The South Will Rise Again | nat creole. online

They hung his Great Grandfather after he refused to apologize to the white woman with intense olive eyes who he’d tipped his hat to the day after his thirty-eighth birthday. He was just being polite. How dare he in his fancy suit and shiny shoes- how dare he be so, polite? She never even complained.

His Grandfather, a large man with the biggest hands he’d ever seen, met his maker forty-three minutes after hearing that Elvis Presley had passed on the little Quasar transistor radio he listened to the ballgame and WLIB on. Mopping up at his custodial job at PS 219 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, he raised the volume to make sure he heard what he thought he heard with his hearing. Once validated, the news stirred a sentiment of amusement in Gramps that became more and more pervasive as the account of “The King’s” demise was revealed. They, his mother and her sister Aunt Theresa, were told that the Math teacher on the third floor thought it was one of the troublemakers at the back of the class carrying on like usual behind his back. After he singled out the suspect, he realized the child was actually innocent this particular time and had to look outside the classroom to find the true source of the commotion. A hearty grin led to a burst of laughter- that Gramps tried to suppress- that became teary–eyed hysteria and finally, a full-blown and fatal coronary. Students watched from the doorway as Mr. Tab slipped and broke his wrist on the freshly mopped floor trying to come to the old man’s assistance.

That same teacher would break that same wrist again, trying to break up a *sissy fight a year later between the grandson and Garnett Baker. His mother had moved them into Gramps’s house not long after he was laid to rest and, because of the change of district, he wound up being transferred to that same school.

Julian, who he also got into it with on his very first day of classes, would eventually become his best friend. Later on, both the grandson and Garret Baker would end up sleeping with Julian’s kid sister. But before all that, when the grandson’s Gramps died laughing, Julian recalled, “The out-and-out laughter got all the kids snickering and giggling.”

After one kid had imitated it in the class, room 312 became a den of cackling eight year old Hyenas. The teachers were so pissed that after the ambulance came, they sent everyone home early.

* Sissy Fight: When two combatants of Elementary School age forcefully push each other in the upper torso region repeatedly, until one is provoked into throwing an authentic punch; A feeble act of instigation with the expressed intent to not engage in fisticuffs but to simply save face.

The paramedics had covered him up and taken him away with that petrified, crazed look of hilarity on his face. And the boy had never seen his Grandfather laugh or even smile before, not even on Christmas or when Muhammad Ali beat Foreman in Africa that time when nobody but his Granddad thought that “that boy Clay” could do it. And that was the happiest he had ever seen him with that, “I told you so” grimace cemented on his face.

T wenty-five years previously, his Granddad had thrown a party and his Dad sat on Gramps’s lap, watching Elvis, the Hillbilly boy who sang Nigra songs on the Steve Allen Show, singing one of Granddad’s songs. The Colonel, the soon to be King’s manager, and Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records in Memphis, promised him in that same recording studio that Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash made their living doing the exact same thing, that he would make more money than any Negro in the business in that day and age “…cause no one ever seen nothing like that boy ever. Trust me. Trust me boy.”

They bought him a Cadillac when the song got national airplay and sent the Gold selling plaque special mail along with a check for a thousand dollars. Gramps hung that plaque in the living room where everyone could see, A Million Seller! And well, that was pretty much all he saw of that money because he signed away his publishing. He didn’t even know other people could have the rights to his songs.

He made a stink, a big stink and when he was done all the people holding their noses didn’t want to have anything to do with him afterwards. “Uppity Negro should know better,” they said, “This Negro should know his place.” Tried to get some session work afterwards but nobody would hire him. He was done with the record business and it was pretty much done with him. Gramps packed up his Rickenbacker guitar in its case and never picked it up again. He had to do what he had to do, so he had to go back to working a real job to feed his family and just go on with his life.

THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN

D addy! The grandson never knew his father. He knew the pictures, and there were many around the house – in his bedroom primarily. And in every one of those photographs, he caught a sense of his father’s lanky frame, his swagger and his wide cat-who-ate-the-canary smile. They were there so the grandson wouldn’t forget, so he wouldn’t grow up without a father. There to frame all his mother’s stories that made him feel Daddy was there with them still. He repeated those stories and when he did, it was like he was right there with the Ole Man for every one of ‘em.

When his dad picked his mom up at her job he would get off the train though she’d plainly tell him not to ‘cause he’d have to pay an extra fare to get back on the train a couple of minutes later. But his Dad didn’t feel safe with her walking the three blocks to the station at that time of the night, so he’d spend another five cents and hear it from his wife every time.

How they would sit on the 4 Train to Utica and he would try to prove to her his theory on how white people looked. “Most of ‘em look like cartoons,” he would clown. The sharp Dick Tracy nose, the Blondie eyes, Lil Abner’s hair, the fella in the corner with the Bruce Wayne chin. “There goes Fred Flintstone!” His mother knew it was wrong but how he made her laugh.

Still, he was known for being a pretty serious guy, his father. That was the thing. Quite famous in his line of work, he had the distinction of being the only other black man at Altamont who didn’t get stabbed the day The Rolling Stones played their version of “Woodstock West” at the Speedway. The giant of a man towering over Mick Jagger was his Dad doing his body-guarding thing. The next time you check out the movie Gimmie Shelter; the documentary of the Stones US Tour in 1970, make sure you check that out.

After being picked up by the Jersey State Troopers under “suspicion” because his car matched the description used in an armed robbery in Hoboken, he died of injuries sustained in Police custody while “resisting” arrest. Nine cops were hospitalized. One of them later became Mayor of the fine city of Hoboken. His administration was cited for the worst cases of racial profiling in, not just the state, but all of these United States. In his father’s obituary, they left out that he was once Sonny Liston’s chief sparing partner. Sonny Liston, the Devil himself.

THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN

N igger. If you asked his father, he would tell you that he’d been called Nigger two times in his life by white people, once to his face anyway. Two times is pretty good, considering. First time it was from a moving car on Glenwood Road while coming from the gym. The other time, by a guy in a club in Soho who didn’t realize that it was the magic word to get a trip to the emergency room at St. Claire’s Hospital in the little bus with the pretty flashing lights. But brothers! They called him Nigga all the time. Nigga - not Nigger! There is a distinct difference.

There came a moment when he just realized, like when you’re a child and you see the “Flesh” color crayon in the Crayola box, know that Band-Aids are “Flesh” colored and note that The Black Guy is always killed off first in a war movie. Uhura was the only black person on Star Trek so he wondered would there be any black men in the future ‘cause the way we were killing each other now… And when you saw Roots on TV in JHS and you understood why you hated White people. This is when he still had his “Government name,” before he’d ever slept with a White woman.

That word it was a put down, a compliment, a term of endearment and the last word before a fistfight. It can often be used as punctuation, a pronoun, an adjective and a verb.

He didn’t do it though, say the word much, save a couple of dozen times in his whole life. A few meaning three, a couple would be two. Most say it that much in a day if they get too talking. It’s not that he minded because even if he did, there wouldn’t be much he would be able to do about it. The conversation would go something like this:

“Maybe it’s not such a good idea to use the N word so often.”
“What?! What’s your problem, Nigga?”

H e keeps having to refute that he had a preference for light-skin women. Something he vehemently denies to this day, but was hard to argue if you looked at his track record. All his girlfriends through grade school and University, Redbones with the exception of one.

When he was in third grade, his second year at PS 219, he met Nicolette. She was a dark young girl. Beautiful eyes, flawless beautiful skin, inviting beautiful lips, probably the most beautiful in the school; without a doubt, the whole third grade. She was such a nice person and everyone you asked would agree. But no one would hit on her, or look at her in that way. One thing he liked about her was she wore her hair natural. Everything she did was contrary to what he was indoctrinated to believe, what we all were really. To him it was like when you have friends and they expect you to like the same things they like, wear the same clothes, like the same sneakers, listen to the same records and if you don’t, there’s something wrong with you. The norm: light-skinned, the lighter the better; good hair (long, permed, straight); and light eyes.

Nicolette didn’t register and she knew it but it didn’t seem to bother her, or she never really let on. They would hang out together, and then one thing led to another. I know what you’re thinking, he’s some kid; but where he grew up, they’d grow up pretty fast, plus they were both far more grown than their peers.

T ruth be told, he would have loved to see more darker-skinned sisters but they wouldn’t give him the time of day because he was too dark. And their Mama or Grandmamma had already made it clear that they bring home light-skin men, the lighter the better, to lighten up the family. So they can have beautiful light-skinned babies so a generation from now, the family would be so removed from any part of their African heritage. Busy with pinching their babies’ noses so they won’t be flat and wide and straightening their little girl’s hair so it won’t be nappy or it won’t be hard to comb. On to an ambiguous, non-specific ethnicity, not too removed from white but for the love of Jesus not Black-Black. Not down south Black or that street Black, Ghetto.

When you where told that Black Is Beautiful, you had to Keep on Truckin and James Brown was singing, “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud!” They where still trying to be Negros. Blackploitation movies were like a nightmare to those types of Black people.

“Imagine people will think we’re all Pimps, Whores and Drug Dealers.” But it was still okay to watch Soul Train.

He always said, “Too many of our people performing for too many white people, for what-- who they trying to impress?”

F unny;the most pro-black, most afrocentric, militant Kats he knows were consequently the lightest Kats he knows. There’s a lot to say for the tragedy of the mulatto. The mixed-up mixed race, wanting to fit in, wanting to be defined. Not sure where they belong, trying to be accepted in the middle and displaced. But being black, having people look at you sometimes like you’re not even human, like you’re a straight up animal, treated like you have no soul, that’s everyday for most black people. Everyday. They’ll tell you, “God don’t like ugly.” But the so called ugly keep praying to him, prayin! They pray to him everyday.

H e called white people Nigger— it threw them. They couldn’t hit that curve ball, Bob Gibson taking on Mickey Mantle in the 64 series, nasty. Don’t crowd the plate or you’ll get your feelings hurt. He had no behavior like that. They’d look around and then they’d look at him like, “I’m not Nigger. You’re Nigger!”

Like the song by The Band, The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down, he remembered. Flying the Confederate Flag over the courts buildings downtown. Does it matter if American Indians are offended by the word Redskin used by a National Football League team? Because Redskin is basically the N word to indigenous people, “You know that right?”

Forty-five helmets with that distasteful image on every one of them. The name written across the field, on the graphics flashed on the screen, every Sunday. Broadcast to millions in a national audience. “It was not intentionally meant to be offensive.” Spokesman for the league putting the spin on it. How can you tell a race of people or any individual what’s offensive to them?

Reenacting the great battles of the Civil War which their great granddaddies fought, fighting against the Yankees and their ways. They relived them on the weekends in all their glory. Their noses up regarding interracial relations, railing against same sex marriage and immigration customs. Separatists and extremists fortifying their bunkers and stocking up on can goods and ammunition while there daughters listen to DMX in their rooms with the door locked. The Bible belt holding up America’s pants. All these white men waiting for things to go back to the way things used to be.

For more info on Renaldo's work and activities email him at renaldoartstudio@rcn.com and check out his work on display @ Maroons Restaraunt in the Chelsea section of Manhattan and MOCA in Harlem. HIs work also graces the cover of Ras Baraka's Black Girls Learn Love Hard (Moore Black Press/ 2005).