How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America Read online

  Instead, Mama eventually sighs and says again, “Kie, people who never learned to lose will do anything to see us not win. When they lose to Obama, they’ll figure out a way to win anyway. It’s just too much.”

  “You way too cynical, Mama,” I tell her. “We got this.”

  “I love you, Kie,” she says. “Stay safe, and pray for Michelle, Barack, and those kids.”

  “Mama, I thought you were saying that we should pray for us.”

  “It’s just too much,” Mama says. “This has nothing to do with politics, or public policy. Goodnight, Kie.”

  Mama hangs up the phone and I pull the RBG T4 T-shirt out of my closest and put it next to my red Pumas, an army-green sweatshirt, and some baggy black shorts I’ll wear early tomorrow morning when I go to vote.

  I’m playing it off, imagining the celebrations that will follow the election of our first black President. But not even deep down, though, I know Mama is right.

  We know Mama is right.

  Obama will win. We will win. Then we will continue to lose. And the right questions will never be honestly asked or answered. And it’s all just too much.

  ***

  November 5, 2008, 2:15 a.m.

  Earlier tonight, I wore my RBG T4 Obama shirt as Barack Obama beat John McCain into a pile of All-American dust. Hundreds of Vassar College students celebrated in front of my apartment on campus. Some kids streaked, while others unknowingly remixed a traditional lynch scene by hoisting a life-size cardboard Barack Obama into the moonlit sky. Joyful sounds echoed for hours as young Americans who would never call themselves hipsters, rich, or racist morphed into patriots with chants of “USA! USA!”

  One of my wonderful first-year white students walked up to me in the midst of the celebration and said, “Congratulations,” like he knew I had just hit the Mega Millions or paid off my student loans.

  I had done neither.

  “Oh,” I said. “Congratulations to you, too.”

  Really, I just registered it as one of those slick things “good” white folks do when confronted with splendid black American achievement. Honestly, I didn’t know what the victory, the celebration in that space, or the congratulations given to us black Americans meant. I didn’t know if we were celebrating Obama’s victory, McCain’s defeat, the end of Bush’s regime, our deliverance, the possibility of a post-racist America, triumph for African-Americans, or a little bit of all those things.

  When the dry, pulpy feeling got to be too much to bear, I got in my car to drive downtown, where most of the black and brown folks in Poughkeepsie live, and where a good number of folks live way below the poverty line.

  The mile and a half drive from the corner of Main and Raymond to the waterfront was as quiet a drive as I’d ever experienced. No human beings were outside. There were no signs or sounds of shared celebrations.

  There was no echo.

  Inside those apartments, houses, and buildings, I assumed folks were smiling from the inside out. I also assumed most of those folks were wondering how retribution for this splendid black American achievement would be played out on their bodies, pockets, spirits, and minds. I wondered if the right questions could ever really change anything, and the right questions seemed further and further away.

  ***

  October 29, 2012, 2:15 a.m.

  I’d like to thank President Obama and Governor Romney for giving us twenty minutes in this last/lost debate of 2012. Thanks to both of you for agreeing to release this transcript after November 6. If I ask a question you don’t want to answer, you can say, “That’s that shit I don’t like,” courtesy of Chief Keef, and I will do my best to move on to another question. You have two “That’s that shit I don’t likes” at your disposal. Instead of a coin toss, whoever best answers our first question will have the option of going first or second.

  Our first question comes from a young woman in Brooklyn: “How would you describe the color of Donald Trump’s face?”

  ROMNEY: I’d have to say he’s just tan. Maybe I’m missing something but I’d call it a supple kind of pink.

  OBAMA: Listen, I’ve gotta go with the color of watered-down Tang.

  Damn. That’s good, man. Really good. Would you like to go first or second, President Obama?

  OBAMA: First.

  President Obama, you signed the Fair Sentencing Act, a historic piece of legislation that narrows the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity from 100:1 to 18:1, and for the first time eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine. While this was long overdue, wouldn’t a real Fair Sentencing Act also ensure that elite American colleges, universities, and gated communities are policed for drug use, drug abuse, and drug distribution as much as urban areas currently are policed—especially since most incarcerated Americans are poor black and brown nonviolent drug offenders?

