Welcome to the third post in our guest blog series. This article is by Don Dumas (@don_dumas) A high school history teacher, with a Master's Degree in Secondary Education.
This is a post about race and racism. Particularly, this post is about “whiteness” in the United States. Go ahead, roll your eyes. Scroll right on past this. This is getting old, right? Can we just get over the whole “race” thing?
Yes. I’m glad you feel that way. These are the exact responses that I am going to address. You see, many of you white people are in denial. And it is you who I am addressing in this post.
And this post is long—probably too long for you to read. You cannot read/discuss/think about race for longer than two seconds because it makes you feel uncomfortable. You suffer from white fragility.
If you respond to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter”, you suffer from white fragility.
If you say things like, “I don’t see color. We are all human beings in my eyes,” you suffer from white fragility.
If you think because you are a poor or middle class white person, then white privilege doesn’t exist, you suffer from white fragility.
If you think that the U.S. is strictly a meritocracy, and that racism only exists in individual acts of “meanness” (which you don’t commit, so you’re one of the good guys, right?), and that if everyone would just work harder, they will have the same opportunities as anyone else, you suffer from white fragility.
The term “white fragility” was coined by Dr. Robin DiAngelo. She defines ‘white fragility’ as “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”
Are you refusing to read any further? That is you “leaving the stress-inducing situation.”
Now that we understand the term, let us discuss white fragility as it applies to the things I see on my news-feed.
The Black Lives Matter movement was founded because of the numerous cases of black people being murdered, yet their murderers did not face justice. Some times the murderers were police officers, some times they were private citizens. The killings were bad enough, but it was the escape from justice that gave birth to the BLM movement. The term “black lives matter” should be clear in light of these circumstances.
The term is a plea to the American power structure. It asks, quite simply, for the nation to see our humanity; see that we are human beings; that we are valuable; that we, too, are Americans. We are your brothers and sisters. We are not expendable.
It is actually quite magnanimous—as in NOT vindictive. It was a plea for compassion from the rest of society. It most definitely was not a claim of black superiority, or an attempt to elevate black lives above any other lives.
But some of you couldn’t deal with that. Fox News told you that the people involved in the BLM organization were violent, dangerous, separatists, militant. And you bought it because you’re racist.
Not racist in a way that you would call a black person an n-word, but racist in the fact that because the participants in BLM are young, black, and angry, it was feasible in your mind that this group was dangerous; this group was part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
When you discount the ‘black lives matter’ mantra by responding with, “All Lives Matter”, you believe you are speaking from a position of racial refinement. You think you have cultivated your sense of racial perspective to the point of harmonious enlightenment. ‘You don’t see color’, right?
No. You are wrong. You are deflecting from the issue, which is a classic response from someone suffering from white fragility.
To respond to ‘black lives matter’ with ‘all lives matter’ is to be in denial. Denying that black people in the U.S. suffer disproportionately from all of our social ills (poverty, discrimination, police brutality, etc.) can only be the result of two things: 1) living with your head in the sand or, 2) suffering from the typical white fragile symptom that makes you believe history has no impact on the present.
Claiming not to see color, for one thing, is a bold-faced lie. But more than that, it insults people of color. You see, part of having white privilege is the ability to claim race neutrality. You get to say that “you don’t see color”, and there are no negative consequences to having that stance. That is a privilege. Do you ever notice that the overwhelming majority of the people who use the phrase “I don’t see color” are white? Why is that?
It’s like that because people of color HAVE to be aware of color. In many cases, it is a matter of life and death.
When you say you don’t see color, you are denying that a person’s color impacts the way they have to navigate our society. Being white, you don’t have to consider these things. Failing to acknowledge it is another manifestation of white fragility because it threatens your race neutrality. Acknowledging it puts you in the privileged class and, perhaps you feel guilty that you benefit from living in a racial society.
You cannot make a plea for “all of us getting along”, and then deny the real experiences of people of color when they are shown to you. You cannot claim to want to see racism come to an end, and then when presented with data confirming systemic racism, look for non-racist explanations for the problems.
Here are some of those explanations I have seen on my newsfeed:
“What about black-on-black crime?”
“How about not breaking the law?”
“Just comply and everything will be fine.”
“It’s a black culture thing; they have a criminal culture.”
“Black people don’t value education.”
“Absentee fathers is the real issue.”
“If they had a job they wouldn’t have time to protest in the streets.”
All of these explanations do not EXPLAIN racial outcomes, the are the RESULTS of systemic racism.
What you must admit is that this society was organized along white supremacist lines. The laws, the courts, the banks, the schools, were all created during a time of blatant white supremacy. The institutions in this country were built by white people and designed to maintain white supremacy. There have been changes to our laws and to our schools, but most of these laws go unenforced. That’s the truth.
