A MESSAGE FROM THE HOOD

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

A MESSAGE FROM THE HOOD

Some people take umbrage with my defining myself as a hood rat. They say that by doing so, I’m not only demeaning myself, but I’m also demeaning other Black people in the process. But people who think like that are violating one of the most important principles in life - that we should always seek to be independent thinkers. That entails being self-defining, never giving the thoughts of others priority over your own, and never allowing others to define your terms.

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Thus, people who see the phrase "hood rat" as demeaning have been brainwashed. They no longer think for themselves. They've allowed the attitude of others to take priority over their own, and they've also allowed society to define their terms. As a result, they've embraced the belief that people with their background are somehow less than others.

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I take pride in challenging that contention because the fact is, I grew up in the hood, so that's what makes me who I am, and since God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man think, in order for anybody to contend that because of my background I'm somehow less than they are, they're going to have to demonstrate that to me by showing me that they can out-think me. You see, it's not enough to merely SAY, "I'm Black and I'm proud." We must put enough work into our intellectual development to say it, and mean it. Therefore, I proudly embrace the phrase hood rat as symbolic of my challenge to society to come SHOW me that I'm inferior, since it's my contention that it's society that's guilty of flawed thinking, not me.

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A perfect example of the flaw in society's thinking can be found in the fact that attendant to the negativity that society assigns to the term "rat" is the false assumption that a rat is something nasty, and therefore, beneath man. But the fact is, man himself is the nastiest animal on Earth. While a rat may leave droppings in his environment, and one might consider that nasty, man is so prolific with his own droppings - in the ocean, in the air, in space, and within the Earth itself - that he threatens the very survival of everything on the planet. So what’s nastier, a rat, or man?

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That illustrates why it’s so important to clean man’s droppings from our minds, and become independent thinkers. Because much of what we think of as true, is actually the corruption of truth that we’ve been taught by other men in order to promote their own self-interest.

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So while others are scrambling among themselves in an attempt to service their corruption and greed, it presents the Black community with the perfect opportunity to spend that same time becoming independent thinkers, and reassessing the mores that we've inherited from this corrupt society. Thereafter, we should replace the meaningless pursuit of the "American Dream" (bling), with the pursuit of character, wisdom, and knowledge. Because since knowledge is power, one invariably leads to the other, and much, much more.

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I’ve been fortunate enough to obtain a small measure of the American dream, but it was certainly not as a result of any kind of pursuit. I only stumbled upon it while on a mission to educate myself, because along with education comes skills. But also during my educational process, I found that what I was actually looking for was not so much the American dream, but happiness, and self-fulfillment. Yes, I wanted to live a comfortable life, but along with a TRUE education, you tend to develop a new definition of what that entails. And one of the things that I learned was that the American dream is only the illusion of happiness, since the mere acquisition of "things" can bring you neither happiness, nor fulfillment. True happiness and fulfillment can only be found in becoming the best that you can be. Our failure to understand that is the primary problem that we have as a nation - we're in much hotter pursuit of riches than we are of character.

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I wasted literally all of my teenage years - those years between 12 and 19 years of age, when I should have been educating myself - running the street. I spent that time dropping out of school, going in and out of various institutions, and using any kind of drug that I could get my hands on.

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But fortunately, I was arrested as an adult (at 19 years-old), and an insightful cop and a benevolent judge joined forces to get me to agree to go into the military (the army, I thought) in return for not being sent to prison, and the promise of expunging my record if I came out with an honorable discharge. Naturally, I eagerly agreed. But it was only later, to my complete shock and horror, did I learn that they had also managed to get the Marine Corps to ignore all of its regulations against accepting an illiterate delinquent. But once I got in there I found out why - they needed a warm body to use as a close combat dummy in order to train the "REAL MARINES."

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But once the marines finished showing me what a gangster REALLY was, they had me take the GED, and to everybody's amazement, I did really well on it. Although I did a lot of guessing, I scored much higher than anyone expected, especially myself (I'm still convinced it was a fluke). So they sent me to the Army/Navy Academy to get an actual diploma and further my educational development (I'll be eternally grateful to them for that).

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But fluke or not, that's where I learned a couple of very valuable lessons - you are what you think, and that knowledge is power. Instead of being called dummy, I was making a fortune writing love letters for other marines, and later I started working for my  battalion commander (who later became the commanding general of Camp Pendleton), and every word that came out of his mouth flowed from this "hood rat's" pen. I did all of his writing, including the officers' fitness reports - I was his "Radar O'Reilly."  It was the worst kept secret in the unit, that I was writing the fitness reports on my superior officers and the commander was simply reading and signing off on them. That gave me a lot of clout, a tremendous amount of clout ("Come on, Wattree! Why be so formal? There's no one around, so spare me the Captain crap. Just call me Larry.").  I used to drink Scotch at the time (I drink gin now, when my woman ain't lookin'), and between trying to squeeze information out of me, and trying to get on my good side, those officers used to keep me in Scotch. They used to come by my personal quarters at night, and every time one would come by he'd have a 5th of Scotch with him. My quarters looked like a liquor store.

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Then one night the commander showed up in my quarters - which he had allowed me to setup in one of the back offices of the battalion library - with two documents.  One, alerting the unit that they had just been redeployed overseas, for a second time; the other, was an early discharge for me. He said, "You're outta here. Go educate yourself." I was delighted, and by that time, college was just a matter of staying awake in school, and filling in the dots.

