The Intolerant Tolerant

"If you're gong down the street and you see some green people with  2-inch green strips coming out of their skull as hair what would you do?" I asked him.
"Male or female?"
"Both." I said
"I'd try to get close enough to check out the females."
"I'm asking you this because I heard this black woman complaining in public that whites were racists because some time one asks to touch her hair.  With all the serious problems so-called blacks have with identity, education, economics, politics, culture, self-hate and violence, killing  each other, she's devastated, tortured, torn apart about somebody wanting to touch her hair . . . those green people looking nothing like me, I'd be curious to touch their hair and skin . . . wanting to learn how and why we were so different.  And I expect they'd have the same curiosity about us."
"I'd like to find out if they speak English so I could check out what's happening on the mind-side, if they were friends or enemies . . ."

"In one of those South of the Border countries  with an emphasis on whitening their population I' d be talking to some woman who'd never seen an Afrikan American except in American movies and probably had never been within hollering distance of any so-called black dude anywhere and she'd ask if she could touch my hair, and what gentleman could refuse?  She'd be rubbing it and laughing and saying stuff like   ' . . . tan chinitos' (' such tiny, tight curls').  'Tienes que peinarlo?' ('Do you have to comb it?').  Such natural, innocent curiosity.  And I'd be thinking, Have at it, baby doll, pay me for your thrills, and from that moment we sho'nuff got acquainted.

"And I believe that if these empty-headed so-called blacks who take their identities from non-blacks had sense enough to look at themselves through the eyes of people with strong cultures they'd be interested in some ethnic cleansing among themselves.  They'll also realize that they can't tolerate black-power people without tolerating white-power people and brown-power people, etc., etc., etc."
"Amen.  Say that again."

The Long Black Limousine

Millions along the streets in our larger cities and on TVs throughout the world watched it.  Drums echoed soft, spaced beats by teenage boys in colorful uniforms and horns held mournful undertones from pretty young blondes and brunets in skimpy dress.
"What's going on; what's this parade about?"
"Where've you been, sleeping under some rock?  Publicity's  been going on about this for weeks . . . the world finally agreed on the most handsome, muscular, wealthy man in the world and matched  him with the most beautiful, feminine, intelligent, courageous blonde in the world; married them and everybody marveled at how happy -- that's who's in that long, black limousine."

"Why's it moving so slowly,  and why's everybody so quiet?"
"The two of them committed suicide -- they had it all, and up and hung it up."
"Why?"
"Who knows . . . just left a note that said 'We're dead, now what?' "
"And what's that old wagon behind it -- being pulled by a horse, looking like something out the Ol' West, going to Boot Hill -- got to do with it?"
"Some newspaper thought that up . . . got the world to agree on the two ugliest, po'assed dead people they could find in the country and put'em in that wagon."
"For What":

"They say they'll give anybody a million dollars who can tell them what that whole scene means."
"Man . . !"
"You can keep looking at that raggedy ol' wagon and horse all you want, I'm looking at that long, black limousine."
"What if that suicide note was asking 'What if all this material, immaterial, moral and immoral stuff that we get attached to is only relative to something we don't yet -- and never will -- know about? What if death makes life a joke?"
"If it's a joke, why aren't you laughing?"
"Ha . . !"
"Mmm . . . at least you tried."

"Load Up, Here They Come . . !"

"With the enemy a few hundred yards over there in the mountains, this might seem a strange time and place to bring this up, but I have a question."
"This might be the best time and place to ask it, seeing we might not come out of this in one piece."
"Considering the mess you people have to stomach, why does anyone want to be a leader?"

"I don't know about the others, but I've asked myself that some times."
"Y'all have to be blessed or cursed with something the rest of us don't have -- except in emergencies.  For example, if you get knocked off in this I'm the next in line to take over, and I know I can handle it in an emergency, but soon as the emergency is over, get it the hell away from me."
"I'm not bragging, but when it comes to defending our country I'm ready to lead or whatever . . . being a political leader, however, I watch these politicians, they have to stomach mess from all these different organizations, companies, ethnic groups, and individuals whining 'What y'all gonna do for my people and my company and my  children and --"

"I believe that in all that criticism and denouncing they have to stomach, being ready day and night to come to the rescue of some egotistical constituent and so many thinking they know better than you how and what you should do about some problem -- that's where I'd have to hang it up . . . they'd be looking for me to lead in something and I'd be off lying under some bridge smoking a joint . . ."
"And when you think of some of the racial crap leaders of some of these black groups have to deliberately conjure up to feed their dumb followers  to hold them together you have to know these black 'leaders' have to have strong stomachs -- quick, everybody!  If you not loaded up, load up, here they come again!  Get your butts in gear and follow me . . . !"

