Fight Fight Fight. Unite America.
A Black Eyed Point of View
***THIS ESSAY USES ADULT LANGUAGE***
Find an audio reading of this Black Eyed Story above
Long ago, on a hot-breezed, summer day, my mother took up bricks from her own garden— bricks she’d laid along her perennial borders with her own hands— bricks she’d labored over and warned us not to go messing with. My mother took up these bricks— bricks she’d bought with her own good money— and threw them at my father’s prized leisure van— white with red and orange flames painted on the sides. She busted out every single window.
This was only after my father had thrown a brick through her dining room window.
“Oh, so we throwwn’ bricks now,” she’d said and launched and launched and launched and launched until the neighbors were forced to come out of their homes to see who my mother, the derelict of the neighborhood, was fighting now: Wasn’t she chasing that nigga with a chainsaw just last week!?! Gotdamn.1
Once upon a time, my mother jumped on my oldest sister and clawed her face until it bled. I hid in the closet. A story! A story! Let it go. Let it come… Once my mother jumped on my 2nd oldest sister and bit her shoulder deep to the bone. I hid beneath the bed. A long, long, time ago, once my mother jumped on a grown man (maybe it was my brother) and ripped out a plug of his hair. I hid in the basement. One day in a year long forgotten, my mother promised to beat the shit out of me because I’d misplaced the dish towel. She gave me ten minutes to find it, and while I searched for it high and low, beneath the sink, behind the couch, and even outside on the porch, she thrilled at the prospect of laying her hands on me: You ain’t never got a good beatin’ – ohhh… but you goin’ get yours today. No use cryin’. I found that dish towel with four minutes to spare.
My ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) score is an 8 out of 10, which means I know a threat when I hear one.
Donald Trump got nipped in the ear and his immediate reaction, as he raised his clenched fist in the air, was “Fight! Fight! Fight!” But what I heard him say was, “Oh, so we throwwn’ bricks now,” which is my cue to go and hide.
There’s no test for my adverse political experiences, and for the past 3,321 days of my life (that’s how many days its been since Donald Trump descended his fool’s gold escalator to announce his candidacy) I’ve done nothing but be resilient, bouncing back from a daily barrage of political chaos. Every single time he speaks I’ve felt nothing but threatened. And I recognize a threat when I hear one. Trump cocking his finger as if on a trigger as he said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” was a threat.