Po' Folks
17 July, 2002 :: 6:33 a.m.
Okay, so my Nappy Roots cd arrived--it. is. fucking. great. period, bar none.
So I'm listening to it and thinking back to my po' days...who am I kidding, I'm still broke and will be for a while yet...but now it's like me who is broke...I'm a college student and work at wal-mart so of course I'm gonna be broke for now...but I'm talkin' back in the day when i was young, i'm not a kid anymore, but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again...sorry, Ahmad took over for a second--he likes to know someone out there still remembers him and bought his cd. "Ahmad and the Joneses is on the way up"--umm, where'd they go?
Fuck me, back to Nappy Roots and being po'. I remember the welfare days and, while they were embarassing as fuck at the time, I can look back now and know that those days shaped me. Government cheese still makes the best toasted cheese sandwiches you'll ever eat. Mom used to try to fool us by mixing up powdered milk in an empty gallon milk jug...it never worked, but God bless her for trying. I remember having very few clothes and cheap ones at that (which is why now I take pride in dressing nice and am not afraid to spend money on things I like...I appreciate them so I take care of them and get my money back out of them)...I remember glasses being hot glued, super glued, taped...anything that would get a little extra use out of them. Do I want to go back to those days? Fuck No! I'm not stupid, they were shit times...but you deal, you get through and you look back and realize that you still managed to have fun, you still have good memories from those times and you know you can handle what life throws at you.
So I'm driving home this morning thinking about all this and celebrating the fact that you can have a good life even if everything isn't served your way on a platinum platter and then I check my e-mail and Gramps has sent me a racist forward supposedly started by Good, God Fearing, Patriotic, Tax Paying Citizens (racists always think they are the most patriotic...why is that?) who are outraged about illegal immigrants coming and sucking this country's welfare system dry and ruining perfectly good neighborhoods...what's even more upsetting about this is that my aunt forwarded it to him. My aunt is not particularly racist, in fact I've heard her yell at Gramps for racist shit coming out of his mouth, but I think it was one of those things that is supposed to be humorous and for some reason a lot of people don't stop and think about the fact that these types of things aren't funny, they spread hate.
I've said before that we should be able to laugh at stereotypes...laugh AT THEM, not with them, not encouraging and continuing them.
Nappy Roots titled their cd Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz...they're black, they're from Kentucky...hey...but you know what? I spent a lot of time in Kentucky over the years and a lot of white southerners like all three of these things too...let's be honest, a bunch of us northern folk do too (okay, we may shy away from grits (not me though), but chicken and watermelon are loved by many) they're relatively cheap and plentiful and there are a lot of dead-ass broke people in Kentucky and the rest of the country...drive a few minutes out into the country and look at what passes for a home in some of these places, look at the ones that still have outhouses that are used...it's a part of life in Kentucky...it's not good, it's not bad, it's life. All poor people do not syphon taxpayer money and sit around all day doing nothing to contribute back...while we were on welfare, my step-father was going to school and he now makes a handsome salary working with computers for a large company.
Look back racist pigs, chances are that when your ancestors arrived in this country they didn't have have fists full of cash either...they came looking to make a better life for themselves in a place that gave them a fair chance to do so. And a lot of people using the welfare system (and a lot of people abusing the welfare system...and other resources such as unemployment, disability, etc.) have the same fucking skin color as you--hell, they may be your relatives (ahem, Gramps)...(Um, I better clarify, we were using the welfare system, not abusing it...some people who've read this diary *cough* AustereLogic *cough* need things like that spelled out so as not to misunderstand them.)
I'm pretty sure I meant to address more than I have...the point though? Treat bigots with the respect they deserve--none. I'm going now.
*Trips and falls off soapbox...walks sheepishly away wondering how many noticed* Oh, and yes, for those who noticed there were parentheses within parentheses in this entry...and still I get A's on my papers for school...