Been Down That Darkness (part 2)

Words come not forcefully to impale your hope, but there's a kind of tired, disinterest about them as if the speakers merely repeat a routine and the disinterest in their eyes does not vary, does not return the connection that you feel when you look into their black face in every Afrikan counsellor that you visit.  You're not of my tribe, their eyes say when they ask, "Why do you want to go to my country?  Do you know anyone in my country?  What will you do there?"

"I want to be part of the revolution there."  Couldn't they see in my face, hear in my voice, know that we're one people as were the Europeans when they came with their powerful cultures, taking over country after country of culturally backward people?  They knew what you did not before arriving that you, not being a communist and there via the underground, cannot leave except some other country accept you.  Some revolutionaries they were, not willing to help a brother.  You were wasting your time with them.

Then word comes to you from a communist committee.  They were some nine or ten men and women sitting at two long collapsible tan tables..  You sit in a tan tin chair facing them some fifteen feet away.  They smile when one of the women asks, her voice beaming, "How would you like to be with our soldiers fighting for the revolution in another country?"
"No," you answer without hesitating, thinking, You don't identify with them, they don't identify with you.  It's their war, let them fight and die for their cause.  You imagine them having plotted:  'Take him on the battlefield, kill him there, make him an inspiration, a martyr for the anti-American blacks among the Yankees in his country.'  Headlines had probably already been prepared, 'Afrikan American Revolutionary Dies In Battle'.  You're trapped in the darkness of anti-American communism -- another word for slavery -- and your master is an irrefutable one-man communist dictator of every meek conformist in his nation.  But in that darkness you are awakened by a belief that is your light:  "When any  man is enslaved, if he does not try to escape he deserves to be enslaved."  And that light becomes your way out.
                                        mwisho

Been Down That Darkness (part 1)

. . . you're just walking along the street with her -- young, pretty, shapely, black woman -- and you put your hands in your pockets and she says, "Take your hands out of your pockets."  And thinking that if a man wants to put his hands in his pockets, they're his hands and his  pockets.  "For what," I say.  She didn't say anymore about it.  You assume that she didn't want you to go off on her there in the streets with so many people around.  A few days later you go to  her apartment  and the moment she opens the door she flinches, frowning.  "You didn't comb your hair," she says.  You don't say a word, just turn and walk away.  Many years have passed and you've never seen her again.  You never told her that you were at war.  Didn't think she'd understand it.

You walked alone in the crowded streets with that war; alone with it in your one-room apartment until it exploded attempting to smother affection for all humans, relatives, friends, a sweetheart, a wife, children, and any material luxury; strong to replace them with cold, calculated dedication to revolution, not pamphleteering-leafleteering-rioting-looting "revolution", needing something stronger -- and not with a handful here and a handful there of reckless, attention-seeking numbskulls splattering the air throughout the land with "Pick up the gun", assembling around nothing more than skin color, thinking that they're gonna be another Fidel Castro and a "Che".  Against the most powerful country in the world?  The MFs were stark mad.

You go underground, traveling as in night, darkness, sworn to "Africa or bust" where black is numerically superior and gunning is logical.  "Socialism, communism, complete overturning, total revolution," you've heard and you'll say goodbye to the western world by taking a look at that land where communism had been ensconced under the romanticized, tantalizing cry of "Revolution!"
                                      Part 2, kesho, tomorrow

"Wha'sa --hic-- Matter?" (part 2)

. . . you'll get exhausted faster than saying 'I matter' . . ."
"But, doctor, don't you think saying 'me meat . . .' puts more emphasis on 'matter' and will make me more conscious of my 'meat'?"
"Now, see, if you say 'me meat matter' you've short-stopped 'I matter'.  You've faced your problem of carrying around all that 'matter' and maybe it'll help if you take off the weight of all those ropes you're wearing on your head hanging past your butt for hair, and tie a large rag around your mouth -- hey, since we said 'meat matter' I got rid of that hiccing.  So I guess in short we're just talking about satisfying or saving our meat.  Come back to see me in two or three years.  That's how often this 'matter' seems to come up with you people."

"But, doctor, walking around with part of my face under a rag won't people think I'm a terrorist?"
"Yep.  And, hopefully, by then we'll have a government that knows how to deal with all our enemies, especially if you're one of those who complains that there aren't enough blacks in positions to satisfy your needs.  There're organizations ready to pay your passage to the land of our Afrikan ancestors where you can feel 'Justice And Peace' under the rule of only blacks.  But if you live in fear of each other in 'black' communities here how'er you gonna live in tribal communities in Afrika?  What tribe will accept you will be the least of your problems in those tribal wars and unfamiliar customs.  So long, goodbye, good luck, and close the door as y'all go out.  Y'all won't be missed.

