Alphanumeric Characters
Americans. We’ll leave our kids in the car, but we’ll bring our dogs into the restaurant.
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Who the hell’s ever done that?!
There’s a medical facility called “New Vision Dental.” So which one is it?
Why is it that I always immediately hate the person sitting next to me on flights?
Watching subhumans try to figure out where their seats are and how the alphabet and numbers work has to be one of the 9 rings of hell.
Signs you’re on a flight to LA:
- People with more than 2 hair colors
- People with dogs
- The person next to can’t stop blowing his nose
- People dressed like anime characters for no apparent reason
- Thousands of yoga pants
I’m at a point in life where coffee doesn’t have much of an effect on me anymore. Honestly, sometimes it makes me tired. I need to try adding a supplement next time. Maybe I’ll mix my coffee with some pain.
Birthdays aren’t special. It’s just the day your mom got tired of carrying you around and decided to do something about it.
It’s funny how some people work out and then go straight to Starbucks and order the sweetest caffeinated drinks on Earth.
Why do gas stations have fractional prices, like $4.50 9/10?
Those who say “money isn’t everything” are usually those who wouldn’t give up any of their money.
I’m Not You
[Malice’s verse]
Rappers is talking to me as if (come on)
We in the same boat I tell them quick, “No, I move coke” (uh-uh)
And you and I don’t share no common bond
So forgive me if I don’t receive you with open arms (No)
It shames me to no end
To feed poison to those who could very well be my kin (uh-huh)
But where there’s demand, someone will supply
So I feed them their needs, at the same time, cry
Yes, it pains me to see them need this
All of them lost souls and I’m their Jesus
Deepest regret and sympathy to the streets
I seen them pay for they fix when they kids couldn’t eat (so sorry)
And with this in mind, I still didn’t quit
And that’s how I know that I ain’t shit (I ain’t shit)
My heart bleed but that’s aside from the fact
I live for my kids and theirs and them youngins after that
— From “I’m Not You” by Clipse (feat. Jadakiss, Styles P., and Rosco P. Coldchain)
FISH SAUCE, or An Ode to the Present State of Radio-Friendly Hip Hop in the Central Part of North America, Part 3
Rain drops.
Tiktok.
Nonstop.
Cars.
Bad chick.
Addict.
Manwich.
Bars.
Green grass.
Mean ass.
Lean mass.
Jag.
Jim jam.
Flim flam.
Bim bam.
Swag.
Criss cross.
Fish sauce.
Lip gloss.
Laugh.
Splick boaf.
Plick plose.
Vik toes.
Giraffe.
Blee bwack.
Tee shlpapp.
Zea-claxx.
Nyle.
HoKo.
Fo feaux.
Glo glo.
Fvile.
Kciz klaz
Schim pfas.
Quiw wath.
__roah!
k3iad akddi
afi393 n#(8ad
@#2 <bjaov!
Sccccrrrrrriiiiirrrrrrrrr!!!
Cool.
We Real Cool Gwendolyn Brooks
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing gin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
———————–
Baba Says Cool for Thought
Ayesha Jaco
They thought it was cool to burn crosses on your front lawn as they hung you from trees in your backyard
They thought it was cool to leave you thirsty and stranded, Katrina
He thought it was cool to carry a gun in his classroom and open fire, Virginia Tech, Columbine, stop the violence
They thought it was cool to tear down the projects and put up million dollar condos, gentrification
They think it’s cool to stand on the block hiding product in their socks to make quick dime bag dollars
They think it’s cool to ride down on you in blue and white unmarked cars busting you upside your head
Freeze
Cause the problem is we think it’s cool too
Check your ingredients before you overdose on The Cool
Dorothy
Looking forward to new memories.
Cradles, swaddling thoughts in layers of nostalgia.
Hopping off the jetbridge
Being welcomed by tiny stings from mosquitoes
And incessant creaks & croaks from cicadas
There’s no place like home.
The only place where I can sit down with my friend from birth
and talk about all the woulda, coulda, shouldas
and the will do’s and will nots
in an acrid, bitter tone while sipping refreshing sweet tea.
Where your nearest neighbor is at least two football fields away
Yet you can hear them playing spades or poker or war or tonk
and their gin or whiskey or rum swishing around in the bottle. “No sandbags.”
Strangers wave and nod their heads at other strangers because
that’s what they do ’cause that’s what their folks did and what their parents did
’cause that’s just what we do.
Where you’ll see more churches than ants,
you’ll smell more pine than jacarandas,
you’ll feel more humidity than emotions
you’ll see more open palms than middle digits
A place where history lives right next door to legacy,
Ancient oaks still bear scars from braided ropes,
Heritage and hate still scuffle on battlegrounds,
And blood still fertilizes the crops and seeds.
Back where my great-uncle taught me how to catch when my pops was away defending the land.
