Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
ABOUT STANLEY “TOOKIE” WILLIAMS - JUST FOR THE RECORD
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Tookie was an ambitious brother, but his reputation prevented him from pursuing the ambitions he held so passionately. The first time he came to the house I asked my wife was she crazy, inviting a vicious murderer to our house? I felt that she was placing our family in danger. But Val never saw him that way. Right up until her death, she saw him as the nice young man that became her friend at Washington High School, and as time went on and I began to recognize his intelligence, I began to see him in the same way - in fact, I started looking forward to seeing him so we could kick-back and talk.
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After I became more comfortable with having him around, at first I saw him more like a project, because my major was psychology in school, but as I got to know him better, I began seeing him much like Val. So when he would come over to visit, we would sit in my den and just talk about life. When he would come by he would completely drop his bad-guy persona and just get real. I think he craved the opportunity to do that with someone, and since Val was 2 years older than he was, he saw her much like his older sister, and eventually, once he got to know me, he saw me as an extension of Val. I also think that Val brought him comfort, because she reminded of the days before his life became so complicated. He once told me that he would do anything to have the life I led - a wife, family, future, and not having to worry about getting his brains blown out at any moment. He said, "That's why I like coming around here, man, because it gives me a chance to experience normalcy." And then he laughed and said - “and chow-down on Val’s enchiladas” (Val would make them for him every time he came by).
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So Tookie wasn’t struttin’ around tryin’ to be Mr. Big Stuff. He hated his life. I suggested that he leave the state, but he told me, “That wouldn’t do no good. I have a target on my back all over the country, by people who don’t even know me. Man, I don’t know how this happened.”
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The last time I saw him and Val together was at a party we gave. He came up missing so I went around the house looking for him. When I peeped in my son and daughter's bedroom, I saw him sitting in the glow of a red nightlight watching them sleep. He had tears in his eyes. I didn't want to embarrass him, so I sent Val in, and the last time I saw them together she was hugging him, and he was weeping like a child. When I covered his state-sponsored murder for the Los Angeles Sentinel, as I looked down into his coffin and upon his lifeless body, I thought about that moment, and it’s stayed with me ever since. They both died in 2005.
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Tookie’s major crime wasn’t murder, per se - mere murder is routinely a part of the American ethic. Tookie’s major crime was allegedly committing murder in promotion of his own agenda, rather than the agenda of Haliburton and Exxon/Mobile. We hand out medals for committing murder in their interest..
People like Bush, Cheney, and Donald Trump have turned the American military into nothing less than the Crips with a dental plan. The United States is the biggest exporter of murder, and the means to murder, in the world. Our entire economy is built upon it. Tookie merely took the American ethic - in which he’d been indoctrinated all of his life - and applied it to his own environment. As far as he was concerned, he was America, and everybody else that didn’t see things his way, was the USSR.
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No, I’m not trying to be an apologists for the murder and mayhem Tookie left in his wake, but I do want to put it in perspective. Yes, Tookie killed people, but only people who were trying to kill him. On the other hand, George W. Bush is responsible for the deaths of over a million innocent people in Iraq, and they built him a library.
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Thus, the existence of the Tookies in the Black community is our fault, because we’re so busy watching BET, MTV, ESPN, partying and having a good time, that we're failing to educate our own young people in OUR own values. We're allowing them to take on the very values that were responsible for our enslavement - and I'm not speaking as a detached academic from an office atop Mt. Olympus, I'm speaking as a hood rat . . . just like my late friend, Tookie.
*******************
ODE TO TOOKIE
*
Tookie?
Yeah,
I knew Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
And I knew his pain.
*
I knew the pain of a child
That the cold, smirking
Eyes of society
Peered down upon;
Of being caught like
A doe in the headlights
Of unbridled hatred
For nothing more than
Just . . . being;
Of being
Under-acknowledged,
Under-appreciated,
And under-educated,
By a society
Intent on robbing me
Of the innocence
That is every child’s birthright.
And I know the churning, agonizing,
And unfocused anger
Of a youth
Who knows anger
Much too soon.
*
So,
Tookie?
Yeah,
I knew Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
But I ain’t going out like that.
*
Because some the greatest minds
I’ve ever known
Held court while sitting
on empty milk crates
In the parking lot
Of ghetto liquor stores;
And at their feet I embraced
The love of knowledge,
And through their tutelage
Defined self-worth
In my own terms.
*
These were the "Eulipians"—
Writers, poets, musicians, painters,
And uncommon drunks—
Those shade-tree philosophers who
Contemplated the fungus
Between the toes of society;
Who danced with reckless abandon,
Unfettered by formal inhibition
Through the presumptuous
Speculation of the ages.
*
Yes, the Eulipians,
Who lived in county jails,
Cardboard boxes, alley ways,
And luxury apartments.
Seemingly insignificant
Here in Great Bruteland,
But of ultimate significance
In the eyes of God.
*
While these obscure intellectuals
Stood well outside the mainstream
Of academy,
I watched with astonished delight
As they sang, scat, blew, and scribed
Their various philosophies into the
Mainstream of human knowledge.
*
Tookie?