I am not going to make this post any longer by giving the historical data that proves how our laws, courts, banks, religious institutions, schools, etc. are racist. If you don’t believe me, or don’t see how that affects our society now, I’ll explain upon request.
For now, I will just say that we are all conditioned at an early age to view whiteness as “normal”, “to be aspired to”, and “good”. An honest reflection of your lived experience should confirm this.
I could go on and on, but I’m going to wrap this up, because I have things to do today.
So where do we go from here?
First, if you’re white and don’t want to live in a white supremacist society, you have to change your thought patterns and your behavior.
Stop trying to be race-neutral. Stop thinking that you can determine whether or not racist actions have taken place, and that your whiteness lends credibility to your conclusions.
When people of color tell you about the racism they’re facing, don’t let your first response be denial. Don’t let your mind think of things that the person of color could have done to prevent the situation. That is a racist’s response. If you claim you aren’t a racist, then work harder at not being one. Remember: racism is a white problem, not a person of color problem. We are the victims of racism, not the perpetrators. Solutions to racism must be implemented in the white community, not communities of color.
The next thing you need to do is challenge racism when you see it. I know when white people are alone, sometimes one of them might say or do racist things, because many white people have told me such. Challenge them. Don’t let it slide. No matter how uncomfortable you might be, confront racism at every turn. It could be your friend, a member of your family, a co-worker; it doesn’t matter. They must be confronted.
Lastly, do more to integrate our society. Just because you have a black co-worker, and you joke together, that does not mean that you can’t be racist (the old, ‘I have black friends’ line). When was the last time a black person ate at your dinner table? When was the last time you ate at a black person’s dinner table? Do your children have black playmates? Have they spent the night at their house? Have the black friends spent the night at yours? How much do you REALLY socialize with people of color?
If you do socialize with people of color, and you recognize their humanity, apply that to the people of color you don’t know. Don’t allow yourself to think, “Why can’t they all be like [my friend]? If they all behaved like [my friend], we wouldn’t have these problems.”
Guess what? Those people of color that you don’t know ARE just like your friend.
In fact, we are all alike. We all share the same goals in life, more or less. We all want to be free. We all want to safe. We all want to be happy.
If we want our society to operate in a way that allows ALL people to fulfill their life goals, you must stop pretending that society already exists.
Because it doesn’t.
#blacklivesmatter
-Don M. Dumas, San Diego, California, July 15, 2016
Welcome to our new guest series on kweliclub! For our first installment we have a piece by @ironsidehex
The alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. Miller slowly wakes, then sits up in the bed, blonde hair mussed.
He throws the covers off his bare, pale legs & bounds barefoot over the hardwood floors into the bathroom. He grabs his toothbrush & toothpaste, then turns on the shower. Miller strips out of his boxers & steps into the running water, dental tools in hand. After taking care of his hygiene needs, he gets dressed for work in his best, an Armani navy blue pinstripe suit, a crisp matching blue button down shirt complete w/ a sleek blue Armani tie. Lastly he reaches into a battered shoe box & came out with a pair of scuffed black Rockports. He observes the new scuff for a moment. Never seen that before. "Fuck it", Miller says under his breath, stepping into them & tightening the shoe strings.
He grabs his keys off the lone table in his small apartment, jets down the steps & out of the front door. He approaches the crowded bike rack in front of his building, kneeling down to unlock his front tire, when he sees that it's flat. "FUCK". Miller silently debates whether he should try to patch the tire or walk to work. Since the weather is uncommonly nice for an early April morning he decides to hoof it, detecting the faint smell of something burning in the air. The sidewalks aren't crowded yet so Miller starts off on a stroll, instead of half-running in a throng of humanity. There's a steady stream of bike riders in the freshly painted bike lane, everything from grown women in skirts riding tricked out dirt bikes, to men in suits on tandem bikes. He walks down the street, turning his head to look whenever an occasional car passes, always w/ every seat full, sometimes w/ 5 or even 6 occupants. Suburban commute. Miller sighs, remembering that life. Riding bitch in the back & at times chauffeuring 4 or 5 other muthafuckas to work. He's been trying to sell his car for over a year with no takers. Miller unleashes a weary sigh just thinking about it & steps over a homeless person sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. He momentarily thinks about waking him up, but decides against it. He hasn't got time to deal with an irate vagrant. Let the Trump Brigade deal with him.
Up ahead he can see one of the Trump Brigade's urban tank parked in the street facing the virtually nonexistent traffic & agents doing their morning "STREET SWEEP", dressed in all black tactical gear, complete w/ ski-masks & headgear fitted w/ face-cages & tinted visors.