Where I came face to face with a rattlesnake and was close to not being
Where the fickle claim to have your back until they turn theirs.
Where the good and the bad, the right and the wrong all live in the gray.
Dorothy had it right.
There’s no place like home.
But we’re not in Oz or Kansas.
A place just as strange, just as ordinary
Where you’re just as there as you are here
You can’t ever be home
If you never let home be you
Chasing Payments: A Debtor’s Song
[Verse 1]
I’ve made up my mind
Don’t need to think it over
If I’m wrong, I am right
Don’t need to defer no further
This ain’t just,
I know this is debt, but
If I sell my world,
I’ll never make enough
‘Cause it was not a lot of cake
And that’s exactly what I need to scrape
If I consolidate
[Chorus]
Should I give up?
Or should I just keep chasing payments
Even if it leads nowhere?
Or would it be a waste,
Even if I knew my place?
Should I leave it there?
Should I give up?
Or should I just keep chasing payments
Even if it leads nowhere?
[Verse 2]
I build my credit up
And chase my tail in circles
Waiting as my score drops
And my bank begins to tinker
Financially, could this be it, or?
[Chorus]
Should I give up?
Or should I just keep chasing payments
Even if it leads nowhere?
Or would I catch a case,
Even if I hid from Chase?
Should I grieve or care?
Should I give up?
Or should I just keep chasing payments
Even if it leads to despair? Yeah
[Breakdown]
Should I give up?
Or should I just keep chasing payments?
I eat ice soup, this I swear.
Or would the IRS be okay,
Even if I changed my face?
Should I die my hair?
Should I give up?
Or should I be erasing payments?
Should I just keep on chasing payments?
Oh, oh
[Chorus]
Should I give up?
Or should I just be evading payments
Even if it leads to jail?
Or would it be real safe,
If I flew to outer space?
Should I leave me there?
Should I give up?
Or should I just keep chasing payments
Even if it leads nowhere?
…hid like thieves from life.
“And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.”
— Excerpt from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
Fresh Air
Sitting in the pad holding a pen and this pad
I know you’re, like, “Who still writes in long-hand?”
I do, it helps me collect my thoughts but it’s sad
At times, I use the pen as a crutch to feel like a strong man
Because I’m not perfect, even though I strive for that metric
I admit I get complacent & talk myself out of reaching
For the stars, telling myself the journey will be too hectic
And that everything I need is here & there’s no use breaching
The atmosphere, the stratosphere, better known as my potential
But then I look around & I’ll see my peers’ work on television
Then I look around & see myself on the sofa, inconsequential
All grinds ain’t the same; sometimes you’ve got to sell your vision
To yourself, as wild as that sounds, it can be the actuality
’cause you can be your biggest supporter and your biggest detractor
Diminishing your wins only puts your mind in alternate realities
Focusing so much on your losses only increases the fear factor
Telling you all of this is helping to give me some clarity
A short jaunt’s in my future, I need to unwind my thoughts
In all sincerity, some fresh air will do me good with celerity
Refocus, redirect my energy so all my work won’t be for naught
Tomorrow ain’t promised & neither is the rest of today
So you must produce and take control, you can not fold
People are hungry for the fruits of your labor and play
Plus, sleep’s the cousin of death, and fortune favors the bold
Listening to instrumentals is essential for my mental
The path’s already charted in my head, I just have to traverse it.
So, farewell for now, as I reorient my steps to this occidental
Trail so that my progress moves forward & I don’t reverse it.
Human Nature
Looking out
Across the nighttime
The city breathes an endless sigh
Hear her voice
Shake my window
Flames reaching the sky
Get us out
Into the nighttime
Four walls won’t hold us tonight
If this town
Finds him innocent
Then we’ll just have to fight
If they say, “Why? Why?”
Tell ’em that it’s human nature
Why, why do they do it this way?
If they say, “Why? Why?”
Tell ’em that it’s just their nature
Why, why? We can make a new day.
Reaching out
Standing with strangers
Police sirens are everywhere
See that girl
She was shot while dreaming
Say her name in the air
If they say, “Why? Why?”
Tell ’em that it’s just their nature
Why, why do they do this way?
If they say, “Why, try?”
Tell ’em that it’s just our nature
Why, why? We can make a new day.
We’re not livin’ this way
We’re not lovin’ this way
That way (The way it is.)
That way (The way it is.)
Looking out
Across the morning
The city’s ashes ride the heat
Reaching out
We all touch shoulders
We’re soldiers in the street
If they say, “Why? Why?”
Tell ’em that it’s just their nature
Why, why do they do that way?
If they say, “Why, try?”
Ooh, tell ’em
Why, why? We can make a new day.
It ain’t good.
Tasty is only one letter away from being nasty.
