Sound of Music or the Sound of Gunshots, Screams and Sirens?!
You guessed it, the latter of the two. So it was roughly around 2:58am this morning when I heard 5 gunshots. Don't worry, our ever diligent NYPD Blue or Black (since our uniforms are black now) cleaned up the mess by 3:15am.
Yeah, I figured they were firecrackers. They sure sound like it. But living in the hood, you know they ain't no (that's 'hood talk to you---never mind my valley girl accent lightly accented with british arrogance due to 4 years in London) firecrackers if it's not 4th of July or New Years!! Did I mention the screams adding a nice staccato to the police and ambulance sirens, was also a tip off. Screams that wrench the false peace of night.
Someone or some people got hurt. Have I become desensitized that I even joined the melee of stupidity and perversity. Much like the other assinine people although still maintaining a level of reason I looked to see what was going on. Out a very wide open window, hence "maintaining a level of reason" is used!! Most people would keep their windows closed, close their lights, and pretty much hide. Instead, on this cool summer night, I opened my window upon hearing the last of the shots.
I sit on my bed and watch as mothers, daughers to young to be out (are up and about) running towards the mess. Yes, people actually left the safe haven of their bed, their home to see who got shot. "Come one, come all, another nigga got shot on the street!!" Cause you know that's what they are (that's what it's about)...they may say young afro-american, young hispanic---they're just saying "nigga" possibly "spick", possibly "wetback" shot in the streets of Harlem. Shit, the community says it about themselves. 'Cause when you live in the ghetto, you could only be ghetto trash. That's how much we've devolved. Much like all good slaves of social relations we pop are heads up out of our holes in anticipation to join the mess. While the "great white hopes" wearing black---thank you Guiliani; come to settle the peace, cause the "niggas be acting up".
Am I racialized much?! This is could be put down to every -ism that influences culture. But when the men in black who are white come to pound our black or brown asses with the baton of law---it's bound to be racial. This is Harlem, we are predominant of a certain culture, but we're lawed by another. Some would say, well it's "You people who sought it out." We're trained to see, we get to point fingers and feed the media how stupid we really are as they find ways to polarize us more.
Should I continue about the incident. I can't see it from my vantage point, but it's across the street a little in front of the bodega on the corner. I can tell, since all the cop cars seem to be parked in that area of the street. So it just missed my line of vision. Times like that, if you reailze you're as perverse as me, you curse the Farmarcia for being there and bless it to maintain a sense of isolation and separation from the gutter you realize you live in.
I love Harlem, love what it represents or what it represented; it's past is rich and vibrant albeit littered with the foreboding sense of decay and degradation. The more it improves or supposedly "changes" the more fantastical these things appear no matter their occurence. 10 cop cars, about 30 cops later and 2 ambulances, people are still out there. I wonder when I go out tomorrow if I'll see the telling yellow tape and fading stain on the street. Would I find one of the bullet casings missed by the faulty police unit that makes up my city, which is so commonplace. I'll probably turn on the news and watch my neighborhood, a few pics of my local bodega and a few neighbors on tv? Shit, will I see myself on tv as I walk by with a level of shame seeing to engulf me.
What is the shame about? Do I hate my people? This is not black, white, or hispanic or whatever polarizing description you want to use. Do I just fuckin' hate humanity? Is this what I find so evil that I turn my back on them, the ever-present shroud of disappointment and at the same time awe. Kind of blares an awning in bright colors---"PEOPLE FUCKIN' SUCK!!"
Maybe I sort of hate myself, hate myself for being one of them. For sharing the same faults, for contributing to the same mess, for existing with little reaction. I wonder what Marx would say about this? Maybe religion is not the opium of the masses, maybe it's government tyranny, media tyranny, the super-cultural tyranny imposed on society throw all apparatus's as mentioned by Althusser. Maybe there is no superculture, or economic base---this is just people. ~sigh~ Now I'm back to my Hobbesian mentality, added with Rousseau and Locke----I hate people. ^_^ I need more Thoreau, more Trotsky, shit more Malcolm X.
Sure I may be generalizing, but you know the darkness is within. For all my talk of seeking truth, I am a product of the social decomposition that is our culture and world. I sought after the cause, I fed like a parasite off of what I saw. Most people do, no matter their claims of "How sad?" They want to see it, I wanted to see it.
I should look in the mirror really and see that I am one of the sucking people.
You know what came to mind. I was in a car accident once, and a wheel off my cousin's car (he was driving, came off and hit a passerby across the way. It was actually quite a site to see as it bounced along Queens Blvd. and hit the poor lady with her carriage by a gas station. We parked, cops were called, by me and a few others. And within 20-30 minutes, it was cleaned up like nothing happened. It was just amazing. Or like I saw a program about a year ago when a man killed himself. They cleaned up the brain mattter and within a day the house was cleaned and ready for renting.
Maybe it's the state I live in, the city, the area. Keep in mind I'm in Manhatttan, Harlem, Queens is across the bridge, and that guy who killed himself lived in a very nice uppercrust high rise appartment in downtown Manhattan. With a snap of the fingers we can make things disappear. So this entire incident as I look out my window cleaned up like nothing happened. I probably won't be on the news tomorrow, or my neighbors, or my bodega. Phooey for me!! No publicity.
Probably the yellow tape will be teared down and used as division marker for a block party as it's been known to happen. And someone will throw a nice bucket of soapy water on the corner, probably the shi-shi new Mexican restaurant two stores from the bodega. Then I'll just forget about it, like everything above was cleaned up and forgotten, like it never happened. And go on about my business. Futher enjoying my perversity, semi-subconciously of course. Until the next fire-cracker incident occurs.
It's a nice day in the neighborhood, It's a nice day in the 'hood. Would you be mine?! Whatever!
Fuck it all to hell! I'm gonna go and read Black Reconstruction and lull myself to sleep, by the decimation and/or marginalization and torture, of the afro people through the ages. Thanks, I will enjoy it.