"Or are you one of those confused, lying, troublesome people who'd rather remain here with this swarm of carbon-copies who call themselves black people but want only the identities of people who don't identify as black, and they constantly whine and moan that until there's justice for 'blacks' there isn't going to be peace for anybody.  Don't you think such people represent a threat to our security?"
                                            mwisho, end, finito

"Wha'sa --hic-- Matter?" (part 1)

She sat in a straight-back chair near the doctor's desk in  his small office.  The doctor stood beside her in his white smock, holding a 3-foot steel ruler in his right hand at his side.  "Wha'sa --hic-- matter, madam?" he asked.  " 'Scuse the hic up . . . I needed a few shots of liquor to get ready after the nurse told me about --hic-- you . . ."
"I matter, I matter, people don't like me,but I matter --"
"Just calm down --hic-- ma'm, and don't worry about this --hic-- ruler, it's just for obstreperous patients, and you --hic-- don't understand that word, but if I have to pop you on your ample --hic-- butt, you'll quickly understand --"
"Doctor, I can't calm down, people who don't even know me, haven't even ever seen me, don't like me -- I matter, I matter . . ."

"Ma'm, you --hic-- ever thought of shutting your --hic-- mouth and keeping it shut?"
"I try, doctor,  but somebody look at me and my lips fly open and I start saying, 'I matter. I matter' . . .
"You can't force people to like you.  They may consider people like you as having no culture, as having low standards in education, music, books or most everything, and they think that all people who look like you are stupid and crazy and they don't want to be around any of you.  You ever try to walk by people without looking at them, as if your eyes were closed?"

"I tried, doctor, but almost got run over by some cars.  And I got caught up in a crowd of people protesting in the streets and ended up with them at some political rallies and --hic, hic, now you got me hiccing -- and at them rallies I was shouting 'I matter, I matter'.  I look in a mirror or show windows and start saying, 'I matter, I matter' --"
"Instead of saying 'I matter' you --hic-- ever try saying 'me matter'. or better still, 'me meat matter' . . .
                                       Part 2 (kesho, tomorrow, domani, mañana)

What In The Wor(L)D?

"What in the world is happening to our culture, doctor?"
"Concerning?"
"The words that we're now using in public.  For example, years ago 'pee' was considered vulgar.  One was taught to say 'urinate'."
"Doctors and nurses have been using 'pee' for quite some time, sir. Welcome to the real world."
"And it's gotten worse.  We used to look around carefully before we'd even whisper 'puty'."
" 'Putty'?  You mean that substance used in repair work?  What's wrong with saying that?"

"No, not 'putty', 'puty', just think of the title 'Dick And Jane.' "
"I still don't understand."
"Just think of the first word in the title by itself and what've you got?"
"Oh."
"We were told that 'penis' was proper, and even if you said it you had to be very careful, had to make sure some woman -- especially some elderly lady or empty-headed damsel -- wasn't within hearing distance."
"Now I understand.  When you say 'puty' you mean 'pussy'.  They've got this Rock group of young women in Russia called 'Pussy', had a big story about them in the newspapers here . . ."
"And when I saw that word in the newspapers here I couldn't believe my eyes.  And now they say that presidential candidate, Donald Trump, repeated the word after someone among his millions of fans used it."

"What's wrong with saying it?  It's the passageway that God formed to bring us into the world.  Are you saying that God should have formed another place in a woman's body for us to come out of, that you know better than God what God should have done?"
"Then say 'passageway', not 'pussy' . . . where's all this culture change gonna stop?"
"Time brings change, sir. makes much that we believe to be 'absolute' to be 'relative'.  If you said 'puty' to some women these days, they'd tell you, 'Piss off, Buster."

Incriminating Biscuits?

"Your Honor, my client pleads for leniency due to poor eyesight."
"Do you know this man's record?"
"Well, Your Honor, he lives in a high crime neighborhood."
"I do not believe that poor eyesight influenced him.  And before sentencing I want to impress on you and him the reason for the sentence I have selected.  In his first attempt he claims that that night in the poorly lighted street -- fortunately, we have police strategically placed in such areas -- he noticed this lady some fifteen or twenty feet ahead of him.  She had long, blond hair reaching to her waist and a big black purse hung from her left shoulder.  'Easy pickings,' he thought.  There were people around, but in his neighborhood people boasted of not snitching to police, and he started to run toward her.  When he reached her he snatched the purse with such force that she fell to the sidewalk, injuring her left collarbone.  One of our officers saw the shameless deed, but the woman turned out to be his mother wearing a blond wig and she refused to press charges.