You would have to eat about 10 carrots for a few weeks to develop carotenemia, or get orange skin discoloration. The beta carotene in the carrot would do the trick. But we know that is not Trump’s problem. You know he ain’t eating any vegetables.
Is a hybrid apple pineapple called an apple apple or a pineapple?
Is a veteran veterinarian called a vet vet?
I don’t think being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs means you’re crazy. You may just like Cocoa Puffs.
Waiting for a vaccine to me is like waiting to be seated on a Southwest flight. I always get the last seating group. I usually get the seat by the shitter. And the person standing next to me is usually coughing and I’ll be sick for a few days after arrival.
I can now officially say that I’m old enough and wise enough now to know that when someone says “No rush” that it usually means, in so many words, to “hurry the fuck up, you piece of shit.”
It is widely thought that I hate all dogs. This couldn’t be further from truth. Some dogs I dislike; others I’m cool with. What irks me are dog owners. Why is it that whenever a dog owner sees another dog they act like that’s the first time they’ve ever seen a dog? Some of them need to calm down. If you’ve seen one dog, then it’s pretty safe to say that most of the other members of that breed look similar to it. So just keep your heart rate down in the future and try not to scare the dog by putting your face in its face and belting out your ear-splitting cries of “oooooh” and “who’s a good boy?”
Since we always know it when you see an unmarked police car, aren’t unmarked police cars really marked?
Quilted Northern isn’t really quilted. Don’t fall for it. Your grandma would kill you if you wiped your ass with her quilt.
There is a such thing as a stupid question. Just know that.
I hear that lethargy is a side effect of some of the Covid-19 vaccines. I don’t want to feel tired. I’d ask them to hit me with an additional shot of adrenaline right afterwards. I’m going to need enough energy to make it back home.
This month marks a year since the lockdown began. It’s been a wild, sad, challenging, infuriating, and interesting year. One thing I’m grateful for is the mask mandate. Well, I guess it wasn’t exactly a mandate. Either way, I’m so glad that I’m wearing a mask. Why? Because y’all don’t need to suffer the punishment of smelling my breath. My breath isn’t what I thought it was. Smelling my own breath in a mask every day has made rethink my role in society and my place in the world. I’ve consumed more mouthwash and breath mints in the last year than in all the other years of life combined. Believe me. My mask is protecting all of you. My mask breath smells like something in between a donkey’s urethra and a donkey’s anus. Believe me. It taint good.
LALA DADA, or Symphony No. 96 in D Major
5:45, on the Milla de Milagro
Java going lava flowing fresh from Tiago
No Iago in my Othello, want it Sable Sybil like night
I’ll take a kneecap like Kap if the flava ain’t right
Metropolitans for the crown, Spotify all “Blue in Green”
Zebra shell-toe on the prowl, salt and pepper looking mean
Ducats jingling, we mingling and definitely singling
Out the faces of the weaseling, cases of the Riesling
But who dat over there gracing the tilted apostrophe?
Cyclops on a triceratops, stare down, they keep watching me.
Spread love from the tar to the foxy fairgrounds
To 5-Ring Blvd to 16 breezeway, let your hair down
Soon we air-bound on bikes like we straight Amblin
Not Spielberg, but the footwork, risk taking, gambling
We blitz ’em and say “Bye, son” on some ol’ Grambling
Toast to crowds over easy, stir ’em up, they scrambling
Stepping out on the Shire, wheels all smooth leather
Street classics only, never dealing with fairweathers
Thoughts hydroplane, slide from temple to temple
It’s simple, what kind of drama can we get into?
Moonwalk the boulevard, step in the Hop like royalty
Ticker tape parade status, greetings ’cause of the loyalty
Cake up for the peeps who were bereft from heft theft
Golden waffles crash coma, the prodigal son never left
Coffee cherry pusher next door, been doing it for years
Mix with sugar glory, SK since ’89, tears for fears
Drop buckets of Nantucket, Kirby Puckett with the aluminum
Looming ruckus with the bumptious near the new Jerusalem
Architecture, Googie style, on the way to the Groove
We V-sign as we beeline, Streamline Moderne, so smoove
Two subways left, another underground, overland route
Tout the Ring Shout, shout out to P. Djeli, no doubt
Get it on, El Rey poppin concertos, Busby boogie nights
K-town — annyeong-haseyo — got Seoul, Bev Hills wanna fight
Hollywood to the north, Mid-City repping just below
Milagro hold down the middle, so the center don’t blow
We scrrrtt to the left, grab hangers for dear life
Orange grove by oil fields, they cut it all with a knife
Get the soul windows checked, rush shipping so it’s faster
Geordi La Forge-visor shit, Scott Summers optic blasters
Prosecco got me Picassoing fresh frescos as I settle
Kettle chips, sipping black orange pekoe by palmettos
Art Deco echoes flank you like geckos in the desert
Desert eagles play pattycake while coyotes subvert
Spit shine, they fit fine, the lit sign reads neon
Xenon purple undercarriages, we cooler than freon
Candy peppermint poop emoji looms over the west
Short a dollar, make ’em holla catawampus from this mess
Giant SLR on the street aiming atcha, strike a pose
Jazzy nights welcome weekend, museum use ’em til close
Do your thang, chain swang, dough bakeries stack hard
McMansions clowns, neighbors say “not in my backyard”
Towers in X’s, park of tar, exhale excellent criteria
Gasoline rainbows traverse the block cause exterior hysteria
For specifics, get in the pit for sadistic calisthenics
If you mimic, you might be a statistic in Pan-Pacific
The hieroglyphics of our linguistics be our sig-alert
Razzy Raz shy down, tell her Bezel digs flirts
Every gig hurts if the jig works like gangbusters
But we cool with the tools, long-range hustlers
Jerk the yellow line, the local stops, scan for mellow crimes
360 Deuce, street Peloton, killing fellows all the time
But the mile ain’t changing, Kryptonians keep angling
Reppin since prehistoric, armed like T-Rex and pangolins
Out-of-towners get the downers, we be hard to modify
Metropolitans for the crowners, “Blue in Green” on Spotify
Pepper Jack
He wasn’t ready. He was beyond unprepared.
