Tales From The Hood

Posted on 18 April, 2013 by Panama Jackson

Don’t let the nice facade fool you. It’s ninjas behind those houses.

Growing up in the hood, yeah boy 1984, was the year my peers didn’t know what was in store. Probably because we were all 5 and didn’t care, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact is, when young, you don’t realize how good or bad your surroundings are. They just exist as your playground.

And oh how we played.

*tear*

I’ve had the benefit of living in many different types of areas in my life. I’ve lived in the suburbs, overseas in a major world city, the inner city, some projects and in rural ass areas where I’ve never felt more uncomfortable once I found out that I was actually black. It’s amazing what a little bit of knowledge can do to your psyche. I’ve also done some time in the country; as in the town gets a street light and its news country. Well right now, I live in Washington, DC. This is news to no one. Almost a year ago now, I purchased my first home.

Glory day.

Seeing as the average home price in DC proper sells for around $400K (you read that right) and I didn’t have that in my wallet in my good clothes, I purchased a home for somewhat less (not a whole lot) and bought in a neighborhood full of people who resembled myself. Now, if you’ve been reading this site for a good length of time you know that Atlanta, GA, and more specifically the West side of the city on MLK is my former stomping grounds. I’m not stranger to living in the ‘hood. In fact, upon telling my family members I was buying a home, they all immediately assumed I’d be buying in the hood. I’m not sure if this says something about me or them. Let’s just say they’re racist. Yes. Do that.

Anyway, so I copped a house in Southeast DC (SE). From the outside looking in, SE is known as a hood destination for hoodboogers, hoodrats, and career criminals. And while there are plenty of all three there, it’s also a place full of working class people doing working class things with their friends. I do however, live in the poorest ward in the city. I do not, however, feel unsafe at all. I’m well versed in how to survive in South Central. <—- a place where busting a cap is fundamental.

All that was a long ass introduction to what I wanted to share with you all today. Since moving in almost a year ago, I’ve been privy to some very entertaining things. And since the closer I get to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, the more you make me feeeeeeeeeeel like we should all be best friends, I decided to share with you all some of my tales from the hood. Basically, in case I wasn’t sure I lived in the ‘hood, here are some proof positive indicators. We could call this guess the race, but, well, come on. We know this one ends. You gon’ learn today.

(And no, I will not say exactly where I live. I recently had a situation arise with somebody trying to pinpoint my location. He (yes, he) was apparently attempting to stalk me to my home. I stay strapped. No Trojan. But yes Trojan.)

PSA: Panama Jackson does not condone gun violence. Blocka blocka.

Hmm…let’s call this things I’ve learned about living in the hood that I didn’t remember from the last time I did it…

1. You can’t fully prepare for some things that you will see. At all.

Yesterday morning while coming home to get ready for work after dropping my daughter off at school I pulled into my driveway. I opened the door and stepped out. I basked in the sun. It was delightful. It kissed me. The sun. No…solaro? I picked a dandelion as it was sitting there waiting to be picked. Then I looked up and saw one of my neighbors push a motherf*cking shopping cart OUT of his house. The end.

This does beg the question though. You know how ninjas be out in the streets selling stuff out of carts? Well, when you go home you can’t really just leave it outside can you? Some other crackhead might steal it. Then you got to go steal ANOTHER one. It’s a vicious cycle. In the house it is. Bong bong.

2. It’s always time for a block party.

Since I’ve lived in my house, nearly EVERY warm weekend has consisted of a block party. I’m talking moonbounces and balloons. And quite a few of my neighbors own club quality PA (speaker) systems. How do I know this? Well they compete. Yes. Compete. They will all place their speakers outside and blast their own music. You all familiar with go-go? Well its 90 percent treble since its all club recordings for the most part. That shit pings through your home with piercing velocity. Add to the fact that folks are always outside and there’s always a party going down.

3. Crime is never too far away, but it isn’t always scary.

Only one violent crime has happened on my street since I moved there. I’m chalking that up to coincidence since a fight that happened up the street somehow ended up on mine and a teenager ended up stabbed. He’s alive. But one time at bandcamp, I was sitting in my house with my boy and we’re watching Say Yes To the Dress or some other manly show. A Ford Expedition speeds by. Except its leaning. Why is it leaning? It only has 3 tires. Yes. Not 3 and a flat. Nope. Only 3 tires. But its doing like 45 down my street. I’m a bit hood so I shrug it off as, “eh, I’ve seen worse” (it’s true, I’ve seen a dude drive down MLK in the A on two tires). Well, 10 minutes I go to leave my house and walk out my back door and in my back alley are 5 police cars and the dude in the Expedition is laid out on the ground in handcuffs. Apparently he was doing 45 because he was running from police. Which never goes well. Trust me.

