Advice for Little Me

This is advice that I have for my twelve-year-old self. If I’d known all this at twelve my life would be a whole lot better.

1) Capitalists are horrible, manipulative, lying, selfish, apathetic, overwhelmingly dangerous, incredibly bad for society, wrong, and deeply disturbed.

2) Anyone who ever says or insinuates that they earned the wealth they have are the worst types of people.

3) Anyone who goes around measuring the value of a human being by how fancy their job is incredibly shallow, materialistic, lacking in understanding, and not worth your time.

4) No. No people did not "earn" anything through hard work. They got it through privilege, privilege, privilege, and privilege. The fact that they could afford a decent quality highschool education is already a huge privilege. And no, being poor when they were in college absolutely does not count as not having privilege. They got to go to college. That’s a privilege so many don’t get.

5) You know who's actually working hard? The people in the sweatshops, the mines, the agricultural plantations, the warehouses, etc. The people getting paid poverty wages as they work themselves to death. Have some fucking respect for them you’re not above them just because you were born in a rich family.

6) All humans have equal value.

7) And the value of a human being is inherent.

8) If you have a house and fancy furniture and a flatscreen TV and a car and a closet full of clothes and enough money to go to restaurants and golfing and shit and then you turn around and say you're oppressed I fucking hate you so goddamn much.

9) The voices of the poor people are fucking ALWAYS silenced in this world, all over the world.

10) There's men in suits somewhere defending capitalism and our centrist dads are defending them while most of the world are wage slaves.

11) The poor are always ignored, pushed to the side, and silenced.

12) Hi. Hello person reading this. Check out the Red Deal. It's fucking awesome. Please read it. It will save your soul and change your life.

13) Also my Wattpad account is here please check it out https://www.wattpad.com/user/Balladoad it won't save your soul and change your life but I write communist stories.

14) Your value is inherent. Child. Darling. Your value is inherent. You are alive. That is enough. You don't need a fancy job or a big income or a fancy degree or something. You're a human being trying to do the best you personally can with the resources and knowledge you have and in the situation you're in. Your value is inherent. Baby.

15) Check out the Red Deal.

16) Nobody is liberated. None of us are liberated. Especially under capitalism none of us are liberated. We are all equal. We are all capable of being free. Of having an equal amount of power. Of making decisions equally and democratically where everyone has a seat at the round table. Seperation is a myth. Wow that sounds like a fucking hippie thing to say but I mean it in the most practical, tangible way. We are all equal and we should be treated equally and under capitalism we are not. Not even close. We can all be together, all be comrades, all help and support each other, all protect and provide for each other, all listen to and understand each other, and all create a world where finally, finally people are free.

17) True freedom does not and should not feel forced. Corporate capitalists tell us that freedom is the ability to be successful in the capitalist framework. That is not what true freedom is. True freedom comes from within. It does not feel forced. It feels good and right and beautiful and true. It's not forced upon you it's something that sparks to life inside your own soul.

18) Sucess as a human being is about the kindness and compassion you show other people. Which is actually rather inversely proportional to how much money you make from what I've seen. At every step of your life seek out people who need help and help them.  

19) Children should all be treated with equal respect, reverance, affection, and love.

20) Your value is inherent. Human value is inherent. Valuing human life does mean valuing the continuation of human life but not just that. It means valuing the quality of human life too. It means valuing human happiness.

21) Take every opportunity you have to learn. Not learn trivial "knowledge" about string theory or CRISPR or valence orbitals. Real, important knowledge about how to be kind to other people. How to be respectful towards other people. How to uplift the downtrodden. How to be in solidarity with the oppressed. How to live in harmony with other people. How to tear down the walls that divide us. How to live in harmony with nature. How to have respect and reverence for nature. How to protect and defend the Land and Water. How to be brave to put the needs of others before your own. How to think for yourself and be your own person. How to live your life in accordance to the truth and intangible mystic forces behind everything that guide us all. Wow that sounded hippie.

22) People are exploited and oppressed. So many people are exploited and oppressed. They deserve better than this.

23) You shouldn’t go after power. Seeking power is the way to corruption. You should seek to destroy the unequal distribution of power itself so that all people can have equal power.

24) Absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Power corrupts whenever it’s not equally shared.

25) Money is power. It always has been, it always will be. It’s what determines if people are able to eat or not. It’s what makes us spend most of our time at our jobs working for our bosses and doing what they want us to do.

26) Learn history. Please.

27) Read books about the Holocaust. About slavery. About all the types of slavery that have happened in various societies not just the Transatlantic Slave Trade though definitely you should learn about that too. About the Irish Potato Famine, the Armenian Genocide. About colonialism. About settler-colonialism. About feudalism. About monarchy. About the Industrial Revolution. About segregation. About the genocide of Indigenous peoples. About workhouses. About the Witch Trials. About the French Revolution. About the Spanish resistance against fascism. About residential schools. About the 60s Scoop. About the Stolen Generations. About resistance against the Roman Empire. About so much more. Just read them. Make sure they’re not written through the lenses of oppressors and/or rich people though.

28) Recognize that while history affects the present day history IS NOT the present day and present struggles are unique and different though not altogether separated from history. The present day is the present day. It’s struggles are unique and the way that the struggle for universal equality and liberation manifests in the present day is unique.

30) Don’t trust Christian priests.

31) Actually be cautious of any rich, privileged person trying to teach you religion.

32) Just because someone’s older doesn’t mean that they’re right or they know more than you. Knowledge of the truth and wisdom comes from kindness, compassion, humility, and suffering. It does not come from age. A rich man born to a rich family who thinks he’s better than poor people and does not have humility and respect towards them is not someone who knows things, no matter how old he is.

33) Men are generally less trustable than women because they’ve been taught to believe they’re always right and as such do not question themselves and think deeply and critically about their opinions as much as women do.

34) This does not apply to men who are poor or mentally ill since society never teaches them that.

35) Despite this being an unpopular opinion, pain and struggle are actually really good teachers. If you’re suffering, you deserve better. You deserve to not be suffering. But still, use it as an opportunity to learn.

37) Gender roles are the biggest scam ever created.

38) But the even bigger scam is capitalism.

39) You do not need material wealth. It is inherently addictive and bad for yourself, everyone else, and the Land and Water.

40) It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.

41) If you’re in a situation where people are treating you like you’re better than other people just get the fuck out of that situation as fast as you can. And never fucking look back no matter what ANYONE says.

42) Have respect and reverence for nature. Learn from it as much as you can. But from like, nature directly. Not from people talking about nature. Unless they’re Indigenous. And pristine, untouched nature is better than nature that’s been tampered with.

43) The world runs on bonds of love more than bonds between atoms.

44) Work hard not for money or to increase the power you have but rather to humbly and reverently improve the lives of the oppressed.

45) But recognize that you can’t do everything and do what you can and don’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t do.

good morning dashboard! a lot of bullshit went down that i want to address. because i can. because i, as a black female roleplayer am impacted ( directly , indirectly , irrefutably so ) by the actions of yesterday. so many words are jumbling through my mind right now and i don’t even know what avenue to start off at , so i’ll just go at them one at a time. 

1. THE USE OF AAVE.   i understand that many of the words used in pop culture today like lit , bet , go off , sis , wig , yolo , bae , ETC gets tossed around in music and then translated into mainstream culture but the ISSUE with its usage is that white people , and white people in particular take these words with no recognition or NO validation from the black artists / intellects / etc they take it from. and this is CASUAL , casual appropriation. they’re just ~words~ what’s the big deal ? the big deal is this. it stems into a LARGER ocean , a bigger body of cultural appropriation that has been happening for centuries. so much of culture , of music , of fashion , of inspiration , is appropriating from black culture. and we never get any accolades or respect. miley cyrus wears dreadlocks and is HAILED for being fashion forward. zendaya wears dreadlocks and she’s shamed for it. says she smells like weed and olive oil. you see the issue there ? if you don’t you’re willfully being ignorant and that goes onto my next point. 

2. TO BE IGNORANT IS TO BE PRIVILEGED.  you know better. you all know better.  you were all taught in school how segregation was downright EVIL. how slavery was an economic system that flourished by dehumanizing and battering black people into nothing more than manual labor.  and some of ya’ll think that once the separate but equal law got passed that racism was over. NO HUSSIES THINK AGAIN !!!! we’re not even 100 years removed from the CRA , the movement , the death of MLK.  the laws have changed but the social instruction , the teaching of diversity inclusion and loving your fellow man has not happened. racism is NOT over bc apparently we have white people chickenshit enough to go on anon and call black muns on here niggers because they’re whiteness is so fragile they can’t handle the truth and can’t handle being told they’re not allowed to have something. GUESS WHAT BLACK PEOPLE HAVEN’T BEEN ALLOWED TO HAVE ANYTHING FOR YEARS AND YOU ALL KEEP TELLING US TO BE QUIET AND JUST ~WORK HARD~ no get out. ignorance is a privilege. white people and sometimes nonblack poc are AFFORDED , in various degrees, the ability to see what the fuck is going on and turn off all receptors of empathy or competence to learn further. i am not afforded that luxury. i see black men and women killed at the end of a police gun. i see BLM getting reduced to violent , pillaging mongers. i’m called the n word on my campus. i’m denied access to some parties because i’m black. I AM NOT ALLOWED TO BE IGNORANT BECAUSE WHITENESS HAS CREATED A WORLD WHERE BLACKNESS IS STILL AN OTHER AND STILL SUBTIER TO WHITENESS. and that hasn’t changed. you ALL KNOW BETTER than to say the n-word. if you see racism call it out.  to be ignorant is to side with the oppressor. you are no better. 