When the walls came down, he was beyond scared.
Way out of his depth, his confidence withered to ash.
He had written a check that his ass couldn’t cash.
His name was Jacques, but everybody called him Jack.
A bit of a spitfire, basic tact he did lack.
Nicknamed Pepper because he had a spicy demeanor.
His heroes were villains, and he aimed to be meaner.
Pepper Jack had an knack for spinning a yarn.
He’d lie about anything, didn’t care who got harmed.
Now as your narrator…hmm…how can I make this slick?
Like they used to say back in the day, “he was lying on his dick.”
Swearing he’s a ladies’ man, we all know that type.
Bragging about his libido, believing his own hype.
Said his bed was never cold at night, double time on weekends.
Said they’d line up for miles like the Dalai Lama was speaking.
Of course, you know, my friends, none of this stuff was the truth.
He’d get vindictive if a woman told him he was long in the tooth.
Drag her name through the mud ’cause he had mad insecurities.
Cloaked himself in a façade of cool that masked his immaturity.
One day, he met his match, her name was Anise Ambrosia Lucas.
Just as braggadocious, but about 100 times more ruthless.
Then one night at dinner as he poured wine from the carafe.
She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “I’m gonna break you in half.”
Pepper Jack laughed and laughed, trying to hide his *gulp*.
Then his face got all screwed up like he tasted sour pulp.
Never had a woman smacked him in the face with such gall.
Relishing the challenge, he told her, “Soon, you’ll be climbing the walls.”
When she turned out the light, it was so dark he couldn’t find her.
She body-slammed him on the bed, which really made his spine hurt.
She said, “Now you are my bitch, Bitch, prepare for this Sidewinder”.
“Then, I’ll hit that ass with my finishing move, the Pepper Grinder.”
Boy, Jack didn’t know what hit him; it was like, BOOM! BAM! POW!
One thing was for sure, Pepper Jack wasn’t talking that shit now.
“What did I get myself into?” he thought, losing focus on the clock.
And drifting out of consciousness from her Thighmaster headlock.
Limbs flying everywhere, Jack did the most moaning and groaning.
Pretty sure they violated some city noise ordinances and public zoning.
She looked him straight in the eye and said, “Is that all you’ve got?”
He crawled up into his brain and his soul died on the spot.
Ever since then, Pepper Jack has been a shell of a man.
Doctors say he’ll never be able to use his pelvis again.
He endured so much, got smacked around and hog-tied.
She put it on him so good, that man’s permanently cock-eyed.
He lost a lot of his motor skills, and he can’t talk a lick.
Gentlemen, remember Pepper Jack’s tale, don’t lie on your dick.
Lying in a Hammock
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
By James Wright
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
Yonder Soul
The man from o’er yonder
Sold his soul to the devil
One autumn evenin’
Behind the juke.
Ol’ devil counteroffered
And said, “Why ‘on’t you
th’ow in that nice car of yourn, too?”
The man from o’er yonder
Snatched back his soul
From that demon’s hands.
He stepped back,
Took his pointy finger and
Pushed up the brim of his pork pie,
Peered them eyes right at that rascal
And snapped back,
“Look a’here, buddyrow,
now you want TOO much.”
