On Trump

Trump is about to revisit a form of racism on black folks with 19th century realness and our white brothers and sisters have decided that's perfectly okay. I'm over the delusion that Hillary can save us. Black and brown people are the sacrifical lambs of this election. We've been sold down the river again.

I don't know if I can adequately explain how fearful it is in any era  to be  black or brown. The fear of America is something we live with daily but in my lifetime I've never seen such a collective nervous breakdown of the white mind to compare to this. We have always had to fear white people and even with the election of President Obama we've seen him accomodate the baser natures of haters over the love and hope of black folks whom he took for granted with shocking ease. The price of this democratic experiment has always been at the expense of every black or brown soul in this country.

For a brief eight years the myth of the post racial era has been the delusion of white liberals to the rage of white conservatives. When George W. Bush won the second time I was in shock but that doesn't compare to the cold insidious nature of this election. This election was always Hillay's to lose and with four days to go it appears she's done it. I was never under illusion that she would be some gift to black folks because even Obama denied us the justice and compassion that was so needed to address the sins of the white fathers and brothers and sisters, but the horror I feel at the likely reign of President Trump is all encompassing.

The dirty secret of race in America is that black folk and brown folk  and white folk have never trusted one another and the proof exists in the superficial fabric deep through to the very soul of this country.

I dont think anyone in my generation has ever seen this kind of rank and overt distuption to the point that a majority of Americans have decided not to even pretend to  respect the polite eyes-averted semblance of mutual peace, that pretense of equality that we rely on to interact with one another.

If you don't speak out against atrocity then you implicitly support it; if you voted for Trump you explicitly support it. The only power that we have is the power of our voices and the screaming is set to begin. Holla if you hear me and don't stop. What do you have to lose he asked and the answer was always self evident; the least of the of those losses is that transparent film of (dis)trust because we know where we stand now if we never did: black folks were a subjugated people before and that's where some feel we belong.

The soul rides upon the wind like a whisper travels upon an echo's cloak. Unseen, its shadow reflects in a mirror like smoke, like fog, like invisible breath as immeaurable  as the sky. The shadow that greets the dawn is raised upon the wings of the soul expressed by the language of love. The dawn is here, its luminescence and joy as  infinte as the holy ghost thst is the heart.

Navigating Homelessness: The Need To Know List

Having experienced homelessness against all the odds of a wealthy upbringing there were many, many things that I needed to know in order to navigate the experience. Hopefully I can help others with what I've learned. Here's a list of vital things to know. Please share.

- Make sure that you are in possession of all identification documents. You'll need your birth certificate, state ID/driver's license, social security, and health insurance info. Make a packet of all documents and keep with you at all times.

- Before leaving home call your state's non emergency services line (usually something like 211, 311 or similar) find out all the service providers including shelters and food banks

- There's a lot of drama involved in finding shelters. Call your local shelter and find out what organization runs them, the length of stay allowed, accomodations and rules. Be very careful, despite being a literal beggar you may have to be exceedingly choosy. There are many shelters run by strict religious groups that essentially amount to cults and agreeing to their rules can lead to some frightening compromises and often there is no recourse if you are mistreated. If you have the option Salvation Army is an excellent resource, humane, clean, compassionate with very good services and accomodations.

- The sad fact that no one can tell you is that to be homeless you often may have to relocate to another city with better resources.

- Ask for help from friends and strangers. There is no doubt that when you fall into indigence many people will not answer calls for help and it is a profoundly humbling experience to ask for help. However you will also find that kindness comes from surprising quarters. There are times, quite frequently when you will feel abandoned but continue to work the system and take goodness with you in your heart. There are blessed breakthroughs to the light more often than you can imagine.

- Find out where you can stay to avoid being on the street if you can't find shelter. Libraries and hospitals are often the best options.

- Designate particular friends and family to keep in touch with for your safety. It's easy to disappear but never succumb to the temptation. You may not want certain people in your life to know where you are or what's happening to you but make sure someone close always knows where you are and what's going on.

- Work the resources. You may not be able to afford simple necessities like a phone but there is a federal free phone program affectionately called the Obama phone. They're easy to qualify for when you're indigent and literally a lifesaver. Assuming that there will not be a Trump presidency ( something I'm fearing) medicaid is readily available. You will need health insurance because many services that you'll need to access come through medical and behavioral centers.

- Particularly in the case of homeless women more than fifty percent suffer from physical and/or mental illness. The treatment services exist. Become your own best advocate by seeking help from community behavioral resources. Be diligent in following up on your health and wellness. It's the first major step to bringing yourself from poverty    

This...

Of course it does...

Marie Antoinette's Shoes

Oh la la!

Poor White Power

My mom came down the hall as I was coming out of my room. "Prince is dead," she told me. And I was standing there just gaping and trying to compute the meaning of the statement when Diane turned and said, "Gee! You all lost Michael Jackson and now you lost Prince. Must be some bad drugs going around."

You all. Meaning, black people.

