A few months back, I wrote a poem for a fallen brother. The man that poem was written for was my brother...the boy who was born to my mother a year after me. My real brother, family. I also wrote in that poem that we "had fought back to back". This was the truth; he and I had stood, literally, back to back, and fought. Here is how that came about...
My brother and I were in Michigan at the time. The town we lived in was mostly black. There were very few whites, and most of them were afraid to leave their homes. My brother and I weren't among that group. We had things to do, and money to make, so we were very active in our "community". This one day, he and I were talking, and walking...we paid no attention to where we were. We were not in a good place. We discovered this only too late.
The shouts of "cracker", "honkey", "white-bread", and "whitey" didn't deter us. My brother became agitated, but I said to him, "don't let a few names get to you. They are just trying to goad us into a fight...fuck 'em". He could live with the name-calling, but then came the beer bottle that sailed by us, and shattered on the sidewalk. That's when everything went to hell.
My brother said "this is where it starts". He said he would be dammed if he would let that slide! I quickly reminded him that at last count, there were six of them, and only two of us. I thought to err on the side of caution was the better defense...he did not share my enthusiasim. I knew we were screwed. This was going to end badly for us, I just wondered how badly?
You see, racism goes both ways. We were the wrong color, and in the wrong neighborhood...we would have to pay the price for that. It wasn't personal...we were just in the right place at the wrong time. We stopped to make a stand. My brother said to put my back against his. As long as we stuck together, no one could get between us. I pointed out that we had no hope of winning...he pointed out that we had the element of surprise. Huh??? Surprise???
Sure, he told me...they think we are some of those spoiled white boys from the other side of town. These guys had no idea who they were fuckin' with he told me. I suddenly started to get just what he was saying. These guys thought we were easy pickings...we weren't. We only lived a couple of blocks away, and we certainly weren't spoiled little rich white boys. We made our stand right there on the sidewalk.
It was a tough fight. We were pulled apart several times, but managed to get back together. We were bloody, and fairly spent afterwards. I will never say that we won, but as my brother told me that day..."any street fight you can walk away from"...and we did walk away that day. As a matter of fact, we walked away with our heads held a little higher than before!
I never would have thought to keep our backs together, but my brother did. He was younger than me by one year...he was wiser than me by many years. No wonder I wrote a poem to his memory. He was worth it. He was definitely worth it.
Holla' If You Hear Me!!!
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