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THE WINO MUST DIE

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In broad, colorful, strokes THE WINO MUST DIE captures the social, political, and cultural landscape, post 1960's, for a successive generation of young, unprepared, urban African Americans in the 1970's. All who innocently followed the paths made by dozens of highly educated African American trailblazers, activists, and architects of equality in the 1960's. A revelation becomes clear immediately after civil rights legislation is passed, when victory was declared by all, and the modern civil rights movement abruptly ended. At that moment, everyone suddenly realized, none of us could blame white people for our troubles ever again.

HOLLYWOOD SO WRONG

In the course of my life I have been on the distribution side of more tirades than I want to remember. But at this point, generally speaking, I am no longer in the tirade distribution business.  For the subject of "Oscars sooooo white, I'll make an exception though.  In fact, I'll do my best to avoid ramping my comments to the level of tirade.  Because usually, after the first sentence or two, people stop reading anyway.  

I was initially moved to this post by the many responses to Jada Pinkett Smith's position, and how easily many had missed the whole point of taking a position on this.  Any commentary, any position, on the current state of product from Hollywood, and it's award shows, will always be a statement about race and representation in Hollywood, and the world.  If the only Oscar worthy films in Hollywood are white films, the question to ask is why?  

It's certainly not because white stories are the only stories with enough weight and girth.  It's even absurd to think that.  There are probably business considerations, I understand that.  But there are also important social and political considerations that are being overlooked and ignored.    

When I was a boy there were no high quality films about people of color.  I remember how that reality affected the other kids in my neighborhood.  The lives we lived just faded, without mention. The many, many, fabulous characters who looked like me, and the stories they lived throughout history, as they walked the earth, somehow disappeared without a single accolade or trace.  

What happens to film watching, television watching, children under those conditions is that the fascinating, and interesting qualities of those African American people become, suspect, highly improbable qualities for them to have.  Even if they manage to become interesting and fascinating, people that encounter them are surprised, both black and white.  Personal expectations for African Americans are lowered because certain character portrayals of African Americans in big screen stories are non-existent.

Black children who go to the movies only get to fantasize about fascinating and interesting personality examples from the stories told about, and by, white people.  These children ultimately glorify and covet those lives instead of their own. Anything they see and learn about themselves, and their possibilities, is a product of the narrow infotainment agenda of networks, and the local nightly news. Mostly stories that engender various levels of inner, and outer, hatred.  How has that turned out so far? 

The truth is all the Oscar worthy stories about African Americans, Latinos, and Asians should be up for grabs, if we truly want a world and a country where everyone matters.  The race and representational bandwidth of Hollywood needs to expand.  If generational marginalization is what Hollywood wants, then stop with the BS messaging about equality.  Stop encouraging people to vote, or about the importance of protecting our constitution.  The problem illuminated by "Hollywood soooo white" undermines all of that rhetoric.  The problem undermines our future, hope, and any notion of fair play in this country.

This problem is a giant magnifying glass that will re-focus itself on the issue every year.  Until the weight of the problem undermines profits.  

If our history serves us correctly, those circumstances also breed resentment, tons of social action, and work for old corrupt neighborhood demagogues. 

Unless, Hollywood is content with current fantasies like women who look like Whoopie Goldberg aren't beautiful enough to inspire romantic passions.  Or that black men old as Morgan Freeman should never be considered a sex symbol, or as a viable romantic interest in a film story. Eventually more people will ask these questions, and more.  Like why haven't they done a story about the complicated life of Adam Clayton Powell?  

Does Hollywood even admit to itself there is such a thing as a complex, compelling, African American?  The mold wasn't just created for Frank Lucas, or should only include Jackie Robinson, or President Barack Obama.  I hope Nina Simone is a big screen film.  Madam CJ Walker wasn't born rich.  Okay, that's enough. I'm ranting now.     Amazon.com/author/walterdunnjr          

A Story To Tell

I'm one of those authors who took the long way around.  But first, some vital stats.  I'm originally a New York  City native.  Brooklyn precisely.  I'm a public school kid, K-12. Graduate of NYU, TSOA, BFA.  I also kicked around the halls of Hunter college (Undergrad),  Hunter Graduate Theater program, and Pace University (Undergrad).

I've been writing creatively most of my life.  I won a poetry contest at 10, and that cemented my fate.  I fell in love with the theater in the 1970's, (drama specifically).  Began acquiring all sorts of skills (playwright, stage management, directing, set design). Then decided I loved film more. Went to film school.  Acquired many more skills, (Writing, Directing, camera, sound, editing, producing, etc., etc.). Rubbed lots of people the wrong way (won't mention any names). Then worked the independent film circuit.  Taught television and film production for a while. Then I decided to go back home and really study fiction writing.  That was over five years ago.