Nevermind that Prince didn't do drugs.At first I had to parse the statements out to know how to feel. Do I get pissed for her slight of Prince or for the ignorance or for the flat out bigotry? For a minute or so I debated getting angry but decided against it. Diane is just racist. Everybody knows Diane is racist. Diane knows she's racist. It's nothing to get upset about anymore. She's just a damn racist. I have to see her everyday and I always speak, I'm always polite. She is what she is. I even forgive what she said to my mom the first day we were here because honestly life is short, but it's still a curious disease that she has, and I watch her trying to understand what life is like for her. How can you walk around so ignorant and be a happy person?

 Then again she's here in a homeless shelter with me and not many of us have anything to be happy about so maybe she isn't.

We were sitting outside beneath the smoking shanty talking and Diane began to relate a story about a friend in trouble. "Well they can mess with her if they want but I'll be at the door with the Klan if it don't stop."

They. Black people. The Klan.

And she was so matter of fact about it that there wasn't much to say so we just left the smoking shanty. There wasn't much else to do about it.

Thinking of Diane always puts me in a bad mood though, and watching Donald Trump clown around for the presidency always puts me in mind of Diane. The two are interchangeable in my thoughts forever now. I hate to say it but the entire Trump circus has me side-eyeing all the white people I meet. Because besides Ben Carson (who has been expelled from blackness, in case you didn't know) ain't nobody but white people voting for his crazy ass. How could white folks let him run around embarrassing the shit out of them? But that's just the thing, everybody ain't embarrassed. In fact some white folks are flat out elated.

 But you have to wonder how it was even possible for Donald Trump to come this far if race weren't still so incendiary even in the so called post-racial era. And being poor and white has everything to do with his success. Nevermind that Donald Trump doesn't care about poor people whatever their color, he's able to tap into a rage and ugliness that translates into votes because he is "telling it like it is". And don't doubt that he isn't because he does indeed. He taps into not just fear and prejudice but arrogance. That old time supremacy that built the Black Codes and Jim Crow, that told poor whites that they would maybe always be poor but they would always be better than a nigger. Years may pass, presidents come and go but whiteness will always be defined by the power to rise above niggers. It's what white power is all about.

What intrigues me about Diane and people like her is that they overlook the the fact that poverty is blind. I've been rich in my life, very rich in fact, but this is my first time ever being poor and I had no true concept beyond the academic how poverty as a system locks people out of the rest of the known world. Watch television commercials; the pretty sleek car commercials always fuck me up. How the hell can I ever get a car if I can't even show enough collateral or credit score to get a car loan? How can I buy the newest drug put out by the pharmaceutical industry without insurance? How can you participate in a capitalist country without capital?

You can't. You don't. You sit in your personal shantytown and remain disconnected from the rest of society. And that disconnection is so total and overwhelming that you'll never know how the other half lives because the two halves simply don't speak to one another. What is there to say but I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're so poor and so ignorant and so dislocated but I have a home and a mortgage and a car payment and expensive insurance premiums and a job, and you don't and I'm sorry but I have to live my life. That's basically a one way conversation because it's very hard to communicate what poverty is like and how it functions. And anyway who's actually listening? I know this because it's the way I addressed poverty when I had everything and others had nothing.

The truth is that Donald Trump doesn't have to become president to win. He's already won. He wins with every rally, every time his constituents beat down a protester, with every bit of rhetoric because he's brought to light somethings that it had briefly become impolite to say and think. He's given poor whiteness a new language and a new rage and a new way to communicate. A new life for the twenty first century. All he has to do is command a television camera and he's won. For a certain sector of the United States he will be the King of Hearts for evermore. He's become the champion of poor whiteness all the while concealing the most salient fact; he's taken advantage of people who have no voice and who have no money and while they will always lose as poor people must, he sacrifices nothing and adds nothing to an already impoverished mindset. He wins over and over and over again.

The thing that Diane will never understand no matter what is that here in the shelter we're all poor; there's nothing to be gained beyond self satisfied spite by dividing our power. If all the poor people of the country could band together think then what power could be wielded for change. Think of how the fabric of capitalism would rend itself to destruction. There's so little to be gained from division of strength. But the power of white supremacy never speaks to this idea by its very nature.

It's interesting to note that during President Obama's term the word racism itself has become such a reactionary word. White people hate hearing about it and that's nothing new but the fact that to label a white person as racist brings such howls of pain and anger that it's almost a dirty word. The yelps of protest you hear! But why is it so incendiary when the thing is so obvious? There's no need for the truth shy attitudes that surround such rhetoric.

At least if you're going to be racist then be like Diane and just own it. Trump plays coy all the while he plays ugly, feinting and tipping about like the emperor in his new clothes, bare but proud. When confronted with the truth he argues, lies, shrieks, clumsy and disjointed.

In a way, he's brought back a kind of racism that never went undercover exactly but that definitely became uncouth for many years. Now we're talking about it and plenty of people are touting the king. It's not new of course, it's familiar but re-cast with a special glow, reforged if not reformed. The bottom line is that white people have a problem and it's this: only they can stop Donald Trump and the Dianes of the world. The question is whether there's the will to do so.

God make it stop.