Depth.

I wonder if white people walk into a room full of white people and notice that everybody is, ya know, white?

I know I do (I’m Black though). Everytime I walk into a room where the overwhelming majority of people are white I not only notice but I look for the other person(s) of color in the room. Of course, once I notice them, we spend the the duration of time that we’re in said location pretending not to notice one another.

But we notice. Oh, how we notice. I’m sure that white people would do it as well if they walked into a room full of coloreds. But that’s mostly because they’re in jail at that point and it’s going to be lights out pretty soon for them anyway.

Lights out?!? That’s a pun and I didn’t even intend it. There should be a term for those puns that people accident-upon. Something like: no pun intended.

That’d be swell.

This “recognition-lack of recognition” of one another makes me realize something: Black people are screwed. We have the worst sense of unity of any other cultural group; I’m convinced of it. I went to both an HBCU and a big ole’ white public state school on the East Coast. At HBCU’s there’s no rush to speak or even notice all the Black people since we’re in such abundance; never mind that it’s a completely false representation of the real world and that it shouldn’t be taken for granted that we’re in the midst of likeminded individuals who can actually read and aren’t afraid of information at the same place at the same time. Yet, we gloss over the importance and landmark-ism of it all.

It’s college, who the f*ck cares. Give me my hours and give me my degree. F*ck you, pay me.

Amazing how many people long for that constant recognition of successful driven Black people once they graduate (unless you went to Morehouse since ninjas apparently don’t graduate from there much) and re-enter the world we’re all more familiar with — you know, the world where its hard as hell to find the professional Black crowd and we’re often left longing for the intellectual stimulation that comes along with late night arguments about which A Tribe Called Quest album was better, The Low-End Theory or Midnight Marauders.

It’s Midnight Marauders, by the way. You can disagree but you will be wrong.

At our HBCU’s we see eachother but we don’t really notice one another. We’re just all there so we assume we’ll always be there – don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone kind of thing.

And then we have the big state schools were there’s usually a handful of coloreds who STILL make all attempts NOT to notice one another. When I went to Big A** State University, every time I’d see a Black person I’d speak. Hell, we had the same struggle. We were pepper sprinkles in a big ass cauldron of salt. Not just that, but filled with lots of salt that didn’t really want much peppering.

Ignored.

Constantly.

At first I took it personal. Why on earth would these mother*ckers have the audacity to not respond back to me saying “hello?” These northern bastards. Then I realized that its part of the what we all do, even amidst times when we should have unity. We spend time noticing but not noticing one another as if to act like we don’t need to.

We have no unity. We have no unity when we’re unified and we have no unity when we should have unity and the opportunity exists. I don’t give a damn if I’ve never met you in life. If I walk into a KKK meeting and I see a Black cat you better believe I’m going to notice him since we have a common struggle.

Assuming I’m at a KKK meeting our common struggle is probably literally a struggle but hey, common is common.

Sometimes I’ll go out of my way to speak to the other Negroes in a room. Of course, then we look like a gang which is never a good thing when you’re in the midst of a bunch of people who know how to dial 911 and don’t think that 911 is a joke.

Our lack of unity, which is partially caused by our rise in social and economic status — face it, we don’t all have the same struggle anymore — is ultimately our downfall. We want equality but we all won’t even get on the same page in a room full of people who don’t look like us. Hell, we don’t even know what book each other’s reading.  Are we even supposed to be reading the same book?

Would we even notice?

Deep.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3