4. Intra-race Color issues persist

In case you ain’t know, I’m lightskinnded. So is my child. Every time we go outside to play “play” or something, some of the little kids always come up to tell me how lightskinnded my child is. Or talk about how pretty she is and about her eyes (I make pretty babies…call me now!). I don’t mind them calling my daughter pretty, but the constant mentions of her being light throw me off. Once while getting ice cream from the ice cream truck that comes year round…literally, one of the teens who lives by me told me how pretty she was and that the light skint babies are so pretty. She also told me I needed a gun. I told her I was holding. She shot back, “respect”. Dead ass. Nows as good a time as any to mention that I live in a neighborhood that is mixed income and has some section 8 homes and some market rate homes. I hate to point out the obvious for fear of pointing it out for a specific reason, but let’s just say, you tend to notice that most of the folks in the hood are sunkissed like a motherf*cker.

Sadatay.

That’s enough. I’ve said too much. But we’ve only just begun. So tell me what lessons you’ve learned about where you live? Help us all learn about where you live. Could you tell me how to get…how to get to Sesame Street?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. TERRACE HOMES COURT aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

Does The N-word Trump All Other Slurs?

Posted on 17 April, 2013 by Panama Jackson

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A few weeks back, one of the homeys sent me a video of an incident on a Metro train in DC. See, some wayward white man on the Green Line (notoriously known as the “Soul Train” in the area due to its propensity to run only through Prince George’s County, MD and DC), got into a kerfluffle with some riders. According to the comments, he had been rude and pushing his way onto the train; this is not an uncommon practice for anybody during rush hour in DC.

Well, apparently he pushed the wrong person and a shouting match ensued. At the point we get video we hear him refer to a woman (while being surrounded by Black people, mind you) as a “n*gger”. Multiple times. As opposed to the ass whipping you think he’d receive, folks were more like, “dog, why does it have to be all that…” I’m still baffled at the fact that he did not catch a beat down. He managed to be on the train with the most civil rights minded individuals in the DC-area, I assure you.

Anyway, when somebody asks him why he referred to her as the dreaded n-word, he shoots back with “she called me a f*ggot”. Now, on tape, we did not hear this. This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But we never heard it. Given the relative civility of everybody but this man I’m not completely inclined to believe him, but that’s neither her nor there. He did at some point towards the end of the video assault the person videotaping and according to the comments the police were waiting at the last station on the line for him.

That backstory is almost besides the point but I wanted to explain to you how I got to this question. Let’s imagine that somebody did call him the f-word. I’m no expert on slurs, but I’m pretty sure that’s one of the worst things you can call a gay person. It’s meant to be emasculating to the nth degree seeing as how many straight men refer to other men like that when dude is acting less than manly. Or they’re just being ignant. Either or.

But let’s say she called him a f*ggot. She likely didn’t know his sexual orientation but whatevs. That’s totes not important. She slurred him first. But what if he is gay. And hearing that offended him, so he offended her back with the n-word. Is he wrong? All those people got in their feelings (granted they’re all Black so we have some selection and location bias at work here) but what if he is gay and she shot off some gay slur so he shot back with a Black slur. Is all of a sudden he racist and therefore worse than any homophobic slur? Granted, the oppression olympics will be played forever, but can anybody really be mad if you aim one slur and they come back with another?

Confuscious says: he who strikes second, pays first.

He doesn’t really say that, I heard that in Sunday school. It’s always the n*gga who reacts who usually gets caught. But I also heard sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. This is patently not true because I’ve seen somebody get thrown through a glass window for saying something reckless at DC Live in the late 90s.

So maybe in a technical sense, you’re supposed to turn the other cheek and let words bounce off of you and pretend you’re not human. Then you go home and punch the air like Cuba Gooding, Jr in Boyz In Tha Hood. A lot. Hopefully you’ve got a virginal Nia Long there to take the edge off after. Seriously, has that ever worked? Man shows up as his girls house mad because of social injustice and he gets some for peace? P*ssy for Peace. Ignorant? Yes. But a cause everybody can support? I think so.

The more you know. *ding*

But assuming that the guy was gay and that the woman did say that in this scenario, is he wrong for referring to her with the n-word? Does that automatically make him more wrong than the person who uses the first slur? From his standpoint, sometimes you do have to take a stand and you just lose it at times. Everybody is capable of snapping. You’ve got the power. The reaction on the train would have largely coalesced on no matter what she said to him, you should never call a Black person an n-word as a non-Black person. I think most folks would agree with that.

I’m just not sure I’m one of them. If I call somebody a wop, wetback, kike, or any of a number of ethnic or racial slurs and they respond in kind, I can’t really get my panties in a bunch can I??? Like I can’t be like, “just wait a damn minute, sir, THAT is uncalled for!”

Right?