3. SPEAKING OUT.   if you are nonblack poc or a white and you see something on black issues you can still support. don’t go in there acting like you know more than the black muns who ACTUALLY experience the bullshit spoken about. but you can listen to their stories , help by giving a listening ear , by educating yourself on the issue , by learning and empowering with the black community. but silence doesn’t help and i understand that some people feel as if it’s not their place but if it’s not your place you’ll know. someone will tell you. but seeing racism and remaining silent doesn’t solve the problem. white people have a platform of activism that black people get overlooked by. so use that platform but use it smartly. know your privilege and if you can, help, as an ally the best thing you can do is stand by our side and give support but NOT act like you’re going to be a saviour ( and this is not directed at anyone in particular , this is just my take on how to be an ally if you’re white ). and to my nonblack poc people ??? oppression is not universal. we all experience in waves. but the common identity we share in being an OTHER should radicalize us to fight for one another in the best way we can. do not stand silent on black issues. it hurts us. and the fight for equality and inclusion should be across the board. and to those of you who have spoken out , who have recognized their inaction did more harm than good , thank you. 

4. FINALLY , TO MY BLACK MUNS.   i love you. to those of you who have fought the fight last night i applaud you.  i know how tiring and soul draining it can be to yell out for acceptance when it seems like you’re screaming into a void. i understand that completely. may you find rest today. may your spirits be renewed. may your hearts be healed. nothing is more saddening and soul crushing then to realize and recognize that people don’t care about us. that they’d rather be comfortable in their racist ignorance and stoop to calling us niggers rather than to see fault in their actions and move for change. it hurts realizing that people don’t care and that we don’t know how to make them care. and to always have to fight again and again only to be met with opposition is back breaking.  i hope you have found spaces to exist and be free and experience black joy with others. and i hope there can be change , a spearhead , a revolution to make this site just as inclusive for black muns as it can be. and if there’s a way to do that i would love to help , to plan , to mobilize. i hate this site but i keep coming back to it for the connections i’ve made are dearly important to me. 

IN CONCLUSION, THE RACISM THAT OCCURRED LAST NIGHT WAS DISGUSTING. ABHORRENT. AND CHANGE NEEDS TO HAPPEN. IMMEDIATELY. 

If I had the ear of South America..

I would say, “Latinx is only the beginning.”

Yeah. It’s perceived as an anglo plot to colonize and imperialize the Spanish language, as it was born in the US thanks to a bunch of cultural marxist shitheads that are shamelessly trying to argue against gendered language on some futurist utopian transhumanist bullshit, white claiming it’s purely, “for diversity and inclusion of the transgendered and non-binary gendered people.”

But you aren’t going to stop or stem this tide of stupid by writing it off as some anglo plot. It just.. it won’t stop.

Here in the United States a guerilla cultural war went on. As a child I was exposed to radical feminists that took careful measures to engineer my experiences and get me to draw conclusions. That white people were evil, as individuals and as a group. That white people were destroying the world. That white people were soulless, cultureless imperialist monsters that just wanted to subvert all the innocent and harmless brown people and verifiably undeniably had enslaved everybody and everything.

That togetherness you enjoy under the label Hispanic and/or Latino? These people that formulated Latinx are working to subvert that, too. Here in the states, “I don’t see race” became controversial because the supposed progressives don’t like the egalitarian model that eliminates race and class from the equation to address if an individual is free or not based on their own personal merits, poverty level, education, etc. They DO like to ask, “Are these COMMUNITIES and MINORITY GROUPS (self identified) thriving and growing? If not, is it because the majority isn’t helping them grow at their own expense?”

In the United States, for the longest time, the narrative was that Spanish colonialism was irrelevant, at least in the US conversation about race and oppression, because, “Spanish speakers are marginalized and oppressed.” And also implied to be synonymous with being as different from white people as Asians and black Africans. So giving the Spanish the same stigma as they give, say, people descended from the English, or the French, or the Germans, was considered wrong.

But now that they’ve decided they want to cement more ties with drug cartels and guerillas across South America, the conversation and discourse has progressed. Now they want to kick up activity in Latin America to make society divisive and talk about how the black Latino is inherently oppressed by the white Latino. Rather than the discourse assume everybody south of the border is some big happy singular culture and family, it’s becoming clearer they don’t like white Spanish, and want the progressive and hip and cool kid view that white Spanish people, regardless of their origins or immigration status, are oppressors of people with different skin, solely on account of their, “privilege.”

This mentality that encouraged minority groups to militantly self-segregate and declare themselves separate cultures unto themselves, being oppressed by a white majority, is being used to sell social theories and scapegoat majorities for any and all problems being faced by a community .Exploiting the very real colorism and history of discrimination, but not for the ends of ending it, but for exploiting it to motivate division, discord and violence.

Feminism’s surface stated values and goals in and of themselves aren’t all bad. Obviously, there are backwards and exploitative or outright misogynistic views, values and social policy put in place to prevent women from living independent lives or progressing in work or business. The concept of a niche of interest that covers that WOULD be good, except it has been co-opted and platformed by these same marxist guerilla people for the purposes of selling dialectic materialistic views on what is unfair and what is unjust, and they’re harnessing that anger to create a culture that makes women feel oppressed as a class and under the auspices of what they’re learning from the Marxists.

They use and exploit this niche, this legitimate advocacy towards equality and advancement for women, the way a horror movie monster wiggles into the skin of a crewmate to characterize itself as something it is not while sabotaging the environment and exploiting the situation for its own ends. Infiltration. So female uprightedness and empowerment in and of itself is not the problem, but ‘feminism’ as a social organization is. The banner has been platformed and tained, and a lot of the literature mixed in with it is more of the same Critical Legal Theory crap that tells them certain things are true and absolute based on arbitrary theory.

It is important to not see this egalitarian undertone as the problem. It is not. The egalitarian element that is appropriated by these conspirators and guerillas is not the issue. The issue is the people that have exploited the conversation of female equality, are doing so to stick lenses over the eyes of the people with the only outlet of social organization they can see or know to do anything about it. And that’s how you get populist radical feminism as the only or biggest, loudest game in town for their organizing.

That’s how you get buzz cut self-proclaimed radfems rioting and attacking churches and other, “patriarchal organizations.” That’s how you get the same sort of woman taking the liberty of telling young girls (whom then go on to see young boys so dourly and poorly) that “society is corrupted and evil.”

It is so, so important going forwards to fight shit like Latinx in the correct way. If you make the wrong arguments, you won’t break through to your daughters or sons. They’re being told that white people (and this now includes Spanish-Latinos) are monsters. And they’re being told that men are shit. Little boys (like I was) are being cornered by their female age-group peers, their peers older sisters, aunts, mothers, other peers, that men by default are oppressive, woman-hating monsters by default and by society/culture.

You need to understand that the things these supposed progressives try to fight for, they do it solely to take the niche away from anybody else and DEFINE progressivism as what they want, and anything they do not, to be more of the same oppression by race, by sex, by religion, by culture, by money. It’s a propaganda game, and the more any of you try to preach about Jesus or the church knowing best, or ‘things are just naturally a certain way and you need to understand that,’ the more you play into their hands.

Your enemy is radical, and it is only secular on paper. But they’ll induct people to have “important conversations” with your children and community that appeal to what they only call science and logic, that are in fact only loosely that. And really just subjective opinion, philosophy. Social science. You try and appeal to religion to argue their stuff, they’ll beat you like a drum and you’ll just prove them right in the developing hearts and minds of a generation that is trying to not be stuck with the stigma of their parents or ancestors in the eyes of their friends.

This is not an enemy you can just sing a song about Jesus and Mary and defeat. These people will take and twist any real or even perceived and interpreted flaw in your society and those that suffer from the ills the most will internalize it, if what’s made to appeal to their sensibilities takes.

In America, that comes in the form of mixing racial separatism and supremacism with conflating it for the struggle for black freedom and equality. And I cannot imagine it being any different south of Mexico, whatsoever. They’ll work on the girls and tell them that to be born white-Latino is to be an oppressor, tell the girls they’re largely exempt from this because women are a marginalized and oppressed minority/demographic, and tell the misc. non-white groups across South America that they should organize against the hegemony of white people and “whiteness.”

They’ll do it while pretending their attempts and desire to spread disunity and hostility is “sticking up for the little guy.” They’ll do it while confronting overbearing actual patriarchal culture and binary gendered culture (so long as it’s white)  and write off ALL of Catholicism in South America as equal to the WORST of examples of bad Catholicism.

American conservatives continue to struggle dealing with these people because they see an opportunity to polarize and capitalize on the totalitarian nature of this polarization. They see it as a way to incentivize people to vote for more conservative, religious and similarthings, because if their alternative are literal communists and socialists, they can afford to ask for more.