  OBAMA: While I agree that we need to think about how we police particular groups of Americans more than others, I’m not sure it’s the role of the president to tinker with policing practices, especially ones that substantially impact the prison-industrial complex. We wanted to make the sentencing guidelines fair and we did.

  Is 18:1 fair?

  OBAMA: It’s fairer than it was.

  True, but is it fair that not one drug user, abuser, or seller at the college where I teach has gone to prison in the ten years I’ve been there, yet I personally know at least twenty brothers in Poughkeepsie from the same neighborhood who have been incarcerated in that same time?

  ROMNEY: I don’t understand the question. Those black and brown nonviolent drug offenders would have a better chance at the American dream if there were fathers in their houses. If I am elected president, I plan on creating civic organizations that go door to door in urban neighborhoods with binders of eligible, hardworking, clean black and Latino men. Prison reform and fair sentencing starts with the family, and the new American family starts with reforming fathers and families, not the government.

  Daddy binders, bruh?

  OBAMA: Governor Romney loves him some binders, doesn’t he?

  You ain’t lying about that. President Obama, we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. Why?

  OBAMA: See, that’s that shit I don’t like. How can I answer that question? While we need to look at our incarceration practices, we also need to look at the communities we are trying to protect when we incarcerate these brothers and sisters. We’ve got to think of the victims, too.

  President Obama: You are a black man. There are more black men in prison than any other group in the nation, and black women are the fastest-growing group of incarcerated folks in the United States. Why?

  OBAMA: I think I’ve answered the question. I told you that was that shit I don’t like.

  Word? Okay then.

  OBAMA: Does that count as my second “That’s that shit I don’t like?”

  It does not. Governor Romney, how is it that the Republican Party, the self-proclaimed party of personal responsibility, never, ever, ever, ever takes any responsibility for the state of the nation or of the world?

  ROMNEY: I don’t understand the question.

  Are you and your party responsible for any of the problems in the United States?

  ROMNEY: I don’t understand the question. That’s that shit I don’t like.

  This is a two-part question from a woman in Forest, Mississippi. Governor Romney, “How can the people with the most stuff in the nation complain so much about other people who have so little wanting more stuff?”

  ROMNEY: That’s that shit I don’t like.

  Cool. That’s your last “That’s that shit I don’t like.” Governor Romney, would President Obama, the first standing president to have his citizenship questioned, have been granted the same generosity afforded George W. Bush if his failure led to the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans?

  ROMNEY: I think I’ve answered this question. The president has the responsibility to call terrorism what it is and to do
everything in his power to stop it before it starts.

  OBAMA: Listen, no sitting president wants to be in the position where President Bush found himself on the morning of 9/11. Americans are by and large a forgiving people and I have done everything in my power to keep this exceptional country, the best country on the face of the earth, safe from terrorism. I take responsibilities for mistakes made along the way, but our record is strong in the area of defense, especially compared to my predecessor.

  President Obama, you’ve talked extensively in previous debates about the incredible work of the soldiers who have lost their lives fighting for the freedom of others around the globe. It’s obvious that this tragedy hurts you. Does it also hurt when you received reports of drones murdering civilians around the world?

  OBAMA: Yes, it does.

  ROMNEY: This is exactly the kind of apologizing the president of the United States does not need to be doing.

  OBAMA: The question was does it hurt, not was I apologizing.

  President Obama, would you like to apologize to the families of the civilians our drones have murdered?

  OBAMA: We have tried to be as responsible as possible. Have we made some mistakes? Yes. But as commander-in-chief, I take responsibility for all those mistakes.

  Would you like to apologize?

  OBAMA: That’s too simplistic. A lot of you work in the world of words. I respect that, but I also have to deal in the reality of action. Would you rather Americans flew those warplanes and shot down bad guys?

  I think we’d rather our country not kill any more folks who have nothing to do with your beef? Can you commit to doing everything in your power to halt these drone attacks?