The end result was a debut novel, "THE WINO MUST DIE". "WINO" started as an adaptation of one of several original screenplays I wrote.  Although the original inspiration is still an important story for me, I was knocked in the head by a question during the story's development that propelled me in another direction.  The question was "how did I get here?"

It began haunting me then, and stayed through all of my revisions.  The question also forced me to reflect on the state of my African American community at the time.  But I'm not one of those people who begrudges my people, or much less anyone, for not being "further along"  economically, socially, or otherwise.  I believe it's an arbitrary counterproductive exercise.  Life is a journey.  We are where we are.  But I do believe every destination has a recognizable journey, if we look.  The question spoke more about looking at that to me.

Journeys can be wrought with amazing challenges.  Some of those challenges get dealt with head on, while others do not.  In either case a decision to deal, or not to deal, is the gateway to an array of possible transformations that can occur along the way.  Both good and bad.

Journeys are immortalized by their trans-formative experiences.  It's also the reason why the screenplay I originally chose to adapt has become the sequel to the "Wino Must Die".  "Wino" is the story of a transformation that takes place.  I hope it launches a transformation in you, and consequently, many, many other stories.  And that's my story.


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EACH RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE ALCOHOLIC, RECOVERING OR NOT, IS AN ADVENTURE

His name is (BLANK), and he is a recovering alcoholic for over 20 years now.  I know, I know.  What exactly does that mean?  Simply put, it means if he drinks alcohol he won't stop.  The other thing it means is that without some effort towards spiritual development, he's two fries short of a happy meal.  In other words, if he doesn't adjust his thinking, and live in a certain way, then he's probably going to experience more difficulty, than most, in the areas of sex, security, and society.  Challenging situations around those areas will become overwhelming, and make him crazy.  Eventually, he may decide to drink again.  He'll certainly be more screwed up than better adjusted, non addicted, folks.

Case in point.  He's married to a beautiful Latina.  They have four children, 2 boys, and 2 beautiful girls.  Lately there was a lot of tension in his marriage.  Actually it's existed for the previous fifteen years, to be exact.  He thought it was menopause.  That's what he told me. He was surprised it lasted this long.  Then he thought it's because she's Latino, and he's African American.  Latina wife, but he refuses to speak Spanish.  Unless his life depends on it, of course.  Usted entienda ?

So annually, during the holiday season, he confronts the love of his life about the tension in their relationship.  In typical alcoholic fashion he says, "well if you don't like me, then why are you still married to me?"  In typical Latino English, as a second language, she says, "well I tried to leave you in August.  But you said if I stayed, you would go to the "Hall", and save our marriage.  But after a few meetings, then you stopped!"  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, his wife is also a devout Jehovah's Witness.  Nice people.  

So he responds in typical alcoholic fashion.  "You were acting so ugly.  I decided, why bother?  I don't do ugly all week then go righteous on the weekends."  She exploded, after he exposed his insincerity.  "You were looking for an excuse!"  She says.  "You were always looking for an excuse!"  There was a long silence.  Finally, in typical grandiose alcoholic fashion, he says, "you don't have to leave.  I'll leave!"  In even bigger, grandiose Latino fashion, she says, "fine!"  So with his foot all the way in his mouth, he drove to Shoprite. 

You can tell he's in trouble when he lands in Shoprite, and buys food they don't even need.  Sometimes he buys McDonald's, and gives it to homeless people on the street. But Shoprite came before McDonald's the way he was driving.  He went the short way to the highway. He gets to Shoprite and sees an attractive sale on grass fed beef.  But they don't have any. "What kind of nonsense is that?"  He thinks to himself.  So in alcoholic fashion he obsesses over grass fed beef, at this current sale price.  He's also very cheap, so it quickly becomes his number one mission in life.  Then he starts thinking. Where is the next nearest Shoprite? In very short order, he was totally obsessed.

There was a brand new Shoprite in the next town over, a superstore.  So that's where he went.  An alcoholic commitment mean if they don't have it there, go another 15 miles to Watchung, or Plainfield, or Elizabeth!  Go further, exponentially.  He was absolutely determined to score grass fed beef on sale from Shoprite.  So help him God!  