Meanwhile they lose when it comes to hearts and minds of the young because their messages are just utterly worthless when as a 2-13 year old, you’re being told religious, old, white, capitalist people are oppressing everybody and destroying everything and trying to force everybody to live and society to work under the totalitarianism of religion.

When the angry political lesbian type corners you as a small child and explains that men are why women are so afraid of men, and you can’t even rebutt that it’s a feminist talking point without them talking about how that’s a Nazi/conservative propaganda view, and the young girls they’re grooming go with that interpretation of the world and events because it holds more romantic value for them, things they want to be true and things that they’ve been given just enough facts and reason to think are true, it doesn’t help when competitive arguments are either, “you’re too young to think about or talk about social issues or political discourse,” or, confirm every negative suspicion they now have with, “well they’re right, we are oppressing them, but we have every right to.”

The only way to truly beat these manipulative, lying, exploiting animals is to beat them at their own game.

They do not care about minority welfare or rights beyond their solutions on how to address any given injustice they can think of. Whether it be by making society respect the establishment of different racial communities again solely to provide financail welfare to people on the basis of race, or rules that say they’re free to discriminate against groups of people in the name of hiring and defending others. They care only about using those struggles to give the state more power over not just people, but groups, and even how communities are defined. Right down to trying to demand biological sex be marginalized in importance of terms like gender solely because less than .4% of the human population claims to not be defined by the biological sex/gender binary.

So the only way to defeat them is to address the problems in a way that route and solve them, while you still have power and the means by which to solve them the proper way. For if you don’t, the Marxist village idiots will.

Why all of Ace people are included in LGBT+

Asexuality is an umbrella term. Essentially it means a person does not experience sexual attraction to either gender or experiences very little or  only after developing a deep emotional connection to an individual (as it’s with Demisexuals). This, automatically disqualifies asexual people from being straight which is defined by being sexually attracted to the opposite gender. 

I’ve been seeing the argument against Cis/Het asexuals around a lot and I want to explain why it is wrong to exclude them from the community. A lot of points have been made about this but I haven’t really seen posts about the very specific issue I deal with so I wanted to make a post about it. 

First of all, I’d like to explain a few things about my experience. I’ve identified as asexual for 5+ years and it has helped a lot in my personal growth. I always knew I was asexual but before discovering the terminology I thought really negative things about myself, like that I hated everyone and that I needed therapy or even medical intervention. ( Hormones treatments, or maybe neurologically something was very wrong.) In any case, Asexuality helped me understand a lot about myself but it also helped me understand things about other people to the point where I grew to be way more accepting of LGBT+ communities than I was. ( Which I thought I was already pretty accepting before asexuality came along because I didn’t actively hate LGBT+). In any case, I realised there was room for improvement. 

At that point in my life I knew i was asexual and that is about where my conversations ended. I didn’t know is if I was attracted to male or female romantically and dated because maybe, I thought, that came after but it didn’t. Well, not exactly. I did develop a romantic attraction to someone and eventually married that someone but this was outside whether that  someone was male, female, agender or genderfluid. I now know I’m panromantic. So if my SO  suddenly realized they’re Transgender for example it wouldn’t really change anything for me.

Why am I going on about this? My point here is that, without the Ace community being a part of the LGBT+ community I may have not been able to move past some level of internalized homophobia that I did not realize I was dealing with. I’ve seen a lot of aces struggle with this. I may have wrongly identified as a Heteroromantic Cisgendered Asexual. Which, would have worked for me I suppose except that I probably would’ve taken the side of Oppressive Heterosexual people in some subjects because of my internalized homophobia I had no idea about.  Or been entirely opposed to dating same gender people because “ What? I’m not gay. TM”

The segregation of the Ace community from the LGBT+  community is bad for both sides. Which I’ve seen a lot of Ace/ LGBT+ people try to explain. I’ve seen a lot of exclusionists trying to argue that Heteroromantic aces do not belong in  the community because they are oppressors but... how else are you going to fight against internalized homophobia? For example someone who is ace/bi but identifies as Demisexual Heteroromantic because of internalized homophobia. If these people don’t have the access to LGBT+ community and their resources then how is it supposed to dawn on them that they have these issues in the first place? I mean you already have the “ I’m not attracted to people sexually” so,  it becomes harder to understand who you’re attracted to afterwards because everyone experiences their sexual and romantic attraction differently and in different degrees. Someone may think they’re Ace/Aro and then realize they’re romantically attracted to the same gender but may not  be able to discover this without their internalized homophobia out of the picture.

There’s a lot of overlap. Which is why asexuality was first introduced to the LGBT+ community and not  due to harassment/wanting to feel special/ wanting to be oppressed like so many exclusionists will have you believe. 

Asexuality is a minority  orientation. So I can’t begin to understand why LGBT+ people would feel threatened by their continued inclusion in the LGBT+ community when many Asexuals are in fact already a part of the community and the ones that aren’t ( or “don’t qualify”) by some people’s standards may be dealing with some degree of internalized -phobia  that the LGBT+ community can help erase. Even if by the end this person realizes they are in fact very much heteroromantic asexual I guarantee to you  that the benefits of having included them as a part of the LGBT+ community are  in both sides interest.

Racist by Law

There sure is systemic racism. It's just not how the condescending whining class claims it exists. They were the oppressors all along. Now, there's a twist. Amateur lecturers self-flagellating over how much they've allegedly benefitted by being whiter than Miracle Whip thought they'd get away with it by blaming others. Seeing you're the problem takes insight and courage, which they'll work on developing tomorrow.

Society's true innate bigotry takes the form of arranging for a trifling stipend in exchange for signing a waiver describing everything as biased. Progress only takes the form of meddlesome policies backed by those currently shrieking at statues. Everyone but them is racist, which is why they create mandatory agencies that prevent black progress.

Treating minorities like they can’t get ahead is the righteous way to pursue justice. I wonder if there's a word for getting to support policies that cause harm while pretending to be the ones redeeming society through wealth redistribution. I'd call it privilege. Not having to enroll in their own schemes is their reward for creating them.

We must puncture the tub in order to fill it. Poverty programs sure seem to increase it. You have to specify that they're anti-poverty. I know those who believe our dumb and awful government fixes everything are usually correct.

Oh, right: the money comes from somewhere. Taxing to prosperity hasn't seemed to make the hole shallower. In fact, it's getting pretty toasty as we near Earth's core. Put on sunscreen before trying to reach China.

Taking what's earned either makes citizens poorer or kept from hiring those poorer. But at least the IRS is entirely efficient as it separates earnings from earners.

Throwing money is bound to work. It'll just take a few more trillions and decades. Patience is easy when it's not your precipitation used to make it rain.

Storing the poor isn't making anyone richer. Deluding oneself into walking through housing projects and concluding it's a compassionate way to make others live is almost impressive. Getting out is tough more than literally.

Nothing is quite as healthy as incentive to stay impoverished. It's too bad our loving government tore down affordable neighborhoods so they could erect hideously brutal brick shoeboxes to warehouse those they help.

If you think your landlord sucks, wait until you deal with politicians. The only authority over housing should be a lease residents freely sign. There could be reasonable rates if only free market foes didn't make them crazily expensive by artificial shortages caused by rent control. But they do it to help.

Presuming mean society won’t let anyone darker than Donny Osmond advance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The lack of overt concession is truly insidious, as discouragement from even trying is racist in the most patronizing manner imaginable.

The biggest barrier to entrepreneurship is being convinced it'll never work. Provide something decent, and decent people will buy it. Anyone unwilling to purchase self-punishes. Phew: bigotry solved itself.

Trying to convince black people that police only exist to hunt them for sport surely reduces tension. The alternative is systematically worse. Cops are presently withdrawing like the last helicopter is leaving Saigon, and cities have become dangerous faster than a looter can smash Target's doors. Noting how many black lives were saved by effective policing is surely racist.

Tell people fervently enough that the system loathes them and they'll start to believe it.  Vigorous discouragement creates levelness. Well, look who's here to save you.

Self-proclaimed superheroes who shoved you in front of a bus have just the plan to protect you from getting run over. It's going to take a little while to put it in action.  Dismantling the mean parts will require another half-century or so.  How are things now?

Take your time, as we apparently have eternity what with being in Hell. We could escape, as the gate's open. But some prefer the dry heat. Proclaiming that America is still coping with slavery's legacy is one way to hold a grudge. Honky-ass bitches perversely trying to preserve subjugation expect black people to applaud them for literally being white knights.

Keeping minorities from ever advancing gives cracker liberals purpose. Taking opportunities while explaining they don't exist perpetuates a system they sure don't want to end. They want to help others, but they need to create victims first.

Submitting to authority is demanded for tolerance. All that fairness is going to kick in at any moment now.  Your betters just have to take a bit more of your freedoms.  Oh, and it'll require your dollars, as bribing equality into existence gets expensive. I hope their plan was to create poverty with anti-poverty measures, because there's nothing more mortifying if anything else was the goal.

