Riots In Oakland

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

-Claude McKay-

It occurs to me that the young black people rioting in the streets of Oakland today just weeks after they danced in these same streets to celebrate the election of this countries first Black president are fighting for their lives like they have been doing since they were brought to this country in the rancid bowels of slave ships. As this occurs to me I wonder if Claude McKay knew in 1919 when he wrote the timeless words at the top of this page that almost 100 years later these words would be as relevant as they were then.

Almost as if to put us in our place weeks before the inauguration of America's first Black President a police officer killed a young Black man execution style with a single shot as he lay on his stomach waiting to be hand cuffed and carted off to jail for some petty crime. Nearly fifty years after a battery of supreme court cases and legislative acts came together to create the illusion of freedom for black people in this country and since the Warren court reeked havoc on the lawlessness of America's police racial profiling, police brutality, and unjustified murders continue to plague poor and young black folks.

Tonight in Oakland young Black and Latino women and men took to the streets to protest the killing of 22 year old Oscar Grant by the police on New Years day. The officer, whose name has yet to be released, shot the young man in the back of the head while he lay on the ground waiting to be hand cuffed. This evening while I sat in the offices of my part time job on 7th and Broadway in Downtown Oakland my co-workers and I spotted out the windows several groups of young brothers running. What was most striking about this site was that these young warriors were running toward the center of the conflict at 14th and broadway with the words of Claude McKay lighting their steps "If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain..."

BART

There is a young boy in my life who calls me his gay dad. He is extremely talented- a singer. If he were in Atlanta or New York or any of the places I've been where there are large communities of Black people and Black Gay people he would be celebrated, he would be mentored. As it is he is discouraged by rolled eyes and heavy sighs when he opens his mouth to sing or to talk.

He reminds me of myself growing up in this place as a prodigious young black boy in a Black community full of people who refused to celebrate my gifts. Instead they were angry at me. I try to shelter him from this with broad smiles whenever he speaks or sings, I clap my fingers together and chant "Hercules-Hercules-Hercules!" I hope that my chants are so loud that he will no longer hear the heavy sighs of the other onlookers. I hope that the light of my smile is so overwhelming that he is blinded from the rolled eyes of the same people who profess their life's work to be saving his life. Even as I hope I know. I know he will hear, I know he will see. So my most enduring hope is that he will remember my smile and that it will aide him in his escape from this place.

People from Oakland get mad at me when I talk about this town, or the town as it is called colloquially. But there is a desperation, and a deeply seated insecurity that impacts every area of life in Oakland.

This insecurity drives a mad, desperate, and angry competition that each person I've met in Oakland is engaged in with every other person from Oakland. It has lead to me finding myself surrounded by a group of people who call themselves my friends and react with anger to my success.

When I think back to the desperation that drove my early need to write I get a glimpse of what I react so strongly to here. The insecurities drive a need to prove oneself but this need is stifled by the just as strong need of everyone else (even those charged with shepherding the development of children). One finds oneself voiceless wanting nothing more than to scream. Oh how they scream! Gun violence, HIV, Incarceration and a few artists escape.

God Speed Bartholomew!!! (God he reminds me of L!)

This shit is pissing me off!

How is it that this stupid white man (Imus) says fucked up shit about Black women and it some how gets turned around on Black people (Hip Hop)? How is this white man's stupidity Black hip hop's fault?

Racism is a bitch!!!

Coming Out Story

Gimme five! Two times! On the black hand side. I remember shaking hands, giving dap or some love: Slap twice rapidly but don’t take the other’s hand, take his hand, thumbs back, drop your thumbs forward close you fist around the forward fingers of his closed fist so that your fist interlock, pull back slowly bringing your middle finger and thumb together snap as you come out of the embrace. I remember shaking hands, being allowed this briefest of a caress between “Brothers.”

I remember being a brother! I was, “blood,” “Folks” “dog” “youngsta” “shawty” “mah nigga.”

I remember being a nigga too. Hunted as niggas are, I remember what it was like to be endangered! Not like I’m endangered now, but I remember what it was like to be in danger and be protected from danger. Protected by black folks, because I was “youngsta” “shorty” “Brotha” they built hide-outs along the way home from school! Underground railroad conductors waiting at Upward-bound and the Boys and Girls Club to show me the way to freedom screamed “live free or die” at little black boys like me with few other options.

Racism is harsh! But the resolve of my tribesman was stronger. We built fortresses to protect our children. We fortified there walls with our prayers and with the power within our collective voices, raised in song, that we so trustingly call “God.”

I remember being a tribesman too. I remember being jealously watched over by black women who in their gaze and as payment for their protection claimed me for their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, sisters, and themselves.

I remember being a tribesman and I remember my own gaze. Careful and suspiciously I watched and scrutinized white people, sisters and brothers who married white people, Asians, police, teachers, homosexuals and anyone else who represented the system or the “others.”

I remember leaving the tribe.

Now, blank stares on the faces of women who once claimed me as their own and now hardly recognize me and certainly do not want me for themselves, their daughters, nieces, cousins or even their sisters.

Exiled by “God” and his urban pontiff to this new Diaspora, I stand cold outside of fortresses that once kept me safe with prayers and songs and the promise of “God” and love, facing racism by myself.

Having chosen freedom over death my freedom is used against me by those who so implored me to it! The codes have been changed in the night and the path to the hide-outs buried away from my sight our children protected from me by conductors who will one day tell them to live free or die.

I am no longer “brother” “shawty” “youngsta” “dawg” “folks” “blood” “people.” The fist that once served to embrace me, in likeness and familiarity, has turned against me in a new kind of less familial caress for the briefest caress between “brothers.”

I am the “other” that I used to diligently guard against with my careful and suspicious gaze. “I” now “them,” find myself ranked beneath women who marry white men, men who marry white women, police, teachers, Asians, and even white men.

I remember leaving the tribe.

Gimme five! Two times! On the black-hand side.