Enlightening Nonsense

I was walking home from a party on July 4^th. It was 1:30 a.m. and I was about five minutes from home. It is rare that I go out and “party” and the traveling down to Alphabet City, the half bottle of Guinness I drank before dumping the rest down the sink after realizing that I am fine with poisoning my body as long as it tastes good on the way in, combined with ingestion of a lot of cooked food, which posed for this mostly-raw eater the equivalent of the Jewish dilemma: FREE HAM, added to waiting in the subway for about twenty minutes for a train back uptown—I was pretty worn out. And that is why I didn’t handle the situation involving the nigger in the cab as well as I would have liked to.

Leaning out the window of a taxicab, riding with a friend or two, was a smiling, half-lit nigger, thinking the presence of alcohol in his bloodstream and friends in his vicinity made him immune to the repercussions of stupidity. I was walking with my long hair out, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of shorts with about 12 pockets. All that was on my mind was getting home and crashing in my bedbug-ridden bed.

“Hey! Do you play Guitar Hero?” shouted the nigger in my direction. It was clear that he was mocking me, that having long hair I looked like someone who would sit around all day and jam on a fake guitar in front of a television set.

One of my limitations is that from around 12:30 a.m. to around 10:00 a.m. my mouth is not fully ready to process the deviant cleverness that my brain pumps out like Made in China products ready for the Wal-Mart shelves. So instead of chucking back the spear thrown at me by the nigger, I just smiled and shook my head to indicate, “No friend, I don’t play Guitar Hero. Thanks for asking.”

One of his female friends in the car pulled him in and as they drove off, I felt irritated that I hadn’t given the nigger a piece of my mind. Let’s do a “Wayne’s World” and go back in time and replay the scene, with a bit of a Samuel Jackson in “Pulp Fiction” feel…<BRRRRR…..BRRRRR…..BRRRRR>

 

A nigger leans his head out of a cab window and mockingly says to the tired longhaired man walking on the sidewalk, “Hey! Do you play Guitar Hero?”

The longhair walks slowly over to the cab, opens the front door and slides inside. The cab driver says something in an inaudible Indian dialect that probably meant, “Sir, you can’t come in here, sir!” Without turning to face the driver, the longhair says, “You just keep the car parked for a few minutes, cabby, and we won’t have a problem here.”

The longhair turns around with a deadly serious expression and looks right into the face of the nigger, as the nigger’s big goofy smile suddenly drops. His friends chime in, “He didn’t mean anything by what he said. He’s just drunk.”

“But he did say it and so now you all are going to sit here and listen to what I have to say. (To the nigger) What is your name, Smiley?”

“Anthony,” mumbles the nigger.

“Speak up, Smiley. I know you can project your voice. I heard you just fine across the street when you were making fun of me.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to—“

“Shut your mouth, Smiley! And don’t open it again until I address you. Is that understood?” The nigger doesn’t say anything. “Is that understood??” The nigger nods in the affirmative.

“Do you know anything about black history?” asks the longhair to the nigger. Before the nigger can answer the question, the longhair goes on. “The short of it is that the white man looked at the black man as something less than human and felt he had the right whip, beat, insult and otherwise degrade and exploit the black man based solely on the color of his skin. Is that a fair summary of slavery and racism in one line?” Before the nigger has time to fully answer the longhair’s question, the longhair goes on.

“Only a complete moron doesn’t know this story and isn’t embarrassed by this great American blotch on our history. Being of the black persuasion, I’m guessing that you have an appreciation for the history of abuse the black man has suffered over the past few hundred years.”

The cabdriver chimed in, “Sir, can I drive my cab—“

Without taking his fixed gaze off of the nigger, he addresses the cabdriver. “You can do whatever you want but if you don’t want any trouble, I would strongly advise against you taking the cab out of park. (To the nigger) No one wants any trouble, now do they, Smiley?” The nigger shakes his head ever so slightly to indicate in the negative.” “Just keep the meter running and you can enjoy getting paid during this little discussion between me and Smiley.”

“I would think that you of all people, Smiley, would know how hurtful it can be to judge someone based on their appearance, be it the color of their skin or the length of their hair, and make assumptions based on one’s preconceived notion of what that physical characteristic entails. If I were to ask you if you committed a violent crime tonight, based on the fact that a majority of crimes in this country are committed by people of color, would you take kindly to that, Smiley?” Smiley doesn’t respond. “I would like an answer to my question!”

“No, I wouldn’t,” says the nigger, his eyes averting the longhair.

“So why the fuck would I appreciate your dumb ass making some comment to me based on me wearing my hair long?” The nigger just looks down. “Answer my fuckin’ question, Smiley!”

“You wouldn’t.”

“But you figured because you had a few drinks tonight and you were with your friends that you would say whatever the fuck came to your inebriated head because my appreciation was the furthest thing from your mind. Is that right, Smiley?”