He called me excited about the grass fed beef while he was driving.  But then all he could think about is what a breakup would do to his kids.  He had been through nasty breakups before.  What alcoholic hasn't?  Breakups were not pretty for anyone, especially children. "But something had to change", he said. "We're miserable right now."  So he went back and forth on the phone between anger and sadness.  It sounded like eternal suffering once he began discussing it.  The entire duration of the trip.  All 2 1/2 miles.  I got off the phone when he drove into the Shoprite parking lot. Cops were everywhere, he said. But he didn't know why.  I thought it was important that he noticed cops.  So I cautioned him.  Maybe cause I'm a little wired, and know it's always better to take my intensity down a notch around cops.  A cop convention is not exactly the climate for a Black man to be outta control, if you know what I'm saying.

So he went inside, and grabbed a basket.  Then he walked around the store.  It was brand new, less than a month.  So he strolled around like a tourist.  It was massive.  He found bacon, and other pork products.   And there it was, Clayton's organic ground beef.  But it didn't say "grass fed" on the package label, like the store sign.  Suddenly he gets paranoid.  Is it really grass fed?  Or were they trying to pull an okey doke?  He grabbed a few anyway. 

Then he thought about the meal he would create around it.  Ground beef, and pasta.  So he needed sauce, and headed to the pasta aisle.  He's feeling a little better, so thinks, "get a healthy sauce!  Something with a half gram of sugar, and a pinch of salt!"  So he starts reading labels on jars of pasta sauce.  But doesn't see anything with low amounts. It changes his mood, and now he's getting antsy cause he wants to eat healthy, to live a long time.  So he can get even with this woman who is about to ruin his life!   He stood in front of shelves filled with sauce, mad as hell.  He was holding two jars of sauce with 750 grams of salt each, and 8 grams of sugar in every tablespoon.  When all he heard was an annoyed black man's voice in the background, just below his ears, asking someone "Is he still behind me?"

It's a black guy, his age (50), about to back into him with a motorized wheelchair.  The guy blatantly shouted at him.  He said, "move!  Can't you see I'm backing up?"  My friend was as polite as possible under the circumstances.  He said "no, I can't see what you doing.  I'm looking this way, shopping just like you.  I'm not watching you.  Say excuse me or something.  What did you expect me to do without notice?  And as bitterly as he could, the man in the wheelchair said, "I spect you to leave!  Get the hell out the store!  You finished shopping already!

My friend remembered the long silence.  His feelings were hurt so bad, he almost cried.  "I was not prepared for that."  He said.   But despite that he managed to say, "have a nice day, sir."  He learned how to do that, if only one thing in the 20 years he recovered from alcoholism.  But then the man in the wheelchair said, "It was a nice day, until I met you!"  My friend pressed his face against the label on a jar of sauce he was holding, to pretend he was still reading. But actually he was devastated by this level of animosity.  

Eventually he grabbed a sauce with only 300 grams of salt, and 9 grams of sugar.  It may have had more, but he couldn't care anymore.  He was done.  Done in more ways than one. He found a short checkout line, and stood there silently.  He was hoping for a quick escape, and trying not to cry.  He tried clearing his mind of the fight with his wife.  The fears about leaving his kids, and the cruel things just said to him by the guy in the wheelchair. The floodgates opened and a million memories that once drove his destructive drinking almost twenty years ago suddenly filled his mind.

A chime followed by a computerized voice prompt from a small speaker near the checkout line suddenly interrupted this deluge.  It said "register 3".  He got himself together and headed to register 3.  His head was down as he took things from his basket and placed them on the counter.  A loud sassy female voice suddenly said, "you don't remember me?"  And in his mind he plead, "please lord, nothing else, not right now."  His heart began to race before he looked up.  The voice was his cashier.  He was overcome with a sigh of relief.  She was a large young lady wearing a brown budget wig that was slightly sideways on her head.  He relaxed because she was way too young to be part of his past drinking life.

After breathing again, he said.  "Should I know you young lady?"  She was clearly going for discretion when she whispered, "those AA meetings over by Lincoln Park.  Now do you remember me?  You still go there?  He said, "no, they moved."  She looked a little disappointed then said, "Oh.  So how you doin?"  It was that one simple question, that moment, that put the kabosh on any self pity.  Which put everything else into perspective.  He was able to genuinely say "I can't complain."  He couldn't complain. Everything at that moment, was relative.  Finally, he was able to sincerely ask how she was doing.  She said she was still clean, and has this job now.  She looked well, aside from that wig.  After he paid for the groceries they said goodbye, and wished each other a merry Christmas.  When he got home his wife had cooked grass fed short ribs that were in the freezer, and offered to make him a plate.