That's who you trust?  The rotten government that featured slavery then segregation is surely the entity that should be trusted to fix discrimination.  Or maybe the pattern of oppression has been established. We may as well learn lessons provided over centuries. Hating politicians should be the only acceptable prejudice.

“You’re aliens here,” they say to them there. “You’re aliens here,” they say to them here. And between here and there they stretched their bodies like a vibrating bow until death celebrated itself through them. Their parents were driven out of there to become guests here, temporary guests, to clear civilians from the battlegrounds of the homeland and to allow the regular armies to purge Arab land and honor of shame and disgrace. As the old lyric had it: “Brother, the oppressors have all limits dared to break / To battle then, of ourselves an offering to make…/ Of a sudden upon them with death we came / In vain their fight, and nothing they became.” And as those lyrics were chasing out the remnants of the invaders, liberating the country line by line, these youths were being born here, any old way—without a cradle, perhaps on a straw mat or banana leaves, or in bamboo baskets—with no joy or feasting, no birth certificate or name registration. They were a burden to their families and tent neighbors. In short, their births were surplus. They had no identity. And in the end what happened, happened. The regular armies retreated, and these youths were still being born without a reason, growing up for no reason, remembering for no reason, and being put under siege for no reason. All of them know the story—a story very much like that of a cosmic traffic accident or a natural catastrophe. But they also read a great deal in the books of their bodies and their shacks. They read their segregation, and the Arab-nationalist speeches. They read the publications of UNRWA, and the whips of the police. Yet they went on growing up and going beyond the limits of the refugee camp and the detention center. And they read the history of forts and citadels conquerors used as signatures to keep their names alive in lands not theirs and to forge the identity of rocks and oranges, for example. Is history not bribable? And why, then, would many places—lakes, mountains, cities—bear the names of military leaders but that they had mouthed an impression when they first beheld them, and their words became the names still used today? “Oh, rid!” (How beautiful!) That’s what a Roman general cried out when he first saw that lake in Macedonia, and his surprise became its name. Add to this the hundreds of names we use to refer to places previously singled out by some conqueror, where it has since become difficult to disentangle the identity from the defeat. Forts and citadels that are no more than attempts to protect a name that does not trust time to preserve it from oblivion. Anti-forgetfulness wars; anti-oblivion stones. No one wants to forget. More accurately, no one wants to be forgotten. Or, more peacefully, people bring children into the world to carry their name, or to bear for them the weight of the name and its glory. It has had a long history, this double operation of searching for a place or a time on which to put a signature and untie the knot of the name facing the long caravans of oblivion. Why then should those whom the waves of forgetfulness have cast upon the shores of Beirut be expected to go against nature? Why should so much amnesia be expected of them? And who can construct for them a new memory with no content other than the broken shadow of a distant life in a shack made of sheet metal? Is there enough forgetfulness for them to forget? And who is going to help them forget in the midst of this anguish, which never stops reminding them of their alienation from place and society? Who will accept them as citizens? Who will protect them against the whips of discrimination and pursuit: “You don’t belong here!” They present for inspection an identity, which, shown at borders, sounds an alarm so that contagious diseases may be kept in check, and at the same time they note how expertly this very identity is used to uplift Arab-nationalist spirit. These forgotten ones, disconnected from the social fabric, these outcasts, deprived of work and equal rights, are at the same time expected to applaud their oppression because it provides them with the blessings of memory. Thus he who’s expected to forget he’s human is forced to accept the exclusion from human rights that will train him for freedom from the disease of forgetting the homeland. He has to catch tuberculosis not to forget he has lungs, and he must sleep in open country not to forget he has another sky. He has to work as a servant not to forget he has a national duty, and he must be denied the privilege of settling down so that he won’t forget Palestine. In short, he must remain the Other to his Arab brothers because he is pledged to liberation. Fine, fine. He knows his duty: my identity—my gun. Why then do they level against him countless accusations: making trouble, violating the rules of hospitality, creating problems, and spreading the contagion of arms? When he holds his peace, his soul is taken out to the stray dogs; and when he moves toward the homeland, his body is dragged out to the dogs. The intellectuals, capable of trying on the latest models in theory, have convinced him he’s the only alternative to the status quo; yet when the status quo pounces on him, they demand self-criticism because he has gone too far in his patriotism: he has gone so far as to put himself beyond the fold of the status quo. Conditions are not ripe. Conditions are not yet ripe. He has to wait. What must he do? Chatter his life away in the coffee shops of Beirut? He had already prattled so long he was told Beirut had corrupted him. Society ladies, armed with automatic weapons, amid the tinkle of their jewelry give speeches at parties organized for the defense of the national origins of mujaddara. Yet when he feels embarrassed by this and says something to the effect that the homeland is not a dish of rice and lentils, and when he takes up arms for use outside, on the border, they say, “This is overstepping the bounds.” And when he uses these arms to defend himself inside, against the local agents of Zionism, they say, “This is interference in our communal affairs.” What’s to be done then? What can he do to end the process of self-criticism, other than apologize for an existence which has not yet come into being? You are not going there, and you don’t belong here. Between these two negations this generation was born defending the spirit’s bodily vessel, onto which they fasten the fragrance of the country they’ve never known. They’ve read what they’ve read, and they’ve seen what they’ve seen, and they don’t believe defeat is inevitable. So they set out on the trail of that fragrance.

Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, August, Beirut, 1982.

Troy’s Blues

When I left Baltimore for my first year of college, there weren’t many reasons left to get my hands sticky, so I didn’t eat any mangoes. It seemed pointless. In fact, I didn’t crave anything particularly sweet or spicy.

Toward the end of my first September away,  craving familiarity more than sweets, I went to the grocery store closest to my dormitory and picked up a plastic package labeled  “sweet mango slices” in hopes of eating them with the fork that the cashier put in my bag before I got a chance to ask. I had no utensils of my own in my room, so I was thankful for the assumption on the cashier’s part. I walked back with the white ‘thank you’ bag tucked under my arm, fearing ridicule from anyone knew what was inside. Oddly I felt embarrassed of the man I was becoming. The man who eats his mango with a fork, forgetting what he comes from. A man who doesn’t get his fingers and face dirty with the flesh of a fruit that marked a good pause or ending on a warm day. Half way through this story, staring at my fidgeting eyebrows, wrinkled and squirming like two confused caterpillars, Troy bit his bottom lip so hard to keep himself from laughing, that I thought he would piss himself or prick his lip.

“Yo, shut up.”

“No, for real,” I said, nearly begging him to let me finish. I knew it was a crisis and I knew if I didn’t fix it by the end this summer, then I was going to end up like one of those black news reporters whose photos the black student union would ceremoniously throw chicken bones at. Their hairlines always looked like they didn’t live near a black barbershop and they talked like if you asked them where they came from, they would say something as strange and as vague as “New England.”

“Yo, the white boys you live wit talk like that. Like, trip about what kinda mangos you get and—“

“It’s not the type of mangos… I just felt like I was losing…”. I acted like I needed to find words, but I knew exactly what I’d lost my first year away at school. What my roommates tried to help me preserve by quoting as much Jay-Z as they could. Their disposition when they dropped me off at a Black Student Union meeting with self-congratulatory smiles like overzealous preschool parents or when they bought me an energy drink so I could study after trying to embrace my inner King protesting with the BSU. I thought I should find an internship for this summer. In fact, I had two lined up thanks to a black professor who was always looking out. I flaked at the last minute and made my way home on the first train I could get.

When I got off of the train in Baltimore, I could smell seawater and Old Bay seasoning and the festering wounds of the former heroin capital like some tourist who was all caught up on every season of The Wire. In fact, he owned the DVD collection. In fact, the kind of stranger I’d become skipped out on a mildly French summer of making copies for a sleazy but respectable essayist in Montreal just to feed his perverse obsession with Baltimore. June had just begun to be its true self, and it was too hot for the plastic seat covers we sat on, but the blunt never burned as smooth if we didn’t roll it on Troy’s grandmother’s coffee table. We decided that when we turned thirteen. A joke turned tradition turned law. Ms. Anne could smell the weed, but she let it go the very day she found out where it came from. By then, we were fifteen, and she let it go because “Troy did much worse,” she said with the kind of old Jamaican lady frown that could make you accept her words as facts and question no further. Once Ms. Anne saw that it was me kneeling next to her coffee table, breaking up weed with the kind of focus she’d seen me recite bible verses with I think she changed her mind about weed. The adults around me decided for me that I wasn’t much of a risk taker before I even had the chance to take risks and they stuck to it. I was too frozen to move or even speak. Troy shrugged when I asked if she was home. The idea of getting into trouble made me tremble with the kind of fear that makes a marijuana high a crippling two hours of misplaced paranoia. The kind of high that makes you scrub the kitchen floor and light every candle and decorative candle around the house because of the fear of smelling like the spliff we smoked outside and three blocks away for that matter. I did this every day when I got home from school until Troy told me to stop because it made no sense. That kind of balance made me feel like I had a purpose. I felt like a needed part of a machine. We had nothing to worry about. Not that day at least. I’d been known from that early, risk-free age to keep Troy on “the straight and narrow.” This meant that weed was no longer weed but a textbook and I some kind of teacher and Troy a star student is what Ms. Anne must’ve thought as she made her way up the stairs mumbling something about there being more curry chicken on the stove and another thing about heating up the rice and peas in the fridge. I missed home. Like any city, there was something in even the name that you couldn’t get anywhere else. I even say it differently now. I mean, I’ve always said it differently, but it only gets brought to your attention when white people from your college town try to correct you.

