How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays(33)
Strange.
I kept longing for that spooky Tupac hologram from Coachella to make an appearance at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. I didn’t want the hologram to necessarily dis the president; I wanted the hologram to obliterate convenient notions of innocence, to truly democratize the audience it addressed, and to tell the truth. I literally wanted it to glide onto the stage right after President Obama riffed on citizenship. I wanted it to sit on the edge of that stage, dangling its twitching feet in front of the world with President Obama behind it.
When President Obama frowned, leaned toward the teleprompter directly in front of him, and used his disciplining-black-men voice to say, “Come on, Pac. What are you doing? Don’t be a jackass.” I wanted the hologram to say to President Obama what the actual Tupac Shakur had already said to us in “Smile.”
“What you lookin’ all sad for? Nigga, you black. Smile for me now.”
And as President Obama broke awkwardly into a worried smile before getting rushed off by Secret Service, the hologram would stand up, wink his eye at our president, and walk toward the podium.
And as Secret Service rushed the president’s podium and started haphazardly putting their hands, guns, and mace through the chest of the hologram, the hologram would smile and keep going. “They can’t touch me,” it would say. “There’s no way these people can own planes and there’s people who don’t have houses, apartments, shacks, drawers, pants!”
The stunned audience in Charlotte, unsure whether to clap, cry, smile, or run away, would keep staring up at the hologram. Still smiling, the hologram would keep going. With a smile still on his face, but odd-shaped tears dripping out of his eyes, the hologram would float through the roof.
I know it’s wrong, but I just wish the real Tupac Amaru Shakur could have never been touched. I wish we could have helped him run toward life a little while longer. Most of all, I wish we didn’t ever have to look up to see Michael Jackson, Bernie Mac, or Tupac Shakur smile again.
You Are the Second Person
You know that any resemblance to real places, spaces, people, time, or things is purely coincidental.
A LONE, YOU SIT ON THE FLOOR OF YOUR APARTMENT thinking about evil, honesty, that malignant growth in your hip, your dead uncle, letters you should have written, the second person, and stretch marks. You’re wearing an XXL T-shirt you plan on wearing the day your novel comes out. The front of the T-shirt says, “What’s a real black writer?” The back reads, “Fuck you. Pay me.” You open your computer. With a scary pain in your hip, you inhale and force a crooked smile before reading an email from Brandon Farley, your fifty-four-year-old black editor.
“The success of your book will be partially dependent on readers who have a different sensibility than your intended audience,” he writes. “As I’ve already said to you, too many sections of the book feel forced for the purpose of discussing racial politics. Think social media. Think comment sections. Those white people buy books, too, bro. Readers, especially white readers, are tired of black writers playing the wrong race card. If you’re gonna play it (and I think you should) play it right. Look at Tarantino. He is about to fool all these people into believing they are watching a black movie with Django. I guarantee you that whiteness will anchor almost every scene. That’s one model you should think about.
“Also, black men don’t read. And if they did, they wouldn’t read this kind of fiction. So you might think of targeting bougie black women readers. Bougie black women love plot. They love romance with predictable Boris Kodjoe-type characters. Or they love strong sisters caught up in professional hijinks who have no relationships with other sisters. Think about what holds a narrative like Scandal together. In 2012, real black writers make the racial, class, gender, and sexual politics of their work implicit. Very implicit. The age of the ‘race narrative’ is over, bro. As is, the only way your book would move units is if Oprah picked it for her book club. That’s not happening. Oprah only deals with real black writers.”
You begin typing, “Hey Brandon, this is my fourteenth thorough revision for you in four years. I know I’m not changing your mind and that’s fine. Thanks for telling me what real black writers do and what Oprah likes. You never told me you met her. Anyway, the black teenagers in my book are actually purposefully discussing ‘racial politics’ in awkwardly American ways. Their race and racial politics, like their sexuality and sexual politics, is somehow tied to every part of their character. My book is unapologetically an American race novel, among other things. I’m still not sure why you bought the book if you didn’t dig the vision.”
You push send on the email before opening up the word.doc you just defended. You jump to chapter nine. Thirty minutes later, a section of the book where an older queer coach tries to impart a strange “them/us” racial understanding to your narrator is cut because it “explicitly discusses racial politics.”
You call your editor names that hurt, muddied misanthropic names you pride yourself on never calling any human being, while looking out the tall window of your second-floor apartment in Poughkeepsie, New York.
A barefoot white boy with a red and black lumberjack shirt is outside sitting under an oak tree. He’s doing that walkie-talkie thing on his phone that you fucking hate. You can tell he’s telling the truth and lying at the same time.