Straight No Chaser

Quake

we lose rosa parks, and in her place we get...the gaede twins. there is something nauseatingly poetic about that. or just nauseating.

miya and i had a fight, sort of, after we found out about rosa parks. i don't remember why it began, exactly, except that she was calling everyone she knew, "rosa parks died, can you believe it? oh my god," and so i, trying to demonstrate that i too felt deeply affected by the loss, said something to the effect of, "it's tragic, because once our grandparents' generation is gone, we'll be left with one generation removed from the struggle, and one that doesn't appreciate it the way their parents did." referring, respectively, to us and our parents. because, i don't know, i'm starting to think this is just my experience, but my parents are both more or less self-made people (dad more so than mom), and their collective focus was on succeeding. not on struggling. my dad had to struggle to succeed, but now, when you ask him about his experiences, he will quickly focus on the succeeding part. his parents, on the other hand, there is no end to the stories they will tell about what hell they had raising their children in detroit, an interracial couple with vast problems, and a weird displacement complex (because both were north carolina transplants). a white alcoholic and a black nurse, both country folk, trying to raise their four wayward children in booming motown. et cetera. dad will not go into detail about any of that. his story begins with college, and ends with chad's last varsity basketball game.

so, i don't know. i guess miya disagreed, and thinks our generation doesn't have to worry, or whatever. i'm pretty sure she's wrong. she's an american studies major, meaning she probably knows tons more about the struggle than do most of our contemporaries. meaning, complacency. i don't know, though.

on the gaede twins, all i can say is, ha. it doesn't even feel good, or productive, to be as profoundly disgusted as i am. there are people like that everywhere. none in my immediate neighborhood, because this is a black campus, and not many back home, because if you're going to be a white supremacist in silver spring, you'd better do it covertly. but everywhere else i've ever been, they're there. and they hide, too. they do a remarkable job of tricking the world, and then whispering to their children. it's pretty miraculous, really.