The "Face"

     When my daughter Elena got off the bus with her suitcase the other night, she didn't see me immediately. Finally, after she saw me, she ran joyfully into my arms yelling daddy, daddy, daddy! Which was nice to get. She's 18 now, and home from college.  So hugs are a real big parental treat that never grows old. Talky and dramatic, as always, Elena began the conversation in energetic bursts. Despite not having caught her breath yet. "I didn't recognize you!" She said. "I only saw two large men coming towards me, so I put on the face!"  I said, "the face?"  She said "yeah".  Then she demonstrated.  I couldn't stop laughing after she transformed her stunning beautiful features into a staggering expression of cruelty and contempt.
      At just over 4ft tall it was somewhat effective, but she is in the least bit terrorizing.  We laughed some more.  Then she told me how she used it as a defense against a girl inside a Port Authority bathroom. "She didn't' know my story.  Or where I've been, daddy.  So I let her have it!" Then she demonstrated again.  I thought to myself.  Yeah, she didn't know you were a trained assassin.  Who began learning her craft walking the privileged tranquil halls of the Caedmon School on the upper east side of Manhattan.  And then how you went on to advanced training.  At the the De Lasalle Academy on the upper west side.  Before finishing your expert assassin courses in high school.  On the pristine campuses of The Westtown boarding school in PA.  You haven't had it rough kiddo.   But I didn't burst her bubble and kept that to myself.
     The fact that we were walking home together from the bus stop did suggest "the face" was highly effective.  Despite my laughter.  Or that her aggressors found it hysterical too, and let her off the hook.  I forgot about her adventures once we arrived home.  Twelve hours later, I was in NYC.  Alone on business. In face after face riding the subway, and in glance after glance on the street, I became a regular recipient of "the face".  
     I thought about Elena, and smiled to myself.  Then I remembered how I have been the recipient of these hostile looks ever since I started traveling the city alone as a teenager. It's been so long since I considered it.  On some level I reconciled it was just the price for being out and about in the world.
     At first they were the door prize for leaving the safe Bushwick neighborhood I knew as a boy.  Then those facial expressions were rationalized as the going rate for daring to venture out from my economically fringed African American comfort zone to stake a claim on the American Dream.
     I was initially intimidated by "the face".  Then angered by it's use against me and the effect on my comfort.
     But now I am mostly confused. Back then all the hostile looks seemed to be racially motivated. Almost exclusively, it was white versus black. Then they became motivated by class distinction.  Now they mostly seem intra-racial (at least in the Northeast). That's the profound thing.  Most of these looks are coming at me from people who look just like me.  Looks that suggest apprehension, fear, and contempt.  All of the same old reasons.  The look has crossed various intra-cultural lines too.  With Native Africans, and Caribbeans, using the tight defensive "face" too.
     And there is no relief from aging either. I'm 50 plus.  The look has yet to be retired against me.  It's a high intensity judgment look.  A straight shot to the heart, no chaser, and always on target.  Right between the eyes.  At my age I rarely, if ever, look away as I did when I was younger.
     But all this being said, what is a homegrown African American boy to do when confronted with such optical hostility.  Well first thing, is to remain clear about it. These facial expressions are not personal, and will probably never change.  So don't complain.  As long as people remain victims of self-centered fear, the look will always projected outward. We're not victims either. My mere existence will attract the look from somewhere.  The attendant particulars amount to slightly more than the shallow physical feature attractions that happen between people a million times a day.  It's a reaction to a detail like a head of beautiful naturally curly hair.  Great eyes, or a nice juicy butt passing you on the street.  People will feel what they feel, and react the way they do.  If you want to try intimidating me using the "face", or be dismissive with it, then here's what I'll do.  I'll exist beyond the limitations of media representation, and political innuendo.  I'll focus my attention on what I can do for myself to achieve comfort in my own skin.  I will maintain a spiritual life not based entirely on the superficial whims of a church, but based on the spirituality reflected in the bible, and rely on a God that works.
     I will understand that I am only as good as my teachers.  So I must pay attention, and listen intently at the lessons put before me.   I will undertake learning everything there is to know about God like my life depends on it, and it does!   I will keep an open mind because bias hinders progress.  And most of all, I will give.  Give of myself.  Give even after I think I have given enough.  Because it is in giving, that I get to experience what is truly wonderful about life.  Giving alleviates self-pity, and personal sorrow.  I also get to feel like a valuable contributor every day of my life.  But most important, I get to be judged based on what I know about myself, rather than what I think others see in me.


Walter Dunn Jr.

On the matter of George Zimmerman part 2: Let's get it right boys and girls.