“You mean Bal’more.”

“I mean, yeah, If you’re white.”

“What?”, Asked Sarah politely but prying. Not like the Sarah from my French class. She never stuck her neck out in curiosity, so she gave the impression that she knew everything already. And I believed her. Shit, I believed every person confident enough to fake some confidence in my first year of college. That is until finals came around anyway. This Sarah was one of those Sarahs who came to college with the knowledge that the world owed her its submission. She demanded this submission when speaking to anyone. Any international student who had intimate details about a city she’d be visiting that coming summer. For any minority who dared to call themselves a minority in her presence. To any man taller than her and lighter than a latte stained t-shirt. For she was a woman. And since she was white, this womanhood was the happy medium between advantage and disadvantage that she could wave in just about anyone’s face to help her win an argument about privilege or oppression or missionary work. And yes, yes she would waste this potential at the end of her second year by spending her allowance on wholesale t-shirts and cotton balls and paint so her and the other Sarahs and the Melissas and the Rachels could make t-shirts with vaginas on them to protest male superiority on campus perpetuated by athletes and tenured professors.

“I said yeah if you’re white.”

To which she replied “Wait… Isn’t that…”, hesitant with her voice resting at a high enough pitch so that if the statement that was to follow were wrong, she could make it seem as if she weren’t seriously asking in the first place. A high enough pitch so that she could easily make the case that you’re overreacting and on top of that little too loud. Then when the conversation lent itself to dreaded talk of systematic this and inherent that, she could tell you that victimizing one’s self is what keeps one oppressed and not necessarily an oppressor.

“Nothing,” I said with my eyes to her expensive leather sneakers. The ones on which she’d written the word feminist on the toe. “Different people say it different,“ I said with the kind of deference that came along with the fear that a mob of Sarahs would convince everyone that I was a buck and a brute if my volume grew any higher than a whimper.

“Oh. I guess,” Sarah said, knowing she’d won. And she had. And I kept my eyes to her shoes until they were out of the elevator door and out of my sight. And just as the door closed I’d found exactly what I needed to say and even the courage to say it. I wanted to tell her about segregation and white flight and anatomy and how all of these things have their way with vernacular. I wanted to tell her to mind her white ass business with that all-consuming voice that Troy had, but that wasn’t my voice. I was losing my grip on a foundation that I’d never really gotten comfortable standing on back in Baltimore. Sarah has a lineage at this school. She has a photo of her great great grandmother. She’s seen her great grandmother’s diary entries and has her father’s family crest tattooed on her left calf. She had forgotten I even existed by the time I was back in my room finishing the rest of my processed mango with my left eye swelling with some strange, regretful tear. Feeling like I let down my race. Like I wasn’t looking out for them the way they looked out for me. Like Professor Dickens looked out for me. Like Troy looked out for me. I couldn’t help but think and think again that Troy would be much better off in college than I. He, like Sarah, had a sturdy and unintimidated foundation that every college needs. Hard opinions against others. Troy had a sneaker collection, the origins of hip-hop memorized, a stab wound and the perfect recipe for jerk chicken. He’d taken the nature and the nurture and turned it all into love and eloquence with the kind of beauty that people paint pictures with. When he spoke, he demanded fear. The kind of biblical fear that I always doubted until he spoke. When Moses came down from the mountain to speak, I bet he had a voice like Troy’s. Never demanding, but enlightening. It filled the air with the energy it didn’t know it needed. The kind of vibrato that could make the blind see. If he told you he was president, you’d believe him. If he told you he was a lawyer, a diplomat, or a ghostwriter for the pope you just might go along with it. No one dared to call him intelligent or eloquent or charming. Those were insults shoved in his face by welfare administrators, judges at juvenile courts and a fast food employer or two— some people who allowed themselves for one moronic second to think that he didn’t know himself. And even then, he snickered and told them that he got his diploma from the school of hard knocks. Dated and reductive, yes, but it worked for everyone like music when they heard him say it. And for the smallest moment, they wished their kids or perhaps they themselves could have gone to school there. They wished that Troy could be their professor. They wished that the plight that plagued the black men they knew could be reversed with that kind of education. I wished it too. I knew my SAT scores were just a result of being able to memorize well. And my vocabulary the same. The format in which I wrote essays were as marginalized as my mind, and that blandness would never get me the same education that Troy had.

I was just kind. The kind of kind that I hoped would get me past the campus police without having to flash my ID. I mean, no one ever flashed their ID’s, but the officers, especially one “Smith” would swallow his good morning smile just as I approached the arc at the southern entrance of the main campus. He would stroll out of his booth sideways to not tempt his pronounced hips. He would keep his gaze on something inside the booth to let one or two more students pass by seemingly unnoticed, but just as I approached he would gesture his trembling, pink hand for me to stop. Some mornings I was lucky enough to only have to flash my ID card and keep walking, but most mornings, especially when I looked like I was in a rush, he would pull the card from my fingers and give us both a good look just to be safe. And I still smiled. The same half smile I gave professors when they met eyes with me in hopes that I could permit them to read the word “nigger” aloud if needed. As if they wouldn’t do it anyway. The same smile I gave one of the Sarah’s when she asked me for the third time if I could sell her weed. The kind of ashamed and embarrassed half smile that Troy would never give. He, like Sarah, the security guard, and this President Obama photo on Troy’s grandma’s living room wall owed the world nothing. While my mind was outside of the living room, I must’ve settled into some sad, desperate kind of look while staring at a photo of the kind of man that felt like a myth. Troy slid forward against the plastic seat covers with a change in tone. Moses came down from the mountain just for a second to speak to a child or a mouse to say “Yo, you can have a mango every day this summer if you want.”

“It’s not even that serious,” I said, lifting my gaze from the large unframed photo of a stately Barack Obama. I relaxed in the chair to give Troy a very untrue reminder that I was his equal and that I’d only come back this summer to share our throne once more. I was no shadow. The independence I’d assumed during my school year should tell him that. But it didn’t. In fact, he didn’t even see my rebellious gesture. It was Friday and we were on the same plastic seat covers that we sat on most weekends since we were eleven. And I thought, just for a second or maybe for that entire summer that I was still eleven.

“Bet— Let’s go,” he said with a breath of excitement as he pearled the third blunt and tucked it behind his ear. The other two were in the Newport box next to those bad habits that severed us. That started when we turned fifteen, but we never talked about it. I went to a church retreat with my mom for a weekend, and when I got back, Troy said something about boosting his high and the next thing I knew he had an orange end between his lips. Oddly enough, I felt smaller. Furthermore, he looked beautiful and made cigarettes look no less than he.

At a stoplight, I noticed a bus stop I stood at every day to get to school, but I couldn’t see myself standing there because the wall of the building behind the bus stop had been repainted. It was blue now. A blue that someone must have thought of as promising or even soothing. I thought I missed the color of the bare bricks that were there before, but that wasn’t it at all. I thought the whole city would freeze while I was away. To know that the foundation that I wanted a second chance with was growing into something else on its own was frightening. I had to have been breathing as loud as I was thinking, but the music was even louder. The base rippled through the passenger seat and dared my rib cage to stop itself from vibrating. That, sixty miles per hour mixed with the West Baltimore wind made me feel, for a moment, like that one faded memory of me at the bus stop was nothing compared to what I knew I’d preserved. For another few seconds, I took it all in. The smell of horses, a loud voice or two, and the anticipatory hum of dirt bikes a few blocks away. Maybe this summer would give me a second chance.