What say you? Does the n-word trump all or am I just preaching to the choir and need to run this poll on CNN?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. N*GGA AT LONDON HEATHROW WITH ME AND MY PEOPLES aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

The Morning(s) After #threedeez: An Event Recap of the VSB Anniversary Party

Posted on 4 April, 2011 by Panama Jackson

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Oh, what a night.

Here’s a little background for all those suckas that don’t know: One day, I was talking on the G-chat with Cheekie. She mentioned that a gaggle of ladies would be descending up on DC in early April for the Cherry Blossom Festival. A segment had been to Miami and decided to hang out again in our nation’s capital. She asked me if we could do some kind of VSB event. I’m sure I said, “sure” and surely, we began formulating the plan to create a happy hour style event that turned into the Three Deez VSB Three Year Anniversary Party and Book Signing (which was also accidentally named by Cheekie).

And it was also the event where The Champ and I met for the first time. Before I get into the random recaps (alcohol was present, dontchaknow), I feel like everybody else was WAY more excited about us finally meeting than we were. Not that it wasn’t due, but when you work with and deal with somebody for so long, the meeting is merely a formality. But yes it still had to happen. Were there jitters? No. Curiousity? No. Illiteracy? No. Racism? No. So, what did happen when we met? How did the first meeting between VSBs The Champ and Panama Jackson go????

Glad you asked.

Liz and I picked him up from his hotel. He got in my car. I noticed he didn’t have a coat and told him he was on his white boy Pittsburgh sh*t rolling around without a jacket in 50 degree weather. Then we talked about how gay the cake was (if you saw the cake, it was pretty gay). It was pretty much how two ninjas who’ve known each other for a very long time would interact. Easy breezy beautiful cover girl. And yes, the cake was gayer than that last sentence I just typed. No real pomp. No real circumstance. Just two real G’s doing real G things.

Going to a restaurant with a cake in hand and a bunch of books to sell. Fern. Gully.

And with that said, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan was that a good time. There were drinks flying everywhere. Women all over. More men than I thought would show up. Books. Signed books. Old friends. New shoes. And I think Brick killed a guy. We met so many folks who frequent the site and met some new folks who hopefully will begin to do so. Here are some random observations from Three Deez knucka.

- Champ is a basketball head. We all know this. So what does he do for the first half hour that we’re there? Watch the VCU-Butler game? What do I do? Go holler at chicks and do banging re-interpolation of Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” complete with interpretive dance. What does that tell us? Put two ninjas in a room together and one is watching ball and the other is singing and dancing. That’s what it was like in 1811 and it’s like that in 2011. We got to do better.

- Champ is hilarious in person. Of course I didn’t know how much so until Saturday. We signed books for a very long time but we also had some hilarious moments signing those books. If you could read some of the things he signed in folks books? Here’s an example: To Shuuuuuuuga – two wrongs don’t make a right, but loving VSB (and me) means you make good decisions in life. Aw shuga no no no no. Champ?

To Shuuuuuuuuuuga – why did your mother name you that? I don’t know either. Champ.

- Le sigh, the DJ might have been the best terrible DJ in history. Let me explain. See, the upstairs part wasn’t a VSB function…back up. Because we were expecting such a big turnout, we worked out with the club a way to allow folks to go into the upstairs nightclub – which had a party going on – for free. Cool beans. Except it was “deep house” night. Which isn’t a bad thing its just that NOBODY who was up in the club actually wanted to hear that. But the DJ was a dope DJ, if that’s what you wanted to hear. Of course, his party, his rules, but I’m pretty sure a lot of the women wanted to drop it like it was hot but couldn’t find the beat to do so because the average BPM was 287. You’ll kill yourself trying to drop that in time. But it was free, and there was a bar…

- …which means that we took shots. Quite a few actually. At one point, at least 10 people lined up to take kamikaze shots with me. I can’t even remember everybody who participated. But it was dark, and hell is hot. Pretty sure nobody paid for it anyway so praise the lord and pass the panties.

- All of the out of town ladies came thru and represented HARD. Cheekie, Gem of the Ocean, Sane85, Max, Miss Patterson, Nick@Nite, Keisha Brown, LaLaBakir, Starita, and hometown heroes LiveLoveLibra and MsEsquire were the impetus for even doing the party (if I missed somebody, my bad). We all went out on Friday night and I’m pretty sure that I grabbed more derrierre than is recommended by the surgeon general. I can neither confirm nor deny if that last sentence is true.

- Pretty sure I gave SmartFoxGirl a table dance.

- The line for the book signing was insane. It also seemed like it would never end. Must be what the line to hell looks like. Thanks to everybody who bought a book and had us sign it. That felt great to know that anybody gives a sh*t about little ole us. Also, it gave us a great way to check out all of the ladies. Book signings are definitely where it’s at. Sadatay.

