They talked like they were the most powerful, clever motherfuckers on the planet. They looked down on other Blacks arriving from any other country in the world. They hated every accent besides their own. They was quick to catch an attitude and say some shit that I could tell they really knew nothing about.
There was no real way for me to separate myself from them. We all looked the same, wore the same clothes, spoke the same slang. All united by our Air Jordan kicks.
I don’t talk a lot. Where I’m from, the boys and men are trained to leave the blabbering to young girls.
It wasn’t too long before I realized that if I said nothing for the rest of my life, shit would only get worse. I’m telling my story so Black people worldwide will know that we wasn’t always fucked up. Also, that a good life takes great effort and sacrifice, but feels so much better than what we all got now. Besides, if the authentic men don’t say shit, there will be no evidence that real men really do exist.
Living side by side with niggas, and watching them play themselves every second of every day, the broke ones all the way up to the rich ones, is killing me.
I’m not a preacher, politician, pimp, or celebrity. Most of them couldn’t go to hell quick enough for me. A man who doesn’t say what he means or do what he says, craves attention and misuses it when he gets it, doesn’t share what he knows and earns, deserves death.
I am not who you think I am. My people are not who you think they are. Our culture and traditions are unknown to you. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to show you how you look and do. If you’re American born and raised, you’re bound to get it twisted. You can’t see yourselves or don’t know yourselves. You’re too accustomed to looking at life from only one fucked-up angle.
Everything you have ever seen or heard about Africa is wrong. My African grandfather taught me that the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world after God. My grandfather said be careful who you listen to and what they are saying. The storyteller is clever and masterful and has already decided exactly what he wants you to think and believe.
The storyteller has the power to make people feel good or bad about themselves. The storyteller has the power to make people feel strong or weak, ugly or beautiful, confident or defeated.
Unfortunately, all of the stories being told to Blacks in America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean have made Blacks worldwide feel low, weak, crazy, backward, and powerless. So low that the storyteller has set the conditions for Blacks to be robbed of all of their stuff and too stupid to recognize it.
So put your brews and blunts on pause. Rock with me for a few.
2
BEFORE MIDNIGHT
African born. My father was not a king, but he was a phenomenon. The things he taught and showed me were more valuable than the three sparkling, three-carat diamonds he placed in the palm of my hand.
My father said not every man is qualified to be king. Not every man should want to be king. When unqualified men become king, they destroy everyone one way or another because of their ignorance, greed, or anger. Every day they live with the fear that it will be exposed that they do not deserve their wealth and do not really know how to rule.
My father was the advisor to the prime minister of the Sudan, the most powerful man in our country. He was also the advisor to an extremely popular and influential Southern Sudanese king. My father was a great thinker, the man with the ideas that the king and prime minister pretended they’d thought of themselves. This placed my father in a position of power, quiet power. But it also put him in the position of working to bring two deeply separated parts of one nation together. He was constantly being studied and watched and eventually hated by a handful of men who could not compare. These same men, who couldn’t think or see straight on their own, had no vision of the power that would come through unity. They envied my father, rejected his thoughts and ideas, yet imitated his style and finesse.
When crooked men feel threatened, and have no chance of competing with or matching the intelligence and maneuvers of a man who they see as their rival, they begin to use their insecurity to set that man up and bear false witness against him. They don’t stop until they bring him down, drive him out, and eliminate him from holding on to something they could never have achieved fair and square.
My father taught me to lay low. Don’t be the asshole who wants to be seen and celebrated all day, every day. Be cool. Take it easy. Carry out your plans in life, slow and steady. Push hard.
My father pushed hard, loved hard, lived hard, making great use of every minute and moment. A scientist, he graduated from the University of Khartoum at age twenty. He earned his master’s degree at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. He completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in the United States of America.
At age twenty-six he returned home a doctor of science. He reminded everyone that Africa was the best place in the world. He didn’t just say it. He meant it. He moved back in and worked the land and built businesses from scratch to empire status.
My father was six foot eight and pure black from head to toe—a blessing, not a curse.
An international man, he saw the whole world as his backyard. He made our home in Northern Sudan, the place where my mother was born and raised, the place where I was born also. We lived on his estate; seventy-five acres of land, four houses, eight buildings, and all of the property I could see in every direction was ours.
He named our estate Beit El Rahim, which means “The Womb.” He said he chose this name for many reasons. One, he said, because Africa is the birthplace of the world, of human beings, of intelligence, and of all of the Prophets. Two, he said, because women are the key to life. Three, he said, because children born of a healthy womb become the guardians of traditions.
And children born of an unhealthy womb become the curse. So the womb itself is sacred.
If we chose, we never had to leave our property. Most of my family lived there. My father’s closest friends’ and coworkers’ children went to our school on our property and prayed at the mosque on our property. My mother’s business was located there in a fully equipped building, exclusively used, managed, and populated by women. Our food was grown on our land. We drew our water from our fresh water wells. Our place was filled with love, laughter, prayer, and music.