I heard a bell as I opened the grocery store door and knew that there would be a smile to greet me soon after. Mr. Winston, a Jamaican man, now 72 smiled so big I thought he had to be looking at someone behind me, so I checked. He wasn’t. This man knew my entire family. He knew some family that I didn’t know was my family. To my knowledge, he knew every Jamaican in Baltimore. I went to school with his grandchildren when I was younger, and his middle son was my barber. My family went to his daughter’s annual cookout every summer, and my cousin took her daughter to prom. My mom and grandmother had come to his grocery store for cooking essentials since before my mother had thoughts of any children besides herself. When she did, and I came along, I would rush into the store and run straight up to him. He’d pick me up and sit me on the countertop next to the register and make me feel like I had some of the most fascinating toys in the world. In fact, he could make my toys better. He could animate any dinosaur, ready any car for a race and make Batman Man sound better than the TV. The show was always so grand that my excitement slid me to the edge of the countertop, but he would be sure slide me back before I could fall, making sure not to miss a beat in his performance.  Before I knew it, my mother had set out her ackee, callaloo, breadfruit, and pumpkin on the counter and was ready to go. But I  wasn’t, and they both knew it. So, Mr. Wints would fill one of my pockets with Pocas, the other with Tamarind balls, my left hand with a mango and Batman in my right. He would pat me on the head and tell me to be good until next time. Then next time came, and the next and soon enough, my toys became electronic, and he’d look at them with a forged elderly confusion he knew would make me laugh. When I got a cell phone, he asked me how many girls’ numbers I had, and I’d laugh at that too, also wondering why the number was so easy to guess. One day, I brought a girl into his store. I had to pick up some Saltfish for my grandmother before what I thought was a date. He was a little quieter this day. He knew I was nervous. Sasha knew too. I was almost too shy around her. Saying her name felt like a performance, and I didn’t want to open my mouth too much, so I just settled for Sash. She did too. The next time I came in the store, Mr. Wints asked about her, but I couldn’t tell him that I leaned in for a kiss and didn’t get one. Or that what I thought was a date was just me being an excuse for her to hang out with Troy. Her parents hated him. They hated his cologne and his audacious walk. Everything about him that she loved. I told Mr. Wints she was fine, and she was. He knew though, even though he asked two more times after that just to be sure. Just to let me know that he was there to talk if I wanted to. Since we were nine and would ride our bikes to his store, Mr. Wints would find the perfect moment while Troy had his head tucked far enough into a refrigerator to say, “Andrew” in that Jamaican way that sounds like Ahn-Joo. “Nuh let dat bwoy de keep step pon yuh toes, y’know” with his index finger pointed and head tilted and forehead wrinkles furrowed in a way that lets one know that his elder is serious and won’t be taken as any less.

“I won’t,” I said with the kind of quickness and chuckle that could put an end to any conversation, no matter how serious.

“Mr. Wints”, said Troy as the bell on the door rang again. Mr. Wints was still holding my hand in that way that older men have the license to do. I saw new wrinkles on his face. Two that weren’t there before I left. They were near his left eye, curving downward in a way that lead me to look at his mouth which had acquired a new sadness. I worked up the will, for the first time it seemed, to hold his hand like he held mine. I remembered a phone call from three months ago that I made to my mother. She was in a car, driving to Annette Winston’s funeral. She said she told me the week before that she died, but I couldn’t remember. I remember the conversation being quick since it was no longer appropriate to talk about what I called for in the first place. But there I was, getting a glimpse of why my elders held my hand for so long. I looked back at the new wrinkles and then to his eyes, but couldn’t find the words. With a new maturity, I brought my other hand to meet his as well to say thank you, and I’m sorry and everything else a man like Mr. Wints deserved, but I couldn’t open my mouth. I could feel words swelling; Meaning swelling. I knew that the man who helped shape my imagination expected more of me. I felt my eyelids swell with just what needed to be said, and just as these words were about to release themselves from a different kind of mouth,

“You looking good Mr. Wints. You look like you my age. I gotta watch my girl around you” Troy said. And Mr. Wints laughed like he hadn’t in days. Like he needed it. For a moment he was our age. I even thought I saw the new wrinkles doubt themselves. I know I did. I even thought I only imagined the sadness around his mouth. “You got more of the mangoes I got yesterday?”. Mr. Wints pointed toward the guinep, and the grapes and Troy followed.

He asked me about school and my grades and other things. Each question making me feel like I was taking a step away from him and him, me. He was the very man who tried to explain the key to happiness to me. He made my bad days feel not so bad with the story of how he lost the small finger on his left hand. “Under those. Under that box.” He said to Troy. Then he went on to say something to Troy about a boy who was shot. They both knew, and I didn’t. Troy said something about downtown and his father and Mr. Wints nodded and agreed. They laughed. I wondered if I smelled different. I thought my face must’ve changed or I must’ve looked different because they talked over me like a stranger. Not in the way that I’d always been, but like a visitor.

“How’s Sasha?”, I heard.

“She’s good.”

“Good. Back in school?”

“It’s summertime.”

“Mmm.”

“She good though. I’m good too.”

“You always good.”

“Yeah, you know me,“ said Troy, finishing the conversation, putting two mangoes and a cola champagne on the countertop. No charge for the mangoes and only $1 for the soda. Maybe things hadn’t changed as much as I thought.

   "Be good til next time,” said Mr. Wints, holding the side of my head the way he held my hand, paying close attention to my ear with his thumb.

“Yes, sir,” I said with the kind of respect I reserved for very few. He patted Troy on his shoulder.

“Why you keepin’ Andrew here so long?”

“Me? He wanted to come!”

“Keep unu self outta trouble this summer.”

“Always”, said Troy. And we left.

Soon enough, we were smoking our first two blunts of the summer on the hood of Troy’s car. At this moment, we felt invincible. I’d gotten something back. The weed in college was of better quality, but it didn’t feel the same. The company wasn’t the same. The air wasn’t the same. The shared end of this blunt didn’t taste like my roommate’s breath. Miller High Life and Twizzlers. I didn’t have a paper due the next day, and I didn’t feel like an outsider. There was comfort in the music we played and the rustling black plastic bag with the promise of two mangoes. We always smoked at the very top of this hill where you could see a decent amount of the city. We called it the top of the world because it sounded good, but we knew better. Troy’s cell phone rang, and he answered. I heard a resonant, musical voice on the other end and could feel my stomach turn as if it wanted to see it’s own tail. It was Sasha.

     "We at the smoke spot, babe,” said Troy, ashing his blunt. Babe played in my head again once or twice. This was new. For a second, I reconsidered who was on the other end of the phone. Not Sasha. She wouldn’t entertain pet names. Especially a pet name that was only a shortened version of another pet name. When I left, Sasha was done with Troy. I saw her square up to him and punch him in the face the night of our high school graduation after he grabbed her butt in front of some friends. She stood over him with a face full of tears and the tassel from her cap caught behind her ear and dared him to ruin her future. She was over him. In fact, we talked every day during our first month apart, and she was dating a girl we knew named Tianna. Sasha is the kind of person that can’t surprise you. When she fixes her car, nurses you to health or punches a man twice her size in the face. She’s a big personality paired with a mind that could put almost anyone to shame. She was bigger than babe. Babe was another part of that world that was created in my absence, but I knew at the very mention that our introduction was well on its way.

“Bet. Make a right then park in that lot,” he said, hanging up the phone with no proper goodbye. Suddenly, the grass beneath Troy’s car was lit and so was his car’s interior. It was the kind of light that was made for exposure. Made for finding things. Just as I noticed my shoulder lighting up the same way, I turned to look, and the lights went out. A car door shut and I heard the jangling keys and keychains with the cadence of the ones I walked to the bus stop almost every day of my last two years in high school. I looked into the darkness for what I knew was the parking lot to see a small silhouette step off of the concrete and onto the moonlit grass.

“Look at him,” she said, making her way up the hill. Before she reached me, I could already smell her house and her perfume and the gum she chewed. “Drew,” she said with the kind of honor that made me feel like some sort of giant. And she was the only person who called me Drew. This started when I called her Sash. The only difference was that we all knew that I was no Drew. A Drew was smooth and grounded. An Andrew was not so much that, but something else. She hugged my neck and head and kissed me above the ear. I snickered and hugged back with one arm around her waist. “You high?” she asked, pushing my head with three fingers and sliding onto the hood of the car in between Troy and me.

Until she asked, I didn’t know I was, but I was. And the view was pretty like it’d never been before. And though I could barely see Sasha, I knew she was just the same. Troy was quiet though, then we were all quiet, so I knew something was brewing. We weren’t fifteen anymore, and this made my heart beat in a way that made me feel it in my throat and fingertips. I tapped my fingers on my hands too keep myself busy, not wanting the weed to get the best of me. I thought I was going to cry for a second and then laughed aloud at the thought, drawing unnecessary attention to myself. And with this new attention, I thought Sash and Troy could hear me breathing, and I didn’t want to disturb them, so I turned my head away. I placed my hand on the windshield and my head on my hand to soothe myself, and I was fine. Sasha let out some smoke and then whispered something to Troy. They both laughed, and I wanted to turn around to see if they were laughing at me, but I didn’t, and of course, they weren’t. Then I thought that maybe I was still fifteen and they had grown up and left me behind. I thought about myself in Montreal this summer with a new pair of glasses with thicker frames. I thought about my French and how it could complement those newer, thicker frames. Maybe it was a mistake to turn down an internship. I only wore contacts because I thought, oddly enough, glasses were for confident people, and thin metal frames were for cowards who couldn’t pick a side. Contact lenses were for conformists, and there I was. I thought about how confident I’d look at St. Joseph’s Oratory. I imagined that I’d look so knowledgeable that people would come up to me and ask me to explain things to them. And I would. Wrong or not and they would believe me because I had that kind of confidence and these new glasses.

I was woken up from Montreal by the sound of parting lips. The sound itself spiraled me down into some kind of prepubescent shock. To a time where kissing was some kind of scandal. A place where, if I looked, I would turn into stone or something harder; An adult. With this misplaced embarrassment and a desperate need for a crutch, I reached into the noisy, black plastic bag for a mango. A mango and two napkins. Though we never remembered to ask, Mr. Wints would always leave enough napkins in the bag for us. The mango was just soft enough. And holding it in my hand reassured my body that I remembered how to eat it. I even remembered how to hold the napkin carefully in between my ring and small finger for easier access.  I used my teeth to break the skin and pulled the skin back with my fingers. I ate the flesh from the top and peeled the rest of the skin as I worked my way down. Less mess. The parting lips seemed to have taken a rest. Either that or my own parting lips had drowned out theirs with a different kind of kiss. I kissed the summer and the sweetness of assurance. With these people and this fruit and this view, I knew I had a history and thus, a future.

