But at first i wasn't like that. After weeks of looking for a job, i was grateful just to have one. I didn't think about low pay, indecent working conditions, no medical benefits, only one week vacation. I was just happy to be working. I identified with the job and talked about "our" company and told people what "we" manufactured. I wasn't making two cents over lunch money and talked like i owned the place. I remember once i was working at some joint where they made trailers. I had a job pushing papers. I told one of my aunt's friends that she should buy one of those trailers if she ever wanted one. She looked at me like i was crazy. "Why?" she asked. "Are they going to give me a discount?" I felt so stupid. It hit me. They wouldn't even give me a discount and i was working there.
The longer i worked at those places, the shorter my patience got. Half the time i didn't even want to hear that rinky-dink stuff they talked about at the office. I got sick of listening to gossip about the bosses and this and that and who was messing with who. After a while, i stayed pretty much to myself, and when i wasn't busy i would stick a book between some pages and read. That was back in the mid-sixties and papers were filled with stories about riots.
At the time, i really didn't know what to think about the riots. The only thing i can remember thinking was that i wanted to see the rioters win. In the office there was a group of secretaries who worked for the president or the vice-presidents. They looked down on those of us who worked in the general office and treated us like we were nothing. One day, i was in the bathroom and one secretary came in. She was spraying hair spray on a puffed-up French roll that was so hard it looked like it had been baked on. She began talking about this and that. I was surprised because she never talked to me. Then she started about the riots, "what a shame it was" that "those people" were so stupid and dumb for rioting because they were just tearing up their own neighborhoods and burning down their own houses. I didn't say anything. She prodded: "I said, isn't it a shame? Isn't it?" I didn't know what to say. It was true that Black people were burning down Black neighborhoods, but i didn't know how to deal with the question. She kept insisting. Finally, i said, "Yes," and walked out.
I was disgusted with myself. I hadn't wanted to agree with her, but i didn't know what else to say. I spent half the night thinking until i felt i had the answer. A few days later, the subject came up again. This time the whole bunch of front-office secretaries, who were friendly with the office manager, came into the general office. Before they had a chance to get any words out after "riot," i was on their case. "What do you mean, they're burning down their houses?
They don't own those houses. They don't own those stores. I'm glad they burned down those stores because those stores were robbing them in the first place!" They stood with their mouths open.
After that, the office manager went out of her way to hassle me. Miscellaneous whites began to ask my opinion about the riots, and i made sure they weren't disappointed. I knew it wouldn't be long before they fired me. The only reason i didn't quit was that i had nowhere to go and nothing else lined up. When i was finally fired, i was relieved.
Because my girlfriend Bonnie and i read a lot of fiction and poetry, we thought we were intellectuals. Neither of us had finished high school, but we used to go to this place on Broadway called the West End, dressed in what we believed to be our scholastic finery. It was one of those real college-type places, with pastrami sandwiches and pitchers of dark beer. We sat around trying to look "deep" until someone sat down and talked to us. After a while, we made friends with some African students who were studying at Columbia.
I loved to listen to the Africans. They were intense, serious, and had so much dignity. I was introduced to African customs, and they spent hours explaining the various aspects of their cultures. Bonnie asked about their marriage ceremonies because she was dying to get married. I asked about the food because i loved it: curried chicken, groundnut stew (chicken in peanut sauce), and corn bread that you cook over the stove. You would break off a little piece, roll it into a ball, dip your thumb in the middle and make a spoon that you would fill with gravy and eat. It really made me think about how bad they've done us. We know everything about spaghetti and egg rolls and crepes suzette, but we don't know the first thing about our own food. When i was a little kid, if you had asked me what Africans ate, i would have answered, "People!"
One day, Vietnam came up. It was around 1964 and the movement against the war had not yet blown up in full force. Someone asked me what i thought. I didn't have the faintest idea. Back then, the only thing i read in the papers was the headlines, crime stories, comics, or the horoscope. I said, "It's ll right, i guess." All of a sudden there was complete silence. "Would you mind explaining, sister, what you mean by 'it's all right, i guess'?" The brother's voice was mocking. I said something like "You know, the war we're fighting over there, you know, for democracy." It was clear, from the expressions around me, that i had said the wrong thing. The brother i had come with looked like he wanted to crawl under the floor. "Who's fighting for democracy?" somebody asked. "We are. The United States." And then, as an afterthought, i added, "You know, they're over there fighting communism. Fighting for democracy." The brother held his head in his hands as if he had a headache. I knew i had said something wrong, but i couldn't figure out what. Thinking i had failed to state my case strongly enough, i continued repeating everything i had heard on television. Babbling. Which only made matters worse.
When i finished, the brother asked me if i knew anything about the history of Vietnam. I didn't. He told me. He explained French colonialization, exploitation, brutalization, the starvation and illiteracy; the long fight waged and won in the North and the u.s. involvement in propping up a phony government after the French got their butts kicked.