Despite the various accounts of what happened the night Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, the case of the People vs George Zimmerman is one of the most important cases of my lifetime.  This case will decide whether or not like minded people, cut from the same mental and emotional cloth as George Zimmerman have the right, and I mean the right, to stalk, antagonize, and slaughter young black boys that they imagine pose a threat to them or to their communities.  George Zimmerman imagined the threat that ultimately led to Trayvon Martin's death.  That may sound harsh to some people out there, but certain facts of this case are clear.  One, that Trayvon Martin was minding his business, and that two, George Zimmerman's business that night was Trayvon Martin.

As usual, lynch mob justice got the wrong guy again.  If George Zimmerman is allowed to go free, or is convicted of a lesser charge, the verdict tells lynch mobs everywhere (unfortunately we have not outgrown lynch mobs, they have only gotten smaller) that lynch mob behavior is okay, and if you get it wrong, oh well, we understand.

It was unfortunate that the three white men on the CNN's panel of experts discussing the case could do no better than embrace the strategy that would create reasonable doubt.  They were like rabid sports fans discussing the merits of a particular controversial play by their favorite team, instead of seeing this as a violation of our constitutional right to live and be free in our persons.  I know, I know, George Zimmerman has a constitutional right to bear arms and so forth.  But he doesn't have a constitutional right to use them on innocent people.

Repeatedly, the men on the panel accused the lone woman on the panel, Sunny Hostin, who happens to be Afro-Latina with a hint of whiteness (her own description), of injecting her stuff into the discussion.  Her stuff by the way coming from an informed place, the perspective of a former prosecutor.  As I listened to the sometime raging debate, I thought, I recognized their stuff interjected into the debate as well.  I heard the biases of class and race distinctions.  I also heard the echoes of various assumptions made about Rachael Jeantel, the witness they were discussing.  Comments, by the way, that were fueled by the same perspectives critiquing the nature of the argument and opinions of Sunny Hostin.  For one reason or another, to them Sunny's account of what she heard in the courtroom was invalid, and attacked as not being credible.  The rants of these men were filled with so much bias I couldn't tell if it was race, class, gender, or all three.



Walter Dunn Jr is a freelance blogger and author of the novel
The Wino Must Die amazon.com/dp/b00cfsaise

On the matter of Geroge Zimmerman and the power of disparaging looks

dis·par·age
2. To reduce in esteem or rank.

For the first 100 years in America, black people didn't know no better about those disparaging looks and where they led.  So the look just bounced off our souls, and quietly we believed that's just the way it was over here.  It was during that second 100 years that we began to ask questions when the disparaging look was connected with the preemptive strike.  Before the propaganda, then the hoods came out.  Wooden crosses were burned, and strange fruit began falling prodigiously from poplar trees.  In the 3rd 100 years that disparaging look has become just a regular heat seeking missile, motivating things like stop and frisk, or the outright annihilation of any warm blooded black thing traveling against the grain.  So boys and girls you keep those eyes open wide, and look both ways for disparaging looks before walking across the street against any red lights, you hear!

In the matter of Paula Deen vs the people.....

And now a word to our sponsors.  Paula Deen is not the only one.  I abhor her behavior, and racism of any kind infuriates me.  It should be exposed and purged whenever and where ever it appears.  That being said, the use of the n****r word is not, I repeat, is not the quintessential example of racism in these United un-united States.  There are racist behaviors and innuendo all around us, from the attitudes and actions which I believe led to the death of Trayvon Martin, the pervasive use of stop and frisk, to the continuous rants and diatribe on the radio from conservative shock jocks everywhere.  Work place hirings in the past 10 years have been justified using terms such as "likeability",and the right "fit", which are no more than contemporary terms to shroud exclusions on the basis of race.  All you need to do is look at unemployment statistics for African American men under 40, they were consistently 3-5% higher than for whites in the same category after the financial meltdown, and I suspect a preference gap still exists nationwide.

It's everywhere, so lets not make Paula Deen the poster child for racism and ignorance.  I haven't met a white person yet who was an admitted racist (Klansman, Arian Nation types and Skin heads not included).  Most are surprised if you point it out, and are deeply offended if a convincing explanation is made.  No one wants to be a racist, much less an admitted one.  Behavior like Paula Deen's has been tolerated so long in our society because people want to keep their jobs and friends.  They are reluctant to speak out, especially they have a mortgage, kids in private school, etc, etc.  I'm not suggesting black people take any responsibility for the Paula Deen's of the world, but we need to weigh what we are actually giving up when we consistently let it happen all around us to save what we have.  The greater self respect, and self worth any of us have, the more empowered we become to  make anything possible.  Lofty, right.  Never.  Birthrights are never too high to claim.