“I wasn’t thinking—“

“That’s the problem, Smiley, you weren’t thinking. So now the issue is what are we going to do about this situation?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe I should have you walk down the sidewalk and I’ll sit here in the cab and shout out the window, ‘Hey, do you like fried chicken?’ Or, seeing that you’re drunk and halfway unconscious, maybe I should continue to punch you in the face until you are fully unconscious.” With this the nigger’s friends get nervous.

“Look, he didn’t mean anything by what he said. He was drunk and stupid,” says the girl next to the nigger.

For the first time, the longhair turns away from his locked eye contact with the nigger. “This conversation doesn’t concern you. It is between Smiley and me. If you keep interrupting me, I’ll lose my train of thought and have to start at the beginning and then by the time you get out of here, the meter on the cab is going to be $25. And I’m guessing you would rather spend your money buying more drinks for Smiley here so that you can justify a free pass for any other stupid things he’s going to say tonight.” (Back to the nigger) Now where was I, Smiley?”

The other friend says, “About whether Anthony should walk on the sidewalk and you shout, ‘Hey do you like fried chicken?” or if you were going to punch him.”

The longhair looks at the friend who has just spoken, pauses, and then smiles a closed-mouth smile. “Now I’m guessing your name isn’t ‘Smiley,’ which means that I wasn’t addressing you and it would probably be best for you to keep your mouth shut, but I do appreciate you keeping us on point here.” (Back to the nigger) So which is it going to be, Smiley?”

“I’m sorry,” says the nigger.

“Very well then. I’m not an unreasonable man—despite my appearance. I accept your apology. Now I am going to go home, brush my teeth, get into bed and forget this incident ever occurred. I suggest, Smiley, that you don’t forget our little discussion, because if I happen to see your dumb ass leaning out a cab window again and saying something inconsiderate to anyone, it will cost you a lot more than the price of an expensive cab ride. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m off to bed.” (Turning to the others) Have a nice night, ladies. (Turning to the nigger) Have a nice night, Smiley.” The longhair gets out of the car and leans in and addresses the cabdriver. “Now you can take these people where they want to go.” He closes the door, walks away and doesn’t look back.

In a piece I wrote awhile back that I lack the patience to search out in order to reference, I wrote that, unlike most of you, I am free enough to be able to use the word “nigger” without feeling tainted by it. I was writing another piece, “Swami X Eats His Dog!“ [http://rebelyogi.com/swami-x-eats-his-dog.html] and I had written “Nigga please!” a couple of times, a phrase I learned from “The Replacements” starring Keanu “Can’t Act Himself Out Of A Paper Bag” Reeves. On reading it over, it just didn’t feel right and I changed it to “Brutha please!”

I realized that being free didn’t mean I had to go out of my way to use the word—especially when it didn’t feel right. If I had, this would make me the same as one of those fake Anarchists who think anarchy means you can throw a brick through a window because no one’s there to punish you for doing so. Let’s just hope one of those punks doesn’t try that when I’m in the neighborhood.

Being a “nigger” has nothing to do with the color of your skin. And that idiot in the back of the cab was a nigger. Why should I let him hide behind the color of his skin as a shield to wearing a label that suits him?

Al Sharpton will quickly add his fuel to a fire when he thinks an act of racism—only against a black person, of course—has occurred, and sometimes he opens his fat mouth when no racism existed but he thinks he can exploit the situation for his cause. It is the rare maverick, like Bill Cosby, who goes around and says, “Black people: enough is enough! When are we going to stop blaming the white man for our lack of our upward mobility and start putting in the work to rise ourselves?” And Bill was criticized strongly for his statements among the black community. You didn’t hear powerful black entertainers like Oprah signing on to Bill Cosby’s campaign. Why not? Maybe because she doesn’t give a crap what the poor black man shoots into his veins in the dirty alleys outside her gated community, just as long as he can’t break into her electric fence protected million dollar mansion.

A criticism of the Muslim world, besides them being all nuts, is that the “moderate” Muslims don’t stand up to the psychotic Muslims and follow Bill Cosby’s lead and say, “Enough is enough! What you preach is not the Muslim religion that I follow.” Why don’t they? Probably because they are afraid they will be shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave on the side of the road, knowing the U.N. is too busy making resolutions against Israel to deal with Arab atrocities. Seems their “faith” in an afterworld with rivers of wine and 18-year old virgins galore isn’t strong enough to break them out of the pussy mold they are in. (Speaking of pussy molds, has anyone tried out the latest  Jenna Jamison pussy mold. I hear it holds you tighter than O.J.’s bloody glove!)

Why isn’t the black community up in arms about the higher proportion of crime statistically committed by black people? Why do black parents continue to pay for their children to wear designer hoodlum pants that drag down to their thighs and leave most of their ass hanging out—modeled after jailbirds who have their belts removed and so their pants drag low; great role models for our kids. I mean, if you’re going to model yourself after a criminal, at least don’t do it after one that was too stupid to stay out of prison!

Racism still flourishes in our country and not just among the rednecks and Klan members. It may be less obvious than burning crosses on people’s lawns, but the subtle forms of being followed around a store or being passed by when hailing a cab or having someone cross the street when you are approaching because of the color of your skin hurts just as much. There is a reason I didn’t decide to be born black in this incarnation: I am not sure I would be conscious enough to get past my militancy if I were.