They look like modified black football helmets. Miller walks closer to them, he can see them better, as they use their collapsible batons to poke the few people sleeping on the pavement. Their black jumpsuits are torn, dirty, & blood stained. They've probably been out clearing the streets for weeks during the day, & at night going on illegal immigrant raids w/ ICE & Homeland Security agents, among other things. He shakes his head, continuing on, unconsciously reaching for his wallet, just in case the federal police want to see his passport card. As Miller reaches them the agent impatiently waves him by, hardly looking up from his iPad as he checked the citizenship info from a homeless man's bio-chip. Being a Caucasian male certainly has its privileges, Miller thought, the voice in his head sounding like a sarcastic Bill Maher. He hadn't been chipped yet because he hadn't had any contact with the law. He gets a wiff of a foul aroma as he walks by the officers & the homeless they've rounded up. The smells of sweat, blood, body odor, & shit mingle with the faint acrid smell of smoke & he wrinkles his nose & gags, not sure if the stench was the homeless or the overworked agents. The Trump Brigade. Their real name is THE FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT BRIGADE. At the beginning they were just a rumor, shrouded in secrecy. When Trump first introduced them in 2018, he vaguely stated that these agents were here to enforce federal laws. People were confused. Doesn't the FBI handle the enforcement of federal laws? What the Hell was this? What are these guys here for? Where are they from? Why do they hide their faces? They were here to enforce Trump's Laws, which changed daily, with little or no warning.
Rumors swirled around the formation of the teams. Some say they were plucked from various federal, state & local law enforcement agencies & that made the most sense. After they had been around for 6 months people started to say that they were plucked from federal & state prisons. After seeing their behavior that made sense too. By 2019 there had been over 200 brutality claims filed in local police precincts countrywide. The FBI started an investigation into alleged civil rights violations by the Trump Brigade. The problem was, who do u take your findings to? Who do u indict or subpoena? The members of the Trump Brigade were totally anonymous & answered only to their commanders who answered directly to the president himself. They didn't even know who each other was. They met up w/ their masks already on, had been wearing them since they began training. They answered to a number, like prison inmates. They were so secretive that one Trump Brigade member could be standing in line at the grocery store w/ another one & neither would know it, even though they were side by side kicking in someone's teeth the night before. They were even paid in cash.
Miller looked around, as more people started to come out of their homes, some riding bikes, some joining him on the sidewalk. Almost none getting in cars. He saw a woman in a business suit get into an older model blue sedan, then saw a portly man in dirty overalls walk out of a house across the street & join her. Car pool. Miller looked at the time display on his iPhone with the shattered screen. He needed a new one badly but iPhone's were more than $1000 now. He quickened his step, crossing in the middle of the block. He didn't bother to look both ways, there were no cars on the street anyway, just bikes. As Miller crossed he saw a graffitied building. Most of it was a mishmash of gang graf & profanity written haphazardly & all over each other. It looked like the renderings of a bipolar child with a box of crayons with too much time on it's hands.
Except for one tag.
'THE REAPERS'.
Miller stopped to regard it for a moment. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was a simple scrawl in black spray paint, nothing fancy. It probably took three seconds to do it, definitely not the best piece on the wall, yet everything else was written over & disparaged, some even crossed out. "THE REAPERS" was untouched. Miller felt a sense of pride. The Reapers were the real reason Trump initiated the Trump Brigade. It was a natural progression from benign protests to malignant actions.
Although Trump initially decried them as being illegal immigrants, The Reapers were actually multicultural & indigenous to whatever region they were from. For example, the Colorado Reapers were full of Pueblo Indians. The Reapers stood in open rebellion against the Trump Administration, making them the de facto military arm of Anonymous, the group of super-hackers. The FBI could never prove any link between the two groups but Trump went on TV after the second assassination attempt on his life & immediately blamed both The Reapers & Anonymous. The Reapers did eventually claim responsibility for the attempt & although Anonymous said nothing publicly to admit or deny their involvement, a "winking eye" happy face emoji '😉' was sent to every Android cellphone in America at the exact same time of the attack. The Trump Brigade's main task is to seek out & destroy The Reapers. Miller chuckled & continued walking. Three assassination attempts in less than four years. Insane. The first was in 2017 by some deranged guy named Brady Lee Johns who shot Trump at a rally to impress actress Jennifer Lawrence. Trump got a graze wound to his left arm. Of course he played it up as if he had defied death. The next attempt was also in 2017, two months after the first. A brazen attack orchestrated by a California based faction of The Reapers with alleged financial support from the Mexican Mafia. Some say they were the very first faction, the originators. They attacked Trump's caravan with legally purchased assault weapons & lobbed grenades in the middle of Los Angeles. It was like a Michael Bay /Jerry Bruckheimer film. Trump got away unharmed, but five Secret Service agents lost their lives protecting his. The numerous death threats started immediately as he became President Elect & both the FBI & the Secret Service called Trump's presidential protection detail The Pall Bearers, but after five of them died during the LA assault they started to call that detail the Suicide Squad. Six members of The Reapers were also killed during the assault, with eight more arrested a few days later. Three of which who weren't even present at the attack. Those eight currently reside at The Big One, a Super-max federal prison in Florence, Colorado. They aren't serving a sentence, they haven't even been charged with anything yet. The fallout was crazy. Magazines, CNN, Twitter, all media outlets were aghast. American citizens arrested & detained with no formal charges. It seemed the FBI investigation couldn't pinpoint who did what. After two years the charges remain pending. The LA 8 as they were called, became the catalyst & inspiration for the present day incantation of The Reapers. There are many of them, tightly knit "SETS" with no single leader or council connecting them all. The Reapers pretty much do whatever the fuck they want to do. They all follow the 3D mantra though. To DISCREDIT, DISRUPT & DESTROY the government. They have perpetrated numerous crimes against many federal agencies as benign as stealing mailboxes, to the assassination attempt on Trump. The Reapers have also attacked Trump's supporters & most of his surrogates, vandalizing homes with Trump signs in the yards. They have popularized former Orlando Magic guard Dennis "3D" Scott's "throwback" basketball jersey.
