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smokeybrandcompositions · 4 years

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Blackjack

I’m blacker than the ace of spades, man. I love our skin tone. I love our swag. I love everything about being black, culturally. We are the most influential and imitated culture, worldwide, and at the same time, the most aggressively hated. When i was in high school, i asked a bigot who was a huge fan of Busta Rhymes how he could be such a hypocrite and he told me, i sh*t you not, “Love the sinner not the sin.” Being black was a sin to this motherf*cker but, since he liked our music, he compartmentalized our identity into something more palatable to his ignorant senses. He separated Busta’s art from Busta, himself, which i can’t even understand. Beethoven was black. You’re telling me his Fifth is any less a triumph of sound because of his moorish beginnings? I find it odd how people can just write off your ethnic identity when you don’t fit into the box they want.

My dad was one of the blackest motherf*ckers i have ever met but what does that mean? Yes, he was loud. Yes, he was intimidating. Yes, he was a petty criminal and drug addict. But he was more than that. He was also a brilliant mechanic and gifted athlete. He was amazing when it came to problem solving and often weeded out solutions most people couldn’t even see. Pops grew up in a single-parent home, in the ghettos of San Francisco during the 60s and 70s. He was a goon, that caricature you see in old black gangster movies like Juice. My dad was a ghetto stereotype and the polar opposite of my mother. My mom grew up in a two parent, upper-middle class, household as a kid. She didn’t see the world the same way my father saw it. She acquired a completely different set of skills, skills so alien to him, personally, he simply couldn’t reconcile my mother to his cultural experiences. To him, my mom was one of the “whitest” black people he had ever met.

Therein lies the question; What does it mean to be black? My father equated blackness to the ghetto gangster archetype popularized by rap music and what not, but my mother disagreed. She felt that blackness was more than that. She understood there were more facets, nuance, to the identity of our people. In the macro sense, i agree with that. We are man. We can be more. But, ultimately, even among ourselves, we make these superficial judgments over stupid sh*t all the time. I don’t think my mom is “white”. I think she’s naive. I think my pops thought that, too, but he couldn’t articulate it as eloquently. I think my dad was too stubborn or afraid to broaden his perspective about our culture, probably stemming from the trauma of losing his father at such a young age. My Grandpa died when my dad was five or six. Grandpap was a gangster. He was a pimp. He was a low level criminal, everything my father equated to “blackness.” I think he held on to that image as a means to hold on to his father and it became his overall worldview. When my father died, my sister kind of did the same thing. I didn’t because f*ck that guy. My dad and i hated each other. We were very clear on that.

Speaking of Me, i am blacker than the ace of spades. I mentioned that earlier. I, too, and this is probably because i am my father’s son in SO many uncomfortable ways, am very intimidating. I am wildly athletic, particularly in American football. I love hoop and Rap music, i hate cops and authority, and i have a healthy, organic, lust for big butts. I cannot lie. I grew up in the ghetto and, when need be, can become extremely, cartoonishly, hood. I have an unassailable pride in exactly who the f*ck i am and very aggressively protect myself from others less-than-sterling opinions of themselves. Now, all of that said, i hate fried foods, i f*cking love math and physics, i don’t care for watermelon, I'm not really a Democrat, and i don’t lust after white women. The love of my life, who we’ll get too in a minute, is Black, Mexican, French, and Native. I am stunningly intelligent and tend to live inside my head because most people are exhausting to me. The last time i was tested, i had an IQ of 154. Being smarter than most people you meat, just loving the process of learning in general, is something that is shunned with in the discussion of “being black.” If you’ve followed me for some time, or just give a cursory look at this blog, you can probably tell i am total and complete weeb. My Geek Card is punched and official. I play the sh*t out of video games and have since i was a Wee Smokey. Actually, I've been all of these things since i was extremely young. It’s funny because my two favorite genres of games to play are JRPG and f*cking NBA 2K. That little tidbit is a microcosm of who i am.

When i was in high school, i was considered hood as f*ck. I fought everyone i could, conditioned with the football team, skipped class at every opportunity, and dated a Brazilian chick for two years. That was the outward Me, the Me people assume i am. I cannot deny that version, that perception, is a part of who i am but i am so much more than that. The thing is, i skipped class to get home in time and watch Transformers: Robots in Disguise. My lady at the time and i met because of the poetry i had written in my spare time. Yes, i used to write poems. I was published a few times actually. She and i bonded over our mutual love for The Red Hot Chili Peppers and No Doubt. Bro, The Killers are my all-time favorite band. Mr. Brightside and Read My Mind are classics i know by heart. I conditioned with the football team but i only ever played my Freshman year. I don;t care for the sport at all. On the surface, the superficial, public perception of who i am, makes me as black as night. But who i am, totally, one could make the argument i am nowhere near negro. I find that contradiction fascinating.

