I am the People, I am not the pigs!!

So, I went to this local spot with my homegirl Aasha. You know how we do, get there early before it turns into full club mode and they start charging a cover just to get in the door. Of course, you get there early you end up spending more money on drinks, so we start up a tab. I try to give the bartender my card, but homegirl says hold it. I thought it was love, you don’t get that type of treatment in the city dammit.

Fast forward 6 hours later and as i’m leaving the parking lot I realize I never paid the tab(of course). So now the question is do I get out the car, go all the way back to the club which of course entails at this point consenting to a full pat down and the cover I just avoided a couple hours ago.

So, I feel bad for the bartender who showed love and now and at the end of the night is gonna get screwed, but rationalized it by saying it would be too much to go back in at this point. All the way back to Aasha’s house we’re talking about how this bartender showed so much love and how most people are fucked up. So now I’m thinking this is how people get screwed up in this society—with everybody just looking out for themselves, if you show love you end up getting screwed. Soon, everybody knows the rules of the game and everybody is fucked up. Then they tell you “that’s just the way it is”.

So now I’m home, changed into my basketball shorts and stocking cap and everything. But, I can’t sleep with this on my conscience. What did Jay say? “You can’t turn a bad girl good, but once a good girl goes bad, she’s gone forever”. If I was just skipping out a bill and the club owner had to eat it, I wouldn’t a had a problem, but I knew they was take it out on homegirl who showed love. And I can’t steal from my People. I am a Revolutionary, I can’t lie, cheat or steal. The words of Fred Hampton were ringing in my ears “ You gon have to tell yourself, I am the People, I am not the pigs”. Once I told myself that I realized it would only take me a few minutes to get to the spot. So I got dressed, got in my whip and went back out even though I was already in my comfortable bed. I told myself I’d consent to the pat down that always leaves me feeling more than a little uncomfortable, but I drew the line at paying a cover to go pay a bill.

So after getting semi-molested and my lighter getting taken(dammit), I was able to maneuver my way around the cover, found homegirl and settled my tab. She was oblivious to how close she came to being out a Benjamin at the end of the night. I felt guilty anyway and gave her a nice tip and felt good knowing I had done my part to make sure a good girl didn’t get screwed that night.

Beautiful Struggle

Oh I got caught up in this conversation about whether we should focus on struggle or whether this actually created struggle and what happens after the Revolution with one of these subjective reality types(which I am to some extent). She wanted us to all get on a higher plane than this material reality.

Yo, struggle is beautiful. All the most beautiful people I know are/have been strugglers-constant strugglers. Too many of us have fallen victim to this idea that we must somehow escape struggle, find "peace" in this world. Reach a stage beyond struggle. In fact, these non-strugglers have become coopted by the very forces they use to rail against(What up Roots!). There is no "after the Revolution". The Revolution is not an event, it is a process. It is a "state of being and becoming". It is a way of life, it is a journey not a destination.

I never want to be comfortable, never want to feel i've "made it". I appreciate development and know "without struggle there is no progress". If we want progress, we must want struggle! Capitalism teaches us to want progress without struggle, to want results without having to work for it. It makes us lazy. It is easier to go along with everyone else and only see life as it is rather than how it could be or should be. It seeks to make us unconscious and just reactive rather than proactive and progressive.