I think I'm loosing my mind, but only time can tell for sure

First of all, I'll be the first to admit I don't know if this is sustainable.  This writing under intense stress, but it's where I am.  I feel like I'm losing my mind.  But you know my mantra, write your ass off boy!  So here I am, trying to survive the latest episode of "My life has fallen apart".  Or maybe it was always this way and I just realized it.  I tend to live in a bubble sometimes.  Dancing as fast as I can.  Examining and re examining, at the expense of the expenses (I don't mean money, I mean things that deplete me).  I don't spend my emotional capital as much and as often.  I sort of stand back and take it in, examining and re-examining.  Then I respond.  Sometimes I'm late to the pity party.  I'm not sentimental.  But at least I'm pretty good in a crisis, no flapping around like a fish out of water.

Some people hate it, others exploit it.  Reminds me of those calls I'd receive at 3 o'clock in the morning from mom.  "You need to come talk to your brother", apparently he put a cigarette out in his wife's face, and cursed her again. " But mom it's 3am, I gotta go to work in a few hours."  It would just go over her head and she would wail endlessly about the latest crisis, and the virtues of motherhood.  I put my clothes on and catch the 60 bus to Bushwick.  In the end it was nonsense, all nonsense.  The cigarette was plucked at her, and could've hit her face.  But nobody knows for sure.  I go to work and pay the price on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on the opening bell.  The trader Brian Yunker booms IBM trades in my ear, all day long.  Sure, I stayed awake.  

I still haven't figured out the balance between different and the protective isolation of being the same.  Not different in terms of uniqueness, but peculiar as it may relate to a small community, or ideas you spend most of your life with.  I find there is an inherrent and overwhelming expectation we share the same convictions to thoughts and ideas of certain groups.  I have not built my life along those expectations, especially the ones I didn't know about.

I'm caught in the crosshairs, again.  Will I ever learn?  The moving parts are interesting to watch, convening the joint chiefs of staff, instituting the draft, mobilizing the troops, stockpiling garrisons, collecting intelligence.  Divorce is like that.  All that.  I surrender before it begins.  War is expensive.  Just let it happen.  Take the hit, reduce casualties.  Write your ass off boy, just write your ass off.      

Believe me boys and girls, theres no self pity here.  Just trying to keep my wits about me.  So I write.  Just became one of those guys, homeless.  Not wandering around the neighborhood yet.  But definitely afraid of falling through the cracks, all I see is air, nothing else beneath my feet.  It wasn't a total shock when she pulled the plug, but close. For better or worse, in sickness and in health.  I'm a sucker for words.  But  I meant it this time.  I know I did.  I stayed awake thinking about the kids.  My girl's going to be a senior.  My boy the fifth grade.  I can't see tomorrow, like the rest of us, so I'm scared for them without me.  God in the short term, God in the long term.  Until I get there I'll write my ass off.  I'll get there, get there soon. #afican american #writers.

So you want to write a book, eh?

The first time she told me to get the f**k out, I was devastated.  The second time I nearly cried.  The third time I held my emotions in check because I didn't like feeling like I wanted to cry the last time she told me to get the f**k out.  (It was my advanced uberman age).  The fourth time I calmly told her to stop being ugly, and the last time I didn't even flinch.  Scar tissue had formed.  I even got a few pages done.  After 8 months of working 15 hour days, I had finished a first draft of my book The Wino Must Die.

The first thing she said was she didn't like the title, "why you always write about alcoholics and drug addicts? is that all you know?  Is that all there is?  I thought to myself, feeling somewhat vindicated that I finished a draft of a 300+ page fiction novel despite her.  I didn't feel the need to defend my choice out loud.  I engaged her in my mind to avoid an endless bru ha ha on the various threads of conflict a direct response might generate.  An utterly direct response to the question, "Is that all there is?"  might go like this, no that's not all there is.  At least all there is you seem to be passionate about.  I would follow that with a sample list of the things she seems to be passionate about, like complaining about the company she works for, or the bitterness of the single women she socializes with, oh yeah, and there's the Bronx where you were born, but I don't know enough about any of those things to write about them.

I only know drunks.  Their emotional roller coasters, psychological twists, heartbreaks and fabulous adventures (for the ones that manage to get off the couch at least).  Oh yeah, there's also my knowledge of baseball, basketball, football, writing, film, film production, television production, parenting, fatherhood, Wall Street, Environmental Sciences, being an Entrpeneur, fashion, Women, Comedy, and a whole hootin hollerin slew of other things.  But for this book, I chose to write about drunks.  

