Colors

2001-06-18 6:18 p.m.
If you are black. The worst thing you can do to a light skinned boy at around the age of 12 is to make him believe he is black. Now, I never REALLY thought i was black. I always knew my background... Polish and Mexican. I always knew the color of my skin and the backrounds of my ancestors.. Well.. to the extent of non boredom.

But at the age of twelve-or-so, I was made to believe by my best friends and mentors(all at about the age of 16-20, all darker than me) that when the revolution comes, I will be hidden. Because I am such a fucking cool white boy that I HAVE to have the soul of a black man. If you have ANY idea what I'm talking about as far as "revolution", please continue. If not, get away from the computer and walk away slowly... Do not return until you have met at least 30 new people that are not of the same background as your own.

Again, I know who I am and where I'm from. The idea here is, these intelligent men are the only fathers and uncles I had ever had at the time. My father wasn't around, mom's working too hard to influence, and we moved around too much for me to keep friends my age. But these cats would scoop me at the park, and I did everything with em. They gave me my first and only pistol.. An old rusty 27 caliber one (i mentioned almost blasting an old best friend in a previous post... that pistol). They taught me all about the roots of rap/hip-hop, about how to protect myself, how to talk shit, how to hollar at a girl, who to respect, how to respect, how to maintain respect, about knowledge of self, about self preservation, about the blurry line between religions, about the blurry line between government and religion, about what life as a black man in America IS (Well, i guess as any colored man, but it was always from a dark skinned perspective. As in "the white man this", and "the white man that").

They're all dead now... Killed from gang shit, riots, overseers, racial shit, whatever... All gone or vegetated, which in my opinion is gone. So I moved on, went to high school, met new friends, learned to trust people, and learned to see beyond creed and race to a point where it is ENTIRELY invisible to me besides the culture and tradition of the individuals within small groups. Not races or colors, small groups... Some of you may know these groups as "blocks" or "neighborhoods" or "churches" or "coworkers".

I based all my wisdom and foresight on the teachings that this group of people had blessed me with...

Now for the setup...

I'm 22 years old. White skin. Mexi-Polish backround. My spanish sucks, My polish is non-existant. I speak "white" or "black"... This can be translated as "Educated" or "UnderEducated", respectively. Actually, I despise the idea of calling my natural means of speech "Talking Black." I mean, I guess my NATURAL means of speech isn't exactly that of an uneducated man, but the way i speak now is based on the way i had learned from my truest examples of what life is. I spoke like a boy until 12, then I learned to speak as I do now.

Basically, when I speak, people double-take, because they don't understand why i speak the way I do. The more ignorant make comments like, "Why do you try to talk black?", Some people ask RIGHT AWAY, "Yo, where did you grow up?" or "where you from?" or even "do you have black in you?". My girl's male friends, just oooozing of jealosy figure I'm full of shit and "trying too hard" because I "talk black." They figure that because they're black, I change the way I speak just to be cool around them. (What the fuck would make the mso special that I would want to be coo laround them? I dont know them nor do I give afuck about them. Being that my girl hangs with them at school, I am required to meet them so I can make inferrences as to whether or not they're trying to fuck my girl. That's it.)

Well, I can speak what's considered proper. It's usually a struggle though. Not to the point that I sound like a moron, but I think about speaking properly as I do when I write. I have to when I deal with customers of mine who wouldn't dare do business with some "ghetto boy." It's also important to change into my "proper form" when writing, because It's impossible, No matter how fucking "ghetto" you are to read something like the following with any type of serious demeanor:

Yo sun, I wuz like gawna blast dis niga rite but my shit got jammed yo. so i wuz like fuck it b. kid aint shit anywayz. and i saw these fly bitchez rite, and you no how i get down with them fly bitchez rite. So i yelled bitch get yo azz ova here and suck my dick!!

Now for the dilemma...

I have no where to go. As a hip hop dj, I want to hit the partys and see what's moving on the overground and underground. I want to hear cyphers, check out bboy circles, ride the trains and scan the walls, and of course watch the djs work... But when I step into a neighborhood out of "hip hop uniform" I get the whiteboy stares. For those who dont know, those involve a look that screams "what the fuck is this whiteboy doing over here?!?!" I never got those in chicago, because i knew enough of the right people not to get it.

When I walk with my girl, I get the same damn looks.. Not only from various people but from kids on her block. "Who's the white boy trying to move in on a sister... He think he's the shit cuz he's got a job and a girl with a big ass."

It's not exxageration, because I've been on thier side of the eyes. I've even had similar thoughts regarding light-skinned or "herbish" kids (which is weird. You know, to call someone with skin the same as mine a white boy). I've been the only light skinned kid in a group listening to kids say that shit about other cats. Always with the disclaimer explaining how that shit dont apply to me.

So, that's that world... Then there's the corporate world. I dont fit. My clothes and living arrangements tells society that that's where I go now, but that's not where I'm from. Nor is it where I plan to end up. I can't stand listening to rich, elite, crusty mother fuckers complain about their golf swing and how pissed they are because their 401k isn't growing fast enough. I don't give a fuck about your place in the hamptons or how your gardener left beer cans on your lawn. I hope my cousin pissed in your bushes too.

And the computer geek world. You know, the programmers, and coders, and lan admins. The biggest group of arrogant boring little shits I've ever had the chance to come accross in my entire life. They never drink, never smoke weed, never want to hit a bar, never want to hit a party, and all that matters is certifications and system specs. I've tried to relate to hundreds of these guys (and a couple gals... definitely not enough in the field). Fuck em...

And OF COURSE there are MILLIONS of exceptions to the large overstereo typed groups i've presented here. Everyone's an individual, blah la la la la... BUT... Everyone's individuality gets hidden beneath a society-created shell so that everyone can base their thoughts and ideas on the category that they have set out to put themselves in or the category that society has put them in.

SO, being that my life has moved me out of any specific category that I can find or fit into without harm or drastic internal change, I'm lost. And I have been for quite a while.

I thank those wonderful dark mentors of mine. I thank them for making me belive that I can be accepted as "one of", when I could in all actuallity NEVER fully understand the black man's struggle. I thank the assholes that pull society's levers for my placement in the lower-mid class... Never can I gain the security of the white-man's legacy.

In-between blows.

So for now, I teach, I learn, I watch hip-hop devour itself.. from a distance, I watch all the broke people fight over race while all the rich people take their money. I watch the overseers beat the commonfolk into oblivion as they kick back in their couches and watch the commonfolk's families over the infared scanners and over the tapped phone lines and monitored emails and IMs. I watch people do to themselves what they've always done to themsleves, only these days... It's televised.

And yes... I am ABSOLUTELY blowing this shit out of proportion. I can live life just fine the way things are. But If you REALLY want to know what's on my mind at any point in time... It's got something to do with hoping that I dont get shut down or disrespected by you for all the races, colors, creeds, and philosophies that my soul contains.

Rant's over... It's nice outside... Shut this shit off and go out and play.