Panic was about to set in as I
surveyed the soul food restaurant in search of my friend and mentor, the one
man who could make sense when there was none, my rock, that greatest of ghetto
philosophers, Cleophus Leroy Jones. He
wasn’t at his corner booth where he could always be found holding court. Just as my head was about to explode, I
spotted a pair of shoes, jutting out from beneath the table. It was Cleo, slumped over. I rushed to see if he had had a heart attack. What I found was even more disturbing. The
man who never drank anything stronger than coffee was laid out drunk. A few gallons of coffee later, he was finally
able to speak.
“What
happened?” I shrieked after my fallen hero had finally regained coherency.
“I just
got overwhelmed,” he mumbled, frowning as he gulped the highly caffeinated
beverage. “I can deal with 85 or even
90% chaos, but 100% is more than even I can deal with all the time.
“What
are you talking about?” I shrieked again, still trying to comprehend the
incomprehensible. Cleo getting drunk was
like Clarence
Thomas leading a Black Lives Matter rally.
“This
election, for one thing,” he answered. “Almost
half this country is voting for a racist bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic,
childish, petulant, simple minded, LYING,
intellectually
challenged, spoiled brat. This is a
man who had everything he sold manufactured overseas and these knuckleheads
think he’s going to bring them jobs. No
plans, mind you, just going to create jobs because he said he would, even
though almost every word out of his mouth is a lie. He’s
vulgar. A vote for Trump is a vote for
vulgarity and bad manners at the highest level. The next Republican candidate will probably be
Andrew
Dice Clay. With so many people are
backing him Trump, I’d say this country is getting what it deserves if I didn’t
have to live here.”
“But if
that many people believe in him don’t the sheer numbers make him
respectable?” I felt stupid as soon as I
asked the question.
“You
got to remember that half this country fought a civil war to keep us in
slavery. Numbers don’t make anything
right. Trump has grown in popularity the
same way Reagan did, back when Reagan was also considered a joke. Reagan kicked off his campaign with a speech
on State’s
Rights, in a town, Philadelphia Mississippi, famous only for killing Civil
Rights workers. Reagan was endorsed by the KKK. But everything on the
internet is about how he was some kind of saint because he rejected that
endorsement instead how he EARNED
it in the first place! Reagan was a union
buster, and out of work union members praise his name. College grads who can’t pay back their loans
because of what
he did to the student loan program love his dirty drawers. These people praise the people who revile
them and revile the people who try to help them. Do you know that almost one third of
Louisiana Republicans blame
the sorry government response to hurricane Katrina on Obama?
I knew
this was going to be good, so I kept my peace.
“I am
so sick and tired of hearing about angry white folks that I honestly do not
know what to do. These people vote
against every single candidate who offers any kind of safety net, because they
are so scared that some black folks might get something they think we don’t deserve, then they get angry “cause they don’t
have a safety net! They don’t let facts
get in the way. Donald Trump rode to
political prominence on the back of the Birther movement. They are just like the British folks who
voted for Brexit one day,
and then looked it up the next day!”
“We got
some truly dumb white folks,” I chimed in, thinking my comment would be safe.
“They
aint got no monopoly on dumb.” We just
bought a 27 million dollar plane for that pimp, Creflo
Dollar. You know how many community
centers that money could have built? Places
where our kids could go for tutoring, art and music classes, chess tournaments. We could have bought farms, hired folks to
work on them, trucks to transport our produce and small stores to sell it. ‘Where
there is no vision the people perish.’
And my last gripe for the
day is about all the people who come in here now, wantin’ to challenge me on
something. They ain't read a newspaper
or a magazine or watched any serious news programs and they have no idea what
public radio is, but they think they know more than me. I’m just sick and tired of stupid.”
“So
what are you going to do now?” I wondered.
“I’m
gone go home, get some rest and come out fighting for our people tomorrow like
I do every day.”
“But
you made everything sound so hopeless five seconds ago.”
“I may
not win the war, or even the battle. But
sometimes a man must fight, just to keep defining himself as a man.”
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Anyone interested in a truly inspirational film about black
love and respect as well as making it in corporate America while keeping it
real should check out “Strictly
Business,” a 1991 film starring Tommy Davidson, Halle Berry, Samuel Jackson and Joseph C
Phillips, directed by Kevin Hooks.
www.williamgriggs.net