VOX POPULI
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Watching people struggle and the world rotate
He saw problems & thought he could solve them
His oratory skills he decided to donate
He thought he knew what they wanted
He thought he could speak for them all
He thought he could predict the future
He thought he could make the call
So he stood up for them and spoke on stages
He talked on the small and silver screens
He spoke for people of all classes and ages
He talked everywhere, anytime, by any means
Slowly but surely, things started to change
Soon all of his rich allegories and stories
Became less about them and more about him
He began to enjoy the limelight and glory
He became a household name, he wasn’t the same
Once a champion of issues, he ignored their gripes
He didn’t need to listen, he would tell his new friends
Mesmerized by the allure, he believed his own hype
His strongest endorsers morphed into abhorrers
They had come across his type before
He had no equal, he kept selling out his people
He couldn’t resist being a political whore
Soon he lost support, the people abandoned him
Left only with his ego, he’d have to buck up
He begged and pleaded that his services were needed
With the public’s trust gone; his demons finally snuck up
He was found one gray day swinging from an oak
The shame and the pain he never could suck up
He thought that he was the voice of the people
When they just wanted him to shut the fuck up
Monday in B-Flat
I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.
But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here
in a minute!
—Amiri Baraka
Categorically
Can’t wait for the pandemic to be over. It’ll be so good to breathe in people’s faces and touch people with dirty hands again.
I imagine being a black Republican is like being a solitary deer on a country road with a car barreling towards you; by the time you see the light, it’s already too late.
People tell me I sing like an angel. They don’t mention it’s the angel of death.
It’s been over 5 months now. If you still don’t know how to use Zoom by now, please walk into the sea.
The birthright of being young is poor judgment.
Some brushes are made with boar bristles. Pig hairs. Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin are actually on my chinny chin chin.
Activation Energy – the amount of energy it takes for you to get up and do a task. Whatever it takes for you to get out of bed, learn something new, exercise, whatever. I heard this term the other day and can’t get it out of my head.
The only time I hear the word “categorically” is when some man (or his lawyer) categorically disputes all of the sexual assault accusations made against him.
Did they ever looked for Carmen Sandiego in San Diego?
Malibu Lips
Was any member of Nirvana Buddhist?
Overly excitable weathermen need to calm down. When they get all fired up, they get off-topic. I need them to stick to the sky, what’s coming down from the sky, and when the ground shakes. I need them to focus.
Even the act of pursuing someone is steeped in violence. What do you do when you’re attracted to someone? You hit on them…
Malibu scrambled around is labium.
Just saw a pharma commercial for a drug that treats diabetes but can cause necrotizing fasciitis, which is “a rare but serious bacterial infection that causes damage to the tissue under the skin in the area between and around your anus and genitals (perineum).” I’m good.
Who coined the word “coined”?
If you’re going to ignore all grammar rules throughout your sentence, then don’t even muster up the gaul to end that shit with a period.
Twitter is the graveyard for English grammar.
You can’t zoom in or out in a Zoom meeting.
Shouldn’t a unicorn be called a unihorn?
Do doves cry?
There are no marching events in March.
America is a funny place. We will willingly give up all our personal data to a website or tech company, hop in rideshares with complete strangers, allow our digital personal assistants on our phones and in our homes to eavesdrop on us, share a cigarette with several other people, and use sweaty gym equipment without cleaning it first, but wearing a mask to protect ourselves and everyone else around us during a global pandemic is too much to ask and is “infringing on our civil liberties.”
Brown-Eyed Views
“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
— James Baldwin
“The Black woman in the South who raises sons, grandsons and nephews had her heartstrings tied to a hanging noose. Any break from routine may herald for them unbearable news.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.”
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You hear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
“The man’ll shoot you in the face in Mississippi, and you turn around he’ll shoot you in the back here.”
— Fannie Lou Hamer, on Northern racism, speaking in NY
“We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.”
― Langston Hughes
* * *
“The colonization of the Southern economy by capitalists from the North gave lynching its most vigorous impulse. If Black people, by means of terror and violence, could remain the most brutally exploited group within the swelling ranks of the working class, the capitalists could enjoy a double advantage. Extra profits would result from the superexploitation of Black labor, and white workers’ hostilities toward their employers would be defused. White workers who assented to lynching necessarily assumed a posture of racial solidarity with the white men who were really their oppressors. This was a critical moment in the popularization of racist ideology.”
“In the case of the United States, Black and Native lives are systematically choked by an enduring white supremacy that thrives on oppression and settler colonialism, and is backed by drones, the dispossession of territory and identity to millions, mass incarceration, the un-peopleing of people, and resource grabs that deny that indigenous lives matter and that our planet matters.”
— Angela Y. Davis
* * *
“When I’m asked about the relevance to black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires — Mali, Songhai, Egypt — had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.”
— Mae Jemison
“Black is beautiful—which is to say that the black body is beautiful, that black hair must be guarded against the torture of processing and lye, that black skin must be guarded against bleach, that our noses and mouths must be protected against modern surgery. We are all our beautiful bodies and so must never be prostrate before barbarians, must never submit our original self, our one of one, to defiling and plunder.”