I could only tell that I was at the core of the mango when the hairlike flesh became too hard to pull and the flavor was a different kind of sweet. It wasn’t until then that I realized my eyes were closed. Troy and Sasha were in the car. When I turned around, they had a look on their faces that resembled guilt with traces of apology. I wiped my hands clean of that look and the mango juice too. Things were good.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Troy while we shook hands with one thunderous clap and a quick clasp. Something we’d committed to muscle memory. Something that my time away couldn’t steal from me. “We’ll get another mango or something so you can stop cryin’ and shit.”

We did. We ate a mango almost every day that summer. We went to barbecues and smoked and watched too much TV. We laughed at people. Something you can’t do within the confines of my college campus unless it’s popular opinion or at mutually hated politicians or something along that line. Not here though. We watched a man lean to one side in slow motion and spring back to standing just before his ear touched his ankle. Troy laughed, and so did I. I felt bad at first, but no one was looking so neither was I. We ate more jerk chicken that summer than I ever have. And we drank too. Whatever our favorite rappers drank, we would bring a bottle of with us to any house party we were going to that weekend. We pulled up to a house next to two or three abandoned ones, heralded by the illustrious voices of our choice. One night for Bun B and another for Project Pat, all to announce our arrival. We walked into a yard through a broken fence to see groups of guys who seemed to all look alike when I was as drunk as I was. They were quiet or smoking or laughing. We stepped around to get through the front door. By the time Troy found a place on the couch, I was staring at a cat who looked unpleasantly familiar with it all. The New Balance, the bandanas with the clouds and the names. The Strong sense of distrust that could be seen on the face or every person there. I snickered and took a seat on the arm of the sofa, watching the cat, knowing she was expecting something. I went to the kitchen to get ice and saw two girls I knew from high school. They asked how I was and about college and I responded with what was expected and them too. After I got the ice, one of them and a guy she was with said something about how college ain’t for everybody, and I agreed because they were right. I didn’t think it was for me. I thought it was more for someone like Troy. Up until we were about thirteen, I cheated off of every math test we took together. He always had the right answer and never needed to study. He was one of those people who applied math to real-world stuff because he knew real-world stuff and how important these figures were. I could only see as far as the end of this page and the next report card. He was a problem solver and a thinker, and I was all worry. Fear of failure had propelled me to get good grades, and I was so good at letting fear be my guide that I did get good grades, so it was fine. I poured pineapple juice into the cup and laughed. I saw more people I knew and made small talk around the talk they made which only concerned the world that’d been built beyond me and in my absence. I felt the gap between me and whatever I was searching for that summer widen with every conversation and every private moment between others. I got to about the last swig in my cup when I heard shut the fuck up swell through the living room and into the kitchen where I was standing. Thinking almost nothing of it, I chewed on the ice I’d been waiting to enjoy. Two thumps and one crash later, the entire party was thrusted on to the front porch to watch a fight. Almost too drunk to keep my eyes open, I held myself up on a handrail. I heard a scream that was oddly familiar. I looked down, then up again and thought everyone had switched faces with the person next to them. I lost sight of Troy and forgot what he was wearing. The night was so dark in a way where the two guys fighting could’ve even been him. The girl screamed again and when I turned to look back at her someone else gasped, and just then, I could see his face, the guy in the green shirt. For the brief second that he was held in the air, I could see a face I’d known. Then many faces I’ve known. Every time his face passed the streetlight’s glare, he looked like someone else I knew. At that moment, any guy I knew could’ve been him. I thought I saw myself, then Troy and a few others. I went to school with them or church, or they knew my cousin, or we were friends, but before I could decide, he was slammed on his head so hard that everyone watching could feel it for him. The young girl shouted No! No… and after two light taps on my back I was trampled by the dispersing crowd running off of the porch and out of the yard. I held on to the handrail and tried to stand up, but couldn’t. When I could feel my feet again and could look up, the guy with the green shirt was lying in the grass. He’d been stabbed in the throat. The girl who was screaming was dragged away by her friends. She tried to fight them off, but they were saving her from the kind of night that the entire stampede was rushing to avoid. By this time, I thought my hands were cemented to the handrail and my eyes glued to the reflection of the streetlight against the blood hand knife. There wasn’t enough light for me to see his face, but I knew. The girl who was dragged off by her friends knew too. I heard so many car doors shut and so many feet run and they knew too.

Yo. Yo! I heard from Troy, running out of the house past me and through the gate, not even thinking to look at the grass. It wasn’t until then that I heard sirens and no shock could’ve made me stick around past that. To stay and hear that sound grow louder was to ask for something else. We rushed to the car and said nothing. Troy said something about the whole thing being crazy, and we never brought it up after that. Oddly enough, I thought about Sarah. I knew she would have plenty to say. She’d talk the whole way home and weeks after that. She would have stayed until the police came because she could. Sirens didn’t tell her to run; they told her that help was on the way. She would tell Rachel and Rachel Imogen, and they would be sure to congratulate her for her bravery and heroism. However, for us, this wasn’t our first Friday night like this, and it wouldn’t be our last. After the stampede settled and the sun came up, word got back to us that the guy in the green shirt was Kenny. I did know him. Troy did too. He’d stolen my bike when I was nine, and Troy stole it back. Troy fought him at a park, and he broke his finger. I didn’t hear much more about him until that night, and even then I couldn’t tell him apart from the faces that all seemed to look like one.

The summer was sweaty. I thought about Montreal every day. At times, I forgot about college and my roommates and what I came back home to find. My agenda, as perverse and planned as it was, never saw the light of day. By the time I realized my dream had been deferred, it was my last day in Baltimore. I heard a bell as I opened the grocery store door and knew that there would be a smile to greet me soon after, but there wasn’t. Karen, Mr. Winston’s daughter, was standing at the counter. She wasn’t smiling either.

“He’s not feeling too good today,” she said with a carefully crafted American accent. “He’ll be back tomorrow.” And of course he would. Until that day, I’d never walked through those doors and not seen him standing there. The man never missed a day of work. Even in the world that had been constructed in my absence, Mr. Wints was there to sell me a mango every day. Even if I wasn’t there, the knowledge that he was there was the kind of assurance that brought me back to Baltimore for the summer. “Since you leave today, I’ll just tell him you stopped by, hear? You boys be good. Especially you, Troy”. She handed us the bag of the mangoes, and we left. The wind in West Baltimore was a bit cooler that night, and we didn’t play the music as loud as usual. In fact, Troy and I didn’t speak much after I put my bags in the trunk. When we got to the gas station, I was already halfway through my mango when I realized a new church had been built across the street. I’d been here all summer and didn’t notice it standing alone over what had been an empty lot since I was born. I reached in the black bag for napkins, but there weren’t any in there. I opened the glove compartment hoping to see some, but I didn’t at first. I pushed past an envelope or two and some loose papers and pulled out a gun of all things. I looked at it as if it would tun into something else. I even thought that it could be fake, but the weight was my assurance. It was as heavy as about four mangos. I pushed past the envelope and papers to put the gun where I found it. And looked straight ahead, forgetting to breathe after every few breaths.

“Here go some napkins. Wipe your nasty ass hands nigga”, said Troy, laughing and placing a pile of napkins in my lap. I was still staring ahead, but looked back at him and tried to laugh too, but by then he was already looking at the handle on the glove compartment which had a piece of mango flesh and a juice stain in the shape of my thumb on it. He didn’t look back at me. He just started the car and drove. Drove for what felt like hours. The album we played ended, and the silence grew so thick between us that I felt myself pressed against the window. I weighed my options and decided to say something. My train didn’t leave until 2 am and it was only 11 now. It didn’t seem like we were headed to meet Sasha anymore either. I thought about Montreal again and how much easier making copies and coffee and small talk in French would have been than asking Troy a simple question.

“Yo, if you got something to say just go ahead.”

“That’s yours?”

“Is it in my car?”

“Yeah, I ju—“

“Yo, what’s your problem?”, Asked Troy with the kind of conviction that could make any question sound like it deserved an answer, but this one didn’t really. It was just a gun. My uncles had guns, Troy’s father had a gun, but this was different. The guilt on Troy’s face told me that. The conviction in his questioning and the din of this silence confirmed it. This wasn’t about my problem at all, and it wasn’t until this very moment that I noticed how Troy’s eyes had changed or that he was a lot quieter this summer or that he would go missing for more significant portions of time than usual. There was more to the world that was constructed in my absence than I wanted to believe. I was looking at the face of a man who now walked like he had secrets. A man who, whether I wanted to believe it or not, had now gotten a taste of the disservice the world had dealt him the day he was born. Then I remembered the conviction that coated the question of what my problem was wasn’t for me, but who Troy thought I was. And who I thought I was. In fact, I did have a problem. Since I got off of the train in Baltimore that very first day, I hadn’t thought twice about any person besides myself. And the look on Troy’s face let me see just how much I’d missed. I only feared the world that was constructed in my absence because I wasn’t growing as fast. I acted like mangoes could cure my ignorance. I showed up like some kind of pilgrim and forgot to be a friend and a brother the entire time.