As i stated above, my lady is a cadre of cultures but the two that stand out most are her Mexican and Black roots. Cats can mistake her for either but she usually gets Black. Like my mother and father before me, my lady and i grew up on the extreme opposite ends of the scale. I was a Dirty Ghetto Kid and she grew up rich. Yeah, i landed me a rich girl, what of it? I went to a school that had metal detectors at every entrance and she went to f*cking finishing school. I had no idea there were so many forks until i met her. I turned sixteen with no jail time, beating several not-so-flattering statistics. She had a Quinceanera and attended debutante balls. My lady, of course, had her own issues, things i have no way of properly understanding outside of a theoretical assumption. For all intents and purposes, because of her upbringing, because of the way she carries herself, she’d be considered “white.” The thing is, she can give MY hood a run for it’s money but the way she portrays that side of her, is way more palatable than how i do it. If I'm a blunt object, she’s a precision edge.

She didn’t grow up in an environment where masculinity was paramount and you absolutely had to destroy a motherf*cker if they pressed your manhood. She never had to interact with the streets so the street code was academic to her. She didn’t approach problem solving with physical intimidation and aggressive threats like i learned. I literally got my license after failing the driver’s test for a rolling stop, by punking out my instructor into signing my forms. That sh*t works for me. My lady is five-foot-nothing. She ain’t intimidating anyone. Her solution to this solution problem was to outsmart everyone. She is one of the quickest, most intellectually agile, people i have ever met. She can debate anything until they are literally, physically, exhausted. Our first real conversation was an argument over who the better character in DBZ, Vegeta or Gohan. I had to concede to her. I lost that debate. Me. That NEVER happens. I don’t lose arguments. I immediately fell in love. I’ve watched my lady bring grown men to tears after verbally undressing them. She’s that intense and i just kind of fanboy when she does it. But, according to the Laws of Blackness, that’s not how you do things. You gotta get in there and posture as hard as f*ck until you come to blows. Like Walruses.

There is no satisfactory way to conclude this exploratory essay into what defines blackness. There cant be. Being black is as fluid as the ocean and just as deep. My little sister is Desi, smart as a whip, and pulls in six figures a year. She has two degrees and is in school for a third in math just because she enjoys the process of learning, like me. She’s incredibly shy. bordering on agoraphobic, but let a motherf*cker test me or anyone she loves. She because the blackest motherf*cker i have ever seen since my pops and it’s adorable. She’s not even anywhere near black. Not a drop of the Afros in her lineage. Does that mean “being Black” is simply a state of mind? Is it just a catch-all standard of media perpetuated stereotypes? Does any of this sh*t even matter? No. No it doesn’t. Look, i got two kid brothers that i raised because my parents weren’t real good at parenting. One has grown up to be an Uncle Tom with next to no self worth. The other is a nomadic, pot-smoking, emo Skaterboi. Both of them will mash you if pressed. Both of them can recite Pi to the thirteenth number. Both of them love hoop and hate cops, just like me. Both of them game hard, the Hippie Skaterboi is actually a pro LoL player, and they both love anime. Most of that is my influence on their world but does that disqualify their blackness? Does my Weeby Nerdom which rubbed off during their development, make them any less black? No! F*cking no, of course not! This sh*t is stupid and I'm tired of talking about it.

There is no such thing as “being a bad black person” or “being a white black person.” That sh*t is dumb. Black folks are black. We define ourselves. Sure, a real good indicator is our skin tone and the way society treats us but, underneath that surface bullsh*t, we are so much more. I love Spider-Man, Godzilla, and Transformers. I love Rap, Nuwave, hip-hop, Grand Ol’ Oprey, classical orchestra, Post Punk, ska, retro wave, and so many more music genres. I am an NBA historian but know next to nothing about the NFL. I just don’t care. I’m a massive fan of Cyberpunk claims but absolutely hate anything Tyler Perry or budget Black cinema. Neon Genesis Evangelion is my all-time favorite anime and Hannibal is arguably the greatest show to ever air on US televisions. Star Wars hold a special place in my heart, along with Doctor Who, Batman, Dragon Ball Z, and Luther. I grew up in the ghetto, lived in the rich suburbs, and stay downtown. My first car was a 65 Mustang Coupe, then a Ford Probe, followed by 91 Accord. I've driven a 350Z since 2014. I held a nine to five job for probably a decade but now write professionally. I am l of this but, before any of that, i am blacker than the ace of spades.

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Blackjack

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