To be a Black man in a white country is to be presumed not a member of that country.
A former Del Taco supervisor during a job I had in high school liked to speak of "all-American types" being at the front counter. I had no consciousness then except the consciousness that passes through us psychically, so the phrase always rubbed me the wrong way, made me uncomfortable, even though I could not put my finger on it. And I did not notice until much, much later that while I occupied that front counter, I was alone as a POC. My unconsciousness, in part, made me safe. The grill and cook areas were mostly Latinos. The phrase was to come up again later when I heard about certain temp agencies using that code to indicate white people.
To be Black in a white country meant when the restaurant chain, Houlihan's, had NO Black waiters, this included me, even though my white college peers were readily hired as such, and I allowed to be a busboy and clean up after them, and after the patrons, for whatever spare change they delighted to give me. After many attempts to move up in spite of this, that Okie cracker manager woman, Kris Tinger, said to me "Lowell, if you insist on being a waiter I can make you a waiter, but I can't guarantee you any hours."
To be African in the United States is still to be defined by that US Supreme Court which said we were not now nor ever meant to be Americans, citizens, of this infamous country.
To be of African descent in this white-settler country is to be a tool for exploiters, even so-called liberal ones: so those gay bars, like the Midnight Sun in San Francisco's Castro District, were found by a District Attorney sting to in fact be routinely denying Blacks employment, charging cover charges where there was none, and selling cocktails at a higher price. When I went as a freelance reporter for the local gay newspaper, The Sentinel, to cover the story, the white patrons greeted me as if I had walked into a Klan gathering, heckling me and throwing ancient racist epithets my way.
To be descended from that stock of stolen African labor made surplus, therefore dangerous, after the United States Experiment utterly blew up in 1865 means you cannot be rented an apartment by many a large property owners in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Orange County, California, because you are still surplus labor; nor given an office temp assignment because - again - you are not "front-office type," except to go assemble tents for a Beverly Hills Arts Expo, then finally get a job at barely minimum wage while your white "friends", bless their clueless puzzled hearts, ask you "why are you working there?"
To be Black in a a lily-white land is to be a vagrant, and you belong nowhere, so every police and justice institution in this country is intent on prodding you, questioning your presence, frisking you, moving you along, until you're dead, in jail, or you go mad so they can put you in jail.
In fact, to be Black in this racist country is to be one false accusation or corrupt district attorney away from incarceration.
To be Black in this white supremacist patriarchy means, then, your gay, meth-addicted, weed-smoking compatriot, tweaking throughout the whole night without sleep, barely passed his adolescence, is presumed fit for an executive manager position at a five-star hotel, while your Black ass cannot get a minor promotion.
Where is this white fool who says he lost a job to a minority?!
To be African in a land founded by hate groups and Nazis, who've bred more hate groups and more Nazis, is to be a walking provocation, always presumed to be shouting and threatening. But don't be angry. We are not allowed anger.
This all means we may be troubled Black people, but we are troublesome Africans.
To be an African in North America for more than one, or many, generations, is to be at your core a revolutionary, a table-turner, one who upends the smallest to the grandest symbol of oppression, to constantly but at varying pace pull the thread with the intent on destroying the fabric. Whether we deconstruct, destruct, burn down, blow up, blow out, we do it dangerously: this much the white institutions of this ass-backward country know and fear. And I want them to shit their pants.
A former Del Taco supervisor during a job I had in high school liked to speak of "all-American types" being at the front counter. I had no consciousness then except the consciousness that passes through us psychically, so the phrase always rubbed me the wrong way, made me uncomfortable, even though I could not put my finger on it. And I did not notice until much, much later that while I occupied that front counter, I was alone as a POC. My unconsciousness, in part, made me safe. The grill and cook areas were mostly Latinos. The phrase was to come up again later when I heard about certain temp agencies using that code to indicate white people.
To be Black in a white country meant when the restaurant chain, Houlihan's, had NO Black waiters, this included me, even though my white college peers were readily hired as such, and I allowed to be a busboy and clean up after them, and after the patrons, for whatever spare change they delighted to give me. After many attempts to move up in spite of this, that Okie cracker manager woman, Kris Tinger, said to me "Lowell, if you insist on being a waiter I can make you a waiter, but I can't guarantee you any hours."
To be African in the United States is still to be defined by that US Supreme Court which said we were not now nor ever meant to be Americans, citizens, of this infamous country.
To be of African descent in this white-settler country is to be a tool for exploiters, even so-called liberal ones: so those gay bars, like the Midnight Sun in San Francisco's Castro District, were found by a District Attorney sting to in fact be routinely denying Blacks employment, charging cover charges where there was none, and selling cocktails at a higher price. When I went as a freelance reporter for the local gay newspaper, The Sentinel, to cover the story, the white patrons greeted me as if I had walked into a Klan gathering, heckling me and throwing ancient racist epithets my way.
To be descended from that stock of stolen African labor made surplus, therefore dangerous, after the United States Experiment utterly blew up in 1865 means you cannot be rented an apartment by many a large property owners in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Orange County, California, because you are still surplus labor; nor given an office temp assignment because - again - you are not "front-office type," except to go assemble tents for a Beverly Hills Arts Expo, then finally get a job at barely minimum wage while your white "friends", bless their clueless puzzled hearts, ask you "why are you working there?"
To be Black in a a lily-white land is to be a vagrant, and you belong nowhere, so every police and justice institution in this country is intent on prodding you, questioning your presence, frisking you, moving you along, until you're dead, in jail, or you go mad so they can put you in jail.
In fact, to be Black in this racist country is to be one false accusation or corrupt district attorney away from incarceration.
To be Black in this white supremacist patriarchy means, then, your gay, meth-addicted, weed-smoking compatriot, tweaking throughout the whole night without sleep, barely passed his adolescence, is presumed fit for an executive manager position at a five-star hotel, while your Black ass cannot get a minor promotion.
Where is this white fool who says he lost a job to a minority?!
To be African in a land founded by hate groups and Nazis, who've bred more hate groups and more Nazis, is to be a walking provocation, always presumed to be shouting and threatening. But don't be angry. We are not allowed anger.
This all means we may be troubled Black people, but we are troublesome Africans.
To be an African in North America for more than one, or many, generations, is to be at your core a revolutionary, a table-turner, one who upends the smallest to the grandest symbol of oppression, to constantly but at varying pace pull the thread with the intent on destroying the fabric. Whether we deconstruct, destruct, burn down, blow up, blow out, we do it dangerously: this much the white institutions of this ass-backward country know and fear. And I want them to shit their pants.
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