Choruses of right-ons rose up like amens at a holy-roller Pentecostal tent revival. “Ya know, you want The Man to listen to what you got to say. Then listen to me,” Steve started, slamming the guns down on the conference table in the front of the auditorium where he, Sam, and Busta sat, stared out at the rest of us. The thuds ricocheted like gunfire throughout the hollowed chamber. A brother seated in about the 11th row dove to the floor, believing one of Steve’s guns had accidentally gone off.
Within 30 minutes the tone, then the topic, went from protest to revolution. One strategy after the next was thrown on the table, each with the flare of a Molotov cocktail. I realized we were going to live dangerously—or maybe not at all. Steve, Sam and Busta wanted as many of us as possible to come armed to the nines during the alumni benefactors’ meeting the following week.I signaled that I wanted to speak, and then stepped forward. Although I was an active member of the leadership of the Black Student Union, I was not that tight with the Three Musketeers-- Steve, Sam and Busta--who called the shots. That was the name I had personally given to the trio. Sam was initially offended until Busta pulled his coattail about Alexandre Dumas being a brother. Sam figured that since Dumas was Black, so were the real Three Musketeers.
“Fucking white man’s Hollywood, they always play that shit,” Sam said after Busta ran it down to him. “They even had Victor Mature play Hannibal, the greatest Black general of all time.”My somewhat checkered stature among the group arose mainly out of my being both a Black Nationalist poet and a card-carrying member of the media. And because of Allison. Every one of them wondered how I got her and how they could take her away.
“I disagree,” I started, staring into a host of sour faces. “Naw let me back up. I agree, you know, we should be pissed and we should do something.” I paused. Orangeburg was on my mind. I surveyed the room. Reginald 23X, who was playing catch with his pen, tossing it into the air, fumbled. Dropped the ballpoint. Every other head in the room jerked backwards to investigate the disturbance then recoiled to zero in on me. “But that something is something where we need to be cool, you know. We show up with guns and somebody could die. That somebody could be one of us.”I spotted Steve out of the corner of my eye. He sat casually polishing one of his pistols. Jammin’ Sam jumped out of his seat, screaming from the heart: “Uh, huh, Mista Wordsmith, you wanna talk. You wanna debate. You wanna discuss. You wanna participate in verbal masta-bation. You wanna bullshit. But you don’t wanna do jackshit.” I stood there, a little sheepish, wondering if Sam knew I had jammed his main squeeze, Sally, when she discovered he was stroking Heidi and decided to put out a little revenge pussy. Neither Sally nor Heidi was sisters. There was this dictum informally observed by a slew of Black nationalists: Think Black, sleep white.
“Sam, I’m not going to let you front me off like that,” I replied, vainly trying to stare down the six-foot-seven anything-but-gentle giant. “Guns are deadly. I don’t believe this is an issue worth dying for.”
“Like what is?” Sam interrupted, more pissed-off than our exchange called for.
Shit. He knew. But I knew his jock ego was not going to admit that a 155-pound, pen pusher, like me, got over with his lady. “You going to let me finish? I let you talk, big brother. Can I get a turn?” I asked, toying with the hand-carved onyx Tiki hanging from the mahogany-wood beaded necklace I wore over my black-linen dashiki.
Several of the other brothers grumbled, “Let Brother Trotsky speak.”
“Alright, I’ll let him speak. Although this is one rapper that ain’t got shit to say,” Sam growled, glaring.
I stared up at Sam, summoning the best “fuck you” face I could muster. “Let’s be for real. You know there’s nothing there. You can’t point to one thing about the cap that says, ‘This is for Negro population control.’ There will be white students kicked off the campus. There will be white students who will never have a chance to tread these hallowed halls. It’s more than just us. There ain’t 3,300 Black folks on campus. If they got rid of every last brother and sister, they’d still have about 2,700 whiteys to off.”
Comments