There are also plastic 3D glasses with one red & one blue lens that they leave strewn at the scenes of their activities, like a calling card. The Trump Brigade hated The Reapers, & with good reason. The Reapers took potshots at them constantly. They were natural enemies, like Bloods & Crips. Since both groups were so secretive, the members of the Trump Brigade were suspicious of everyone & very heavy-handed with citizens, hence the brutality complaints. Miller kept walking, the air getting thicker & smokier with every step. He saw a school bus rumbling towards him, belching black diesel smoke clouds into the air. As the bus rolled past, Miller saw the group of preteen passengers & printing on the side of the bus. "FIRE FIRST ACADEMY". He shook his head & chuckled. Trump's big plan for education turned out to be to arm teachers & school administration, with mandatory target shooting & gun safety classes for students 12 & up. Miller could feel moisture spreading under his armpits as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. The air became so thick with the smell of smoke that he could hardly breathe. He coughed & spat, his eyes beginning to water. Miller made a left turn onto the main thorough fare & stopped dead in his tracks.
Miller had found the source of the smoke.
Across the street from his position on the opposite corner were about 20 Muslims, the men garbed in kufis, long white shirts & robes, the women in hijab. They were picking through the rubble of their still smoking mosque, bags in hand looking for anything they could salvage. Fire bomb. So this was why he'd heard the faint wail of sirens last night. As he walked closer a group of 3 or 4 Muslim men standing in front of their ruined place of worship saw Miller approaching & turned towards him. Miller nodded at the men in a gesture of greeting. Their responses were hostile glares. He could feel their hatred focused on him, their eyes so accusatory that he had to avert his own & turn away. He passed by the men, albeit on the opposite side of the street & they never spoke, just continued their hostile stares. There was definitely no lack of suspects in the mosque bombings. It could have been The American Patriots, The Greatest American Heroes, The Reveres, that old standby The KKK, who has made a resurgence during Trump's presidency, it's membership up 600%, or any of the other all-white militias. It could have even been the Trump Brigade. They were no friends of the Muslim community, especially after the last assassination attempt on Trump's life. Instead of going to Camp David, Trump would head to Trump Tower in NY for his vacations. Trump Tower was constantly under protest, with protestors setting up tents around the building, reminiscent of Occupy Wall street, complete with police barricades, police, national guardsmen, & of course the ever present Trump Brigade. On September 12, 2018 at approximately 9:42 a.m. all hell broke loose. There were three explosions in succession as two men and a woman broke through the barricades like Vietcong sappers. Three suicide bomber detonations, each ten minutes apart. The first explosion causing instant shock, the successive detonations causing pandemonium, killing & injuring protesters & first responders alike. Over 100 casualties making the Trump Tower attack the deadliest on American soil since the mass shooting at the gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando, Florida. The crowd's faces seem unbelieving. One blood splattered face fixed with a blank stare would become the literal face of the attack, appearing everywhere & personifying the attack the way the visual of the damaged, smoking towers embodied 9/11. The assault itself was horrific, even The Reapers disavowed the attack which killed many innocent people, however we wouldn't wait long for a group to come forward and claim responsibility.
ISIS AMERICA.
