at Work

So, I'm sitting here "working" and I am playing around on line. My friend K sends me this email about the whole Katrina thing from "the black perspective" which if anyone who knows me personally knows that this whole situation has pissed me off. Not to say that this one incident has pissed me off, I have always been generally pissed off with the way Black folks have been portrayed/seen/treated/allowed to live in this country.

After 9 - 11, many of us (me NOT included) fell into this "we're all Americans bullshit". I for one have always known I was a Nigger, I am, and will always be a nigger. No amount of degrees I have earned and standard American English flowing out of my mouth would ever change that. I know who I am and what this country perceives me to be. I have experienced too much adversity in my short life to make myself believe otherwise.

Will this be a wake up call? I doubt it. If children being bitten by dogs, arrested, shocked with tazer (sp?) guns and drowned with water hoses 40 years ago was not a wake up call, a few poor homeless niggers aren't going to change shit. So, my friend Keyah, who is an optimist and also I think a closeted Republican tells me, "you think too negatively of what's going on, we've made such great strides, the government has been shamed into improving situations, you'll see". Keyah, I love you, you are great but that's not going to happen. Why wasn't the government shamed when it was selling your great grand mother and my grand father to the highest bidder? Why wasn't it shamed when it passed a law declaring you 2/3 of a human being? Why wasn't it shamed when local law makers and mobs of men hung black men from trees and cut off their sexual organs as a way to pass time after a Saturday night beer (my great grandfather being one of them)? Why wasn't it shamed when it allowed ADULTS to throw rocks at a SEVEN YEAR OLD girl as she tried to go to school? Why wasn't it shamed when it ordered it's officers to tazer my friends mom and my father (who had a scar on him arm from the tazer) as they marcehd for basic rights? Why wasn't it shamed when it didn't allow you the right to vote until 1965 and in some cases 1970? Why wasn't it shamed when that man down in Texas was dragged behind a pick up truck leaving his body trailed along the highway and then Governer BUSH didn't even meet with the man's family (they sat in his office for about 2 hours before they were told he wouldn't be coming out). Why wasn't it shamed two weeks ago when "fat Tony" in Bensonhurst beat that guy who was coming from his girlfriend's house nearly half to death ("Fat Tony" claimed he thought the guy was out to steal someone's car, I guess his 9-1-1 buttons weren't working on his phone that night)? Where was their shame then? Then, to make matters even worse, or better depending on what side of the argument you're arguing I read this:

GOP Congressman, Rep.Richard Baker of Baton Rouge was overheard telling lobbysits the following, concerning Hurricane Katrina and the damage it caused:

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."


What the fuck?! This is the shit I am talking about. If you go to this man's
website, the biggest thing up there is For the PEOPLE of Louisiana. Are those who live in public housing not people? I personally know people who live in public housing and no one lives there because they want to. People live there because they HAVE to.

Now, I am by no means saying that every single Black person one comes across is going to be on the straight and narrow, as people are individuals and should be treated as such. But it is just inherent bullshit like this that keeps things the way they are. This week we've PUBLICALLY heard Barbara Bush and this Baker guy say what they feel but millions of people think and feel this way, they just don't have sound bytes of their racism readily available on Fox News. It makes me angry because this is the kind of thing that keeps people from getting ahead. This is why the schools in our neighborhoods are deplorable because we are "you know underprivileged anyway so this is working out fine for them"* this is why when I apply for a job with not one, not two but four degrees and more experience at 27 then most people will have at 40, I get passed over. Because "actually it's kind of scary but everyone I'm speaking to says they want to stay in Texas"* I guess having a big black woman in the office would scare people.

*Both quotes from Barbara Bush.

What the fuck is scary about a family relocating? People do it all of the time but because an influx of Nigs want to move to your neighborhood it's scary?! I'm too angry to finish now.