On The Whine Train

1.

You could find stats to show

That there are more

loud whites and quiet blacks

than quiet whites and loud blacks,

yet the myth of the loud—

and often “too loud”—black persists.

As I watch whites and blacks

Interact regularly,

I’ve never seen a loud black

Criticize a quiet white,

Or a silent black try to silence

A loud white,

But I have seen the quiet white

Criticize the loud black

And, to a lesser extent,

The loud white

Unless that loud white

Is criticizing the loud black

And of course I’ve seen

Tense shared silences between them

Not too different from

The tense shared silences

Of white on white interaction….

“So watcha gonna do about it?”

(enter the #LaughingWhileBlack hashtag

the media’s new nuance in the #BlackLivesMatters reality show)

2.

At the YMCA, a white man whispers to me

That black folks are too loud

As if I’m to join him in a silent battle.

If I must take sides, I side with them

The loud blacks who help drown out

The white noise, the loud blacks

Who take me in as a loud white.

It isn’t, and is, about race

When an old Eagles fan brings up

Wife beating and drugs in their first mention

Of James Brown,

Bring up the dead wife of Jackson Brown

And beaten Daryl Hannah….

Beware the quiet sensitive culture worker

Beware the temperate climate of the Bay Aryans

(remember there’s a faultline hidden beneath)

Speaking softly and increasing funding to the Siren Songs

Patrolling others neighborhoods in body armor

To clear them out for……you?

And once they’ve done it,

The prices will rise so the sirens quiet down

So you don’t have to gum up your ears

While you listen to James Brown

On your tiny, tinny, iphone speakers

Safely contained….

(they’ll accept loudness

if they can take the generosity out of it)

Don’t it make you wanna scream?

Let out the tension, dance out the devil

Trade in your car for a walking city?

Or are you so far gone

In the violence of your silence

That you’ll give yourself high blood pressure

Just to make sure others aren’t laughing

Or praising, complaining, signifyin’

A little too loud, or that people

Aren’t giving back to the earth

In death by refusing the privilege

Of the overpriced casket worm?

 3. On The Whine Train

The worst form of noise pollution is

A white person trying to hush a black

Sometimes with guns, sometimes with the music biz

Sometimes with curfew and laws that attack

The noise of festive BBQs in parks.

It’s fine to be loud at the Super Bowl

Where they can contain, cash in on, your sparks.

In the south, whites are just as loud, don’t you know?

But these northern Wasps demand their quiet

They’ll even hire poets to sell it

With free verse “organic” form named riot….

Oh, I know so many on the whine train

Solar cars rise from the ashes of Soul Train

4."Say It Proud, I'm Black And/Or Loud"

Wine snobs just like you…But not really, better of course, but not so rude as to throw it in your faces. Has it ever occurred to you that such loudness is generous, it makes more feel more comfortable, more engaged, more responsible. It lets many in. You can’t win them all, and I respect your silence, though some may dare to invite you (and it seem a “razz”), across the wall you put up. We respect your wall, but there’s an art to it. Don’t they teach you that at Esalen or Google, or Russell Simmons even?

If silence is what you need, find silence in the sound like the way a major league pitcher has to drown out the sound of the crowd (this could be an exciting challenge for you to try the next time you’re out, if you go out). That’s a way to create too; even if we think ours is better…Our loudness doesn’t steal anything. Prove otherwise, please. Define your “peace of mind” and don’t leave out the loud sirens in others neighborhoods you pay and/or ask for. Your fear of sound is no more noble than others fear of silence. Maybe even worse. You may be here to hear more birds. We are too—and to harmonize with them, feel them in us. Sometimes that’s gotta be loud. Coz there’s two kind of silences: sprung tense silence and post-earthquake happy relief silence (though civilization is structured to define that as disaster as long as it’s illegal to build a cheaper kind of structure that sheltered the native Americans in this “$800.000 house or homeless” sink or swim society we’re stuck in). Even if all else were equal in the “war” between corrupt stress-inducing selfish silence and generous loudness, the law of numbers, of “majority rules” should give the 11 the edge over 1, especially 1 who cannot ask without scolding

The problem with your idea of silence is that you’re gonna hear voices anyway—do you have absolute faith in those voices ability to structure their reality for you? That could be a new, fun meditation….for you to keep from eavesdropping on our conversation you claim against your will, as if we’re raping you or something….

Meanwhile back at the Y, I try not to let white people know about my prejudice against them. This is not white loathing…just that there’s work to be done….

August 2015

For backstory, see https://hardknockradio.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/hkr-laughing-while-black-policing-black-bodies-criminalizing-black-expression/