Due to socio-economic reasons, a racist history, as well as the fact that the CIA intentionally flooded black communities with drugs (see the documentary “American Drug War: the last white hope by Kevin Booth”), there is no question that the black man has started with a leg down. The question is: What are you going to do about it?

If you decided a great black rebellion was the answer, I would respect that more than bitching and moaning that you’re owed for something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago, all the time while you dress like a criminal, talk like a thug and suck off of society’s tit. You seem to instead be waiting for some change of heart from a racist society that is more concerned with lining its own pockets than it is with social injustice. This is like the Palestinians in the Middle East choosing to suffer for fifty years as their leaders thumb their noses at any peace talks with Israel on the pipedream that a hurled rock is going to somehow defeat an AK-47. When is enough enough?

Most in their ignorance look back at the Black Panther movement and just see it as a “black militant group,” which is a euphemism for “anti-whitey movement.” Even a precursory reading of the movement will show you how the leaders sought for the black man to become independent of handouts, which was only keeping him down, and to build a stronger identity and empower communities to take care of their own through education and food support and love. This isn’t remembered in a racist society, which only uses the worst expressions of an individual or group to identify and classify them.

And now that Barack Obama is President, the message almost as false as his promise for “change” is that anyone—even a black man—can become President. Obama is about as black as O.J. Simpson only, unlike athletics, in politics it is more about who you know and who you blow than it is about sheer ability. Newsflash: Joe black man on the street ain’t becoming President without riding the fast track of political affiliations.

And Obama continues to propose Socialist policies that would create a society more dependent on Big Government to do everything from feeding it to wiping its ass. How is that going to make anyone—be they black or white or red or yellow—become strongly identified with anything other than being “the tired and poor” that Lady Liberty welcomed in, because back then immigrants weren’t willing to settle for staying “tired and poor.”

But even if you believed the myth of Obama, like Jesus, the black man wants to look at Obama as a savior, as someone above and beyond their reach. Christians ignore the eighteen years that Jesus disappeared from the New Testament to study, train and get his hands dirty in hard work, because if they faced that he was just a man whose most special quality was that he wouldn’t settle for anything less than full awareness for himself and his brothers and sisters, they would also have to face the fact that the only reason they are not like him is because they are too lazy to put in the work.

234 years ago this month our Founding Fathers signed a Declaration of Independence to say that they would no longer tolerate being under the control of a tyrannical, controlling government across an ocean. Perhaps it is time for us to sign our own “DECLARATION,” declaring—like the oath the President and all members of Congress have to take when they are sworn in “to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic”—that we will not accept our government stripping away our INDEPENDENCE by having the boot of government stomp and twist our individual liberties like one does a discarded cigarette.

It is up to each one of us to raise ourselves up by our own boot strings.  This does not mean we don’t have help along the way, whether from a teacher or friend or our community, just that we can’t rely on anyone else to “make it right.” This is not the defeatist attitude that, “There’s just no fixing it.” We still have to put in the work to try and fix what is broken. And enough hard work we find that it is not cost-efficient to fix it, like Thomas Jefferson had voiced as a probable necessity each generation, it may be time for revolution.

But rather than complaining about the watch store that went out of business fifty years ago who sold you a crappy watch that doesn’t keep time, in the hope that one of the relatives of the now dead owners will say, “You are right. A great injustice has been done to you and we will refund you for the price of the watch,” it’s time we learn to make our own watches or to learn to read the time of day from the sky, rather than rely on the watch Man for our happiness.

Is it fair? No. But it’s reality. And while it is nice to go to sleep and fantasize, when you open up your eyes from your dreaming, no one but you is going to throw those wet sheets in the laundry. It’s your decision whether you want to lie in the mess or clean it up. But don’t kid yourself that lying there and complaining about it will get the sheets washed.

 

REFLECTION:

Think of an issue about which you are passionate. It could be animal rights or peace or something regarding the race or religion with which you associate your-self. What is the real issue beneath the issue? Maybe it is about individuals in your “group” having the rights they deserve. Maybe it is about creating a world where we don’t have to worry about food and hunger and some idiot in power sending our sons and daughters to fight over nothing. Can you expand your vision to see—and empathize with—someone championing another issue that contains the same injustice or desire for a better world just with a different label?

MEDITATION:

Imagine yourself attending a meeting of a group that you would normally not attend, not because you have something better to do but perhaps because you either don’t agree with the issue or don’t like how the particular group tends to express itself. Listen to some of the people speaking and as they are speaking, become a shaman and shapeshift by jumping into their body and really feeling the words and intention they are sharing. If done completely—even if you don’t agree with the issue—you may find an agreement and understanding of the man. For example, perhaps you don’t agree with the obvious statement that 9/11 was an inside job but after immersing yourself in a 9/11 Truther during his rant, maybe you will see that whether he is right or not, he is not crazy, just passionate about Truth—something that you probably think is pretty important as well.