WHY, PEOPLE?

On the bus the other day, I overheard two women talking. Every other word was "F' this, and "MF" that, this "N-Word" slapped a "B-word," but this "B-word" will "F-up" a "N-word...."

All of which leaves me with questions. First of all, having been exposed to domestic violence in my youth, the fact that these women speak about it as normative is apalling. If violence is a norm in your life and is expressed in the way you deal with everything, including your children, what hope is there for the future? Violence? What else? It's as if they live in a completely different world than I do.

And in that world where they live, why is it ok for women to use the B-word as a synonym for "woman" or the N-word as a synonym for person? And if it's ok for people of color to engage in these behaviors, why is it not ok for people who are not of color to do it? You already have Hispanic youth using the N-word normatively. What happens when an Hispanic youth uses it and is mistaken for a white youth?

And how can a race have ownership of a word? If, as the young people say, they've "owned" the word and have thereby taken away all the historical horror of it, then haven't they also taken away all that historical horror when a white person utters it? How is a racial epithet magically ok when uttered by members of the race it denigrates, but somehow less ok when uttered by others? How, except through the blinding lenses of racism and self-hatred?

How can I disrespect myself and my children and then feign offense when someone else does to me what I've done to myself? Can someone explain that to me?

Of course, being stupid doesn't apply just to use of the N-word or the B-word. It doesn't apply just to normative domestic violence. We Americans neither know nor care what happens beyond the borders of our own neighborhoods (I was going to say nation, but we don't know or care what goes on within our nation, let alone what goes on outside its borders) -- we don't know or care what happens beyond the borders of our own neighborhoods, but when we feel the effects of actions around the world, we behave as if we're somehow victims. It's as if we don't understand the laws of cause and effect, and we don't understand what incredible power we possess(ed) simply by virtue of the fact that we are Americans.

I heard a guy ranting the other day about white people in Harlem. He talked about how he remembered establishments from "back in the day." I, too, remember "back in the day." I remember when, in between puffs of our joints, we would look at the abandoned buildings and talk about how the white people were going to buy them up.

Of course, we didn't stop paying -- I don't know, maybe 50 or 75 dollars an OUNCE for a WEED to burn up, pollute our lungs and make us stupid -- we didn't stop that, and we didn't see the connection between giving all our disposable income to drug dealers who used it for flashy consumerism and legal fees, thereby putting it in the hands of the white people we thought were somehow plotting to take over our neighborhoods -- we never saw the connection between our actions and the results of our actions.

When I look at how the Harlem hues have changed, I don't see that non-blacks have taken it over. I see that we black people have given it away. It's not like anyone forced us to do it, it's not like we didn't know any better, it's just that we weren't focusing on our own survival. In the 40s and 50s, we banded together against racial segregation, and we made some progress. Now, it seems that we as a people have lost our way. We're letting various and sundry influences (the term darts and arrows of the enemy comes to mind) take us away from our concept of who we are. More importantly, even though we have a President who is half African American, we as a people have not yet realized The Dream (largely because we as a people choose to segregate ourselves, and will not live the dream). But if we haven't yet realized The Dream, that does not mean that we never will.

I'ma close here with a my brother Langston Hughes, and his poem, A Dream Deferred.

"What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore --
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over --
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?"

Or dream has not dried up, it's gone through the syrupy sweet stage, it's gone through the explosion stage. I think it's either festering, stinking, or maybe, like our young men's pants, just sagging.

I don't know. What I do know is that something is very wrong. I don't know how to fix it, and again I ask:

Why, people?