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
“This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America”
― Paul Robeson
* * *
“How are the white folks treating you?” He looked at me and sneered.
“This is Alabama, son,” he said, though he seemed younger than I. “How do you think they’re treating us?”
― Eddy L. Harris, South of Haunted Dreams: A Memoir
* * *
“Countermovements among racists and sexists and Nazifiers are just as relentless as dirt on a coffee table…Every housewife knows that if you don’t sooner or later dust…the whole place will be dirty again.”
“I’m just a loud-mouthed, middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I’m crazy. Maybe you do, too, but I never stop to wonder why I’m not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren’t like me.”
— Florynce Kennedy
* * *
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
— James Baldwin
* * *
“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”
“As I have said elsewhere, it is not the destiny of black America to repeat white America’s mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life. If black men continue to do so, defining ‘femininity’ in its archaic European terms, this augurs ill for our survival as a people, let alone our survival as individuals. Freedom and future for blacks do not mean absorbing the dominant white male disease.”
“As black people, we cannot begin our dialogue by denying the oppressive nature of male privilege. And if black males choose to assume that privilege, for whatever reason, raping, brutalizing, and killing women, then we cannot ignore black male oppression. One oppression does not justify another.”
“Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.”
— Audre Lorde
* * *
“If you’re black, you got to look at America a little bit different. You got to look at America like the uncle who paid for you to go to college, but who molested you.”
— Chris Rock
“To be Negro in America is to hope against hope.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
* * *
“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
* * *
“Most Black lesbians were closeted, correctly recognizing the Black community’s lack of interest in our position, as well as the many more immediate threats to our survival as Black people in a racist society. It was hard enough to be Black, to be Black and female, to be Black and female, and gay. To be Black, female, gay, and out of the closet in a white environment, even to the extent of dancing in the Bagatelle, was considered by many Black lesbians to be simply suicidal.”
― Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
“Being black is one of the most extreme sports in America. We don’t need to invent new ways of risking our lives because the old ones have been working for decades.”
― Rudy Francisco, Helium
“I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.”
— Harriet Tubman
“I always thought that would be really neat if black people ever got control of the United States we would, of course, tear down some of the statues because we just don’t like them…like all of Richmond would probably not have a statue standing.”
― Nikki Giovanni, Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate: Looking At The Harlem Renaissance Through Poems
“The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it – whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.”
— Harper Lee
* * *
“It is impossible for any white person in the United States, no matter how sympathetic and broad, to realize what life would mean to him if his incentive to effort were suddenly snatched away. To the lack of incentive to effort, which is the awful shadow under which we live, may be traced the wreck and ruin of score of colored youth.”
“Surely nowhere in the world do oppression and persecution based solely on the color of the skin appear more hateful and hideous than in the capital of the United States, because the chasm between the principles upon which this Government was founded, in which it still professes to believe, and those which are daily practiced under the protection of the flag, yawn so wide and deep.”
“As a colored woman I may enter more than one white church in Washington without receiving that welcome which as a human being I have the right to expect in the sanctuary of God.”
— Mary Church Terrell
* * *
“There is also this to consider: The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that’s especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one Person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium’s King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson.”
— Trevor Noah
“I can imagine no more dissatisfied human being than an educated, cultured, and refined colored man in the United States.”
― James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
* * *
“DuBois pointed out that in order to fully abolish the oppressive conditions produced by slavery, new democratic institutions would have to be created. Because this did not occur; black people encountered new forms of slavery—from debt peonage and the convict lease system to segregated and second-class education. The prison system continues to carry out this terrible legacy. It has become a receptacle for all of those human beings who bear the inheritance of the failure to create abolition democracy in the aftermath of slavery. And this inheritance is not only born by black prisoners, but by poor Latino, Native American, Asians, and white prisoners. Moreover, its use as such a receptacle for people who are deemed the detritus of society is on the rise throughout the world.”
“What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.”
— Angela Y. Davis
* * *
“There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again.” (Equal Rights Convention, New York, 1867)
— Sojourner Truth
“To be black in America is a wild and endless assault on the senses. You can spend every day fighting off your spiritual and intellectual extinction.”
― Carvell Wallace
“If you’re colored, you get the short end of the stick. If you’re a woman, you get the short end of the stick. So what do we get for being colored and women?”
― Sherri L. Smith, Flygirl
“What keeps a poor child in Appalachia poor is not what keeps a poor child in Chicago poor – even if from a distance, the outcomes look the same. And what keeps an able-bodied black woman poor is not what keeps a disabled white man poor, even if the outcomes look the same.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race
“To be a black male is to be always at war, and no flight to the county can save us, because even there we are met by the assupmtion of violence, by the specter of who we might turn on next.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood
“I’m dying twice as fast as any other American between eighteen and thirty-five. This disturbs me, but I try not to show it in public.”