The second thing she didn't like was that I used my ex-wife's name.  A woman I divorced 20 years ago, who I have known since I was 12, and who is now one of my oldest and dearest friends (both she and her husband).  The character in the book was based on my current wife, but I used my ex-wife's name to protect her (the tribute to an old friend thing).  That was before I said f**k it and broke our relational anonymity in this blog post.  The bottom line boys and girls, is to write.  Write come hell or high water, rain or shine.  Write if they care, write if they don't care.  Just know they will chose side"A", or side "B".  So be prepared.  Ultimately, I reconciled the book was lodged in my craw.  Stuck there horizontally, like a giant chicken bone in my throat that had to come out, or else I was going to stop breathing and surely die.

When Van McCoy wrote the 1970's hit, "Do the hustle", he was speaking directly to me.  (In the voice of the Dos Equis beer guy) Be desperate my friends.  I don't work very often, but when I do, I'm writing.

U-HAUL

Even as I write I have second thoughts about doing this, but believe that to document, is the action necessary for relief and one way to engage the 800 pound gorilla in the room, which is race. The purpose of this blog is not to imply that I have a problem being Afro American, or for sympathy. It is to state the often times painfully obvious which is, sometimes, the problem is in being afro American. The problem in many of my pedestrian encounters with people whether consciously or unconsciously, is that I am an African American, and not living up to or down to the expectations of that. Expectations which dominate their psyche and sometimes rule outcomes, in a wide variety of situations. Therefore in my encounters I strive to be free from a context imposed on me which is anything other than inviting, but is also unknown until the encounter begins. Sometimes race is not a factor and the incidental contact with people goes off without a hitch. But sometimes it is and then I am frozen in my tracks.

For most of my life I ignored details of events similar to the ones contained in this writing, and that was wrong. I am unable to further convince myself that it doesn’t matter. It does. With each additional decision to suffer racism in silence, I take a little more away from myself and my family and it undermines the hard work of this and previous generations put fourth to recover from generations of slavery, Jim Crow and other atrocities, and into being happy, solid, citizens.

Whenever I think of my responsibility to that legacy, within the context of role model, teacher and protector of my children, it is clear, that to support their healthy expectations from the world is tantamount to their emotional and psychological health within society, and if I can’t support my own healthy expectations, in that regard, then I cannot support theirs and they will suffer like me and my parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents and the rest of my ancestors, at the hands of racism.

I picked my children up from school and was on my way home. I was traveling East on west ninety something street when I encountered a U-haul (24 footer) backing West, down the street from Broadway. There was a young Latino looking out, directing the truck. I slowed down and came to a halt when I approached this in progress. Where I stopped was not yet parallel to the parking space the truck was trying to pull into, the young Latino man came over to my mini van, knocking on my window to direct me as well. I could see that I was not close enough to interfere with the truck or with what they were doing. He was adamant about me moving back some more. I rolled my window down and asked that he keep his attention on his truck and that I could handle things from my end. He decided to make it a challenge to his authority, repeating over and over again, “you can handle things from your end! You can handle things from your end!” Then he instructed his truck to stop moving into the parking space and remain frozen, awkwardly double parked. I can only assume he wanted me blocked in as payback and thought there wasn’t enough room for me to pass when he decided to abandon his plans to park. It was illuminating when he decided not to park, making off- loading his truck easier, but also that by not parking he would somehow hurt me.

It was the kind of intolerance I have known all my life. I dropped my head, reflecting on this. He was not an old white man, or some young uninformed or well informed white kid, not some driving Miss Daisy white woman nor plain white woman pretending to be better. This was a Latino, a group bludgeoned historically side by side with African Americans, a young “police profile eligible” one too. I don’t discount because of age either. I looked at the space between the truck and the parked cars to my right. I knew I would make it but he was sure I wouldn’t. Isn’t that ironic, one oppressed group praying for the failure of another.

What is important here is not that I could have backed up and followed all of his instructions, thereby making him happy and living up to his expectations, but the intolerance of my position, like there was something wrong with having a position different from his, or, maybe I wasn’t entitled to a position and that now I would be punished for violating his expectations and choosing a position, and that is how racism operates.

It’s a slow erosion of human rights and indigenous beliefs. For victims it’s a quick descent into self hatred and replication of this same intolerance on other African Americans, or non whites. For perpetrators it’s teaching us our new place, if you are still too young to understand, and teaching the not so young to remain in the old place of silence and compliance they have grown accustomed to, since we no longer talk about race in the terms affecting us the most, our daily lives. We talk about race in a historical sense, like it’s all gone now. Clearly my experience suggests it hasn’t gone anywhere.

