I have to admit there have been a few positives about being sick, one is that in the past couple of weeks I have been forced to pay less attention to world events and happenings. After all when merely coughing or taking a dump is so painful it has you reaching for the bottle of Oxycodone, you tend not to care much about anything else but survival. Thankfully while the pain is still lingering I am making a slow return to my life and with that return to my daily activities of living, I am starting to get caught up on what’s going on in the world.
Um…I swear since I been laid up we (collective we) have lost our ever loving minds…for starters my hometown Chicago. Chicago, what the fuck is going on? Apparently crime is reaching such levels that the buzz is about the fact the powers to be are talking about bringing in the National Guard. People are getting shot and killed left and right and as my Pops told me the other day, it’s no longer relegated to the hood. In other words it ain’t just po folks and folks of color popping caps in each other’s asses.
Just a few days ago in a fairly upscale area of Chicago (Bucktown) where I lived about 16 years ago when it was starting to get gentrified but still had pockets of gang activity but still felt it was safe. The other night two young ladies were coming home and were robbed by someone who felt it was not enough to rob em, no…this savage beast had to beat the two gals with a fucking baseball bat. Once upon there was some type of honor or code even amongst the lowlife’s and generally at 3 am a robbery does not need to include bashing folks to a bloody pulp. Several weekends ago, in one weekend there was a report of over 40 shootings, and criminals who were exchanging fire with the cops. Let me tell you something those are some brazen bitches. My Pops is ex Chicago law enforcement and our family circle is filled with law enforcement and once upon a time, criminals did not shoot back at the po po. Some shit you just don’t do as Mos Def says…
Moving on now in scary happenings, it appears that if you want to rob a bank, just go ahead and get yourself a Black man suit. Since I am late to the party, I imagine most of ya’ll have heard this but apparently last week, a white boy decided to go on a crime spree dressed as a Black man. Apparently the shit was so good, so convincing that if only this fool had thought to change up the getaway car; he probably could have pulled it off. Of course some poor Negro would have been sent up the river but hey all them Black men are criminals, one is just as good as the next. Took some thought and some balls to actually do that.
Lastly in shit that just has me really going what the fuck, we have Arizona. Damn, Phil Collins had it right, ain’t no fun being an illegal alien, Except now in Arizona it ain;t no fun to be anyone who looks Latino since if you get caught without ya papers, you might be deported. I know I am distilling this down but the fact is if you start profiling one group of brown folks, it won’t take long before the powers to be find reasons to profile all folks of color. Too bad though that so many of us American Negroes are just happy not to be the ones on the hot seat so we think hey that shit happening to them Mexicans got nothing to do with us. Ok, son..You best believe all sorts of reasons can be found to profile our asses too; after all we do seem to have some violent bitches that lurk amongst us. Look, I’m just saying…don’t shoot the messenger just heed the message.
Lawd, all this shit happening is enough to make a Black Girl in Maine want to head back to bed clutching my well worn copy of X-Clan. Instead I write this and hope you too will think about what we can do to stop some of the madness in this world. Or is it too late?