My father purchased the finest clothes, most handmade in the Sudan, the rest imported from Italy, France, and America and customized to his size and fit. His shoes were imported from Milan, Lisbon, Gweru, Seoul, and Canberra. But his favorite pair was made by his own father, my southern grandfather, who made the shoes from scratch right before my father’s eyes. He gave them to him as a parting gift when my father went off to college, explaining that the handmade pair of shoes were the sturdiest and most reliable, the same as his southern village. My grandfather said those shoes would bring his son home to him where Southern Grandfather believed he belonged.
My father loved and collected music from around the world. Some evenings we grooved and listened to the thoughtful and melodic voice of Bob Marley. Stevie Wonder’s lyrics painted pictures in our minds; Miriam Makeba sang us messages from the people of South Africa; Fela rocked us from Nigeria. The young voice of Michael Jackson amazed and excited us. Our homegrown Sudanese singers like Abdalla Amiago sang us familiar songs framed by familiar sounds, waking and reawakening our love of life and Allah.
In one of the buildings on our property reserved for men, my father sometimes practiced playing his trumpet. Once a month he performed with his just-for-fun band before an audience of family and close friends. He taught me that hardworking men must always find ways to relax and enjoy life without destroying their family relationships.
He spoke seven languages and had acquaintances throughout the world. My father taught me that language should never separate one good person from another. Any man can learn another man’s language if he can shut up long enough to listen and sit still long enough to study. We spoke Arabic at home, but he made sure I
could speak at least the greetings of several African tongues and I also studied English in school and practiced speaking it along with my schoolmates.
My mother only spoke Arabic. My father loved her so much that she was the exception to many of his rules. He laid the world at her feet. When he hugged and kissed her anyone could tell there was nothing realer than that. Even I could tell he wanted her only to himself. I’d move out of their way and disappear into one of the many rooms of our home. He surrounded her in his love, but still allowed her to have her friends, business, and life within the places built exclusively for her behind the walls of The Womb. He was never shy about expressing himself to her. I saw it all the time. About her, I felt the same way.
When my father did business in the surrounding suburbs and villages, he mostly drove his truck. For big-city and government business he rode in his silver Mercedes-Benz 600, driven by his trusted Southern Sudanese homeboy, the only person allowed to privately transport him. Parked in our garage area was his custom-made cobalt blue Rolls-Royce that rarely left the grounds where we lived; still it was always kept clean and polished.
We also had a small collection of miniature cars used by our staff to move around our property, and to drive outside of our estate to run errands and complete tasks.
Our diamonds, gold, ivory, copper, and silver we got from home. It was automatic, part of our property, our history, our heritage, our assets. We also had oil, homegrown fruits and vegetables, and livestock. Guess you could say despite having to work hard in a hot climate, we invented chilling.
My father had guns galore, real ones, from twenty-twos to forty-fives, to three-five-sevens, to nines, to Glocks, to G-3 rifles, to semi-automatics, Uzis, and AK-47s. There were so many weapons that he had a small brick fort built on our property just to store them. On my fifth birthday, he gave me a key to his fort. It was one of the many tests he gave me to prepare me for life. He often would challenge me, asking, “Where is your key?” I had better have it on me, not in the pocket of the pants I wore last week or yesterday, not somewhere that I couldn’t remember or in the possession of one of the house cleaners or my mother even. He taught me that I had to be responsible for my stuff instead of shifting my weight on to any other person.
He taught me how to hold each of the weapons. I felt that most of them weighed more than me. He assured me that they didn’t. He taught me how to take them apart, put them back together, and how to clean and load them.
The first time he took me to target practice, I was five years old. The kickback from the gun in my hand lifted me off my feet and threw me to the ground. Within seconds, he had me stand back up on my feet and begin firing once again. “If you fear the gun,” he said, “you will never be calm enough to hit your target.”
My father was not a military man, but when I got the chance to travel outside of our estate with him on business or pleasure, he made sure he pointed out Egyptian-made aircraft flying through our skies, German-made watercraft sailing on our waters, Soviet T-54 tanks, and MiG-17 surface-to-air missiles, and more.
Slowly and carefully, he would say so seriously, this one was designed by Germany, this one was designed by Britain, this one was designed by Israel, this one was designed by Italy, this one was designed by Pakistan. “All of these weapons in this section were manufactured by the Americans,” he would say, pointing.
“Do you know why they designed and provided these weapons for us?” he would ask me. “Do you know what they want you to do with them?” he would ask. Then he would answer himself. “They designed these weapons so that we could make their lives easier. So that you and I would wipe out our own family, friends, and countrymen, allowing them, the foreigners, to come in and raid and rule our land, seize our gold, export our diamonds, and siphon our oils.”
