We are all discrete, color-coded organisms with barely a connection to the other two-legged vermin un-like us. We are real; they are generic: you are a brown cow and I am a white rabbit. We must honor (which really means: wallow) in each other’s differences to the exclusion of any similarities.

We need to celebrate our differences; Right On, Baby, Right ON!

Let me ask a question: Should we EVER celebrate our similarities? Is it truly progress to delineate with a fine toothed comb, “how different/special/unique we are from every garden variety slug-wo-man?!

Is it not polarized, sanctified, difference that is the root of the world’s problem? While some may assert “colorblindness…isn’t enough,” most folks who die unnatural deaths, do so from exploitable, hyper-difference.

Does the “white” man kill niggas out of ‘colorblindness’, cuz he can’t tell the difference between himself and niggas, or does he kill us in bushels precisely cuz he sees nothing BUT difference?! What about niggas who kill each other? Is it our colorblinded-ness and the devil that makes us do it?

Has there ever been a “colorblind” society? So, why the kneejerk fear of a future world where color ain’t the ghetto pass between life, liberty and a death induced by ‘pork inhalation and Mad Dog 20/20′?

Nappy said: ” How is it that you have been able to distance yourself from it, when you live in the same world that we do? A trip to Paris by a black american who is intellectually stable, doesn’t at all speak to the racism and anti-semitism that is experienced by others in France without the access you have. You know what I mean? Let’s ask Arabs, North Africans, West Africans, Jews if there’s racism in France?”

The first step is wanting to distance myself from this crazy bullshit. I want to put this crack pipe down that’s been shoved down our throats from jumpstreet. Anybody who doesn’t want to distance themselves from the contagion called “America,” who doesn’t want to get outside of it and examine their own presumptions about everything - needs to be interrogated closely.

How can one distance themselves from the domestic brainwashing that pits us one against each other? Well, travel out of this country has been helpful for me. On my first trip to Paris I stayed for three months. I’ve visited 4 more times. I’ve been to the south of France, Amsterdam and Brazil for one month. I’m going to Africa next month. I’m not going to shop and I’m not going for a tan; I’m going for work AND to really absorb the spirit of the land.

More than physically leaving the States and going on ‘vacation’, I left intentionally - mentally and spiritually; I wanted to experience how other people lived and to live like they live. I wanted to compare and contrast where I’d come from with where I was. The question that truly animated me was, “this can’t be all there is?!” If America is the best, the world really is fucked up.

I didn’t go to Paris because there was no racism there. I knew and learned even more once there, about the Algerian, the Martinican, the former colonies offered honorary French citizenship, but not first class treatment. I learned how the Paris militarized police rounded up African men in the year 2000 - Y2K and locked them up to “prevent them from running amock.” My black ass breezed right by cops in the subway while Africans were “detained.” I know how those Africans feel cuz the same has happened to me here.

But the experience of leaving the States and dealing with another flawed country and culture - was a revelation. To not have race shoved down my throat in quite the way it is in the US, was very new. And liberating. I found the energy there to do things that I’d only dreamed of doing. Other black people I know have felt similarly. James Emmanuel, a poet who moved to France in the mid 80’s, told me how in the States he could not write for two years; he went overseas and eventually put pen to paper again.

He spoke of how his soul was sick in this country, how his spirit felt unclean here, how he felt shackled by the racism/white supremacy he experienced from his nation. He told me how home is wherever he is, yet, the home of his birth is NOT and will never be again. I find that profound and it resonates with me. Doesn’t mean there is any paradise on earth; but there are places that don’t psychically murder you.

Emmanuel considers himself an “Earth Citizen.” Are not we all? Do any of you feel American? Or is it that somebody told you how to feel and you never considered you had a choice. BTW: Choosing to simply feel and do the opposite of what the man tells you is not really choice, is it?

When the Twin Towers were brought down on September 11th, I didn’t feel pain for the so-called Americans who died; it was a global, human tragedy. How many other people of different nationalities were mutilated? Yet, how we were treated to the red, white and blue kool aid, how the exclusive ownership of 911 was asserted as a ‘US thing’, and none other. Poor, pitiful us. This is a common instinct, or perhaps, an extremely well manipulated one.

To know or feel the commonalities between human beings is not “enough” for who? The people who can’t see what I’m talking about? I can’t live anyone else’s life but my own. I can’t defeat the power structure and the Nazis of this country alone. And frankly, I don’t see anyone else trying too hard, don’t see anyone calling it like I see it. We’re gonna have to give up something to be free. Our ‘gender and color-segregated time shares’ are facilitating a heinous, vicious, criminal, cynical, devilish cabal of swine who are having their way with this country - on OUR dime.

To quote Dr. Phil: “how’s that working for you?”

Its not working for any of us. When Martin Luther King broke from color politics and took on the Vietnam War swindle - he had to go. When Malcolm X broke ranks with the Nation and decided to embrace political struggle, decided to work with some of the folks he’d disparaged - he had to go. When anyone proposes a solution that - calls for black/gay/lesbian/latina - unity, unifying in spite “of our petty differences,” you’ve sinned against Willie Lynch and his progeny.

I’ve never once supported colorblindness; but I’ve been accused of it. I accuse the people who accuse me, of failing to see their support of the conflict ridden/exploitative status quo embedded in their positions, of being unable and or unwilling to see that we are different and we are not just the same, but we are ONE people. We are a blind people who can’t see how alike we are - and don’t want to.

When you read this don’t pull out your red pen: open your mind and challenge YOUR belief system, challenge your attachment to your/our terminal uniqueness.

Only a united front can defeat the global tyranny fucking up the planet. But we don’t want to defeat them, not if it means giving up some sacred cows. And if you sense things that those around you don’t, its crazymaking and fruitless to beat your head against a brick wall. The addict who hits bottom and wants to change will come to it in their time. Everyone else will keep on keepin’ on.

I was really pissed after I did my “Fuck Race” post. I couldn’t believe how folks just chipped off what they “didn’t agree with” without actually getting what the piece was actually about. It was like folks going to a movie and closing their eyes at the scary parts and then reviewing the film as if they’d seen the whole thing.

The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed, indeed. What do you think he’d rather see us thinking about then? And what do you think they are trying to get us to stay focused on - our difference or our commonalities - including our common enemy?

The Matrix is in full affect.