Wrath White - Yaccub's Curse

After Christina and Iesha left, Huey and I sat and discussed the best way to bring the pain to Scratch as the baby slept calmly between us, surrounded by pillows to keep him from rolling off the couch.

“It don’t make no sense for us to be kickin’ back in this white bitch’s crib while that fool is out there spreadin’ the word all over the city about your ass. Pretty soon we won’t be able to go nowhere in this town. We need to peel this fool’s cap back tonight!”

“You’re the one who said we needed to get Iesha and the baby safe first and get some rest. Scratch don’t know nothin’ about Christina. He won’t be lookin’ for us way down here. He’ll still think we’re in the hood somewhere. This is the best place for us to kick it until we can figure out how to finish this. We can’t just stroll up into the Raymond Rosen projects and blast that mutherfucker. We need a plan.”

“Yeah? And why can’t you just walk the fuck up in there? He ain’t shit and them fools who work for him is just as scared of your ass as they is of him. They ain’t got no loyalty to him and if they think the mantle of power is shifting hands they’ll step in line to back the successor to the throne. You know I’m sayin’? Instead of walking in there like you tryin’ to run away and get out of the business, you walk in there like you takin’ over the mutherfucker. That’ll cause enough confusion to give you a chance to take his ass out.”

“True. That might work. It might also get my ass killed.”

“You a dead man right now anyway. At least this way you might have a chance. Now,” Huey picked up his cup of ginseng tea and crossed his legs atop the smoked glass coffee table, “Fuck is up with you and this white bitch?”

“Dog, don’t even go there with me right now. That Black consciousness shit is played out anyway. Ain’t nobody tryin’ to hear that shit no more.”

“I’m just sayin’, you was workin’ for a white drug dealer killin’ other brothers and talkin’ all that bullshit about God fuckin’ up your life and shit and now,” he shook his head and chuckled to himself as if he were discussing the ridiculous antics of some pathetic moron, “And now you all hugged up with this Caucasoid trick. Do you have that much self-hatred? You hate your own skin that much?”

“I told you I ain’t tryin’ to hear this shit right now! Don’t you think I got enough shit goin’ on without your bullshit?” I started to rise from my seat when Huey reached out with one hand and shoved me back onto the couch. Huey and I have never fought again since that first meeting when we were little kids, but the memory of that long ago ass-kicking still cowed me. I stayed put.

“Sit the fuck back down and listen to what I got to say. This white bitch is lookin’ at you and seein’ every stereotype she’s ever heard about Black men. You think she really knows what you do out there? You think she knows who the fuck you are? She looks at you and sees gangsta rap videos with young playas sittin’ in million dollar homes filled with naked women, guns, and mountains of cash like little Black Capones. She sees romance novels where African warriors turned slaves risk hanging to fuck the massa’s flat-assed dick hungry wife. She sees natural athletes with ten-inch dicks who can’t get enough of white pussy, the bad boy from the other side of the tracks that her parents will hate and her friends will envy as a sign of her liberal rebelliousness. You’re her little Mandingo, her Tupac Shakur, her Mike Tyson. You feel like some big time Mack Daddy when you’re with her don’t you? She play the innocent little white girl who’s been turned out by her charismatic Black pimp? She even calls you Daddy don’t she? It’s all some kind of fantasy to her. She ain’t no less prejudice than them fools in the white sheets just because she spreads them lily white thighs for you. When she looks at you she sees the same vicious sub-human animal they do only she sees one with a big dick.”

“You finished now? You got that shit off your chest? ’Cause you ain’t said shit as far as I’m concerned. How you gonna be in her house, drinkin’ her tea, and talkin’ shit about her while she’s out there tryin’ to help our asses?”

“Whitey guilt. That’s all that is. They do a little charity work and they don’t feel so bad when they pass us over for promotions and tell nigger jokes around the dinner table. Look, just answer me one question, what’s wrong with Black women?”

“I love Black women. They just…”

“They just what? Don’t talk to you if you ain’t got no money? Argue too much? Talk too loud? Dress too flashy? Wear too much jewelry? Expect too much from a brother? Won’t let you treat them like hoes? Act too much like hoes? Too bossy and domineering? Too hard and unfeminine? They don’t suck your dick and let you cum in their faces? All that’s bullshit and you know it. Those are just more fucked up stereotypes.”

“I was gonna say they’re too damned religious and they don’t give me no play anyway. Everytime I like a sista she disses me for some other brother. They all want light-skinned pretty boys with hazel eyes and wavy hair like you or big buff brothers with two percent body fat. An average nigga like me ain’t got a chance with nuthin’ but the neighborhood chicken heads and I ain’t willin’ to stoop that low. I want a woman that wants more for herself than the average bitch in the street. That’s why I don’t fuck with no sistas but Yolanda.”

“That’s ’cause that heavy bitch spoiled your ass. Now you done found another stupid hoe to kiss your rotten ass.”

This time it was my turn to shake my head in exasperation.

“Can’t a brother just have a little fun without it having to get all political and shit? Damn. I don’t understand why you hate White people so much anyway. I mean, how can you already hate people you’ve never even met? You got your mind made up about the whole race based on what you know about the handful you’ve met. There’s like two hundred million White folks in America. It ain’t like you know all of ’em.”

Huey poured more tea into the imitation Japanese tea cup with pictures of little Bonsai trees on the sides. He raised the cup to his lips and loudly slurped down the Ginseng brew.

“You should be asking yourself why you don’t hate all of them. You blame God for everything and let them devils off the hook when they’re the ones with our blood on their hands. That don’t make no sense!”

“I can’t hate them ’cause they ain’t did shit I wouldn’t have done myself if I was in their position. You think that if brothers was runnin’ shit we’d be anymore fair and compassionate? Just take a look at Africa. Brothers is always talkin’ about the white man’s nature but conquering and exploiting is just man’s nature. Fuck do you think would have happened four or five hundred years ago if Africans had guns and bombs and shit and traveled to Europe and found White folks over there chuckin’ spears? We would have kicked they asses and took all they shit. They would have been cleanin’ our houses and plowin’ our fields and we would’ve been rapin’ their women and sellin’ off their families just like they did to us. White folks would be the ones callin’ us devils. Shit, we was already conquering and enslaving our own people before the white man ever came to Africa. I ain’t sayin’ I don’t hate them in general. I ain’t got no love for no peckerwoods. I mean if there was a war goin’ on and we had to pick sides I’d have no problem droppin’ bombs on faceless White enemies, but when you deal with them one on one you realize that they’re just people like you and me. They ain’t no devils.”

“Except Scratch?”