― Essex Hemphill
“You don’t participate in your own dehumanization. You don’t give them the power to determine your actions when you’re not doing anything wrong. To alter your behavior, to comply to their wishes, to give in to their desire to be satisfied, to be comforted, to have their unwarranted fears placated by you justifying your existence. You just don’t do it. It’s against any principle of human dignity.”
— Christian Cooper, on why he wouldn’t give his name to a white woman who called the police on him and falsely accused him of attacking her
Market Value
Next time you visit The City That Never Sleeps
Beyond the Jags, Rolls Royces, SUVs and Jeeps
See the skyscrapers, condos, and tokens of excess
The expensive real estate that’s all meant to impress
Symbols of success, the hustling on the concrete
Charging Bull, eager lenders of legal tender, Wall Street
The financial foundation of the nation of the Home of the Brave
Stands on the graves of 15,000 to 20,000 African slaves
The stock market was built off the back of the slave market
They’re under you when your cabbie decides to park it
Near Wall, Water, and Pearl Streets, when you’re around
Recognize you’re walking on a sacred burial ground
From slave traders to day traders, from jingling bells to ringing bells
Stock whips to stocks, bondage to bonds
Stockpile people to stockbreed, a new industry was spawned
Human stock was exchanged, even kids, most certainly
NYSE should stand for ‘Neath, Youth Sleep Eternally
And the truth cuts deep like a double-edged saber
This country got rich off centuries of free labor
African slaves built Wall Street, and I mean literally
As waves of them arrived in the states litorally
This history isn’t taught in American school curicula
Find the hidden truth, hear it loud in your auricula
Two-step on the lies, cakewalk on the bullshit
Cha-cha slide to the love, Hallelujah in the pulpit
So next time you do Broadway to see some new quartet
Next time you splurge on Fifth Ave & acquire more debt
Respect the lives lost; make sure that you come correct
Now you’ve got 2 reasons in NYC to say “Never forget.”
the walk home
Sun’s low. The day’s so slow. Cool breeze.
Decide to walk around some to stretch my knees.
Mask on. Not my first choice ’cause that was unattainable.
Had to go with cloth since N95’s ain’t available.
Unless I could buy that access like the famous and the rich
Saw gloves on the sidewalk that somebody ditched
Going on 10 weeks stuck in this sole apartment.
Cramped like registrations in glove compartments.
Thank God I’ve a job that promotes working remotely.
Adapting to this new way of life that we’ve learned rotely
This walk feels different but I know nothing’s changed.
Should I walk far? Nah, I’ll keep it in range.
Everyone’s got on masks; we’re daywalkers like Blade
No party in sight but it looks like a masquerade
Usually ’round this time of year, you’d probably find
Concerts at The Rey, tour buses, lights, long lines
Security at the entrance pattin’ ’em down
Graduates, all smiles in their caps and gowns
Jazz at the museum, trombones to harmonicas
As the 720 snakes thru, DTLA to Santa Monica
Coffee shops closed; I’m going to need some caffeine
I don’t sleep well, sheeeeit, you know my routine
Early bird, night owl; no occasion’s too small
These days I hang out on Hangouts and Zoom calls
Seeing Wilshire so quiet is pretty freaky to me
The only sound’s the rustling of garbage and debris
Time’s standing still and I’m skirting on the edges
Feeling like Will Smith in Times Square in I Am Legend
A jogger bumps into me, no “sorry” or contact of irises
No mask either, guess he’s gonna outrun these viruses
All of these stores have been closed since March
Flattening the curve may flatten the Golden Arch
Can’t watch the news anymore, only bleak projections
Have to catch my breath when I see the rising infections
I have family and friends on the front lines of this war
In hospitals, ambulances, and grocery stores
They’re all doing God’s work so we all support them
And presidential parades and flyovers do nothing for them
Sirens blare on the regular, chasing these speed demons
Decreased traffic has increased cars flipped over on the cement
Saw an accident the other day just down Olympic
Human minds sometimes are excruciatingly simplistic
Haven’t seen a protester yet, saying their pain is systemic
And that their freedom trumps the public health in pandemics
When her life depended on it, Anne Frank stayed inside for 2 years
3 weeks in, we’re screaming about pedicures, BBQs, & barber shears
We’ve got to manage this whine like a sommelier
Bourbon waiting for me back at the atelier
The neighborhood cheers for essential workers at 8pm
Showing our appreciation is the least we can do for them
Hand claps, pots, pans, air horns, cymbals, acapellas
Probably the only time I’ll get to blow my blue vuvuzela
Sun’s set. The night’s here. Nocturnal chill to the bone.
Time to cease this roam and head on back home.
Make sure my mask’s secure ’cause it’s trying to slide
Through the streets of LA, my mind flies and glides
But uncertainty rules the night as the day steps aside
As I wonder how we’ll be on the other side.
