When UHaul is your spirit animal, your travels show you what is common and what is unique… and if you’re prone to either hubris or paranoia, glimpses of the future you project.

When I first arrived in Washington State five months ago, I couldn’t help notice all the cars with really dark window tints. NOW … I know why. I can’t speak for life in the city of Seattle, but drivers really throughout the Puget Sound region tend to be … a bit nosy. On top of that, the culture of places like Olympia is … DRAMA. “They live for it!” one woman said.

Out of frustration–I gave in. “When in Rome…” So I made an appointment with a tinting shop in Tacoma. After being talked to extremely rudely at a white owned shop, I intentionally sought out a brother to give my business to. Little did I know…. blood was a …(8gulp*) HEBREW ISRAELITE.

I should have been forewarned by how difficult it was to secure an appointment with this guy. But after several trail and errors, I drove up to the shop located in a small but very neat slot in a warehouse located in an remote industrial area of Tacoma. Right away I sensed that J wasn’t feeling me. I would be there at least two hours, so I tried to put a good face on it and strike up a pleasant–safe–conversation. (Is there a “safe” conversation with an ignorant, “Back South,” fundamentalist type former hood rat?)

It’s common for one generation to rebel against the one … or two that went before it. J is probably Gen X (… certainly not a Millennial.) Where do I start… so, I guess this section of Gen Xers say Boomers humiliated in the 80s or simply grew up during an increased period of racism. (Post 80s) So I’m thinking they saw threw Louis Farrakhan , and racist “Middle-Eastern” Muslims, and decided to go THE OTHER WAY… waaaaay the other way. These hood rats decided to become more Jew than the Jews. Worst still is their assertion that African Americans (apparently all of us) are the “REAL” Jews and Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni Shimon Peres better just dig up the bones of Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin and clear the hell out because THEY are the true Israelites!

And apparently they got tired of old Pimpin’ Rev down at the First Baptist Church handing out all that Johnny-come-lately “Jesus” stuff. So they’ve discarded that whole confusing “NEW Testament” stuff and have simplified it down to Deuteronomy and Leviticus. WHAT is it about people who just HAVE to have somebody else tell them what is “Law” and what’s not?? It’s so bad here in the US that some poll recently said 27% of Americans favor a dictatorship. Blithering idiots.

The Internalized racism within these types is palpable immediately. People like J will eagerly seek to pal up with any other ethic group member, but says people from his own blackness are going to HELL. They love to feel superior to black ancestors who fought, suffered and sometimes died so that they could have a better life.

James Baldwin is more relevant today than back in the 60s. Activist, Soledad Brother, and Revolutionary George Jackson had a prison “wife.” (Transwoman.) Angela Davis was bisexual and apparently is Lesbian. Audre Lorde, writer, feminist, and Civil Rights Activist pointed out that even the most PROGRESSIVE and radical Black women go to the other side when homosexuality comes up.

“Racism and misogyny come from the same place. When women support homophobia, they are in fact supporting their own oppression.”

~ Audrey Lorde

Gen X, Y and Millennials came through at a time when the Social Engineers (i.e. CIA / FBI, State Department, etc…) were busy pushing revisionist stories in the media and dismantling the old system of Black music production and encouraging Rappers (… most often ignorant niggas who didn’t even finish high school) to influence a whole culture with a foolish idealization of Criminality and the anit-hero. When they flooded the neighborhoods with Crack and the industry went north and the Banksters ramped up Red Lining and Wells Fargo-like bad credit practices, there was nothing left to hold an already stratified Black Culture together.

When Hip Hoppers and Rappers fell in love with the words, “Bitches, Hoes, and Nigger” … you could see the outcome was going to be all bad. In this narcissistic yet devastated atmosphere, SOME hurt black women began the mantra, “I don’t need no man!”

Well … look what’s happened. Black, angry Fema-Nazi’s who would buy tickets to see a black man burned alive and put their feet up and happily roast marshmallows over the flames. And in many ways… who can blame them? Unfortunately, without a higher set of common goals and ideals, a divided house cannot stand. So what we have now are either bitter Hochie-Mommas on one end, and manipulating, power-hungry Traditional Fundamentalist on the other.

The manipulating, power-hungry Traditional Fundamentalist are the core, “Gatekeepers” of all culture. When they raise boys by themselves or pick men with strong backs and weak minds (like J) you get young men who are either Momma’s boys … quick to stand up for Big Momma (instead of helping her process her emotions), or the type of men that black women hate, or… men who are forever at rage with the Feminine.

J may have chosen a different religion (he thinks) … but his psychology is mired in the same 2nd Stage Development conducive with Fundamentalist Post-Civil War theology that the Christians across the street are. Yes, it’s far better for these young men and women to be dressing up and reading the Bible in its literal meanings than for them to be doing drive-by’s, but Black America is still a culture at war with itself and the target that America is at war with.