice confederate flag for a license plate.
NICE.
I like to know where I am and while my first reaction was anger, anger that somebody would name their restaurant after a racist movie establishment (come to find out nationally there are a ton by the same name), anger that somebody was brazenly sporting a racist symbol on their bumper, upon reflection, I was glad. Glad to know where I am and who they are.