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During my time in the Marine Corps I had fallen in love with knowledge, and I also began to realize that since what I loved most was free, it couldn’t be denied me. And as I became increasingly more independent of thought, a couple of other things also began to come into focus. First, contrary to our national values, the only mature and productive form of competition is to compete against the person that you were the day before. And secondly, I learned that the only true road to perfect happiness and fulfillment is to dedicate your life to becoming your own hero.

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That’s the knowledge that I would like to pass along to my brothers and sisters in the hood. Because our failure to understand those two very fundamental facts are not only the source of most of our misery, but to 99% of all of our problems in general. We rightly complain that we’re deprived of a level playing field, so why not dedicate ourselves to the acquisition of knowledge to equalize that situation? We should make knowledge the new "soul." The very same brilliance that went into making a Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, and Areatha Franklin, can be redirected toward Math, Science, and technology - and by the way, that's the message that people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West should be preaching, instead of helping to elect Republicans by attacking our first Black president.

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So yes, I’m a hood rat, and I never let myself forget it. But I’m a hood rat with the understanding that the White man's water is no wetter than our own, and his knowledge is no more knowledgeable. In addition, since every experience in life is a source of knowledge, the experience of overcoming the adversity that we’ve endured as hood rats makes us more, rather than less. It's that very knowledge that Obama is killing them with in Washington as we speak. They could probably handle him if he was dealing with them using the knowledge that he pick up at Harvard, because they went there too, but he's whipping their natural asses with a source of knowledge that they know absolutely nothing about - the knowledge he obtained trying to survive as a Black man in America. That's a knowledge that's unique to us.

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Thus, the bottom line is this - with very few exceptions, we cannot depend on others to help us, Black or White. We're engaged in a class war, and it's everybody for themselves, so we've got to combine the unique knowledge that we've gained in the hood, with the education and wisdom that we MUST obtain thereafter, to become the masters of our own fate.  In short, KNOWLEDGE, is the key to our survival. PERIOD.

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Think about that.

THE HOOD RAT

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Baby,
I’m sure you know that I love you.
You’re everything I need.
You fit the bill of all my desires,
a perfect match for all of my dreams.
From the moment I first laid eyes on you,
You were everything I craved -
that luscious vision
from across the tracks,
that delicate flower,
just beyond this hood rat's blade.

*
But what you ask is foreign to me.

You need something that I’m not.

You said, just tweak my nature a little bit,

and you’ll give everything you’ve got.

*

But that "tweak" you need is who I am -

it’s my essence, can’t you see?

So how can you speak of loving my soul,

yet, not the hood rat that makes me, me?

*

While "hood rat" may seem trite to you,

it’s the very essence of my being.

So forget about what other’s say,

here’s what it means to me:

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I’ve been brutally dragged through the pits of hell,

yet, managed to survive,

well educated, and fully functional,

when I came out the other side.

I scrounged the lessons taught at Harvard -

because knowledge, I found, was free.

But they’ll never obtain the lessons I’ve learned -

on how to deal with adversity.

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While the "elite" may have heard a mournful Trane,

or Miles muted on a Summer night,

not in the context of hunger and pain,

or hopelessness, hatred, and blight.

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So while I've lived the life of a hood rat,

I’ve reaped a knowledge that money can't buy; 

a knowledge passed on to my son and daughter,

which has greatly enhanced their lives.

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Thus, I wouldn't change a thing in my life -

I’ve faced hell and passed the test.

I have a PhD in adversity, and

it's made me much more,
rather than less.

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So unlike the people at Harvard and Yale,

who try to buy intellectual clout,

they only study the genius of Miles and Trane,

while I'm who they’re talkin' about.

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So when snobs try to slur me as "just a hood rat,"

I say, "thank you," and don’t take offense.

I take great pride in surviving the pits of Hell -

That’s what gives me my confidence.

*

The Ivy League degrees of those of means

are only paper compared to mine;

they merely have a "receipt" for knowledge,

while the  knowledge I've gained 
has been ETCHED within my mind.

*

I can TEACH philosophy to Aristotle and Plato

with the adversity that I’ve endured,

and any snob who seeks to match my wit,

will come up short, and

that’s for sure.

*

Snobs walk about quoting Socrates and such,

through their "education" they are prone;

but while they’re spewing the thoughts of various dead men,

I spend my time developing my own.

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Because we should never give the thoughts of ANY man,

living or dead, priority over our own;

collect the facts, and always, think for yourself,

that’s where
Harvard and Yale has gone wrong.
*
Preacher, politician, potentate or monk,
whatever their tale, or point of view,
God didn't give them anything,
that he failed to also give you. 

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And being seen as a hood rat has its advantages -

especially against racists of limited wit;

I simply quietly wait for their condescension,

then show ‘em that they ain’t shit.

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God made birds to fly, fish to swim,

and man to think,

and that's the key.

So any man who claims to be my superior
will have to PROVE his wit to me.
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Thus, knowledge is the key to set us free -

it doesn’t matter what the people say,

and there’s nothing more formidable than

a knowledgeable hood rat, and

that’s what you’re looking upon today.

*

Yet, these are the things you want me to purge -

you want me to spurn the life I’ve led,

but I’m sorry, my love,
as much as I adore you,

the soul of a hood rat is my edge.

*

Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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