THE 'SLANDEROUS' BILLBOARD IN THE HOOD

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

THE 'SLANDEROUS' BILLBOARD IN THE HOOD

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Many people in the Black community are up-in-arms about the above billboard because they see it as insulting, and I can understand that.  But personally, I like it, because it speaks a truth that many of us need to hear. If I had my way we'd have billboards just like it all over the hood just to remind us of what we're doing to ourselves, and how we’re allowing ourselves to be perceived by the world. Yes, it's an ugly truth, but it's truth nevertheless, and truth is often ugly, that's why we tend to avoid it. For that reason I strongly suspect that the billboard wasn't paid for by anyone with malevolent intent. I think it was paid for by someone who genuinely cares about the community.
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But even if it was paid for by someone trying to slander the community, I recognized when I was an angry teenager that we do ourselves a severe disservice by allowing ourselves to get all angry and upset in response to the non-physical ignorance of bigots. First, it only serves to reinforce the bigot's pleasure, and secondly, it's a waste of time and energy that could be put to far better use by focusing on what we think of ourselves, and what we can to do to improve our condition.
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As a teenager coming up on the streets of Los Angeles, I decided to use the ignorance of bigotry to better myself. I knew bigots were gonna dig deep to try to point out the very worst things they could think of to say about me. So instead of getting angry, I simply listened, and if I thought there was even a grain of truth in what they said, I’d start working on it to erase that flaw or dysfunction from my resume.
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By that time it had also started to dawn on me that growth wasn’t about defending myself against what bigots thought - I didn't give a damn what they thought. Personal growth was about focusing on becoming better today than I was yesterday. So from then on, when bigots talked shit or tried to insult me, I'd use their stupidity as a guide to help teach myself the things I needed to know that would allow me to stand head and shoulders above who they were.
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Even back then, I knew that knowledge was power, and the best revenge against bigotry is to be able to clearly demonstrate to a bigot that you're his intellectual superior. It makes them die a thousand deaths. That's why bigots hate Obama so passionately, and Donald Trump can't keep Obama's name off his lips, because he's still trying to reconcile himself to the fact that Obama is his superior. It just kills Trump to know that he's intellectually inferior to a Black man. That's why I constantly tell our young people that knowledge is the best revenge.
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Now, whenever a bigot confronts me with his pompous sense of superiority and condescension, I smile inside, because I know I'm about to bring his entire world and sense of self to an abrupt and thundering end. But first, I simply listen. I allow him to enjoy the last moments of his clueless arrogance before I make him personally, and as an individual, pay for 400 years of White oppression. I don't have to shoot 'em, or scream at 'em, or shake my fists in the air, I just crush his self-esteem, and then move on. I routinely do this one bigot at a time and with every opportunity I get.  It's my personal version of payback, and I love it.
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The reason I know what buttons to push is because I've literally allowed bigots themselves to educate me.  People have a propensity for dealing in projection, so whenever a person tries to denigrate you, the very first things they do is start dragging out all the things they hate most about themselves and try to attribute them to you.  So if, instead of arguing you simply quietly listen to their rant, they'll not only give you a list of all of their flaws, but a litany of their most profound weaknesses. If you need proof of that just listen to Donald Trump. Every time he goes on Twitter or on television to publicly criticize someone, his criticisms invariably describe himself more accurately than they do the person he's trying to criticize. And the same is true of the GOP as a whole. If you ever want to know what the GOP is up to, you need look no further than what they're accusing the Democrats of doing. It's human nature.
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So as a direct result of allowing myself to be educated in that regard, I haven't run across one bigot in my entire adult life (regardless of his or her station) that I couldn't drag through the mud on one brain cell, and I have the bigots themselves to thank for that, because it was they who educated me to their shortcomings - and they also forced me to fall in love with knowledge, as a simple matter of survival. So I owe bigots a tremendous debt, because they made me who I am.
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So while I don't know who put up that billboard, when I look at it, I don't become insulted at all. My attitude is to say, you know, they've got a point there. Let's get on top of that. Because as Black people, we will never liberate ourselves by trying to out-scream the White man, and by getting angry and shaking our fists in the air we only turn it into a game. We've got to out-think the White man, and out-thinking him entails addressing our shortcomings more effectively than he addresses his.
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As Black people, we must educate ourselves and listen instead of shooting our mouths off and telegraphing our every thought to the White establishment.  We must always seize the bottom line, and ensure that we always have facts and logic on our side.  That places us in a position to utilize the ignorance of others to our advantage, and failing to do so will only serve to reveal our weaknesses and debilitate our strengths. We must also completely ignore all titles, robes, and various accoutrements of power and prestige. They're the most powerful weapons of White supremacy. They’re used as symbols to make small men look bigger than life. Always base your assessment of any individual solely on their ability to think. If they can’t out-think you, regardless of their stature in life, they're not your equal. And finally, we must also stop struttin’, swaggerin’, and always tryin’ to prove ourselves to the White man. We only feel the need to prove ourselves to a superior, so whenever we try to impress the White man, all we're doing is reinforcing his false sense of superiority. So we should keep our mouths shut, quietly pursue growth, and always maintain a strong sense of who we are, then let the White man find out the hard way.
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Smart White men already know the power of Black intellectual creativity. They found that out during slavery. During Reconstruction, Black men went right out of slavery into the two houses of Congress, and Frederick Douglass became one of the most sought-after intellectuals in America. That's why the White man leaves no stone unturned to keep us from realizing our intellectual potential. He keeps us distracted with frivolity, because he knows that the very same intellect that led to the creation of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles, can also create great physicists, mathematicians, and politicians, as we've already seen in Barack Obama, and we're about to see in the young Andrew Gillum.
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Prior to coming to these realizations, when I was a kid going in and out of various juvenile institutions starting at the age of 12, the White man took great joy in telling me how ignorant I was. To this day I can still remember the joy dancing in the eyes of bigoted White adults as they smirked and took what seemed to be a gitty and perverted pleasure in watching my humiliation as a child.
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But I ain't ignorant no more, White boy, and neither are any of my kids. Now I'm the one who smirks as I drag your ignorant ass through the mud in humiliation, and I've seen to it that my progeny will be able to continue that process. My son and daughter are the consummate professionals, my granddaughter will soon be a doctor, and she has 2 brothers and 3 cousins right behind her. So as far as I’m concerned, please, White man, keep telling me I ain't shit, because what you want me to believe is dirt, I see as soil, and the adversity that you introduced into my life has made me MORE rather than less - and your billboard is a constant reminder of that fact.