  OBAMA: My beefs? (under his breath) You a funny-ass nigga. That’s that shit I don’t like.

  Governor Romney, I can’t even spell “cosmopolitan” without spell-check and I just got a passport yesterday, so please help me out. How does the only country in the world that has actually used nuclear weapons to kill tens of thousands of people have the moral authority to tell other countries not to develop nuclear weapons?

  ROMNEY: Yes.

  Yes, what?

  ROMNEY: Yes. We are the greatest country in the world and we must do everything in our power to free people from dictators?

  OBAMA: I can say it makes sense that the current president of the United States keeps nuclear weaponry out of the hands of reckless leaders.

  Wait. What question are y’all answering? Listen for a second. By the time this election is over, you both will have spent more than $6 billion on your elections. The talking heads on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC will have been paid millions and millions of dollars to root for Team Elephant or Team Donkey, while millions of Americans are poor, homeless, and hungry. Is this ethical economic behavior from the supposed best country on the face of the earth?

  ROMNEY: Yes.

  OBAMA: Yes.

  Thank you both for your time. Y’all stay lying, though. For real! How come y’all are never self-critical? Like, never. It’s us, right? The voters, I mean. President Obama, I don’t know how you carry all this shit on your back. I’m so sincere. Most brothers I know can’t keep a checkbook and here you are running a country.

  Seriously, I can’t wait to see all the things you do for our people and the world when you’re out of office in 2016. A lot of folks are convinced you never had the black community’s best interest at heart. I ain’t gonna lie. I don’t think I believe that. Is that true?

  OBAMA: It’s not true at all. I honestly don’t know how a left-leaning president makes things significantly better for black, brown, and poor Americans. It’s so hard. I don’t know how to do it.

  We need half of that defense budget to go toward shit that makes black folks healthier. We need every classroom in predominantly black and brown cities and towns to have no more than a 12:1 student/teacher ratio. We need the best mental health services in the world for our communities. We need to stop throwing brothers and sisters in jail for drugs. We need you to be honest, more than anything. Just be honest, man. I know you know all of this. You just confuse me, man.

  If those heartbroken fucks out there don’t find a way to hurt you and your family, you’re going to do so much when you’re free. You ever wonder if you’ll ever be free, though? I mean, thank you for putting the country on your back and taking up the national slack, but the truth is that our unethical, morally suspect nation doesn’t deserve an ethical or moral president. That’s that shit no one admits.

  Anyway, thank you for being a slightly better president than the nation deserves, even if you’re unable to be the president that black and brown folks here really need. Think about what would happen if you just quit before your term was up in 2016 because you realized there was no way to be a just and honest American president. I know your heart hurts, man. But maybe you could use your time more effectively if you weren’t president. Think about what I’m saying, okay?

  ROMNEY: What about me? I’d like equal time.

  You? You were born rich. You will die rich. Help the country by teaching your people how to be just and thoughtful losers. I’m so sincere. Sadly, it’s one of our only hopes. Sharing means that perpetual winners have to be okay losing sometimes. You’re encouraging murder and you don’t even care.

  ROMNEY: I want to apologize for going over my allotment, but with all due respect, that’s that shit I don’t like.

  Lord have mercy!

  Eulogy for Three Black Boys Who Lived

  I.

  Mama wanted me to love Michael Jackson the way she did, but I couldn’t because all I could see was his work. My mama, a fifty-eight-year-old woman from Forest, Mississippi, grew up looking horizontally at Michael Jackson and his brothers. Mama heard not only the Jackson 5’s work, but also their asphalted African-American journey to artistic, economic, and emotional freedom. As a black girl who moved every summer from Mississippi to Milwaukee with her singing sisters, my mother’s life played country cousin to the contoured place from which the Jackson’s bended notes sprang. Mama moved through the world a virtuosic, curious, confused, defiantly capable black girl in the schizophrenic post–Brown v. Board United States. Like Michael, Mama was the child of two beautiful, always persistent, and often destructive parents.