“Take a look around,” he would say. “Everything we have, some which I acquired through birthright, the rest from hard work, education, blood, sweat, and tears, could be gone in an instant, because it is everything that every man in the world dreams of possessing. You must fight to keep it.”
My father said every son is entitled to inherit what his father earned, but still must plan to fight for it. Admire your father but still become a man who stands on his own feet and works his own accomplishments and miracles.
My father said every man will be pushed to kill something or someone, either to feed himself and his family, or to keep from being disrespected and dominated. “But don’t be eager to kill, son, because when you kill you lose something too.
“It is better to give life than to give death. It is harder to maintain life than it is to wipe it out. There are unreasonable men on this earth who are determined not to let you be as you are, live as you are, love as you are, work as you are. They will bring war to your doorstep, like it or not.
“If you win, good for you and your family, praise Allah. Enjoy the peace.
“If you lose, lay low, go underground, go slow, rebuild and regroup and come again.
“If they take your land, gold, diamonds, and oils, let them have it for the moment while you think, reposition yourself, regain your strength, plan, and purpose. But never allow them to take your women, your children, or your family or you will be defeated forever.”
My father said and did a whole lot of incredible things. His voice is louder in my ear than my own.
He taught me that women are one hundred percent emotion. Love them, but don’t obey them. A man must go into the world without fear and do what is right, required, and necessary.
The last thing he told me the last time I saw him was “Son, no matter what, take care of your mother and your sister. Guard them and their honor. Protect them with your life.”
My family came to America not because we loved it and thought it was a better place and the land of opportunity.
We came to America without our influence and abundant riches, to lay low, to go underground, to go slow, to rebuild, to regroup, to regain our strength, position, plan, and purpose, to come again.
3
THE THREE PIGS
My beautiful mother and I arrived in the U.S. on October 31, 1979. I was seven years young.
We were greeted by three American customs officers who were all wearing pink pig snouts and pink pig ears. We had never heard of Halloween. We don’t celebrate the devil in our country. I gripped my mother’s hand and heard my father’s voice in my mind. “Son, there are unreasonable men on this earth.”
I watched closely as the officers searched through our few things. I was confident that they would not discover my three three-carat diamonds in the hollowed-out sole of my right shoe.
“Three wishes,” my father called the diamonds when he dropped them into my palm. “Three wishes when everything and everyone else around you fails or when you feel trapped. If you never have the need to use them, then don’t. Pass them along to your son, and him to his son.”
One of the officers seemed to have a problem with me watching him. He asked me, “What’s a matter, kid? No one ever told you the story of the three pigs?”
My twenty-six-years-young mother, a five foot seven, golden-skinned, Arabic speaking, lean, shapely, and beautiful African woman with big dark eyes and a dimple in her chin, was wrapped up from head to toe as Islamic women do. She peeked through her veil and looked down at me for an understanding, a translation of the customs officer’s English. I looked back up to her and said in Arabic, “It is a silly game they are playing.”
“How old is the boy?” one officer asked my mother. I answered, “Seven.” The three of them shot looks at each other and snickered. “Hey, Johnny, have you ever seen a seven-year-old kid this size in your son’s second-grade class? What the hell were they feeding ya?” he asked, looking toward me with coffee-stained teeth and a crooked smile.
I didn’t say nothing in response to his stupid comments. I was more than half of his short size. I figured that was his problem.
“Remove the veil and head scarf,” the American customs
officers demanded.
This order was considered an offense and insult to us. Where we come from, a woman is never asked to reveal herself in the presence of any man who is not her father, husband, brother, or son.
I looked at their weapons hanging on their hips. One officer’s eyes followed mine as I checked out the mirrors in the corners of the ceiling, the cameras aimed down at us. So I translated to my mother.
She removed her hijab and niqab, very reluctantly, hearing the authority in the tone of their foreign voices and feeling the threat of the moment. The customs men watched every move of her hands, scanning and admiring the unfamiliar and beautifully drawn henna designs she wore on each of her fingers and on the palms of her hands.
Her thick, long and pretty brown hair now uncovered dropped down to her back. Immediately, they reacted to her revealed beauty with gasps, long lusty stares, and three dirty smirks.
She kept her gaze on the floor and asked me in Arabic if they were finished.
I asked them in English, “Are you finished?”
Still smiling, one of the officers nodded.
The other waved his hand and said, “Yeah, head to the next line over there.” I checked them watching her so closely as she wrapped back into her hijab and reattached her niqab to cover her face, all but her eyes. We walked away.
I heard one of them say to the other, “Wow! I’d like to get my hands on something exotic like that.” They laughed. The other officer said, “Funny, I wasn’t thinking about my fucking hands, man!”
I thought to myself, First thing I’m getting is a gun.
4
DEQUAN
There was nothing wrong with the building, the block, or the sky above. It was the motherfuckers living in there who had to be closely watched.