You and the Curious Being of Being You
You like being that dude.
You like being that chick.
You like fooling around in school.
You think underachieving is cool.
You like ridiculing those aiming higher
You like being disengaged, not being aware
You like turning your back on your people.
You like going for self, ignoring everyone else.
You like disrespecting elders w/ knowledge to share.
You like poisoning those who look like you.
You like hating yourself and those w/ your hue.
You like dipping out on your responsibilities.
You like not caring or giving a fuck about your neighbor.
You like walking past those in need on the street.
You see your brother needs help, you say, “That ain’t me.”
You ask a sister for aid, treating her good faith as a freebie
You walk through doors and lock them all behind you.
You like climbing ladders, kicking away those beside you
You like crossing bridges, burning them like Nazi brigades
You like doing dumb shit, immune to embarrassment
You like willful ignorance, no respect for history or sacrifice
You like being disruptive more than productive.
You like falling and failing more than rising and raising
You like excuses; the less accountability, the better
You like all lives mattering more than your own
You ain’t down for the cause; you like putting the cause down
You like to take, take, take when others give freely
You like to flirt with death while others need you to live
You like ignoring that your forebearers fought, marched, were burned, hanged from trees, shot, mutilated, disenfranchised, discriminated against, and went through hell just so you could have at least a glimpse of heaven.
“Nah, tho”
You like being “that dude.”
You like being “that chick.”
You like being “that nigga.”
You like being “that bitch.”
You like being no help at all.
You like having low expectations; you like thinking you don’t deserve more
Or can be more. Or can achieve more.
But you see
the problem is
They like it, too.
Don’t be a stereotype.
Be better than they say you are.
Be better than you think you are.
Levitate, my gods.
Elevate.
I RUN HOT 2
It’s getting hot again. Time for the latest edition of I Run Hot. Catch the first installment here: https://inqthink.com/2013/05/31/i-run-hot/
———-
Walking at a leisurely pace, I sweat on my way to the gym.
My beads of sweat have beads of sweat.
Wore a white suit to wedding once. Everyone was supposed to wear white. The suit later became a color that Crayola and Pantone can only describe as “underarm yellow-tinged.”
In the event that the sun burns out in the next thousand years or so, I am strongly being considered as a backup energy source for the galaxy.
I walked to Chik-Fil-A and nearly passed out. Got so mad, started fanning myself with that spicy chicken sandwich. It eventually disintegrated. Fucked up my lunch.
Whenever I’m in a car, within 5 minutes, windows on my side fog up. This happens across all seasons. No joke here. This is real.
Nashville Hot Chicken has to put on gloves to handle me.
Ten seconds after I jump in the pool, there’s a lot of steam and it looks like a pot that’s boiled all of the water out.
I don’t shake hands in interviews or meetings. Not unless they specifically want wet hands.
Anytime I visit a park, it becomes a water park.
I can hold a fish out of water in my hands and it’ll live forever.
Kiss me and drown.
Solved the California drought crisis by sticking my finger in the ground.
The lyric “Don’t go chasing waterfalls” in TLC’s “Waterfalls” is widely misunderstood. It’s actually a cautionary tale to not run after me for any reason. If you do, it will only cause me to run faster, which will make me sweat more, which will produce stronger currents behind me, which will cause you to get caught up in the riptide. Sorry.
Planes can now fly continuously for days at a time…as long as my oily forehead’s onboard to fuel them.
Me + any fan = water sprinkler
I can flick a bead of sweat off my fingertips with 99% accuracy at speeds up to 117 mph.
Unlike Thanos, when I snap my fingers, half of sentient life gets drenched.
In Absentia (Blue in Red)
I can see your shadow in the dark
Your presence is a present from on high
I memorize you because you mesmerize me
You fill the void, the space
The truth leaves your lips, dancing, dangling,
Longing to live free, it transforms into the wind
I miss your space
The air you occupy
Your matter that matters
The heat you radiate
You take my breath away
To be beautiful is to be frightened
Always questioning, never sure
Second-guessing others’ intentions and motives
Not knowing your own mettle
Arms weary from bearing heavy shields
Lay your arms down, love
I come in peace
Seeing sunlight
Tinted blue from the cornflower curtains
Gently touch your face
You roll over into the toasty rays sent from cold, dark space
I try to keep still but you open one eye
Peer at me
Your eyes smile
Then go back to sleep
And it kills me because right now is not forever
the way is it now is not the way it will be
we both know
yet we remain
in this bed
in this present
in this love
to be loved is to be frightened
the way it is now is not the way it will be
but it is the now we have
and that’s more than enough
so we lie here, staring at each other,
staring into space, looking for answers
hoping that today stays wide awake
and tomorrow falls asleep
Think Ink|Thinq Inq 