That's right. Isis America. Even the name was enough to send shudders down American spines everywhere. They were here. Homegrown & engaging in some of Isis' deadliest activities. Suicide bombings, kidnappings, video taped beheadings broadcast on the internet. Trump's policies against Muslims worldwide brought the fight into his backyard. Miller never understood why Americans thought a man who was basically a draft dodger who received five deferments for the Vietnam War was fit to lead the War On Terror anyway. Due to both The Reapers & Isis America, Trump has taken to addressing the nation via video feed from an undisclosed location with no press present so he obviously takes no questions. These addresses are broadcast on government television, dubbed "TRUMP TV", where 24 hours a day you can watch Trump's speeches, John Wayne movies, & reruns of The Apprentice. People had to watch it because it was the only way to get information since Trump obliterated the First Amendment thus shutting down any media that he didn't control & blocking certain sites on the internet, like Google.
As Miller walked & the streets became steadily more crowded with pedestrians & bikers, he saw the reason why. Looming up ahead was a gas station with its dusty pumps looking like blocks from Stonehenge. The gas station's sign overlooked the entire street, it's numbers seemingly like a bizarre joke. Miller could still scarcely believe his eyes as they looked over the plastic sign & he read it's legend.
$8.32.
Eight thirty two.
EIGHT THIRTY TWO.
EIGHT DOLLARS & THIRTY TWO CENTS A GALLON.
Miller blinked his eyes. It had been like this for over a year, a combination of Trump's policies on Muslims and his isolationist policies. Trump turned his back on the middle east & the middle east turned it's back on America. There were talks in Congress of actually going into our oil reserves. It was a fucking mess. It's like Trump imposed sanctions on America. He did bring jobs back from overseas, but unfortunately the cost of American labor drove the prices of everything with a Made In The USA label through the roof. That, combined with Trump's 35% import tax basically raised prices on everything, meaning that to get $100 worth of any product you would have to spend about $135. A story in The Washington Post revealed that Trump had made soft inquiries to the Federal Reserve about printing more money. Just the suggestion that the president may have asked about printing more USD sent Wall street & the global economy into a tailspin, devaluing the American dollar to the point that world leaders began discussing supplanting USD as the world's common business currency. Trump had done so much damage to America he was being referred to as the Kim Jong Un of the west, & the USA as the N.Korea of the west. Both S.Korea & Japan obtained nuclear weapons in 2017 when Trump decided to pull all of our military from the region. The sabre-rattling between North & South Korea was deafening, Likewise with China & Japan. Trump also pulled back from the Middle East with Putin's subtle urging, "LET ASSAD & I HANDLE ISIS IN SYRIA. YOU HAVE MUCH WORK TO DO IN YOUR COUNTRY & ONLY U CAN FIX IT". Putin had learned that Trump was as susceptible to a well placed empty compliment as a 17 year old girl on prom night. Although a videotape of Trump's meeting with Kim Jong Un was not released he surely followed Putin's playbook because two weeks later American troops were pulling out of South Korea. Miller saw his job ahead & the sight of it spurred him forward. There it was, he thought as he reached his destination. A nondescript blue building with peeling paint. The only thing new about this building were the 3 ft tall plastic letters raised above the building. TRUMP PLASTICS. Jesus that man loved putting his name on shit. Now that he was President, him buying a new commercial business was frowned upon. Trump avoided this scrutiny by running everything through his sons, but it was him.
It was always him.
Miller walked around to the rear entrance of the building & saw about thirty or forty men milling around, either consciously or unconsciously divided by race. Like a prison yard. Miller walked by two Hispanic men leaning on the wall separating the parking lot from the alley.
The Wall.
The wall became the most embarrassing failure early in Trump's presidency. After all his barking, all his Mexico bashing. All his promises to build a wall & making Mexico pay for it. When it came time to put up or shut up Mexico said simply, "NO".
Trump was livid. He deployed ICE, Homeland Security & the Trump Brigade to Texas with a vengeance. They rounded up everyone brown they could find including Mexican-American US citizens, black people, and some people of Indian descent. It was early 2019 & the immigration detention centers are still clogged from those raids. Countless innocent people remain in detention awaiting a day in court they should never have to face. Trump seized money wires from the US to Mexico. He almost invaded Mexico but Congress stopped him. Ironically enough the only wall that almost got built was between the USA & Canada when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joked that he may have to erect a wall along the Canadian border to keep out all of the Americans. Trumpfugees they called them. After the consistent flow of American's into the Great White North, Trudeau stopped joking. Miller paced around the rear parking lot, getting a few curious glances from his co-workers, who were mostly wearing blue jeans, work boots, t-shirts, and safety glasses. "A bit over dressed, ain't you Mills?", Asked one man around the cigarette he cradled between his lips. Jeff something, Miller thought. Miller looked down at his Armani suit & shrugged.
