If anything, seeing the American Revolution and founding of government portrayed with people of color as founding fathers made me even more enraged at the hypocrisy of the actual American “forefathers” fighting for freedom, liberty, and the very statement that “all men are created equal” while literally owning Black people. I fucking cannot. It’s just this reminder that they wanted it to be one way despite all their talk of freedom for the other way. They kept it the way that benefited them the most. I’m about to get off track, but had this been a musical about the Haitian Revolution, aka a successful uprising of slaves in Haiti against the French colonizers, there woulda been no need for Black and POC folks cosplaying as the founding fathers ’cause everyone in that Haitian Revolution was Black. Americans felt oppressed through taxes and dumped tea. Haitians were oppressed and dropped fucking bodies. I know that can’t be done because the colonizers lost, and we’d have to focus on how France crippled Haiti by cutting off its trade with the world and taxing (called the “indemnity tax” at the time) it for its freedom under threat of another invasion. I’m just saying, that’s the musical I wanna see getting the upper echelon of Broadway uncomfortable as fuck.
Now, I don’t hate Hamilton at all. Once again, it’s historical fan fiction. I just don’t want it to be used as revisionist history for Alexander Hamilton or any of the founding fathers (looking right at you, Thomas Jefferson) because people would rather not have to face the truth to a piece of fiction that they love. I am not here for any “Fuck accountability, we just trying to sing along to the jams” when we could actually enjoy the musical and acknowledge that the Hamilton in the Broadway show doesn’t give the actual Hamilton a clean slate, because at the end of the day, ya mans Hamilton “has to answer for his [actions and] his words, sir.” That’s all I’m getting at here. Well, that and… *Troy Barnes voice* I TOLD MY FRIEND I NEVER WANTED TO WATCH HAMILTON! I JUST WANTED TO LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE DISAPPOINTED BY BARS!
Graduating to the Grown Folks’ Table: I Finally Learned How to Play Spades
OMAR HOLMON, aka Young Librarian with the Books
WHEN IT’S TIME for the games to come out in a Black household or function, or wherever that atmosphere be so Black, I guarantee you it ain’t gon’ be Apples to Apples, Parcheesi, or anything from Milton Bradley. The choices will be either Monopoly, Taboo, or Spades. This is the trifecta of games (honorable mention for Uno) in Black culture. Spades sits at the top of the oligarchy. Period. That’s a scientific law all Black folk understand. Legend says, if you’re able to master all three of these elements, then the experience points on your Black Card unlock a hidden level. I thought I would never achieve that hidden level because I just didn’t get how to play Spades. I was okay with that, but apparently my friends weren’t. Perhaps the Black planets aligned, ’cause we were in Brooklyn and had just attended Curlfest 2018. I come out my bathroom thinking we’re gon’ talk. Instead, I see my wife, Tasha, and my friends Bri and Elvis sitting at the living room table with a deck of cards dead center, giving me the intervention look. What part of the come-to-Jesus moment is thissss?
WHY CARD GAMES AREN’T FOR ME: A FLASHBACK SEQUENCE
It’s ok, Black People Who Can’t Play Spades. Someone has to make the plates and there’s always Uno aka Training Spades. One of you negros talkin bout you feel seen or attacked run and get me two wings, a little bit of mac and cheese and a cold pop.
—Danez Smith
When I was in first grade, my mother and I used to live in Maryland. When my siblings would come to visit, the eldest, Kece (15), would play cards with Mom. Meanwhile, Travis (11) and I would play with our action figures (TMNT all day). You may be wondering why we’re having this anime flashback right now ’cause that seems like a nice family moment. That’s a hard no. Listen, Travis and I had to make sure we were fed, ’cause when Mom and Kece started playing cards, that loving mother-daughter relationship went out the window. Gradually, voices would get a little higher, cards hit the table a little harder, and then that back-and-forth trash talk would come out. Travis and I would look at each other, look at them, pick up the toys, and walk into the bedroom to keep playing. We didn’t want to see how this was gonna turn out. Cracking the bedroom door open, we’d watch them go at it. I’m like, “Come on, Mom, she is a child. *then hears what Kece said back, gasps* That is your mother!” Travis would say, “They can’t hear us, man. They’re too far gone. We’d have to be holding cards in order to reach ’em.” Mom kept a book of all the win-loss records between her and Kece for years. Whenever they got together, that book would come out and it was no-holds-barred.
