Do not mistake the comfort of the mediocre for the pleasure of the revolution...
And those words are so very true in many regards, but my concentration more so on the Afrikan Diaporic community, or as the other Christopher says, POAD (People of Afrikan Decent)...In the past years, there have been many a triumph for my people, but yet, there are still so many more battles to be fought....Well, as I mentioned last entry, I met a rather "interesting" fellow...
After spending the day in Savannah just relaxing and enjoying the atmosphere...I decided to go back home...I was a ways off from the parking lot where my car was and I had to use the bathroom...So midway through my trek, I stopped at a gas station to ask to use their bathroom...There was an old man in the office working with the cash register, and another man, maybe 40-45 years of age, just standing there...Well, I inqure about the bathroom and the younger fellow says, with a rather resentful/condecending tone/face, "It's out of order and I wasn't gonna let you use it anyway"...A little shocked, I ask him what he meant by that...His response: "I don't let niggers use my bathroom"....
I almost committed murder that day in Savannah...I almost took another man's life with my own hands...But I didn't...I just threw "colorful" words at him...What was said word for word is hardly remembered...I was seeing red and hearing my own heart pound, the next thing I remembered is walking away...It took every ounce of strength and will that I had to walk away from them...Because I knew that I could overpower both of them...And in that fact, I could kill them in my berserk fit of rage...As a wrestler, I know how I get in those kind of physical situations...Everything becomes a blur to me and I remember nothing unless someone tells me what had happened....But at least then, I have some sort of control...In this here, it would have all been lost and there would be no control...I would only stop when he stopped moving...
So I walked away to avoid any medical bills, to avoid any arrest, any murder charge, and any life/death sentence...I'm not from Savannah...heck I'm not even from Savannah...and I'm Black...Due to the prosecutor's lawyer(s), having any minority jurors would be risky, and therefore most would be White...And due to public perception, a big, bald, Black man can be threatening and therefore dangerous...I would have been screwed big time...So I walked away...I gave one more four-letter word...and walked away...Is it a good thing that I would have killed him over a word?...That's a whole other discussion and neither here nor there....The true heart of the matter is that its 2003, the 21st century, but yet and still, I can't use a bathroom because of what I look like....And that my friends, is truly sad....
We have come so far, yet have moved so little...
I have uttered these words time and time again...And even despite my recollection "handicap," I have committed this concept to memory...I believe these words...I embrace these words as part of my own personal manifesto...But most of all, I hate these words....because they're true.....