Jeff Something chuckled & moved on into the building. Time to punch in. Miller allowed himself to be sucked inside with the throng. There were pictures of Trump all over the building, including the hallway walls, his orange face alternating between smiling & scowling depending on which picture frame he was staring at you from. Miller stopped in the hall in front of a picture of Trump smiling. This divisive man who had torn this country apart & pit all these different races against each other. Smiling.
Who had relinquished America's role in the world, making Russia top dog by default.
Smiling.
This man who was the cause of so many Muslim, Mexican-American, & Black children being teased & bullied.
Smiling.
The Boogeyman who came in the night & separated children from their parents.
Smiling.
The man who was afraid to fight in the Vietnam War & somehow received FIVE deferments but has no qualms about restarting the draft & sending your child to die in a desert thousands of miles away.
Smiling.
Miller knocked the picture off the wall, getting some strange looks as the wooden frame clattered & broke on the cement floor. He walked into the dank, stuffy locker room, where men were in various states of undress, some pulling on green coveralls & donning hard hats. Miller looked around at all the men. "Come on, Mills", said a short black man who had worked next to Miller on the the line for the last two years.
Ben Somebody.
"Be there in a minute, man." Miller said back, then went & sat in front of his locker after Ben Somebody left. He sat there for a moment, quiet. Then Miller opened his locker, reaching past his coveralls with the TRUMP PLASTICS patch on them til he felt something hard. He pulled carefully & out came the corner of a vest adorned with approximately 20 small rectangular shaped boxes with wires connecting them all to a crude detonator with a red button. Miller surveyed the room, saw various men of different ethnicities, all broken into their own small groups. All more or less pretty good guys. He saw Jeff Something talking to What's His Name. "Well, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs", he thought. He looked at another picture of Trump smiling that hung above the locker room's doorway. This time, he smiled back.
Then he pressed the button.
- @ironsidehex -
ironsidehex was formerly known as "HEXMURDA" & was the manager of artists Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Danny Brown, eLZhi & co-manager of Random Axe until he suffered a stroke in 2009 which left him with impaired speech, one good eye, & wheelchair bound. He also was the executive producer on such lp's as Black Milk's "POPULAR DEMAND" & "TRONIC", elZhi's "THE PREFACE", Bishop Lamont X Black Milk's"CALTROIT" & co-executive producer of Random Axe's "RANDOM AXE". He can be heard occasionally on Statik Selektah 's 'SHOWOFF RADIO" on Shade45/Sirius via computer voice & he has a reoccurring editorial column on ALLHIPHOP.COM.
ironsidehex currently resides in Detroit, Michigan.
That's how long the great Sean Price has been gone. It took me a long time to come to grips with that. For months after he passed I just pretended he was overseas on tour & that was the reason I wasn't talking to him. I just sorta ignored the fact that he wasn't sending me any fucked up emails or saying any slick shit to me on social media. Sometimes I'll say something about him on Twitter & his wife Bernadette ( who has access to his social media ) will retweet it from his account. Seeing "Gray Hulk Retweeted your Tweet" & the "@SeanPrice" handle always makes me grin.
I miss that guy.
He was a crazy muthafucka. Ruck kept you laughing, he was funny as fuck. He was "Eddie Murphy in the 80's" funny. He could get mad pretty quick tho. 0 to 1000 in .02 seconds. That would be funny too. People that didn't know him would be shook, & that would make the shit even funnier. When Ruck passed I did a three part tribute to him on All Hip Hop, detailed how we met & told a few stories. On this day, the first anniversary of his death, I was gonna post a sappy letter to him, just telling him what's been going on & that we miss him, blah blah. Fuck that. I realized that shit would be more about me & some other folks ya'll could give less than a fuck about. So I figured if it ain't broke don't fix it, I'll tell another quick Sean Price story. I told this story before on Instagram but it was the Readers Digest abridged version. This is the whole shit. I'll call this one, "CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER ON THE AUTOBAHN" or "DOG, YOU'RE TRIPPING".
This shit is extra stupid, but it shows how Ruck could be furious & still hilarious at the same time.
It was 2007, the THREE THE HARD WAY tour, featuring Sean Price, Guilty Simpson, & Black Milk, pre-Random Axe. We were some-fucking-where in Germany & we had an early lobby call so we could head to the next city. It was about 6 or 7 am when everybody started to come down to the lobby, dragging their bags & their feet. I was already down there with our tour manager, Nils, this young German dude. I was sprawled on a chair, still drunk from the show the night before. We got up, went outside to the parking lot & started throwing luggage in the rear of the van. After Black's slow-ass came straggling to the vehicle we were ready to go. Nils was driving, I was in the passenger seat, Ruck & Rustee Juxx ( Ruck's 'hypeman' ) were directly behind me with Guilty & Black Milk having the last two rows of seats to themselves. I popped in our advance bootleg copy of JayZ's "American Gangster" CD & we were off. Everybody was lethargic, but after a while everyone started waking up a little & talking shit as usual. This was 07 so somebody said "PAUSE" in the middle or at the end of every sentence. We 'PAUSED' the shit out of each other constantly. It was like a spoken punctuation. You know what "PAUSE" is right? It's used as a disclaimer when someone unwittingly says something that can be construed as homoerotic shit. Like if somebody says, "NAW, I AINT HIP TO THAT. FILL ME IN" or "DUMARS USE TO BE ALL OVER JORDAN. HIS 'D' WAS RIDICULOUS". That type of shit would get a "PAUSE".
