-amari

Two people engaged in a kiss in front of a row of dingy, colorful houses set on cobble-stoned hills.  Here, of all places: the center of Pelourinho, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, where enslaved Africans were tied in public square to be beaten for entertainment.

These two, however, got they mind on something else, something which the hands of neither cracker nor time could ever destroy.

-amari

21 years is barely enough to make a man.  The raw materials of life are still being molded by the apathetic hands of experience.  And although those hands have been particularly hard on us, most of us continue to allow them to shape, and thus determine, our reality.

But Fred Hampton was no typical, passive 21 year old.  He had long since seized the responsibility of his own destiny, a rising Black fist knowing only one purpose: the liberation of his people.

He joined the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in November of 1968 at the age of 20, quickly becoming the chapter’s leader.  Over the next year, Chairman Fred mediated a truce between Chicago’s leading street gangs and was instrumental in other Party activities, such as the Free Breakfast Program, the Free People’s Medical Clinic (including Sickle Cell Anemia testing), a police surveillance program, and Political Education Classes for the community.

But, right.  It’s not for us to get caught up on his age.  The reality is that had he been any older, the things he accomplished would be just as astounding.  In him, we found a charismatic genius as serious as Revolution; someone who both understood and wasn’t afraid to declare he was “at war with the pigs.”  His political analysis was as astute as any of the Party’s theorists.  His oratorical skills were as inspirational as our greats, always punctuating his most poignant points with a well-timed “muthafucker.”  And he knew that revolution was an active process, for “theory is cool, but theory without practice ain’t shit.”

Of course.  We shouldn’t be surprised that he was taken from us.  He organized an entire city of oppressed people under his “Rainbow Coalition” (later hi-jacked and diluted by the good Rev. Jesse “Look I’ve got King’s Blood on my Shirt” Jackson).  Chairman Fred showed us that Freedom is an action.  And we learned.  We learned through observation and participation. Chairman Fred.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then.  We shouldn’t be surprised that they killed him, murdered him, assassinated him; that they filled his sleeping 21-year-old body with bullets while he lay next to his pregnant wife.  We shouldn’t be surprised that the pigs, upon identifying him as still alive, put two point blanks in the back of his head, retorting, “he’s good and dead now.”

No, we shouldn’t be surprised.  This is what they do to us!  This is what he warned us about.  This is what he told us:

They can do anything they want to to us.  We might not be back.  i might be in jail.  i might be anywhere.  But when i leave, you can remember i said…this was the last words on my lips:  i am a Revolutionary.  And you gonna have to keep on sayin that.  You gonna have to say that i am the proletariate.  i am the people.  i am not the pig!

21 years is a lifetime.  When you’re motivated by purpose, 21 years is all you need.

i believe i’m going to die doing the things i was born to do. i believe i’m going to die high off the people. i believe i’m going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.

When you’re motivated by purpose, 21 years is all you need.  We’ve observed Chairman Fred.  Now it’s our turn.

Rest in Uhuru Chairman Fred!

Rest in Uhuru Mark Clark!

-amari

You’re staring into another time.  Maybe it’s the past.  Maybe an alternate present.  Wherever it is, you’re staring into it.  And you’re with her.  Doing something.  Anything.  Perhaps you’re laughing, walking, holding hands.  Maybe arguing.  Or maybe you’re just with her.  Staring into her eyes.  Losing yourself just like you’ve lost yourself now: in thought, in wonder, in this alternate reality where you’re with her maybe holding hands, laughing, walking, arguing, but together.

She could’ve just been honest, you know?  Honesty you can deal with.  It’s real.  Concrete.  Tangible.  She could’ve told you the truth.  Instead, her delicacy with your feelings, which was really callousness, resulted in their devastation.  Ok, ok, you’re being dramatic.  Not devastation.  But you were hurt real bad in an intriguing sort of way.  So much so you ask if you’re a masochist for sensing arousal in this pain.  Or a narcissist who likes the taste of wounds.  Sicko.  Whatever it is, you have yet to recover, as you stare into this other time of you and her together as it may or may not have actually transpired in reality or what-would’ve-been reality had she not murdered the chance with impeccable aloofness, that god-forsaken weapon.

You’ve tried to pull yourself together.  And failed.  Gone through all the phases several times.  Denial.  Delusional acceptance.  Relapse.  Repeat.  Occupy yourself all the day long only to find her chillin on the back of your eyelids at night.  You pray she understands dreams are no-fly zones.  She doesn’t.  You just can’t shake her.  And maybe you get away for a few days.  Perhaps you manage a week.  But at some point, you remember a dark corner where hope stays hidden behind the rolls of wrapping paper stuffed beneath the 1980’s winter coat in the back of possibility’s closet, clinging to the crevice like a stashed cigarette.

After all, she never exactly said “no.”