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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, beyond my blade.
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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.
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But that "tweak" you need is who I am -
it’s my essence, can’t you see?
How can you speak of loving my soul, but
not the hood rat that is me?
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While "hood rat" may seem trite to you,
it’s the essence of my being.
So forget about what all the 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,
or the knowledge that makes me, me.
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While the "elite" may have heard a mournful Trane,
or Miles muted in the night,
but 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 single thing in my life -
I’ve faced Hell and passed the test.
I have a PhD in adversity,
that'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 blowin' 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 travails in my life,
That’s what gives me my confidence.
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The Ivy League degrees of those of means
are only paper compared to mine;
while they have a "receipt" for knowledge obtained,
my knowledge is ETCHED within my mind.
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I can teach philosophy to Aristotle
with the adversity that I’ve endured,
so any snob who tries to match my wit,
will come up short, and that’s for sure.
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Snobs walk about quoting Socrates and such,
through their "education" they're prone;
but while they’re spewing the thoughts of various dead men,
I spend my time developing my own.
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Never give the thoughts of ANY man
priority over our own;
You must collect the facts, and think for yourself,
that’s where Harvard and Yale have gone wrong.
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Preacher, politician, potentate,
whatever their point of view,
God didn't bless them with any knowledge
that he didn't also bestow on you.
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And being seen as a hood rat has its advantages
against racists of limited wit;
I simply quietly wait for their condescension,
then show ‘em that they ain’t shit.
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While God made birds to fly and fish to swim,
he made man to think, that's the key.
So any man who claims to be superior
will have to PROVE his wit to me.
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Because knowledge is the key to set us free,
no 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.
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Yet, these are the things you want me to purge,
and spurn the life I’ve led,
but I’m sorry, my love,
as much as I love you, the soul of a
hood rat is my edge.

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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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