Knock It the Fuck Off: A History

by

Prisoner K

Whether Negro, African-American, colored or black, we as a people stand on the shoulders of those who faced and conquered horrible adversity. And I’m not specifically talking about King, Garvey, Douglass or Tubman. I’m talking about every single person born with our skin. 

It seems as time takes us further away from yesteryear, we tend to underestimate the impact of who came before has had on where we are now. It’s why I’m always offended by a brotha or sista who blatantly, if unknowingly, spits on those who walked the path we never traveled. 

The first time I encountered this ignorance, I was a young man. A group of friends were talking about slavery and I joked I would’ve made a good slave. One of my female colleagues agreed she too would’ve done well. We laughed but I believe we were speaking from the heart. (I know I was.) We were both light-skinned so chances are we would’ve been domestics. Cleaning up behind masta and missus and their shit-pissy kids.

One of the brothas, a dark skinned youngster (we all young then), looked at us with shock and disgust. Said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The conversation then turned into a back-and-forth about how a strong nigga woulda never been no fuckin slave.

I found that fascinating. 

He finished his argument with, “I woulda died before I was a slave.”

Not the first time I heard a young brotha say this. Nor the last.

I said, “And they would’ve killed you.”

But in hindsight, that was unlikely. Chances are my mans woulda been an example. Beaten and punished relentlessly until, if it got to that, he died from abuse. He would not have been allowed the brashness he so blatantly took for granted that day in an air-conditioned office overlooking Radio City Music Hall. Shit, back in yesteryear, I seriously doubt he would have ever-so-happily expressed his true grit in the first place.

This talk was well over thirty years ago. Since, I’ve heard many a brotha boast about his manliness, his purpose of strength that whitey couldn’t break and his Herculean potential to not bow to society’s will.

Here’s what I tell them: How many times have you been stopped by the poleese? For no reason? How many times have you been questioned, harassed, frisked?

I haven’t met too many black men — especially in the hood — who can say they’re unfamiliar with the experience.

I ask then: And what did you do?

They don’t understand the question. Or don’t want to.

I continue: Did you tell the poleese to go fuck themselves? Did you stand up to them? Did you make it quite clear you ain’t that nigga? Or did you keep it on pause until they walked away to express your outrage?

Brothas don’t appreciate the questioning, let alone appreciate answering any of that bullshit. I let that slide. But I don’t drop the argument. No. I go on.

Well, imagine a society where a motherfucka don’t need no badge. Can you even picture a world where no matter where a brotha went a white face could walk up and challenge him? They could stop a black man on the street, in the store or diner, or as he’s coming out the Colored Only bathroom zipping his pants and ask what’s a nigger doing round here — hell, ask anything they damn well please! Can you even imagine how the proudest brotha you’ve ever met has to be careful?

Envision a time when a black man had to step with caution in his interaction with a white woman. How his heart might start pumping erratically just finding out he’s alone with a pink-fleshed female. What about the ones who had to watch helplessly as their homes burned while men on horses whooped and holla-ed beneath their hoods? Try and see those two black young individuals walking up to a segregated, Southern all-white school to become its first students of color and the fucking governor waiting to keep his campaign promise of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Our forebrothas and sistas endured the hateful glares of white faces passing in those long ass cars. Their children had to suffer the ridicule of racism long before those youngsters knew what the word meant. Just like we did. But their subjugation was far more humiliating and often far more emotionally and physically painful than ours. The whip, the noose, separate but equal or just plain get the fuck outta here, nigga, was the norm.

This was a world where black men were required to pretend they didn’t hear or see. It was a landscape flush with woods and jail cells that many brothas never left. 

I speak of a time when a 14-year-old Chicago boy visiting family in Mississippi can be mutilated, beaten and flung into a river for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Where a black man in Maryville, MO — accused but not convicted of killing a white woman — is turned over to an angry mob by the fucking all-mighty sheriff hisself. The black man is then taken to the school where the woman was a teacher. He’s chained to the roof. The school’s set afire and burns to the ground while hundreds of white men watch. Curiously, neither the sheriff’s office nor the fire department ever show up.

And the further you go back, the easier it is to abuse a man of color. Most young brothas can’t imagine a day when looking a white man in the eye would’ve gotten you a solid ass stomp. 

We’re too damned arrogant as a people. Despite knowing about the prejudices that affect everything we do, we have the balls to forget how many nameless people suffered so that we can boast whitey can’t fuck wit’ this. We so flippantly toss aside those who suffered to make things better for us. And things are better. Thanks to them. Not perfect, hell no, but … better.

I’ve seen my share of racism. 

I attended an Ivy League college. On my first visit to the local grocer, I got in line with my items. I noticed how friendly the man behind the register was. Greeting and chatting with everyone. I thought it was nice. 

When my turn came, I smiled, walked up and said good morning. He said nothing. Rang up my items, distantly dropping each in a brown bag. He coldly let me know what he was owed. He took my money. I put my hand out for the change. He ignored it, choosing instead to slam my money on the counter.

As I walked away, I heard him greet the next customer with cheer.

At seventeen, it would be the first time I’d consciously see how I could be perceived with hatred for no reason other than the color of my skin.

While living in Dutchess County but being from the Big City, I had clueless white boys ask me the most dumbfounding questions like have I ever stabbed anybody. (My response: Fucking A. Nigga stepped on my new sneakers.) (I think white boy believed me.)

Once, I was in Virginia and a pickup truck filled with sleeveless rednecks pulled over and got out. I was walking along the road with a white girl. This wasn’t the 1930s or even the 1960s. This was 1982.

And I know my experiences boil down to petty-ante bullshit. But that’s fine. I am thankful I have no idea what’s it like to have to avoid a white man’s gaze. I’ve never had to settle for masta’s scraps to make a meal for my family. Nor have I had a hose or dog turned on me because I dare ask for my right to be treated with civility and respect. I try to understand what my father had to endure, even if I don’t know the man. And his father, and that man’s father. And all their mothers too.

I’d like to teach a course to young black men called “Knock It the Fuck Off.” Yeah, we’re great. We can do anything. We the baddest and prettiest. But we’re only any of those things because of what the generations before us suffered. And thankfully and hopefully the generations to come will benefit from what we as black people do today. I pray that as the coming generations may subconsciously embrace the benefits of our efforts, they don’t believe no one had anything to do with who they are, what they can do or what they say.

Go back hundreds of years — or the thousands before that — and know every man of color played a role in your ability to dismiss their struggle.

Prisoner K is a working technical writer. He values his and his family’s privacy and like John has read Kafka’s The Trial, thus the pseudonym.