So she’s back on the scene with a saunter and a smile.  And you can only stare.  You wonder what this says about you.  Is it a question of self-respect or foolish pride?  Maybe you’re just a disrespectful fool with no self-pride.  You wanna call, even though she always says she will.  But doesn’t.  You wanna ask her out, even though your last three first dates were exchanged for rain checks.  You’re still awaiting this torrent’s end.

And here you are as you’ve been for who-knows-how-long.  Staring at her.  Watching her taunt you from inside your imagination—the audacity!—when you’re interrupted from this delectable nightmare by the increasing presence of two lips pursed on your right cheek.  No, it’s not her.  You know.  Hers are lips you’ve never felt beyond conjecture: a speculative delight.

This is someone else.  A different she.  An inadequate she.  For She cannot infiltrate your faculties.  Cannot captivate your senses.  She cannot hold your gaze.  But She is here. With you.  In the real and honest present.  Which you cannot say for Her, inhabitant of your aching fantasies.

One day, in the not-so-distant future, you will do to She, this poor soul, what Her has done to you.  You will selfishly establish residence in her thoughts.  You will carelessly pull her away from Now to Then, leaving her to find fulfillment in an unobtainable reality.  She will fail.  And She will roam Now in pursuit of a real and present He that is everything that You could never be.  Everything, of course, except You.

Only then will you come to understand Her.  Only then, after you’ve heaved your hurt onto She, will you be able to purge Her from your soul like cheap liquor and move on.  Not as a better person.  But as a hardened heart that can sleep through the night.

-amari

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Two monkeys was chillin in a coconut tree.  One monkey turns around and reaches for a coconut, but is interrupted mid-lunge by the other monkey’s sudden outburst of hysterical laughter.  The first monkey, confused and curious, turns back to the laughing primate and asks, “what? what the hell so funny?”  The second monkey pulls himself together long enough to respond and, wiping tears from his eyes, replies, “you silly fool!  Your backside is showing!”

Monkey One played it cool because he knew Monkey Two ain’t know no better.  Monkey Two was educated among the dogs, you see, and only recently started comin to this side of the forest.  No one was exactly sure why.  Some people heard he’d run into some trouble with the father of some female dog he was tryna get at, but that hadn’t been confirmed.  All they knew was dude was miserable and was tryna make everyone else miserable, too.

He spoke in a strange accent that, they assumed, was supposed to be dog, but it always fell short of a bark.  He broke on the cooks for failing to prepare dog cuisine and berated the ladies for not being as pretty as the bitches he’d come to know and love.

The monkeys came to pity him, really.  They’d heard him more than once down at the watering hole, saying “why if I didn’t have this big mouth, I’d be too pretty for the world to handle,” as he checked his reflection.

One afternoon, a group of monkeys summoned Monkey Number Two.  They told him they needed his help reaching a ripe bunch of bananas growing in a difficult spot.  Only his intelligence and grace, acquired from his sojourn amongst the dogs, could help them feed themselves.

Accepting the responsibility with chest out and customary condescension, Monkey Number Two scaled the tree with exceptional arrogance.  When he reached the top, however, he realized the branch was too thin to support him.  Refusing to succumb to the embarrassment of failure, he yelled down, “I can reach them, but these bananas are bitter.  Better you find a fitter bunch.”

The group laughed at his vanity, unaware that the day the monkey is destined to die, all the trees turn slippery.  For as Monkey Number Two looked into the distance, he saw the dog-father, patriarch of his beloved, approaching the border of the forest’s southside.  He was certain his soon-to-be father-in-law had reconsidered.  In reality, the dog was merely passing through.  After releasing a horrible squeal, customary greeting amongst the dogs, Monkey Number Two descended the tree with a careless haste.  Enamored by the impeccable majesty of his guest, Monkey Number Two miscalculated the distance to the next branch.

He was buried two days later beneath a tombstone that read: “If he keeps on imitating everybody, the monkey will one day cut his own throat.”

-amari

-amari

He walked towards me with an East Harlem limp, mean muggin the wind for making his ascent more difficult. Dude towered over his surroundings, city skyline dwarfed in the background like an unworthy opponent.  Steady strides conquered the hill.  Black leather set on broad shoulders.  Furled eyebrows and a chew stick.

This cat wasn’t nothin easy.

i was so focused on him, i ain’t see the baby boy behind him fumbling a football and clumsily failing to catch up.  Tears moved from his voice to his eyes:

Daddy,

wait Daddy!  Don’tleave me!

Daddy’s face grew confused, then pained at the possibility that he could even be slightly mistaken for possessing the same shameful traits as the man who came before him.  He swung around, picked up his boy, and with the fiercest gentleness i’ve ever heard, told his sun,

i’ll never leave you, you hear me?

i’m your father.  i love you.

This cat wasn’t nothin easy.

-amari



-amari

-amari