My guy, that shit had me shook to play any card games. Mom tried to teach me Spit once and I said, “Look. I’ve seen how you and Kece get down. I can’t do that with you ’cause I know how you get. I’ma keep it strictly Switzerland with you ’cause I want zero problems, Mam.”
MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE PRESENT…
I just want to reiterate that I didn’t mind not knowing how to play Spades. That’s a skill tree on the Black Card I was good with not unlocking. I learned Monopoly in South Africa—I don’t really have an affinity for it, but I know it. Now when it comes to Taboo, *clenches fist* ask about me. I’d be whupping ass at the function; I’m talking five, seven cards easy. Mom looking at me with pride, like Gai Sensei watching his student Rock Lee bust Gaara’s ass in the Chūnin Exams when Rock’s leg weights came off, tellin’ folk, “I could see he had no aptitude for Spades or Monopoly. So we skipped them and focused solely on Taboo. He is a Taboo specialist that’ll lose to no one.” The problem with Spades is usually you have to learn by watching, because Black folk don’t wanna fuck up their win-loss record partnering with a newbie. Lemme be the first to tell you, the Black Nerd Problems’ Slack ain’t a safe space for not knowing Spades either. My own people out here exposing me online. It’s a lot of pressure, man! “Fine, I’ll learn,” I told my friends. “Just don’t be out here yelling at me.” Now, I’ll leave the name of the person who agreed to be my training partner anonymous so as not to ruin their win-loss record as they were doing me a favor.
When My Partner and I Win the Practice Round
PARTNER: See?! You got it.
INNER ME: My ass is still not knowing what I’m supposed to see or get. I am not seeing the Matrix’s HTML code at any point.
*trying to guess the number of books I have*
ME: I think I got four books and *upward inflection* a possibllllle?
Me Putting a Spade Down to Start the Round
PARTNER: OMAR! What are you doing?! A hand has to be cut before you can do that!
ME: See?! You’re yelling at me!… I don’t wanna play any-more.
Me Stating That “I-I-I Have Two and Possible?”
*I then proceed to win six books and everyone just looks at me*
PARTNER: There’s thirteen books in total. If you’re off then that throws us all off.
ME: Well, no one told me that.
But then something started happening. Fair warning, I’m about to use a bunch of Spades terms without explanation. If ya wanna know what they mean you gotta go through the same struggle to learn the game as I did. As I was saying, my books and possibles became more accurate. My partner was nodding at my moves in pride now. When I saw my partner get cut, I revealed the king of spades to ensure our win and they exploded with excitement. My partner started signaling to me before the next round started: “We got this shit.” When we were six turns in, I was screaming with my eyes at them that “we do not have this shit!” After a few more goes, it was evident that I had begun forcing the other team’s hand more and more, which then escalated the shit talking from their side right before we grabbed our first win.
And there it was, at last, among all the shit talking and score keeping, I could feel the level up happening. The sudden rush of Blackness doubling and taking over me. Yet, this time it felt different from when I had finally watched The Wire (in 2015). I was leveling up, but no longer occ
upying the same plane of existence. Could this be the hidden level I had heard about? Was there about to be a boss battle? Because I was not prepared for that. As I looked around me, I thought I might have been transported to the ancestral plane. Tables and chairs started appearing. Folks began sitting at them and playing games of Spades and dominoes. Other groups were playing Taboo (I didn’t see anyone playing Uno).
There were thousands of tables with all these elder Black folk from different eras: all playing various games, all discussing grown folk business. My god. I realized this was it. I had earned my way to the grown folks’ grown folk table.
EPILOGUE
I called my brother and then my sister.
ME: Do you know how to play Spades?
KECE: No.
ME: Ah, okay. I knew you and Mom played cards. I just learned, and I was curious if you knew how. Travis said ex-cons taught him. Yo, what card game was it that you and Mom would go at it over?
