"On a mission, without taking the first hit". How I supported my disease of racism.

[Pragmatic]

I remember saluting the flag at colors. I remember folding the flag nice and tight after colors, with my dress whites on.

I remember creasing dixie cap so it would have a circular effect all around .


I remember saying "excuse me sir" while cleaning up another man's and them toilets and bathroom .

I remember going to all these briefs on the boat about "the mission" , and "the chain of command" .

I remember being the sharpest cook at quarters. My hat would be flat, and pressed; shoes shined, and if they were'nt I would go and shine them up real quick. Just to crawl up under the scullery and scrub walls, and get soaked from head to toe with spaghetti juice, water, and dirty dish spray.



I can remember having to shave my face to look clean shaven. I always felt this didn't make me feel grown up . They say it was for the gas mask to have a proper fit, but we were still wearing prison uniforms, and you couldn't go off the base, or be seen anywhere in them.

We had to have a "two man" system anywhere we went, but couldn't go off the base in are dungaree working uniform, and was "afraid" to be seen coming to work in it.

I used to think "Discrimination" was "favortism" and not "racism" or "casteism" and I was the lowest man.


I'm about to get out the millitary. I can remember just getting off of restriction, for protesting about the constitution and "
why Black folks can't be president", "and why was the base allowing people to drive around with confederate flags stickers on they cars"????

I'm on the mess deck, and this Fillipino man, chief say' "Brown would you like to say something, in a real condesending tone. So I stand up, really proud and talk about "how long I had been in the service, and how I was dual pinned". I said this cause he wasn't, and just knew I just told him something...

I remember being on restriction, and wanting to find out if I could get qualfied as a quarterdeck watch on base. Always wanting to impress my chain of command with my intelligence. At this time I didn't know they were'n't going to give me any medical benefits for aggravating my back conditions. Nor did I know I was about to get an evaluation that would hinder me from getting my Montgomery GI Bill.

I was being kicked out, with the lowest evaluation marks I had seen my entire career and I was upset. I'm contimplating writing DFAS and have them evaluate my discharge evaluation, cause I got under honorable, after 12 years of service, and they left my page 4 open to allow me to come back to service, with a terminal back injury .

All those years of cleaning them showers, I still hadn't known my place.

They tried so very hard to show me. I thought being smart would show them I belonged in there millitary . But I was a nigger and didn't know it yet. I didn't even know I was Black. What Africans do or mean. Dubouis, and Carter G Woodson's books were language from another planet, and not even 3 years before that I was seriously about to buy a pair of "American flag sneakers" from the East bay to wear on the 4th July with the shirt to match.

The millitary allows you to find out the consequences of your service, on your own, first hand. It already be to late once you bow down and sign up. They keep you drunk off the power of "desperation". Always offering promotions and monetary incentives to stay in. Telling you it ain't working "out there". Before you know it you done did another year and half not even considering the responsibility of "your own actions" . You "willfully turn" your authority in matters of right and wrong over to the millitary code of conduct. In the millitary, your principles become the culture of "white survival". Your capacity of "moral value" and philosphy are "meaningless" if you are a person of color getting paid to "oppress" people who look like you.

Your ignorance, is possibly the best image of your truth, so much for sematics. I didn't know, but I felt like I was only as distinct as my next muster. All I could think about was how much money I was going to be making or missing out on, or that extra 30 days leave, or on West Pac how you can sell that leave back and get paid. You don't have to go to school, and when you do go for whatever reason, you become a thorn, and now adays they make you go for whatever your rate is, or the millitary (while your active) won't pay tuition for your classes.

I remember "feeling" like a target, in a city full of "my own people".... Always having restrictions about where to go in a town, of people who look like me. "This place wasn't safe, or that place".

You don't have to "think for yourself while in the millitary, they got thinking for you down to a science". No doubt there's disicpline, but there's also whole scale genocide. Yeah there guidlines, but since I was African, and muslim what is my place, if not to sell other people who look like me "out" on the fact they can get paid, buy nice clothes and get housing. This is the part of the "disillusionment" when I start waking up, GOD willing.

If you like me, I was raised up not knowing about the "consequences" of racism. Coming home late, at anytime I wanted, & getting high was alright around my way' .


If you like me, my family kept us isolated from the "disillusionment" of racism, but they should have taught us how "color discrimination" works, and what not to stand for, by any means, and it's ramification's other than showing us what are place was, by not allowing us talk about how we feel; being made to go outside and get up out of grown folks business. I was conditioned to live in fear, and that fear was a safe place for me, since white folks don't like black folks.

In the millitary, right out of school, with Europeans authority figures, who required I raised my hand to talk before speaking, my whole life.

Where now in places of "prominence" giving orders, quietly directing the flow of "the mission" behind clothes doors. These people are called "Superior officers".

Dressed in gold clothes, with gold bars, and white shoes. You were made to salute them in there cars, and on the sidewalk anytime you seen them. If that wasn't enough, they salute you after you salute, and you have to render this same "honor" to the American Flag, anywhere on base colors goes down, or wait in your car, until colors stops, see the resemblance.

Feelings of helplessness and desperation. I thought I was so smart getting qualified in all the ship system's. I wasn't smart enough to know there should be consequences for being apart of that system of desperation.


If there was one question I could ask the Wiz. The people's responsible for racism and oppression, would be?

Ain't you a man?

Don't you know how many people you are killing. African people aren't superhuman. We die just like all humans do. Bullets kill us to. We die from gunshot wounds, and bombs. We hate to see are kids being chopped up and killed to force us to comply. Ain't you a man? Can you fight us without weapons. Ain't you a man?


Peace be upon you