men

“But I’m afraid of not being able to laugh anymore
What’s life going to become once we don’t have anymore
…Heroes?”

-Cee-Lo Green

I get tired. I sometimes drift off in front of my social media feed. My eyes tend to get sooooo heavy from pontificating with strangers. Commiserating with you is draining; I apologize if I distract myself with more pressing and immediate concerns. Your stupidity tires me out and I need a break. If you knew how dumb and shortsighted you are, then you’d need a snooze, too. Correcting you saps the little energy I have, but monitor our Black Lives with an otherworldly attentiveness, you little vanguard, you. You deserve my sincere apology for correcting whatever absurdities wafted out the midnight oil of condescension and misguided righteous gallivanting. I’ll just look past the fact you’re delving into a very dangerous and harmful logic. Yeah…naw. Good luck getting me to comport myself as someone willing to acquies…

“…Yo, Young Militant Facebook Jerk, I had this weird dream. I dreamt that my ex got back with me and gave me Chlamydia. Chlamydia, yeah. But here’s the weird thing; she got it from Katt Williams and he was chasing me around, apparently mad I took my girl back from him…

…Dozed off, sorry. #BlackLivesMatter made idiots of a few that garner reverence by impressing other idiots. The share button only helps if you can discern between validity and propaganda, champ. It kinda sucks because your intentions are (to you) noble. We get it; nothing else invades your immaculate consciousness…

“…But dig this part…everybody running with Katt in my dream were my friends in real life. So I had like five people chasing and shooting at me. My ex doubled back to ol’ boy and I was just running by myself until I finally got to my mother’s house…”

Shit. Fell asleep. I do wonder how YOU condemning ME for losing focus of an issue isn’t egregious in its own right. It seems totally counterproductive and unnecessary. Why are our “leaders” continuously slinking back into the pack to make sure all of us are fixated on the same thing? And why does your indignation only apply to others? Oh, to be so aware of everything except your own actions, Young Wack Hotep Brother. I have no problem pointing a finger directly in the face of this hypocrisy, because I have never claimed to be too involved to do otherwise.

“Yoooo…they all pulled out guns and I couldn’t run anymore because apparently Chlamydia makes you really slow. So I just stood there…I STOOD there, dude…they all had guns on me. Did I mention that before?? Well anyway, they all sat there ready to shoot when my ex popped up in the window and had one of those bullets Angelina Jolie had in Wanted…yeah, the ones that boomerang around the room…so, yeah, she shot in the window and hit all of them in the che…”

Those covers had me lazy. Carry on with your conquests, you valiant social media trooper. Disperse your wisdom by inundating us with questionable information on the basis the headlines alone appease to a certain sensibility we should all be required to share. Condemn us because we find time to laugh, joke, and relax. Forgive us if our outrage isn’t incessant while our awareness is meandering. Call me obtuse and take pity on me for not occupying the same post with you, scanning the horizon with aimless zeal. I suppose taking any regard of my own Black Life at times is selfish and unfocused. Forgive me.

“So they all sat there shaking on the floor and my ex crawled through the window and threw a small vial in my direction. She said, ‘sorry for giving you The Clap’, and walked out through the front door. It bothered me because I had Chlamydia; did she not know ‘The Clap’ refers to Gonorrhea? Because I can’t deal with somebody that’s not #Woke.

Look, the battles are ceaseless. The problem with our midnight crusaders isn’t that there is no recognition of the endless nature of our issues; it’s that my deviance is incorrectly identified as resignation. It’s that watching- and not subsequently analyzing- is equivalent to knowledge for you folk. I am not stepping away from this fight; I am simply regrouping in order to determine a more effective approach. Why barge into the middle of a sociopolitical issue while alienating those that share your desire for change? If fights were meant to be around-the-clock solo missions, there would be no need for a more rested set of eyes to ever defend our livelihoods, right?

“What you mean did I chase after her?? She gave me Chlamydia and- through her “research”- called it ‘The Clap’. Her ignorance is going to kill us both if I allow it…”

It is not because I do not care. Nor is it because I am unaware. My reticence is not hesitance. Consciousness is a weapon unto oneself under YOUR sanctimony; look both ways before you lob grenades. Sleep because you dare to dream, not because you believe your truth is the one and only. Understand your platitudes are simply blinders; they are not shades.

