Somehow, somebody drew a line between him and I. I enjoyed the loafers, he enjoyed the timbs, he looked like me, but someone told me that I had to hate him. I lived in the North, he lived in the south, he lived in a little shack and I lived in a big house. I drunk fine wines, he preferred 40’s, I liked the “bougie” broads, he liked the hood shorties.
Somehow, somebody drew a line between him and I. He looked like me, but somebody separated him and me, and told us that there was no we. Everybody for themselves! Looks of disgust when we crossed paths; feeling that hate and knowing that we were separated at birth. Separated by high class and low class, smart ass and dumb ass, uppity negro and no count negro. He chose the block and I chose the books. I looked down on him and he looked down on me, but we never asked ourselves, “Who the the f*** was looking up?”
Somehow, somebody drew a line between him and I. We never conversed or thought to rehearse the lines in order to prepare for the time when we would have to meet face to face. We never said a word. He looked like me, but we were in two different worlds surrounded by girls. Black, white, red, and yellow, who all wanted to secretly touch that big mystery that dangled between our legs. Is that all we are good for? He hated me, because of my opportunities and my ability to sit and mingle in the pool of diversity. I hated him, because I wasn’t accepted and felt rejected by the people in my own village who called me white boy trying to be color blind, the one that barely spends time with his own kind.
Somehow, somebody drew a line between him and I. But while we we’re different, one thing bound us together. He looked like me! We were the color of aggression, the color of oppression, the color of protection when a mother f***** tries, to bring stress and tears to our black mothers eyes. We are the color of fear when the pasty white chick clinches her purse assuming that we all want what she has. We are the color of crime when something goes wrong, even when we have not done wrong, we just go along. We end up alone into that black 5 star hotel called jail for 2 reasons: we are black and we are male. Somebody said, we can never be the golfer, just the caddy, never a husband, but somebody’s baby daddy.
Somehow, somebody drew a line between him and I, but one day we saw each other for the first time. We abused each other verbally, physically, and psychologically until we both had no more energy. Is this what they wanted? I had book sense and he had street sense and we both used them to better ourselves. For the first time we both looked up, then we looked at each other. We saw each other for the first time. We both wanted to knowledge! We both wanted power! He hustled his way and I hustled mine. Somebody told us that we had to hate each other; that we had to kill each other. We’ve never been to jail, but we were both going through hell trying to assimilate into a society that tries to categorize, demonize, and criminalize because of the color of me and my brother.
Somehow, somebody drew a line between him and I, but we saw each other for the first time. We shook our heads and laughed at how it had to come to all of this. We had different lives and different views, but we had so much in common. His appearance initially led me to believe that he was an illiterate fool, but his impressive hood logic led me to believe that I was the damn fool, with a college degree. We both wanted knowledge! We both wanted power! We realized that we both had a drug addiction; our addiction to knowledge and power.
I have respect for anybody who seeks greater knowledge, but didnt necessarily attend college! I'm the brotha in the tie, he’s the brotha rockin the chain, but we're both dangerous colored brothas because we're both nurturing our brains. We are black men, freakin drug heads, but not the kind you want us to be. We smoke that knowledge! We snort that knowledge! We shoot that knowledge! It's that junk, that fix we need when we’re itchin and twitchin. We’re working on increasing our drug addictions so that we can kill those negative depictions of me, of him, of us. We black brothas! We fight and blow smoke in each other’s face so hopefully we’ll get a taste of that contact high, that knowledge that leads to that power. Light that s***, smoke that s***, pass that s***!
No comments:
Post a Comment