Here we go

I think about race all the time. I can't help it. I have to. It starts in the morning, I thank the lord for another day, get up and go down to my six year old son's room and as I stare over him wonder will he be okay today. I gently check on the bump in back of his head that he got in school the other day. I try not to focus on the circumstances, but that too raises questions about race for me. You see he goes to a school where in his class of twenty five kids or more he is one of two black children, both of them boys. The other day four classes were at recess with four teachers supervising. He fell and hit his head and no one saw it so it didn't get reported, and because the boy who pushed him said "sorry" my boy figured he didn't have to tell anyone. I wondered about that. I mean how did he arrive at the conclusion that because he recieves an apology, he should move on and be alright. I don' remember teaching him that, never had cause to. I've taught him to ask for help. I thought, it's a head injury to a six year old, the bump the fall produced was the size of a jawbreaker! There were a few other incidents in school with questionable results that lingered next to this one. Like the time in gym when he accidentally tripped over Bianca (who was white)and was given a time out because she became hysterical and wouldn't accept his apology (as my son explained it). The gym teacher on the other hand didn't remember the incident when I made my injuries, but suddenly remembered asking my son to sit because he had too much energy. I thought it was all very suspicious, but didn't press. The impulse did force contemplation of race as a factor. I know it's always a factor but to what degree would it be a factor today. I haven't had my cup of coffee yet so I can assume my faculties aren't full charged to focus clear enough to speculate reasonably. I kiss my boy as I am always glad to see him, and then I walk the dog before I wake him fully and prepare him for school.

The Begining

For the record, I am an African American 40+ male. I decided to blog on race because it's still the 800 pound gorilla in the room not many African Americans want to talk about. I also want to re focus a common tendency when race is discussed. Race discussions are usually centered around moral, ideological, or philosophical iterations or far too pedagogical towards whites. For me this has often created more hostility from targets and victims of racism by only reinforcing what we already know, its like rubbing it in our faces.

I think it's time to focus on solutions for racism's impact. This is where I think time and energy spent on contemplating any residue will do the most good, in illuminating the personal consequences for the targets of racism leading to better understanding of ourselves, and how to change outcomes. If we we can neutralize these personal consequences then we save lives and possibly communities. In addition and probably my favorite piece, it leads to better understanding of how we live with race.

Most of us live with thoughts impacted by race everyday, in varying degrees. Some neutral unsuspecting encounter, often daily, will raise an element of the peculiar circumstances of race. When that condition gets added to overtly racialized encounters, how large is the impact? The knowledge of where I've gone emotionally under those conditions, is varied and has yielded benefits after review. Another important question is raised by experience, how do I move forward safely?

Consensus opinion seems to imply targets of racism are recipients of the most harm from racial attacks, social, economic or otherwise, and that should be enough to justify my focus. This assault on our humanity is far reaching. Also, racism ain't going nowhere (more than a century and counting)so it behoves us to deal. If not for ourselves then for the next generation of young men and women potentially tripped up for the rest of their lives.

Given that at the end of the day, all I really want after all has been said (no pun intended) and done, is to be okay. Whole. Complete. Able to continue my day and my life in the most productive way. We owe it to ourselves to be loving and kind despite these critical injuries. anyone can understand that. Legislation or political action won't do this work, it will not make me feel safe. This has to get figured out by us.

At this point in history the basis for racism is well known. Various theories, social, political, spiritual, scientific have all been afloat a long time. So I won't add yet another psychoanalytical dissertation on it. Any library or the Internet can provide that much better. Nor will I spend time repeating certain points previously argued, race as an illusion, or as political construct. This is not a debate. This blog will mainly be concerned with experiences, feelings, responses and observations to events, in the most honest way possible, followed with introspection and solutions to clear a path to the other side of a sometimes horrific and often times questionable, situation. In other words, I intend to focus on the broad sweeping implications for the lives of victims of racism, and solutions to save us from certain inevitable consequences. That said, I am not a pacifist. I will never imply that anyone turn the other cheek. I will say sunlight is the best disinfectant, so be warned. I am a survivor of racism, determined to live a wonderfully healthy and productive life in the face of American cultural issues, particularly within the context of race.

I believe all people possess the ability to overcome issues stemming from racism provided those experiences get processed within constructive context. For centuries American problems with race have compromised the unity of an entire people, and perhaps the entire world. Enough already. We have common history and therefore a common solution, we need to re focus our energies on solutions. I pray that this blog adds momentum to that solution. From this point on I will post every Monday, minimally.