I know. Juvenile as fuck. This is the type of environment this debacle takes place in. First you gotta understand that English isn't Nils first language & he doesn't really understand all the nuances of it. He kind of just mimicked or repeated what we said without fully grasping what we meant. Ok, the scene is set. We were talking shit & Ruck said something benign like "I'M HUNGRY".
Nils jumped on it.
This was his chance.
"PAWS!", he yelled.
"Hehe, PAWS!"
He looked around at everyone in the van, kind of looking for approval. We got sort of quiet. We weren't trying to be rude to Nils but to make that statement pauseworthy was a reach. Suddenly Ruck leaned forward from the seat behind me. "Yo son, can u drive this van?" I looked over at the driver seat, looked at the steering wheel, shift selector, pedals, etc. It was a normal set up. I didn't know what Ruck had in mind but sure, I could drive the van. "Yup", I replied, curious as to why he asked me that. "Good", he said. "I'm gonna kill this n***a Nils, & we're gonna dump his body on the side of the road. You can drive us to the next venue." Nils was white as a ghost. I kinda looked at Nils & shrugged. Then I turned around & looked at Ruck, searching his face for a hint of a smile or something that would tell me he was bullshitting. There was none. I realized that Sean Price was serious as fuck.
"Dog, you're tripping." I said. I mean, first of all we were in fucking Germany, I had no idea where we were going. Plus we were on the fucking Autobahn & cars were going past us at 200 fucking miles per hour. Oh yeah, & we aren't gonna fucking kill Nils. I cited all of these reasons to Ruck as to why his plan was a bad fucking idea. He finally relented but he growled at Nils,"YOU BETTER SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Nils lived but he used minimal words the rest of the tour, especially around Sean Price. I think he loosened up later in the run but he didn't get that fucking loose again. Ruck damn near rendered that man a mute.
Only Sean P could make a murder plot funny as fuck. ( Funny in retrospect only, because this shit wasn't that funny when it was happening. )
I really love & miss that dude.
No "PAWS" needed.
ironsidehex was formerly known as "HEXMURDA" & was the manager of artists Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Danny Brown, eLZhi & co-manager of Random Axe until he suffered a stroke in 2009 which left him with impaired speech, one good eye, & wheelchair bound. He also was the executive producer on such lp's as Black Milk's "POPULAR DEMAND" & "TRONIC", elZhi's "THE PREFACE", Bishop Lamont X Black Milk's"CALTROIT" & co-executive producer of Random Axe's "RANDOM AXE". He can be heard occasionally on Statik Selektah 's 'SHOWOFF RADIO" on Shade45/Sirius via computer voice & he has a reoccurring editorial column on ALLHIPHOP.COM.
ironsidehex currently resides in Detroit, Michigan.
