Snowballs, liquor, and cops...Oh my!

Walks up to street corner.  Looks both ways.

Carefully places wooden soap box down on the ground and climbs on top.

Clears throat.

White people are CRAZZZZZY!

Steps down from soap box.
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I suppose that that first part begs an explanation.  Well it all began when this nameless Negro and my horde of alter egos decided to brave The District's snowpocalypse to have a little fun before I was going to be forced into solitary confinement in my house.  I should have known things were going to be trippy when I got to the metro and the power was out, but they were still letting people come in.   I ignored my inner old Black man also known as  Common Sense and held firmly to my desire to go and shake my groove thing.

20 minutes later I got a call from my friend Culito and was saddened to hear that our rendezvous point was closing early, but would that stop me and my entourage of alternative personalities, I think not.  So, rather than calling it a night I went to my local watering whole.  It was packed, the music was good, and bodies were shaking in ways that made me smile. After a beer or two I gave into the music and got lost in the crowd.  Found some fun dance partners and I let the music and good vibes loosen up some of the tension that had been building up the last few weeks.  Meanwhile my inner old Black Man was getting antsy.

After a few hours, the lights turned back on and the crowd was turned out to a Winter Wonderland. 

With the ground freshly covered in white powder, the folks from the bar did what came natural to them and started a moderately sized snowball fight.  Things were fine and dandy until a police car showed up and for those who know, The District has not had a lot of luck with spontaneous snowball fights and the police.

At first sight of the flashing lights, my inner old Black Man said it was time to wrap shit up and head on across the street to my house, but I was still in a state of euphoria and a little deaf from the music in the bar and I didn't hear him.  When the police showed up, I expected people to just start to disperse and head on home.  It was nearly 2:30 am and with recent history, I was not expecting much resistance from the crowd.  Then I was reminded of the difference between white folks and Negroes.

See (some) white people seem to have an unshakable belief that they can do what ever the hell they want to, whenever they want, and the hell if they are going to be told otherwise.  I am speaking in generalization of course.

*wink*

So armed with snow and a sense of infallibility, several folks decided now would be a good time to curse out the police with a few sprinkled shouts of "pigs".  And of course they weren't going to stop there, they also decided to throw a snowball of two at the cop car and the officers.  A few minutes later 4 more cop cars pulled up.  As you can imagine, my inner old Black Man had said fuck this shit a while a go and left my happy ass looking befuddled at what was unfolding before me.

I was so shocked by the fact that this crowd of drunken white people didn't give a fuck about the police.  Now, I  must admit that my folks work for the Fire Dept. and Police respectively, so I have a  bit of  respect for the boys in blue.  I by no means think that they are always right.  In fact, i hold them to a stricter standard because of my proximity to them.  With that said, I was still taught that as a young Black man, you don't fuck with the police because they will beat, shoot, or arrest your ass without a second thought.  And if our really lucky all three.  That isn't some self imposed myth, it's a simple reality of Negrocity.

After being antagonized by the crowd, the police did what they do and arrested to mofos.  And get this, the crowd had the balls to get pissed off.  I don't get it.

It is one thing if you weren't doing shit and are wrongfully imprisoned or intimidated by the police.  Just ask half the folks in the county lockup who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.   But, do not scream injustice if your ass is in the wrong.  Give that shit a rest.

I have a good deal of white friends, but they tend to display a good deal of common sense.  I know there must be others, they just weren't there last night.  Now if there is anyone out there who can explain to me the interesting phenomenon of (some) white folks not giving a fuck about the police, please let me know.

Meantime, I will try to catch up with my inner old Black Man and teach him how to drunk text, so I can avoid this shit in the future regardless of my state of bliss.

Echoes: Verse 6, Audre Lorde

So, one of my readers called me out on the fact that I had yet to give and Echoes feature to a female poet and I realized they were right. Here is my first attempt to correct that with a poem from one of the fiercest sisters to ever pick-up a pen.

*drum roll*

Power

by Audre Lorde

The difference between poetry and rhetoric

is being ready to kill

yourself

instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds

and a dead child dragging his shattered black

face off the edge of my sleep

blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders

is the only liquid for miles

and my stomach

churns at the imagined taste while

my mouth splits into the wetness of his blood

as it sinks into the whiteness

of the desert where I am lost

without imagery or magic

trying to make power out of hatred and destruction

trying to heal my dying son with kisses

only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens

stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood

and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and

there are tapes to prove it. At his trial

this policeman said in his own defense

"I didn't notice the size nor nothing else

only the color." And

there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man

with 13 years of police forcing

was set free

by eleven white men who said they were satisfied

justice had been done

and one Black Woman who said

"They convinced me" meaning

they had dragged her 4'10" Black Woman's frame

over the hot coals

of four centuries of white approval

until she let go

the firs real power she ever had

to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch destruction

within me.

But unless I learn to use

the difference between poetry and rhetoric

my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold

or lie limp and useless as a an unconnected wire

and one day I will take my teenaged plug

and connect it to the nearest socket

raping a 85 year old white woman

who is somebody's mother

and as I beat her senseless and set torch to her bed

a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time

"Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are."

Audre Geraldine Lorde was a critically acclaimed novelist, poet and essayist. She was born on February 18, 1924 in Harlem and died on November 17, 1992. Her parents were immigrants from Granada who seemed to continually plan to return to the Caribbean throughout most of Lorde's childhood. Lorde recalled that as a child, she spoke in poetry. When she couldn't find existing poems that expressed her feelings, she began to write poems at age twelve or thirteen. She attended Hunter College High School and then supported herself with low paying jobs. Her first lesbian affair was with a coworker at a factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She attended the National University of Mexico for a year, starting in 1954. Upon her return, she entered the "gay girl" scene in Greenwich Village but was often the only Black woman in the bars. She recalled that she did not try to build ties to the other three or four Black women in the scene as it seemed to threaten their status as exotic outsiders. She began to study at Hunter College, worked as a librarian, and, of course, wrote poetry. She attempted to join the Harlem Writers Guild but the overt homophobia of the group led her to leave. She received a BA in literature and philosophy from Hunter in 1959 and an MLS from Columbia University in 1960.

Lorde, Audre. "Power." The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. New York: W.W. Norton & Comapny, Inc., 1997. p. 215-216. Originally published in Between Our Selves. Eidolon, 1976.