The brother was talking about names, places, and events just like he was from Vietnam or something. I sat there with my mouth hanging open. He knew all this stuff and he wasn't even studying history. I couldn't believe that this African, who didn't even live in the u.s. or in Asia, could know more than me who had friends and neighbors who were fighting over there.
Then he defined the u.s. government's role, that it was fighting for money, to defend the interests of u.s. corporations and to establish military bases. I didn't know whether to believe him or not. I had never heard of such a thing. "What about democracy?" i asked him. "Don't you believe in democracy?" Yes, he said, but the government the u.s. was supporting was not a democracy but a bloodthirsty dictatorship. He started running all kinds of names and dates on me and there was no way i could respond. There he was, talking about the u.s. government just like somebody would talk about a criminal. I just couldn't relate to it. But my mind was blown.
Despite that, i continued saying the first thing that came into my head: that the u.s. was fighting communists because they wanted to take over everything. When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn't have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners. In school, we were taught that communists worked in salt mines, that they weren't free, that everybody wore the same clothes, and that no one owned anything. The Africans rolled with laughter.
I felt like a bona fide clown. One of them explained that communism was a political-economic system, but i wasn't listening. I was just digging on myself. I had been hooping and hollering about something that i didn't even understand. I knew i didn't know what the hell communism was, and yet i'd been dead set against it. Just like when you're a little kid and they get you to believe in the bogeyman. You don't know what the hell the bogeyman is, but you hate him and you're scared of him.
I never forgot that day. We're taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don't have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is. I started remembering all the stupid stuff people told me when i was little. "Don't trust We
st Indians because they'll stab you in the back." "Don't trust Africans because they think they are better than we are." "Don't hang out with Puerto Ricans because they all stick together and will gang up on you."
I had learned, through experience, that they were all lies told by stupid people, but i never thought i could be so easily tricked into being against something i didn't understand. It's got to be one of the most basic principles of living: always decide who your enemies are for yourself, and never let your enemies choose your enemies for you.
After that, i began to read about what was happening in Vietnam. What the Africans had said was true. There were also articles about the u.s. army in Vietnam, their involvement in torture and forcing Vietnamese women to sell their bodies just to survive.
I was so confused. It just didn't make any sense to me. "Our government couldn't do anything that bad," i told Bonnie. There had to be some other information. I couldn't even understand what "we" were doing there in the first place. Some kind of treaty, they said, but it didn't make any sense. I got so disgusted at one point that i said i wasn't going to read the news anymore.
"Ignorance is bliss," Bonnie said.
"The hell it is," i answered. I damn sure didn't want to be as ignorant as i had been. When you don't know what's going on in the world you're at a definite disadvantage. I decided i'd keep trying to follow what was happening, but i still couldn't believe the u.s. was doing all the foul things i was reading in the newspapers.
"What do you mean, you don't believe it?" Bonnie asked. "Just take a look at what they're doing to you."
The difference between the Africans and the other friends i hung out with that summer was startling. I remember one day at the beach. Everybody is hee-hee happy. It's party time. A multi-colored umbrella stands defiantly against the breeze. Blankets and silly-looking beach towels color the beach, along with soda cans and bottles of Bacardi and Johnnie Walker Black. Healthy-looking Black men, wearing turned-down sailor hats and college sweat shirts with cutoff sleeves, lug ice chests and other stuff back and forth. An improvised outdoor sound system has been hooked up and Martha and the Vandellas are wailing in the background.
I am insisting on reading James Baldwin even though the wind keeps flapping the pages. Anguished voices scream and moan from the pages. Compressed ghettos threaten to explode. Poverty and fire and brimstone boil over into a deadly stew, but the "beautiful" people refuse to let me read in peace. My girlfriend has insisted on "fixing me up" with "Mr. Wonderful," who turns out to be an egomaniac decked out in monogrammed swimming trunks, a matching terrycloth robe, and a monogrammed towel to boot. Mr. Wonderful consents to grace me with his presence. His looks and manner tell me that i should be grateful because he is definitely what's happening. His ride is a red MG convertible, his crib is in Esplanade Gardens, and his gig is an assistant manager for some bank downtown. He is kool from his reel-to-reel tapedeck to his color TV, right down to his shaggy "bachelor rug," which he leeringly tells me about.
He drinks Remy Martin cognac and Harvey's Bristol Cream, uses a cologne i can't pronounce, and i wait, expectantly, for him to tell me his brand of toothpaste. He goes on and on about his trinkets and status symbols. "Look at this monogrammed mother fucker," i think to myself. He is smug and insinuating. A Black version of "Bachelor Knows Best," or some such thing. I want to go back to James Baldwin, but i am surrounded by a group of people that talk too loud, looking and thinking somewhat like Mr. Wonderful. They are talking about Karmann Ghias, Porsches, Corvettes, and other cars that are deemed "in."
