I am not your homeboy, your g-dogg, funky fresh beatmaster, or whatever you gleaned from your hours of MTV or (may God Herself Forbid), BET and deemed appropriate to use to address another adult. Just in case you hadn’t been told otherwise, please allow me to make it known that I am not on Earth to entertain you- I don’t care what Lil’ Wayne says. I am not impressed by the terrible excuse for a Jamaican accent that you predictably don to try to get into my good graces when I tell you where my family is from. It would be laughable, if you weren’t so damned ignorant. On that note, I am not growing dreadlocks because you think that “it would look cool”. You obviously have no clue what they represent, and no, I do not think that it is okay that you grew them. My culture is not to be used as your fad, and your culture being devoid of soul, irrevocably unoriginal, and fundamentally vapid is not our fault. Come up with something on your own. I will not freestyle at your parties. My culture, my people are not here for you.
My last name is Freeman, not motherfucking Bojangles.
News Flash: Black people have been in America since the early 1600’s. Guess what? We have been speaking English for almost the entire time. In 2008, I have found that my speech surpasses yours, but don’t you fucking dare assume that I will lower myself and speak as if I was some caricature that you wish to emulate on television as if I didn’t have any class. I understand that you were raised by your television, and that reading books is gay, but unlike the bullshit that you are trying to blackface yourself into, I promise that we are capable of far more than “damn, shit, and that is wack”. This I promise to you. I have seen myself do it millions of times.
What kills me is that I have to endure this in professional situations as well. I have since completely abandoned the club scene, because the American lust for conspicuous consumption and “shine” sickens and bores me, but more on that later. I work in admissions for a university. I expect to be around people whom even if they are lacking, could pretend that they are of some modicum of breeding. An iota, please. I dress professionally, I wear little, if any jewelry, and I speak with impeccable diction and grammar. So why, goddamnit pray tell, do you believe that it is even remotely acceptable to address me as if I was your drug dealer? Never mind the fact that white kids are asking me if I am carrying drugs to sell everywhere I go, I can’t even get the respect that I have earned in my own office!
I bet that I know how I am beginning to seem to some of you, and I am sure that I am coming off as the stereotypical “angry black man” (one can only hope for so much), but you would be too. If not worse, that is. Allow me to explain; consider for a moment, that during your formative years, any depiction found anywhere of the people whom you most resemble are pimps, street hustlers, addicts, cowards, idiots, thugs, gang members, or worse. Now with that negative stereotype galvanizing the perspective of said people, how will you feel when one day, you find an intelligent, respectable, driven, worldly youth of the same culture? I mean this person would have the skills that it would take to make a successful life for themselves as an adult, right?
Please tell me that you are fucking kidding me.
Growing up, because I used an authority of speech, and read books, I was called an Uncle Tom, and worse. I had to deal with being ostracized by the only people in my community that looked like me because I refused to idolize gangsta rappers and act out with thuggish behavior. I guess my common sense gland was a tad overdeveloped at such a tender age. Getting shot or shot at? No thank you. Living off of the state with no income? Hell no! Eschewing knowledge and success for a family that I could not support and a life of self-hatred and drudgery? Are you insane? Losing my freedom, and going to jail; effectively ruining my chances to live a long, happy, and productive life, not to mention forfeiting my right to vote? Pass.
Don’t you dare try to relate to me with your childish attempts to mock me.
-jack
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