Oh Johnny!

I have never been one to be dogmatically pro-black. I believe that to ascribe to any such movement is to dismiss the nuances and complexities that define "blackness". Okay sometimes you can catch me caught up in a pan africanist thought perhaps even enthralled in the idealism of the theory but overall I understand that it in many ways is far too utopian and one dimensional to ever really subsist in this society. I try to stay a little left of center but I am being pushed and prodded to my socialist roots and pan africanist dreams today. I was really really trying but in my best ghetto speak I must admit that "people always wanna say dumb shit and then be mad when you have to school them"- I plead with you forces that be please stop pushing me.

I was minding my own business -literally this morning when I logged in to my facebook account to check on the Facebook group I set up for More Black Art about More Black ish.. an FB chat message popped on my screen from Johnny...a random kid that attended middle school and a portion of high school with me. He was promoting something or the other and asked me to become a fan of the page- i bartered for him to join our FB group.  He said the name of my organization bothered him and then we started sliding down the slippery slope of a quasi political discussion that I knew I didn't want to have but he kept prodding " More White Art about More White ish would be racist tho rt?" He asked...Of course it would you prick! Mainstream America is white and therefore doesnot need to make such distinctions...the entire pie is theirs we just have a little slice of it and we have to put it in the fridge with a label on it so no one else will eat it! 

 Next thing I knew he was telling me -A BLACK MAN IN AMERICA- was telling me that police brutality is almost always justified. And not only that but it is necessary in order for police to protect and serve the citizens of this country...I threw up a little in my mouth, several times actually because he actually believed what he was saying wholeheartedly. Sean Bell (NYC) was a bad dude otherwise why would he have been at a strip club in the first place he typed with no lol or lmao behind it. He was dead serious and I could feel my blood about to boil as I picked my jaw up off the ground I informed him that the police didnot have the moral or legal power to make such a judgment and that they don't get to decide who lives and dies...my mistake was trying to reason with crazy. This fool responded by saying yes they do, thats their job and all I could think is right that makes sense fuck the courts and the judges and the entire legal system - the police have autonomy...They are judge, jury, and executioner on the street and thats okay because there is a war on "crime" which everyday becomes more and more synonymous with little black boys.  Everytime they show a wanted poster on the news its the same sketch of some ambiguous looking negro...a big nose, big lips, and brown eyes and black hair or a do rag with a different height and weight is that not an amazing truth to anyone else that every black criminal seems to look exactly the same?  

But all of this paled in comparison to his next announcement "you need to relax, we can relax, didn't any one tell you we are on top now?"

I didn't say much other than that 's how we stay exactly where we are my brother...that type of complacency. When did Obama gather up the entire African American/Black population and profess to be the messiah.  Did I not get an invitation? I'm hurt man is it cause i'm a coconut? 

All wrongs are not suddenly righted because "one of us is on top now" or is it? is police brutality somehow justifiable now because the commander and chief is black? are poverty and economic disparities amongst the races instantly erased? I don't know but it is certainly a hard pill to swallow for me.

 Even harder as I was pushed even further into the arms of pro-blackness as my business partner and friend sent me (still reeling from the FB chat) a link to a news article about a bakery in NY - my hometown and one of the most liberal cities/states in the country - that was selling "Drunken Negro Face" cookies. And all the work is done huh Johnny? We can relax?