Where to go...

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day, Dear Reader. In Memphis, we had the day off work so we could do something...uh...for the cause, or something. Not sure. I mean, our city (downtown) is 52% African American. We have a black mayor, have for over 20 years in fact. Dr. King was actually, totes IRL assassinated, or (even murdered!) right downtown, at the Lorraine Motel. I know dudes who worked for the city and like went on strike and stuff when that shit was going on. Marching and everything, cos they damn well cared. I've read about how the Black Power movement came out of those days, the militant branch giving up on Dr. King's message of peaceful progress. He was like the black Ghandi or something and it wasn't fast enough.

Thankfully the world is a better place now, and we all have a equal voice.



This time last year a 'friend' of mine called my girlfriend a nigger. Because she was rear-ended by an ambulance and is looking to do nothing more than get her medical bills paid. But because she's black she's nothing more than a typically money grubbing nigger. Go figure. She's probably enjoying keeping Whitey down at the same time. Fucken white cracker ass motherfuckers keeping the black (wo)man down.

...Anyway...

Thankfully, the world has moved on a lot since Dr. King was murdered, but it hasn't moved nearly far enough. If I was posting this on my grown up blog I would stick a whole bunch of links to research on the neuroscience and psychology behind inter-racicial hate and fear. But we're not on my grown up blog. We're here. So I get to be pissed off and you can just read it, or leave.

I started dating Kali when we lived in Washington, D.C.. She's a musician, and I often went to the clubs she would play at. There was one, Bar None, a basement bar on U-Street and 14th. She would play at the open mic night there. Mostly it was spoken word poetry, but she would step up with her guitar and perform her music for the crowd. It was awesome to see my brand new, shiny, fresh out of the box girlfriend captivate a room, and I was so fucking frightened that someone was going to hurt me or beat me. Because I was white.

Of course after a couple of weeks I stopped thinking that every black man is Ice Cube in "Boyz in the Hood", and out to kill a white motherfucker. TV educated me. Real life re-educated me.

I was usually the only white in the room. Sometimes maybe one of two or three. Only once, out of a couple of dozen times, someone stepped on my foot and gave me the shoulder. I was curious why everyone was fine with me being there when it was clearly a Black Club.

"Oh, well you're not white. You're English."

That gave the lie to the whole ecumenical vibe I thought we were sharing. Turns out I wasn't welcome as a White. I was welcome as a foreigner.

Maybe it was just his perspective. I don't know. I've been through a lot of shit as a White dating a Black, and nothing has been any fucking easier since we moved to Memphis. 99% of it has been snide remarks, or comments, or judgement because she's black.

I'm not dating a lazy ass bitch. I'm not dating a fucking nigger. I'm not dating one of then dirty spear chuckers. I don't think it's funny when you make an off hand comment about "them". Who the fuck is "them"?

Dr. King believed in his cause. I think I believe in it too. It's a simple enough damn cause. The color of your skin shouldn't predicate anything but the fact you may or may not need suntan lotion. We have to work harder at this. How we do that? I'm just keeping about my business, treating my fellow humans like humans. I don't expect the world to change, but one thing we can do is make some small changes at home. Don't make stupid "Hug a N***** Day" jokes. Don't judge me on the color of my skin. Judge me on the actions I perform, the tone of my voice when we talk and how I treat you. America is a multi-cultural society but it will never, ever survive if we can't treat each other as equal humans first, and different cultures second.