- Shoutouts to the SingleBlackMale.org family for falling through and hanging out. One of the most interesting parts of the night was when we all took a picture together and I’m pretty sure I was blinded by the 37 people taking pictures using the brightest flash possible…

…yet nobody seems to have a copy of that picture. Or any of the other ones taken for that matter. We had a photog and videographer there who will send me pictures soon and we’ll post them.

- The topic of what the difference between a Champ fan and a Panama fan came up quite frequently. It’s somewhat of a running joke between us. And no, we still never answered it to anybody who asked. At least not directly. Oh, and Classy6’5″ Diva is really that tall. Wow.

- Much like folks who’ve never seen us before, there’s an interesting feeling when you meet somebody who’s only lived in your life via word form and they look nothing like you thought they might. That sh*t can really throw you off your game. I ain’t saying that happened, but it happened. Not good or bad, I’m just saying I can’t be alone in my thoughts about that.

- I saw some superb fashion WTF moments. Hell, I was one of them. I had on a two Jesus pieces. Rapper game proper.

- We sold a boatload of books. Thank you. Buy some more. Thank you.

- To all the drunk motherf*ckers who were running around, ooooooh that’s a good look baby. Including Liz who at some point I’m pretty sure just went to go sit in a corner and play Angry Birds or something.

I’ll stop there (for now) and just add things over the course of the day. To everybody who came out (there are too many names that I do remember for me to even ATTEMPT to name them all) thank you very much. To all of the new friends we made and the old friends we saw. Oh, special shoutout to Circa1908 who Liz informed left the first comment on the blog of anybody who still comments today. It was really great meeting her and hanging. Pluse she tweeted some of the more outlandish things I said. And I’m pretty sure I said that after the New Testament is the Newer Testament, and the book right after Revelations is Realizations…and that Tupac has a chapter.

The moral? Stop drinking kids.

For those who weren’t there, fret not, we’re travelling soon. For those who were there, thanks…we appreciate the love and support and thank you for celebrating with us.

For those folks who came…what did you remember most? Speak on it. Share. Let’s make this a happy home. Carl Thomas is emotional. But we’re gangsta.

Special shoutouts to DC Tap & Parlour for hosting us with libations, food, and good service. We should all go back again.

Talk to me.

How was your Three Deez experience?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

DC Happy Hour!

Posted on 12 April, 2010 by Very Smart Brothas

Hey VSBs and VSSs in the DMV area, we just wanted to give you a heads up about a Happy Hour we are co-hosting TOMORROW in DC in conjunction with The Usual Suspectz and Elevated Entertainment.

Details below. If you can make it, please come and rep for all the VSBs and VSSs who ask us where do we all hang out at. Panama Jackson (and Liz) will be there to meet and greet you all! Continue reading →

New Features and a Live Event Starring The Champ

Posted on 10 March, 2010 by Liz

Hey VSBs and VSSs,

We have some exciting housecleaning announcements for you all:

1. Some of our readers asked us to get on Tumblr so they could keep tabs on us over there. Your wish is our command: Follow us here. For now it’s just an imported feed, but we might do some other things with it later.

2. A few of you were asking if you could subscribe to The VSB Files on iTunes. I’m happy to announce we’ve been added to the iTunes Podcast directory: Click here to subscribe. You can subscribe to the podcast’s regular feed over here. We’ll be back with new episodes shortly!

3. A new feature we’ve been trying out over the past week is AskChamp. The Champ really wanted a way to answer your dating questions via Twitter, but we thought adding a layer of anonymity (and more character space) would help people open up a little more, if you know what I mean. We hooked up a FormSpring account that feeds to our Twitter account. Our Twitter followers have been enjoying Champ’s answers, so be sure to follow us on Twitter and feel free to drop your questions in the AskChamp widget on our website’s sidebar. You can also enter your love questions directly on the AskChamp page.

4. If you can’t get enough of The Champ, you’re in luck because he is (finally) going on the road! I thought Champ had strict orders to never leave the State of Pennsylvania, but he’s coming to Washington DC for the Modern Day Matchmaker event, where he will be a featured panelist for the show! The event goes down Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 6:15 PM (ET) at Gala Theatre, 3333 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20010. Tickets are $20 for the show, and $10 for the after-party. FOR VSB READERS WE ARE OFFERING A $5.00 DISCOUNT ON TICKETS! Use the discount code VSB at checkout to receive your discount. The code applies only to the full access show & after-party ($25) and show-only ($20) tickets. We only have a limited amount of tickets to sell at the discount rate, so it’s first-come, first-served. Get your tickets now!

That’s it for now.

Feature requests, suggestions, complaints? You can keep them to yourself always e-mail us, we’re all ears.

~Liz