Dave Chappelle’s video spewed the N-word like Dillinger’s machine gun.
I armoured up by recalling Richard. He nailed it.
Thought about George. He missed it. By many a mile.
Thoughts settled on Oprah and Ludacris: Some perspectives can’t coexist. They just can’t.
Dave’s machine gun was empty by now.
So were we. We relaxed. Bad idea.
Stray bullets ricocheted our minds as a friend mimicked Dave Chappelle.
What followed terminated eons later, amidst sincere apologies.
But my friend still remained puzzled. “Why can’t a white guy use the N-word?”
My final answer delivered closure.
This word weapon is not of African American origin but we retooled it.
Revolution 101, Page 28: ‘Take the weapon of your enemy and make it your tool. ‘
Problem is, some weapons can backfire. This one always does.
This word bullet was originated and used as a weapon for dehumanization, devaluation, degradation and division.
This tool conveys many nuances within our community, embodied in timing, setting, tone, tenor, relationship, etc.
It is our term of endearment, of boundaries reminded, a tool that closes doors and open others. And more.
It is a rite of passage for a community born of the experience of
the ship’s hold
The whip on endless day.
Cold metal seared as it axed my foot
Liquid crimsomed the air then the soil about me
Moist lightening pierced every nook and cranny of my being as I cried
For the tender mercies of soothing fire that only moments before were not my desire.Chains heavier than the heavens of Uranus
Sun hotter than Vasuvius herself
Pain of my Love never again
Agony of hopelessness
Rope I first fashioned then swung upon until toes curled into my ankles and lungs roared in preference of The Wraith
Soles of shoes worn holey upon the picket line
Martin’s blood splattered upon my lips
Malcolm’s gut’s strung about my fingers
The unfettered hatred of white men seething with evil and ignorance raping my father’s manhood that he willing gave that I might be free.
Mother’s quiet eyes as she was raped and sodomized
Those same eyes as she buried my screaming, crying, questioning, clawing sisters beneath waters now long passed
ba’ Bro’s gurgled screams as they tortured him at slug’s pace, laughing as though he were but game.
………………………………….
.
Greenwood ablaze from on high
Pick-up trucks in Jasper
Emmett Till in a casket.
No, my brother, there is only one community for its use.
Only one time.
Only one cause.
Where, then, are Our common pages that can so bind? Where is our cause? What is our story?
They are in our Brotherhood forged in manhood’s fires, where respect is afforded at the onset and time-assured by mutual honor, loyalty and integrity.
Mutual vision.
Mutual heart.
These hearts, without pause, willingly squash any attack meant for the other.
Why taint such with sickly memories still fresher than tomorrow?
For when you so speak I will peer into your soul through your windowed eyes and ask, ‘If you will take a bullet for me, why doth now thou strikest mine heart with one such as this?’
And then I shall take my leave, for you, My Brother, are not.”
.
.“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ~ James Baldwin
.. (Man & Woman Images credit: “Slavery” Fay Venegas)
