Dear TJ & Bean: On Dealing With Badge-wearing Cretins and Troglodytes


A few weeks ago, I was recently invited to participate in a Blackety Black ass workshop and story slam led by Jive Poetic and Kamilah Aisha Moon at the Centre for Social Innovation in Manhattan. I joined 14 opinionated, brilliant Black folks to come together to reflect on and share our experiences as chocolatey wonders in America in a post-Ferguson society. In preparation for the storytelling situation, we were tasked with writing a letter (to someone...or everyone), powered by hindsight, regarding some recent tragedy of extrajudicial murder or grave injustice. We split off and everybody went to work. The results were breathtaking. In those 15 or 20 minutes before the guests arrived, I penned some words to my wonderful nieces, as if I were speaking to them before shit hit the fan in Baltimore.

AND, I read a version of this today on TK in the AM.

And so:


Dear TJ & Bean,

It's about to get really shitty, really quickly, so beware. Living 16 and 17 years in this awful post-Teen Summit society, you should already be aware of this world's shittiness potential. You've lived through the end of Homeboys in Outer Space, "The Thong Song," post-Emancipation Mariah Carey and the rise and inevitable fall of that tired ass Australian rapping albino shitbag. You're already more resilient than you know.

A funny thing happens when a weak-minded cretin charged with upholding the tenets of terribleness that make the machine tick is given power, immunity and financial backing. That empowered cretin will fight, kill, evade, oppress, shuck, jive and subjugate with all their might to keep the terrible machine ticking. You see, as history shows us, the scumbagginess must persist at all costs.

When you challenge an empowered cretin used to immunity and the ability to kill and subjugate unchecked, chaos ensues. Recording and even threatening a badge-wearing shitbag with accountability guarantees tragedy. Riot gear, tear gas, deflection and wartime weaponry become the empowered and terrified cretin's tools of choice. Professional oppressors become professional victims and weary victims of this state-sanctioned murderous shitbaggery become responsible for explaining, ending and provoking said scumbaggery. It's inevitable. But even in the face of such multigenerational lunacy, antagonism and intellectual laziness, do not give into hopelessness. Do not believe the vile and demotivating hype. Do not despair.

Do not drink the mayonnaise.

Question the narratives that paint your skinfolk as monsters and mindless Neanderthals, for that ain't shit but projecting, and futile projecting at that.

Do not fear your fear or run from your anger. Your emotions are yours for a reason. Don't let the fear of being labeled "angry" dilute your passion. Anybody with skin, hair and ancestry like yours, who has eyes and a soul, should feel at least a twinge of anger. While our "savagery" may damage a 7-11 after a brutal murder at the hands of an empowered cretin, that cretin's documented savagery destroys nations, erases histories and eradicates populations.Their opinions matter not.

So rumble, baby, rumble.

It's a pity we need hashtags to remind us (and the cretins) that Black lives matter, but they do. So, too, do your voices and stories. Your words, images, perspectives and advocacy have shifted tides and initiated tsunamis of outrage and shitty publicity that brings about convictions and legislature, because exposure and shaming are an empowered, badge-wearing or public office-occupying cretinous shitbag's kryptonite. So share, shout, cry, record and challenge because your life, and the lives of your skinfolk, damn sure depends on it.

You'll undeniably be told or made to feel that you or someone with hair, skin and ancestry like yours somehow caused or deserved what happened in Charleston, Ferguson, Baltimore or elsewhere. These are lies, fairy tales and kale-flavored Fuckshit. Do not drink the mayonnaise. Your only responsibility is to live your life like a motherfucker, tell your stories and do your best to protect and uplift yourself and your people.

With love,

Uncle Alex

NYC Fam, come check me out at the 2015 Bondfire Radio Audio Festival on Sunday August 16 in Bushwick, Brooklyn for a summer edition of Colored Boy and Friends, which begins PROMPTLY at 7PM. Come say howdy!
Sip your way to better personhood



Subscribe to Extra Colored, Alexander Hardy's personal newsletter, and receive updates and exclusive content via email.


powered by TinyLetter


   

Comments