Liz’s Weekly Poetry Series: Field Nigga Boogie

February 16, 2013 in Montana

by lizard

From the article The Execution of Christopher Dorner:

State of the Union: Flammable

This is a day of a million possible metaphors, but central among these should be the image of the burning house. In an effort to distinguish what he called the “house negro” from the “field negro,” Malcolm X had once observed that the two responded differently when the master’s house caught fire: “But that field negro, remember, they were in the majority, and they hated their master. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try to put it out, that field negro prayed for a wind.” While the metaphor may seem a strange one, given the fiery death of a man some have compared to a runaway slave. But as many Americans choose to gaze, mesmerized, at the glowing embers of the Dorner saga rather than watching the State of the Union, it’s worth wondering: whose house is really on fire? And who is praying for wind?

Who is praying for wind?

I certainly wasn’t when I spent my white, suburban, 14-year-old discretionary money on Ice T’s album Body Count, featuring Tipper Gore’s seal of disapproval, the enticing Parental Advisory sticker.

Strange to remember how the same Ice T that plays a cop on tv once got hysterical notoriety for a song called Cop Killer.

I think the LAPD was the subject of that particular tune, featured below:

The updated version of Ice T’s outdated angst comes from Oscar Jackson Jr., better known as the rapper Paris.

Here is a bit of the song’s verse:

To protect and to serve is a myth to us
They protect they shit and serve sticks to us
Fuck a waterhose nigga, those days is thru
All a pig’s gotta do nowadays is shoot

For the full effect, here’s Paris full throttle:

Getting back to the state’s most recent lynching, this from the article first cited in this post:

As Obama was taking to the lectern, police agencies were insisting that they had not set the fire that killed Christopher Dorner, and the compliant media were parroting this clearly implausible message. As members of Congress stood and sat on cue to rapturously applaud the Commander-in-Chief, more than 14,000 people have liked just one of the Facebook pages in support of Dorner, some because they know what racist policing is like, some because ours is a time of resisting injustice by any means, and some simply for the joy of backing an outlaw to the grisly end.

From my perpetual work in progress, these lines may stick:

when the burners came by remote control he
must have realized it was time to eat a bullet

don’t be coy, dear badges of San Bernardino
the scanner chatter that day was clear:

Burn that fucking house down! one deputy said
Fucking burn this motherfucker! said another

I don’t know how the lie that incineration wasn’t the plan from the start can stand. It was. It’s obvious. And to avoid further Facebook likes, the San Bernardino authorities should just be up front like president Obama, and argue that imminent threat demanded execution, because that would be so much easier.