By the time I was able to look up from my lap, we were parked near the train station. I knew it was the perfect time to tell Troy how much he meant to me and the rest of the world. How I remembered that, at his father’s funeral, Troy and I sat right next to each other. We were six years old, and I barely knew what death was, yet I held my face in both hands and cried the whole time. I cried because I saw everyone else cry and that scared me. The only person who didn’t cry was Troy. In fact, he was sure to make his way to everyone with a hug and a kiss if necessary. Troy, unlike myself, had lent himself to the world and he should know how valiant he was from then until now. To always take care of the world he lived in, and the people in it was a virtue I’d worked my way around. The gun didn’t belong to Troy, but to the circumstance he was shoved into. The gun and the problem was handed to Troy by those we can’t see but fear. Those who wrote the books on who college was for and who convinced the world that my conformist attitude was a sign of intelligence. At this point and most points, Troy was the most intelligent person in the room. This kind of intelligence struck fear in those around him and led them to reduce him to lesser titles like arrogant and troublesome. Troy was even smarter than those who wrote the books and tossed him the gun, but the world had never let him see that. They never wanted him to believe that. I needed to let Troy know what we all knew, but by then I was standing outside of the car with my bags in my hands, and he had driven off.

On the train back to school, I didn’t know that I’d be returning to Baltimore less than one week later for Troy’s funeral. It rained the whole time too. Sitting in the middle section, far away from what I didn’t want to believe was a casket, I looked around for the boy who would walk around to give everyone hugs and a kiss when necessary, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there, and we all knew that we’d taken part in making sure of it whether we wanted to believe it or not. That’s what the funeral was for. We wasted a gift because we were too afraid of what good could come of it. I heard screaming again, but it was a different girl this time. Maybe Troy’s sister. I had my eyes glued to my lap and my fists clinched just about the whole time. The preacher’s idea of consolation was rambling about how we need to get guns and drugs off the streets and how “Brother Troy’s ascension is God’s call for our action, ” but we weren’t convinced. We all came that day to see just how much we’d messed up. I looked over at Sasha who was mindlessly rubbing her belly and looked away immediately. I closed my eyes as tight as I could hoping to wake up in a lecture hall where I could hide or in Montreal behind the thickest frames I could find, but I was still here and still taunted by what I could’ve said that night.

“We asked brother Andrew if he could give a few words today and he did. Very few words like always, but from his heart. Amen?” said the preacher as he pulled up a crumpled piece of paper. I slipped out of the door and stood outside of the church for what felt like hours. I was by an open window and could hear the preacher reading.

A city once opened its gates to receive a gift; A giant horse made of wood. The city celebrated and marveled and eventually took time to rest, leaving its gift at its center. In the night, while everyone slept, men came climbing out of the horse. They opened the city’s gates to let more men in, and they burnt it to the ground. This is the story of the fall of Troy, a city we all knew. I, like most of us, spent some time wondering where I fit into this story— What kind of part I took in the destruction. Maybe the horse; A silent symbol of peace who doesn’t even know that it holds the kind of power that leads a city to its death. Maybe I was the city’s gates who are meant to protect it but will open up to any promise of peace. I could be one of the city’s people, too steeped in celebration to take a closer look at this strange gift. In many ways, it doesn’t matter what part I played. Destruction doesn’t come from one hand. As assuring as it is to have something to blame, every part of this city that was meant to uphold it played a part in its downfall.

Avon Haughton

2017

fuck the hype about black motivated movements

Since #blacklivesmatter first arrived it held the illusion of a solution with some substance but all I’ve seen are talk and talk and more talk about the same bullshit as the news. Where how why and logical proof for you to call or speak on something you believe is factual is more than enough to off of until you can see or receive something with more confirmation. Talking about exactly that alone but not moving or even discussing how to actually progress then the probability and even logistically thinking something’s going wrong af and in this aspect it’s the message. Blacklives filled a gap but Black life for me has been almost the same since before and after someone made a hash tag for people who only register and feel themselves as black seems contradicting and took the use of just one descriptive word to segregate and also eliminating the support and more important THE RECOGNITION of pain and every type of oppression to each and every one of our minority’s which makes all of us angry. The majority within the country replicates the same basic human emotions. Sympathy and fear is the global mask on all of our people for us even be wasting the same time we’re FORCED to exhaust vast amounts in order for special looking thing called money which in actuality is more or less a voucher with no worth since Pres. Hoover stole our countrie’s gold and somehow turned it into an account where credits accumulate for paying additional taxes making any type of security almost completely non-accessible when we also have to pay the taxes for the illusion of the largest corporate marketing scheme entitled Freedom instead of ensuring it by using basic skills and motivation to make our people acknowledged as they’re rightful name in our country to the nation. American shouldn’t have classes if the plan was to come to a new land and strive. are immigrants decedents more informed of important things that help the majority such as that taxes are only in place for on reason that ended years ago. In order to perform like the advertising that our country implies we as Americans the same ones of us that rather hit the re blog button with a unruly amount of hope need to change. If you believe what happens in America won’t pertain to you just go away to you thats it then it doesn’t pertain to you. For those who are willing to do anything at all the most important thing for US TO UNIFY AS A COUNTRY IS CLARITY OF WHAT WE ALWAYS WANTED. BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS OF BIRTH AND CITIZENSHIP AS WELL AS EQUALITY FOR ALL THE PRESENT IS WHERE WE START TO INFLUENCE CHANCE THE PAST SHOWS THE PAST METHODS OR TRAGEDIES WE HAVE TO REALLY USE THOSE THINGS TO ENSURE AS A COUNTRY WE FORCE THE SYSTEMIC HATE BY UNDERSTANDING WHY AND EXACTLY HOW WE FEEL HOW WE FEEL. Since Obama departed the house it took about a week to see a solid line of digression within the financial budget and works within the house. Red and blue represents Democrats and Republican yet the white stands alone separating or in the case of street warfare politics Regarding blue for crips and red for bloods with the same color of white in between in this case is iconic segregating. I’m personally tired of feeling the weight of inhumane things we could actually prevent instead of allowing the country to benefit without the awareness of our people. The integrity and honor is at the least questionable a ultimately contradicts any way these funds may possibly ever be beneficial without existence therefore are being distributed to possible enigmas. So we can either continually act out of anger move ignorantly while also waiting and letting the courts further produce false hope thus preventing or at the very least preventing wasting one of live’s most important commodities being time which has a 2nd meaning of a man made system of measurement. That should be used as a valuable outlet for anyone to build their ideas/instincts/decisions which is not only your god given right but also your constitutional to use with a peace of mind freely. How is there freedom and equal rights within a house that keep a law that convicts entities based of off speech. I know that if we the source of any pain/loss of self identity came incomes from comes from then at the very least we could start the using this topic for discussion. We have an infinite amount of evidences of even at the simplest level and absolutely need to speak accurately in order to understand the segregated speech and levels of manipulation around us on a daily to even the depths of even sick subliminal social level. Show INDIVIDUALS within the government that just because you’re the government doesn’t all you to rule anyway that works today and say anything later. Our nation’s global actions alone now leave a stain that smears fear from our local streets {aka hoods and I’m no scientist but my brain works fine where logically in my opinion sounds like a derogatory term but used as raw attempts to survive by moving as the oppressor) embedded into our actual/literal, naturally beautiful regions around the planet. Let’s walk in the opposite direction off the footsteps of people like Elvis and countless others. We don’t have to steal, recycle or renew ideas. Pitch anything you personally believe is worth pointing out. When you realize you’re capable of forming an unbiased idea/opinion that’s real then anyone’s who’s about it will recognize real. Through observation no one except for few can even understand that Human connection is something no one actually publicly anyone says you can feel from my hypothesis and observations of 19 years, scientific, psychological and unbiased logical evidence to what’s we know as energy. The energy + body language from a person you get or lack to get is vital information for your lucid continence to just be more aware. Try to manifest it by learning how to connect with it’ll eventually expose you to the projection and in depth understanding the pro’s and con’s of a specific human and for your own personal experience try to acknowledge your actions because as humans and our human and through learning through my personal life experiences questioning everything and making sure answers have proof for absolute accuracy with the skill of finesse can open any door if not open new ones. An example of energy existence imbedded in man made items from 1 American made tool are English words and have multiple meanings where as are grammatically appropriate in a commonplace but no where near the same when used against the court of law in your own home country and sentenced to judging where the goal are lifers you’re now apparently viewed guilty and deemed guilty even by the honest mistake of misusing descriptive words well now you’re under duress and can’t even understand that’s your way out until you’re checked in. An example of the power of pure energy possesses has shown through kids who are loosely using words as weapons for cyber/mental bullying that the overlooked/forgotten tools to maneuver more morally aware properly in situations ideas and self preservation recognize your own unique aspects like your first piece of government documented image since birth. Identification signature