#YouCouldStayWokeButYouShouldProbablyTakeYoAssToSleepForALittleBit

A.J. Armstrong is smarter than you; he’s also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities

I’m not raising a little Black boy, so maybe I’m not qualified to speak on this. Wait, I forgot. I AM A YOUNG BLACK MALE. I almost forgot because, fortunately, police haven’t drawn weapons on me in many years. So there’s that.

Don’t let anybody place what’s happening with these police shootings of Black kids in any “context”; young Black men are getting gunned down unjustifiably. The issue is not- nor has it ever been- what we can do to prevent this. The issue is that this keeps happening. What are you all telling your sons? At this point, what on Earth CAN you tell them?

“Never wolf-whistle at white women…” (1955)

“Don’t wear a hoodie…even in the rain…” (2012)

“Don’t be a Black man…” (Every Black man’s whole life, I think)

Seriously, what can you tell them?? Nothing comes to my mind, at least. You white, you Ben Affleck; you Black, you have an increased chance of getting shot down for something that can’t possibly be deemed worthy. I hate that this is even considered a part of real life. I hate when people say this and I hate myself for saying it, but I have to say it: we as Black people (cringe) are never supposed to accept that. However, I will never accept the types of reasoning some have expressed regarding such horrible situations:

Naw. The notion that who a young Black man is, what he is doing, or what he is wearing is somehow in direct correlation to an increasing proclivity to shoot our kids is ignorant, shortsighted, and, quite frankly, some all around FUCK SHIT. We can be poetic or we can call it what it is. Some. Fuck. Shit. So the emergence of rap music, the absence of Martin and Malcolm, and, um, whatever other fuck shit people are trying to use is a valid reason Michael Brown got gunned down for leaving a QuikTrip? Did I read that right? What about the dozens of others? Same thing, huh?

That type of thinking is not relegated to weirdos in bow ties, either (please look this guy up on Twitter. @theonebmiller. Bow tie). The post-Trayvon crusaders called for everything from keeping Black kids out of hoodies to keeping that rap noise to a minimum whilst “being out here with these white folk”. Naw. I refuse to address an issue by suggesting how I can make myself “less Black”. All the J. Crew in the world isn’t going to keep a cop from filling me with enough lead to supply Sherman-Williams with enough paint to kill us all before they realized lead-filled paint would kill us all and run-on sentences are so cool when you make obscure references and it helps to quell my anger because people are stoopid sometimes and I purposefully spelled stupid wrong or whatever but get back to the topic, A.J. I’m not telling my son to take his hoodie off in the rain. I’m not lecturing him on going smack at white women. And I damn sure am not going to tell him to let some white man tell him his music is too loud.

I will tell my son to dress for the occasion. I don’t care what you wear on your way to 7-Eleven. I will tell him to be respectful of women and that he’ll probably look like an ass if he goes at any girl recklessly and that he deserves all the ridicule in the world because of it. And 28 year-old me would probably tell young Little Homey to ‘turn the music a level higher and return the Devil’s fire’, but then my father would look at me and I’d get scared and tell him to respect other people and to not be a douchebag and I love run-on sentences but whatever. Look, having your music too loud in your car is a pet peeve and pretty douchey, but not worth taking a life over. My son will not be raised to be scared to be himself. He will be raised to understand that there are injustices in this world, and that there will always be. I refuse to have him thinking that his actions- his innocuous actions- are the sole causes of conflict. Because groupthink on this issue will be veeeeeeery conflicted once another Black kid is shot down while wearing a suit.

While we’re at it, let me address this Ray Rice issue and Stephen A. Smith’s comments regarding said issue. Everybody should stop hitting everybody. Now shut the fuck up. Ok…bye.

A.J. Armstrong is sleep tho. That’s the new motion, right? He is also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities

The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities

I promise you'll be amazed. Or bewildered. Or offended. Something.

Insomnia

You Might Die/While We’re At It…