Almost 2 years ago Talib Kweli called me and Jessica Care Moore and said we must go down to Ferguson. This was the first week of the Mike Brown rebellion. I saw something there that I had not seen in my lifetime, with my own eyes. Rebellion, resistance and young people putting their bodies on the line. These last two years I have spent on the ground in as many movement spaces as possible. As well I have tried to step back, listen, and uplift the hundreds of young folks as well as the organizations that have flourished out of this historical era. From Hands Up United, to Black Lives Matter, to Black Youth Project, to Not 1 More, to Puente in Arizona, to We Belong Together, to the Movement For Black Lives, to MiJente to Dream Defenders. It has been an honor to watch so many dope ass thinkers, doers, organizers, and new people join what we call the "movement". I won't lie, it has been a struggle, but everything we do is steeped in struggle. I choose to focus on the good, while washing away the toxicity. These 2 years also included a move to Los Angeles and that year in L.A. brought me into the Black Lives Matter network and family Melina Abdullah Nana Gyamfi Shana L. Redmond Patrisse Khan-Cullors Jasmine Abdullah Asiyahola Sankara Jas Wade Povi-Tamu Bryant Damon Turner Haewon Asfaw Black Lives Matter: Los Angeles Elle Hearns Alicia Garza David Barragan Opal Ayo Tia Oso Isa Noyola Evan Abdullah Luz Maria Flores Shamell Bell Carlos Garcia and three amazing young human beings birthed by Melina. I also was able to teach 8 classes at CAL-State L.A. ! and meet so many amazing students like Danny-el Ossoey Patricia Ornelas-Moya and the magical Betania Santos. I got to spend quality time with Nyoka Acevedo Julia Grob Kahlil Almustafa Mark Anthony Williams Sohail Daulatzai although LA did not work out exactly how I planned for my family the year their was incredible and challenging at the same time and I got live in the magical St Elmo village. I also got to rekindle a one of a kind sisterhood brother hood with Doc P M Buckley Ekow King (SUNY ALBANY). We then made a move back to NY, thank you Rodrigo Starz Claudia De la Cruz Gonzalo Rebel Diaz for giving us shelter as we figured stuff up. After being away from Albany, NY for 15 years I ended up in Albany, NY where Victorio Reyes and Laura Travison welcomed us into their home, until we got back on our feet and me and my cousin Armando Ortiz have reconnected. And then I meet Masai AndrewsClyanna Lightbourn Ange Marie Sophia Maria Amani Olugbala Sean Desiree Dan, Patrick, and in less than two months we started Black Lives Matter: Upstate NY and then Leah Penniman Jonah Vitale-Wolff and the Soul Fire Farm community Truemaster Trimingham Taina Asili ...So why the long missive and shout-out list: Because when you are doing this work, when you do no compromise, when you do not bend, when you stick to your principles, a lot of devilish toxic behavior around you plays out and it is is easy to get caught up and stuck in a reactionary mode instead of growing as a revolutionary. But my job at this age is to learn to disengage from this and keep moving forward. Frantz Fanon said: Do not ever let anyone take your dreams. So I am moving on accomplish one of my dreams, to become Dr. Clemente. These last two years have also seen an explosion of the work around Afro-Latinx identity culture and politics and for those that truly know me, this is my life's work now I get to dissertate and write a book on what it means to identify as Black in an anti-Black world. So nothing, no one person or people, no childish behavior, will stop me. I know that I walk and breathe the Black Radical Tradition. I know that I walk in the footpaths of every Boricua(Puerto Rican) that has resisted colonialism and imperialism in my homeland and on the mainland. I know that I have been taught by some of the greatest of our time, Dr. Vivian Verdell Gordon, James Turner, Richie Perez Iris Morales and Marta Moreno Vega Vicente Alba-Panama Ajamu Baraka. So today is my independence day in a way. It's the day I set for myself the day in May of 2015 when I began my If I Was President Tour, I told myself I would beast this tour and I did, 43 stops in all. I spent almost a year away from my husband and daughter and spent one of those months on trial with my #hexagoncrew in L.A. and I would not change one second in these last 11 months. I also got to see five sisters in my life Nyoka, Patrisee, Dana Kaplan Evelyn Ella Louisa Lynn Rebecca McDonald birth a new generation of freedom fighting babies. WOW!! So now I step back never fully away, but very focused on how I do spend my limited time outside of writing, I got to go from #ABD to #PHD. Look for me on the campaign trail with Jill Stein and the Green Party. In September check out what me and my steadfast comrades Jared Ball Kali Akuno are cooking up and look at for my reporting from Puerto Rico throughout the month of August. There are so many more folks to thank, you know who you are because I know who you are and I love you more than I can post or tag. Lost some friendships along the way, decided to no longer pursue certain ones and now will spend time strengthening the ones that truly sustain and care about me, thank you Tory Russell Tara Tee Osagyefo Sekou The One Suheir Hammad Elizabeth Mendez Berry Harrabic Tubman Kuttin Kandi Kari Naomi Kokka Abi Hernández ...to the best webmaster and designer Jules Cowan to Julia Wallace Bernier for always, always checking in on me and even coming to visit us for the new year and last shout out to my sister Yanira Marie Castro and my husband Leon Delrow (Justice to everyone) and all my cousins, my blood, who love and support me 2/4/7 no matter what. Family is everything in days you feel empty and alone. Thank you everyone, today I send you a big Rosa smile, hug and laughter. I encourage each one of you to pursue your dream, whatever it may be. I implore all of us to dare to struggle, so we can dare to win (Fred Hampton) and lastly in the words of the great Young Lords Party and Organization: "Palante, Siempre, Palante!"
- Rosa Clemente, a native of the South Bronx, is one of the most raw, honest, political, social, and cultural voices in the country. From Harvard to prisons, Rosa has spent her life dedicated to scholar activism. She is currently a doctoral student in the W.E.B. Dubois department of UMASS-Amherst. Throughout her scholarly career, Rosa has been a constant on the ground presence through the many political struggles facing Black and Latinx people in the 21st century.
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