"The second time, some months later, the scene was identical except the person wore those long false plaits hanging to her waist and carried a briefcase.  Again he ran forward, snatched the briefcase and was again apprehended by an alert officer.  But, again, the woman turned out to be his mama who refused to press charges.  The third time, he says that it was a haircut that confused him.  He said it was cut close to the scalp, a cut we associate with men in our society.  He just ran up behind him and put a choke hold on him and flung him -- who turned out to be a she, wearing jeans --  to the sidewalk.  And guess who it was?  That's right.  His mama.  Obviously, young man, in your neck of the woods there's much confusion over what coiffure is more suitable for the skull of your men and women.  An inferiority complex about one's hair must be quite an annoyance.  For at least different periods in your people's history there has been more emphasis on hair-do than language and education and teenage pregnancy.  Which brings me to another point.  I'm not authoritatively dictating what age a teenager or mature woman must be before becoming pregnant.  Now, young man, I'm not sure whether your tendency toward crime is a cultural  defect or lack of culture, but because you seem to have this criminal tendency with only your people -- especially your mama -- I'm sentencing you to move from that neighborhood and never again have anything to do with such people.  And, too, I think you subconsciously hate your mama.  Did she whip you when you were young?" "All the time, Your Honor." "So when she'd leave the house, like walking in your sleep, you'd follow her. Ever walk in your sleep when you were young?" "We used to keep some flour in a 20-gallon can and she used to wake me looking in it." "What were you looking for?"
 "Biscuits."

Afrikan American Youth And . . .

"What profession are you interested in -- notice, I said 'interested in', not 'studying for.' "
"I just want a job, I don't care what it is."
"What can you do?"
"Any thang."
"I mean what experience do you have?"
"Selling."
"Oh . . . what company have you worked for as a salesman?"
"Mostly I been self-employed."
"What do you sell -- wearing your britches with your butt showing like that?"
"Don't make no difference 'bout my britches, people jus' want marijuana, they don't care how um dressed."

"I like your frankness, so I'm gonna be frank with you.  Are you in school"
"Some."
"How old are you and what grade are you in?"
"Um seventeen and um in the ninth grade."
"I ask you these questions because we sell jewelry here and need to know the people working for us.  And I know Afrikan American youths only from what I see and hear from them on the streets and TV.  Frankly, I see most guys like you wearing their britches like you do, not much interested in education, usually carrying a basketball, but no books, and getting involved in rioting and looting and shooting each other, and always in trouble with the law --"
"I don't need no sermon and all that, I jus' want a job --"

"With an attitude like that and no education and no experience except selling marijuana and you expect someone to hire you?"
"That's right.  People always talking 'bout we Afrikan American youths ain' got no jobs, so um as'in for a job.  You gonna give me one or not?  I don't need all this damn drama . . ."
"I'm sorry, I don't have a job for you."
"You got a sign in the window say 'Salesman wanted', but you ain' give me no application or nothing -- and um leaving, but um coming back with a lawyer and we gon' sue you for racism!"

I'm In Charge

"Sir, are you questioning my expertise in judging a bad Muslim from a good Muslim.  Why would you insult my  childhood intelligence?  I graced Muslim school rooms in my childhood education.  Further, I would declare unequivocally that you make this criticism out of racism against me and Islam and at no time did you try to ascertain the true facts of my indelible, unquestionable experience in Islam.  I must reiterate that my experience and credentials in Islam are impeccable, sir . . ."

"Sir, my question was why you, a noted American politician, would scurry to a Mosque to express and demand love for Muslims and Islam when Muslims are cutting off Christians' heads and desecrating  and destroying Christian churches and cathedrals  and not one of your good Muslim politicos or Imams has gone to a church or cathedral in the Middle East to denounce anti-Christian violence and to protect them against the bad Muslims.  Are there no good Muslims in the Middle East who would support such a 'good' Muslim or Imam?"

"Sir, I remind you who is in charge here.  I'm in charge and this blatant criticism of me and Islam in this country is not only unwarranted and intolerable but borders on blasphemy --"
"What I'm saying, sir, is that your words and actions seem to express a much greater deference for not only Islam over Christianity but even casts a shadow over Israel in its defense against Muslim terrorists."
"Now, sir, I'm in charge here and you have bounded across the borders of decency.  I'm Israel's greatest friend and I refuse to continue with this calamitous interview.  Goodnight, and pray that God bless me and have mercy on any country when I'm in charge."