  Let Mama tell it, she grew up different, alone, the “peculiar dove” in a caring but limited nest. Let her sisters Sue and Linda tell it, each of them was the peculiar dove longing for belonging. My aunts and Mama tell the story of my grandmother working hard to get them their first stereo and first record during the Christmas of 1969. The record was a 45 with “I Want You Back” on the Aside and “Who’s Loving You” on the B-side. After huddling in the living room and listening to both sides of the 45 over and over, Mama remembers telling Grandma thank you, then wading through chinaberry bushes and climbing a hanging moss tree where she wrote about Michael Jackson’s happy-sad voice, her hatred for nasty Isaiah Horde, and the colorful isolation she felt from the world.

  As a single working parent in the late 70s, Mama worked to create music despite the heartbreaking noise of flimsy job security, mangled romantic relationships, and unpaid utility bills. Mama found some order through transference and restriction. I could watch our twelve-inch black-and-white television for one hour a day. I could go outside only after I wrote an essay using words from the dictionary that neither of us knew. I couldn’t eat much sugar or salt, or guzzle that cold drank, unless Mama was there to okay it. Playing any form of hip-hop was always a beatable offense, while all music played on my single tape-deck radio could never exceed six on the volume…except for Michael Jackson.

  When Mama and I weren’t jamming until all hours of the night to the Off the Wall tape I got for Christmas, I was in my room listening to the tape alone. There I could sing the songs the way I wanted. I could be as weird and fascinated as I wanted to be by its minimalist cover art. The Off the Wall cover foreshadowed part of my relationship with Michael Jackson. Like a lot of folks, I’d be mesmerize
d by the movement of Michael’s feet while wondering a lot about his face.

  The contrast between the dense black of Michael’s high-watered tuxedo slacks and the glow of his white socks up against a haggard brick wall created a depth, or at least a crease, into which I could easily slip. Deep in that crease, it’s easy to say that I wanted to be Michael Jackson. But I don’t think that’s really true. Didn’t we all want to work, work it like, and be worked by Michael Jackson? We wanted to dress like Michael dressed, sing like Michael sang, and move through the world the way Michael moved, all while he was working for us. And we tried hard, too, didn’t we, over and over again in mirrors, at dances, in bedrooms, on stages, in classrooms, at parties, in our dreams?

  Michael’s work post Thriller changed the way we consumed music. Lots of black artists I deeply respect have said that Michael was ours on Off the Wall and then became the property of the world post Thriller. I’ve said that shit too, but I’m not so sure about that anymore. And it’s not only because Mama and her generation had a much more mature love of Michael Jackson than we did. It’s just that I am sure that while Michael belonged to music pre Thriller, and post Thriller, the music video—as a form, and as a workable televisual entity—belonged to him. In forcing MTV to play black music videos, Michael’s work dictated to us the evocative narratives in the songs we loved. Where all of us had made up a thousand scenes, characters, and various familiar details of our lives to songs like “Rock With You” or “She’s Out of My Life,” we now knew Michael’s version of the narrative that went along with “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Thriller,” “Say Say Say,” and “Smooth Criminal.” As much as possible, Michael’s narrative imagination became ours. Hence the story of where you were, what you were doing, what you felt when you first saw “Thriller” or “Beat It” is as vivid for us as the videos we imagined while listening to Off the Wall.

  On August 29, 2013, Michael Jackson, the greatest American worker of my life, would have been fifty-five years old. Michael’s work connected us. His work made us wear pants that flooded and strange white sequined gloves borrowed from our grandma’s usher uniform. His work encouraged us save up lunch money, birthday money, Christmas money, and found money for the Beat It jacket with the zippers that didn’t work. His work bullied us into celebrating the presence of a confessional, a plea, and an incredible physical ferocity in one audiovisual setting. His work nudged us into accepting a cardboard kind of androgyny, though we didn’t know what that meant. His work redefined rhythm, rhythmic abrasion, and colorful darkness while moaning “look at me” and “look at you” and “it hurts if you look at me too hard.” Michael’s work was our Badman, our trickster, our tragic mulatto, our Pinocchio, our boyfriend, our girlfriend, all at once.