Oh Yeah,
I knew Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
*
But I met the Eulipians,
Who, from their ragged podiums,
Put forth the proposition
That knowledge was free, thus,
Would transcend attempts to be
Contain through barriers of
Caste and privilege - and even,
Institutionalized murder -
Leaving man's innate thirst
For knowledge free to overwhelm
His lust for stupidity.
*
So,
Tookie,
Yeah,
Yes in deed, I did know Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
But I choose a different tact.
While I refuse to lunge
Against your saber
In a glorious and defiant act,
Look into my eyes, my man -
I still got my brother’s back.
*
You thought you had him,
While facing death,
But he went down like
Like Trojan -
Leaving your silly asses,
With your silly smiles,
Standing there
Shocked and frozen.
*
"What’s up, baby,
Can’t find a vein?
You been beggin’ to do this,
So let’s us do this thang.
But if y’all
Waitin’ around
To see some pain,
I ain’t the only one gon’
Die here,
You jive ass, lame.
*
"Faint of heart?
Give it here,
I’ll stick the damn thang for ya;
I’m a man of the hood
And strong of heart,
So I'm goin' down
Like a warrior.
*
"Naw, my man,
You don’t see no fear;
You really look surprised!
I’m gon’ honor my people
As I leave here,
So just stick me,
So I can close my eyes and die.
*
"You schemed and cheated
To take me out,
So let us get this on;
You can still my body
And take my breath,
But my heart
Will still live on."
*
So,
Tookie?
You mean
THAT Tookie.
Yeah, I knew Tookie,
We’ve planted his heart
Within the hood;
Tookie?
Yeah,
I knew Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
And I knew his pain.
*
I knew the pain of a child
That the cold, smirking
Eyes of society
Peered down upon;
Of being caught like
A doe in the headlights
Of unbridled hatred
For nothing more than
Just . . . being;
Of being
Under-acknowledged,
Under-appreciated,
And under-educated,
By a society
Intent on robbing me
Of the innocence
That is every child’s birthright.
And I know the churning, agonizing,
And unfocused anger
Of a youth
Who knows anger
Much too soon.
*
So,
Tookie?
Yeah,
I knew Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
But I ain’t going out like that.
*
Because some the greatest minds
I’ve ever known
Held court while sitting
on empty milk crates
In the parking lot
Of ghetto liquor stores;
And at their feet I embraced
The love of knowledge,
And through their tutelage
Defined self-worth
In my own terms.
*
These were the "Eulipians"—
Writers, poets, musicians, painters,
And uncommon drunks—
Those shade-tree philosophers who
Contemplated the fungus
Between the toes of society;
Who danced with reckless abandon,
Unfettered by formal inhibition
Through the presumptuous
Speculation of the ages.
*
Yes, the Eulipians,
Who lived in county jails,
Cardboard boxes, alley ways,
And luxury apartments.
Seemingly insignificant
Here in Great Bruteland,
But of ultimate significance
In the eyes of God.
*
While these obscure intellectuals
Stood well outside the mainstream
Of academy,
I watched with astonished delight
As they sang, scat, blew, and scribed
Their various philosophies into the
Mainstream of human knowledge.
*
Tookie?
Oh Yeah,
I knew Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
*
But I met the Eulipians,
Who, from their ragged podiums,
Put forth the proposition
That knowledge was free, thus,
Would transcend attempts to be
Contain through barriers of
Caste and privilege - and even,
Institutionalized murder -
Leaving man's innate thirst
For knowledge free to overwhelm
His lust for stupidity.
*
So,
Tookie,
Yeah,
Yes in deed, I did know Tookie;
I WAS Tookie,
But I choose a different tact.
While I refuse to lunge
Against your saber
In a glorious and defiant act,
Look into my eyes, my man -
I still got my brother’s back.
*
You thought you had him,
While facing death,
But he went down like
Like Trojan -
Leaving your silly asses,
With your silly smiles,
Standing there
Shocked and frozen.
*
"What’s up, baby,
Can’t find a vein?
You been beggin’ to do this,
So let’s us do this thang.
But if y’all
Waitin’ around
To see some pain,
I ain’t the only one gon’
Die here,
You jive ass, lame.
*
"Faint of heart?
Give it here,
I’ll stick the damn thang for ya;
I’m a man of the hood
And strong of heart,
So I'm goin' down
Like a warrior.
*
"Naw, my man,
You don’t see no fear;
You really look surprised!
I’m gon’ honor my people
As I leave here,
So just stick me,
So I can close my eyes and die.
*
"You schemed and cheated
To take me out,
So let us get this on;
You can still my body
And take my breath,
But my heart
Will still live on."
*
So,
Tookie?
You mean
THAT Tookie.
Yeah, I knew Tookie,
We’ve planted his heart
Within the hood;
So what you saw as dirt,
We see as soil,
To sow this tragedy,
Into something good.
*
Tookie,
Oh yeah,
I KNEW Tookie,
But I ain’t goin’
Out like that.
We see as soil,
To sow this tragedy,
Into something good.
*
Tookie,
Oh yeah,
I KNEW Tookie,
But I ain’t goin’
Out like that.
*
Stanley 'Tookie' Williams - An All American Boy
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/11/tookie-williams-all-american-boy.html
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/11/tookie-williams-all-american-boy.html
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.