When Our Brothers Start Shooting

Gunshots sound at 9:50 pm at Pennsylvania and Branch Avenue gas station. Shots that I know aren’t cars backfiring, or ice tumbling out of the automated ice-maker. I am relieved that I was not at the gas station filling up my tank, or Cameron running out for cigarettes. Even as more well to do families move into the neighborhood and elevate the quality of life with trimmed hedges, polite family barbeques, and neighborhood watch, people who are quick to the hip still interrupt the Oscars with Poppoppopop-Pop! Pop! Flashing lights illuminate the station even brighter than the red, white, and blue Exxon signs.

Now I’ve been thinking about a line I heard in a play, Kymone Freeman’s “Prison Poetry” that premiered at the Lincoln Theatre last weekend. Allow a little background before I jump into the point of this reference. Freeman situates three black men in a prison cell for one night, and challenges them to explore their deeply held beliefs about incarceration, personal and community responsibility, and racial identity. The men engaged in this argument are: emergine Tobias Washington, III; exonerated Death Row inmate and former political activist Shujaa; and Poet, of no particular employment affiliation.

If an audiences’ oral and physical response to scene and dialogue is any indication of a play’s quality, then Prison Poetry is a fine wine. Shouts of “Tell it!” “That’s what I’m talking about!” underscored nearly every exchange between Tobias and Shujaa, who wastes no time jibing at Tobias’s name (in reference to Alex Haley’s ancestor Kunta Kente who was whipped into submitting to “Toby”) and continued at nearly every aspect of his identity. In a fashion befitting a third-generation lawyer, Tobias returns the jabs. Though each man swings with equal intensity, Shujaa comes off as righteous, experienced, “real”, and Tobias as sheltered, ignorant, and bourgie. The crowd clearly believed Shujaa spoke the truth.

Poet, educated like Tobias but “from the street” like Shujaa, mediates the arguments as much as possible with poetic soliloquies, or physical interventions. Ultimately, he argues, black unity will resolve black American’s problems. Not until black people support each other politically, socially, and economically will the most detrimental ills be resolved.

Aaaah…identity politics. “I am black therefore I believe in big government, elimination of the prison system, a social welfare system, and an authentic black experience.”

Leon Harris has just announced breaking news on News 7. A Secret Service officer was shot in an attempted carjacking at the Exxon station on Pennsylvania and Branch Avenues. The ambulances and officers have cleared the scene, and suspects are in pursuit. I need to go out, but I’m reluctant to leave. Momentarily, my sense of safety has been shattered and I don’t want to open the front door to that reality just yet.

Would Shujaa scoff at the fact that I’m a little shaken up? Is it a testament to my bourgie, privileged background? Should I be ashamed that hearing gunshots disturbs me?

Chocolate City privileges black people with the possibility of lifestyles from lower to upper class, lifestyles that directly affect our political sensibilities. Yet, these differences can impede a general “unified” movement. This shooting tonight illustrates this point. I’m sure residents of some parts of Southeast would brush off the shooting as background noise, my reaction as naïve, and theirs “real.” Just as Shujaa registered Tobia’s poor knowledge of drug policy laws as evidence of being less black, less aware than he was. Their dialogue made it clear Shujaa, with his experience in grassroots activism, in being imprisoned, in defending his dignity, was the authority on the black experience as Tobias needed to be schooled.

How do we create a unified political block when one black experience is valued over another? Fortunately, black Americans have advanced from an economic and political monolith. Unfortunately, we spite those who have worked their way into privilege. Unity…what will it take to achieve it? Around what issues should black people be unified? Who has the right, the authority to say?