The conversation drifts on to co-ops and high-rise apartment complexes. A young man, who has mentioned more than once that he is an accountant, tells us the benefits of buying "property" on the Island. An insurance salesman says that he sells insurance out on the Island and pulls some business cards out of a little silver colored case which he "just happens to have handy" in his beach bag. A redheaded schoolteacher who has eyes for the accountant says that she has always wanted a house on the Island with a big kitchen. After talk about the Island has exhausted itself, the conversation turns to places to go. French and Mexican restaurants are definitely "in," with a restaurant that sells fifty different kinds of crepes winning hands down. One of the men, who is a poverty pimp, says that he has moved his offices to the Red Rooster bar and restaurant. Somebody laughingly asks if he isn't afraid to go into Harlem "with all them niggas." Everybody has some favorite restaurant on top of some building downtown. They don't talk about the food, just the scenery. Mr. Wonderful says he has a Playboy key and often eats at the Playboy Club.
I smile uneasily, feeling out of place. All this talk is giving me a headache. Some fraternity brothers invite me to dance. One tells me that i look like a Delta girl. "How does a Delta girl look?" i ask. "Just like you in a swimsuit." Mr. Wonderful glares at them. I am picking up snatches of conversation from all around me. Talks of grants, poverty programs, and democratic politics. Talk of the NFL, and the football season. Talk of Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale's, and Saks Fifth Avenue. About speedboats and cruisers which nobody owns but everybody wants to.
Whiskey flows like water, and the speedboats turn into yachts. Everybody is just crazy about the islands: Jamaica, Bermuda, Nassau. Everybody is so chic. I'm so tired of hearing about it that I want to send them somewhere by way of foot-mine! It's a disgrace. Social workers talking about their clients like dogs, teachers who don't like to teach. A probation officer complaining about how dangerous his job is. A bunch of money-worshipers putting on a front for each other. Somebody asks me if i have my thing together. "Which thing?" i want to know. I take a walk up to the house to get away from it all. Some women are in the bathroom smoking reefer and blowing their hair dry. I go fishing in my bag for some aspirin. "Where'd you buy your suit?" one asks me. I don't want to say Klein's, but i say it anyway. "They have some nice things, some times," she says without conviction, dismissing me as a bargain basement case. They go back to talking about people and hair going back. They are putting on makeup to look like Black Barbie dolls on the beach.
I go back outside feeling like i'm from another planet. I feel lonely and serious. Something has been happening to me, a change that has been a long time coming. I want to be real. Am i the only bad-doing, hand-to-mouth, barely-making-it Black woman there? The struggle i've been going through and the struggle i've been seeing is too hard to lie about and i don't even want to try. I want to help free the ghetto, not run away from it, leaving my people behind. I don't want to style and profile in front of nobody. I want somebody i can relate to and talk about serious shit with.
This party is a lost cause. I get my beach towel and my book and ease on down the beach a little piece. Looking out at the ocean, i wonder how many of our people lie buried there, slaves of another era. I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but i know damn well what it ain't. How have we gotten so silly, i wonder. I get back off into James Baldwin. I don't give a damn if Sag Harbor sags into oblivion. Me and James Baldwin are communicating. His fiction is more real than this reality.
My patience was zero. I didn't want to wait for something to happen. I was into living and living for now. I was hungry, starving for life, but at the same time i was growing more and more cynical every day. I wanted to go everywhere, do everything, and be every thing, all at the same time. I wanted to experience everything, know how everything felt. I had many zigzag conflicting ideas rolling around in my head at the same time. One day i was happy just to be alive and young and moving. The next day i felt like the world was coming to an end. Everything in my life was jagged, sharp, un finished edges. Nothing happened calmly. Nothing was like i had thought it would be when i was little.
My friends were dying from OD and going into the army. My girlfriends had babies and were looking and sounding old. Nice old men sitting in the park weren't nice old men at all but were busy masturbating under their newspapers. I got so i didn't believe in anything. It seemed that everybody was in some kind of bag, the dope bag, the whi
skey brown paper bag, the jesus bag, the love bag, the sex bag, the make-it bag, and none of those bags were doing anybody any good. I was looking for my own bag, but the pickings were slim. I kept on looking nevertheless, running and moving and hanging out until i was running myself ragged. One day i'd be downtown hanging out with my hippy, blippy (Black hippy) friends. The next night i'd be uptown hanging out with the hustlers. But nothing seemed like it was for real, you know? The same dudes who would be talking slick and sniffing coke out of $50 bills one day would be scrounging and begging for a loan the next. Even the most successful hustlers seemed to be nothing but flunkies and potential fall guys for the mafia. My friends from downtown weren't much better. At best, most of them were professional escape artists, into escaping the problems of the Black community or those of the white community. Some of them tried to escape through drugs, tripping over worlds that didn't exist on some kind of inner-space odyssey. But in their case, the drugs were usually not entirely self-destructive, although i know at least one who zoomed dead out of this world and didn't come back.
Through my hippy/blippy friends, i got turned on to a lot of things, though. I got into poets like Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Ferlinghetti, all kinds of novelists, music, food, etc. I didn't relate to everything i checked out, but my horizons got a whole lot broader.
Assata: An Autobiography Page 19