KECE: Oh, gin rummy. You remember that?
ME: Uhhhh, yeah, man. When I talked to Travis and brought up you and Mom goin’ at it over cards, he said, “Yeah… I remember that.” I could feel his thousand-yard stare in his eyes through the phone.
KECE: *laughing* It was gin rummy. Then it was rummy. As I got older we would include word searches, Wheel of Fortune (ten cents a game), and keep score for each game. She wanted to teach me how to play Spades, but it was something about the suits or the books that I didn’t get at that age (6). So, it was easier for me to learn gin rummy. I think she didn’t teach me Spades because she was so competitive and I woulda beat her. If she was here, she’d say, “I didn’t wanna bother [teaching you] ’cause I woulda kicked your ass.” She tried to teach me Monopoly when I was about six or seven, but I’d lose and cry and she’d say, “I’m not gonna teach you if you keep crying.”
ME: That sounds like her. Hey, I’ve always wondered. Why would y’all be arguing?
KECE: ’Cause I started winning! I started winning and she’d wanna double-check my cards and count my hand… “oh, that doesn’t go to this,” “oh, that point doesn’t count for this game.” So I said, “Well, if you’re checking my cards, then I’m checking yours.” When I got older, you know what she had the nerve to tell me? That sh—
ME: That she let you win. Yeah, I know. She told me that.
KECE: YEAH! You let me win? You. Let. Me. Win? Maaaaaaaaan, please. I’ll never forget the first time I beat her. She made it harder and harder to even come close. Which, to her credit, she was doing to make me better. But when I finally whupped her? When I finally whupped her ass? I’ll never forget that look in her eye. She looked up and said, “You won,” but it was the expression on her face. It was that proud-but-pissed look. Then eventually, she got a book to keep tabs on our scores, wins, and losses over the years. No matter where we were—if I was visiting or we were driving to North Carolina—we always had a deck of cards.
Two Dope Boys and an—Oh My God, the Flash Got Fucked Up!
OMAR & WILLIAM, aka Them Dudes Selling White Tees at the Flashpoint
IT’S UNMISTAKABLE THAT Arrow on the CW really put on for the live-action hero adaptation (until Daredevil came and took that lunch money). Arrow walked (hitting those bull’s-eyes) so that The Flash could run. The Flash was light, funny, and didn’t take itself too seriously in stark contrast to its predecessor. Compared to Oliver Queen’s brooding nature on Arrow, Barry Allen was living on high… until season two.
In season two we met a villain speedster named Zoom. Not only was Zoom faster than Barry, he apparently didn’t get the memo that this was a family show. You can’t be on the CW breaking Barry’s back, literally putting your hand through my man’s spinal cord like that. How you gonna have your hero go from the fastest man alive to being dead from the dick down? He beat the miles per hour out of Barry then proceeded to drag that poor boy through the streets of Central City. Barry’s body was flapping in the wind like a white flag of surrender. We still haven’t recovered from the PTSD of seeing possibly the most historic beatdown of a superhero in recent history last to this day.
OMAR: Barry Allen needed a ref to throw a flag on the play as well as a kitchen sink. I don’t know what the gossip site is in DC Universe. I dunno if they got a Shade Room for all the dirt that happens to superheroes too, but Barry better hope not ’cause I ain’t ever seen a hero get their body Earth’d like that since Superman’s funeral.
WILLIAM: Yo, the DC version of Shade Room are the comments on Tumblr when the DC Comics’ Convergence event was poppin’ off. Convergence was yet another reboot of the DC Comics continuity, and ya know what, people were tired of that shit. Shit was just savage with no concern for human decency. And that’s exactly where Zoom’s state of mind was when he was giving Barry the Holy Trinity ass-whuppin’. Dude tried to bury the Scarlet Speedster, then was gonna sit at his tomb three days later just in case he rose again.
OMAR: That highlight reel ain’t looking good for our former track hero MVP, man. Barry tried to toss that lightning like it was a Super Smash Bros. item and caught the UNO Reverse. How you come out the pocket with Guile’s sonic boom and get that shit “return to sender”? Zoom out here cuttin’ Barry’s lights out like he missed the electric bill payment.
WILLIAM: Barry, my speedster, I hate it had to be you. The lightning is a cool trick and all, but obviously Barry is a novice with that shit, like the first two hours of Infamous when you still playing with Cole MacGrath and you haven’t unlocked the good powers yet. But can we talk about how Zoom ran around Central City doing press conferences while carrying exhibit A with him everywhere? Cats was probably at home, ordering pizza, heard the doorbell, answered that shit, but instead of getting that large thin-crust cheese, they just got Zoom’s demonic ass holding dead-from-the-waist-down Flash.
OMAR: DUUUUUUDE! Why Barry look like an unrolled Fruit by the Foot blowin’ in the wind as Zoom was runnin’ with him? Barry’s body was straight soggy-tortilla-shell limp, looked like a fresh-popped party streamer! Jay Garrick had to be watching that shit from his laptop talkin’ ’bout, “And y’all ain’t wanna believe me. See? You see? Now you out here lookin’ like strained Play-Doh, *eats Dorito* whole body lookin’ like khakis with the crease in ’em. These young kids don’t wanna fuckin’ listen to a damn thing till they get dropped on the blacktop.”
WILLIAM: And look, I know shit was scary at the time, when Zoom showed up at the secret lair then kicked in the door waving the limp four limbs of their hero. But the next day, when that muthafucka wakes up… how you not lookin’ at Barry with pure disgust? Iris gotta be like, “Yeah, after that, ain’t no way I’m bearing his children. They gonna ask me how their father ended up in a wheelchair and there’s no way I can tell them that someone kneaded his spine like bread dough and made him defecate in his Speed Force draws.”
OMAR: I was okay with the ass-whupping until Zoom Taser punched Barry in the spine, making homie’s legs turn into spaghetti. I mean damn, ya mans was lookin’ like Forrest Gump walkin’ with the leg braces! I saw him take that hit and said, “OoOoOOoooo-ughhhh… He must have shit himself on that. IT’S OKAY IF YOU SHIT YOURSELF, BARRY!” This is seriously the worst moment of the entire beatdown ’cause it looks like Barry got hit so hard that he ejaculated… It’s either that or he’s trying to hit the high note of a Mariah Carey track. God, that arch in the back, man! Remember that arch?! That’s the arch ya moms gets when you were a kid and hit the back of her ankle with a shopping cart.
WILLIAM: Bruh, that’s some shit your body ain’t supposed to come back from. I feel like Grant Gustin needed at least eighteen months of yoga for that scene. Fam, Flash’s body went fuckin’ parallel to the earth on that punch. Lookin’ like Sesame Street, “this episode is presented to you by the letter C.” Flash is my dude, man, I really don’t appreciate Zoom punching him so hard that it turned his body into the shape of a socket wrench.
OMAR: Yo, Oliver Queen (Arrow) got his throat hit, stabbed through the abdomen, and
kicked off a fucking mountain, and that shit looks like a fucking spa day compared to what Barry went through. Ollie musta watched the news of this shoutin’, “I SAID GODDAMN! BARRY! BARRY, SOFTEN THE BLOWS WITH YOUR PRIVILEGE! USE YOUR PRIVILEGE OR A WAD OF HUNDREDS TO SOFTEN THE BL—He can’t hear me. I’ma get him a walker for Christmas this year.”
Zoom out here thinkin’ he Z from Zola’s story ’cause he trappin’ with the Speed Force and Barry in that Jarrett fetal position just wanting a warm glass of milk and an “everything is going to be okay” head pat.
WILLIAM: Yo, if this was Zola’s story and Barry wanted to jump (well, fall) off the roof after the shit that Zoom, aka Z, just did, you better let that man meet his maker the way he wants. No judgment from me. I mean, if I were Barry and woke up after that shit, I might have been pissed y’all kept me on life support long enough for me to live through that shit. Barry was basically dead after Zoom gave him the spinal tap. The rest was just parading a corpse.
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