Chain Gang All Stars

The thing I hate is a whiny bitch. And as a student of history, I know that the Blacks are the whiniest bitches there is. My father screamed that into me as a boy, and I’m glad he did ’cause I ain’t ever forget.

“Know your history!” Daddy Frederick Puddlelow would scold me if I told him I had Blacks as friends in school. Would slap a textbook across my mouth to make sure I’d learned. He gave me his name and tools to get by in this world: He taught me history and he taught me young and good how to fight.

Outside the van, I can already hear them chanting for us. Not us. For Miss Hammer and Miss Hurricane. The Juliet and Juliet Supreme. Already loud as hell outside. My father would roll over in his grave he saw this shit. People screaming and hollering for murder women. Same women I seen drive a hammer through men’s and women’s and kids’ faces. Same that carve men like hogs. They treat them like saints. That’s the Blacks’ gift. No matter how bad they is they get treated as the salt of the earth.

Thurwar came into the games gifted with a hammer and the riches of that Bishop woman. Can’t admit she’s been coddled the whole way. And then Hurricane Crazy Ass wants to tell me how to live when the whole reason I chose this life was so I’d be free of any of that shit ever again. I spent sixteen years straight not getting nothing except a hand to the face for moving too loudly through the home, for eating my fill, for not eating enough. I chose these games ’cause I told myself I was done with rules long time ago.

We slow down and the sound just outside the van is something different. Hub Cities are what make this life a life. The time between the March, getting pushed and pulled up and down the whole gah-damn broken country. The Hub is where the choice to be out here gets its worth. Where we get to rest in soft beds. Air set to temperatures of our liking. Eat hot food. See the cities in the greatest country in the world. Imagine complaining while living the fruits of this choice. And it is a choice.

A choice we all made. A fact you wouldn’t know if you looked at the two Black Shebas, murderers just the same as me, but still sweethearts for themselves and America. The worst part is they have the audacity to think they have it worst. One of them is too good to speak to paying crowds. The other talks about love like she’s the cure to something. They haven’t seen worst, wouldn’t know real shit if it punched them square in the titty. Daddy Puddlelow, he wasn’t with no bullshit. From me or Mama Puddlelow. He was a cop and that’s how that goes.^[*1] Mama disappeared; don’t blame her though. She woulda got a bullet in the head eventually. He told her enough times. But then again he told me he’d put a bullet in my head too, and I’m still here, so maybe I do blame her some.

As the chants get louder they perk up, pepped and prepared to greet their adoring fans. If Queen T didn’t have skin like dirt, would they love her still? If Miss Hurricane didn’t have dreadful locs sweeping down her head, would her crazy be so cool? I think not. It’s easier to be a Black in all this and it’s been that way for years. Imagine being given all the gah-damn freedom the world has to offer and still thinking you weren’t getting a fair shake. Imagine being called queen and still sitting there, looking at me with eyes that say that I’m the one who should hate myself.

The fact is, there are some people who ain’t right enough for the rest of the world, and that’s all of us here in these Chains. I don’t complain about none of it. I don’t add some dumb-ass pretend love to the mix either. I know the history is right, it’s all square. They’ve tried it with McCleskey and the courts told them to fuck off.^[*2] Nine honorable Supreme Court justices made it clear and still, wah, wah, wah.^[*3] All the fucking time. My father was an officer, but he wanted to be a historian. I wanted to be a historian, before I said fuck the rules. But I know my history.

The van slows and the sound of people gets louder. Not the usual rah rah and holler. This feels like a stadium, a chorus of people. Like they reading from a script. Can’t quite make it out but it sends a feeling through you like a crawler passing over your neck. The rest of ’em feel it too. Miss Hurricane sitting straight as an arrow. I smile and give her a wink. Surely it’s her people making the noise. History will remember her, and damn it, that’s a blessing we don’t all share.

*1 It has been found that police officers’ families suffer from domestic abuse at a higher rate than non-police-officers’ families. The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban law passed in 1996, and it required that those convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor be prohibited from purchasing guns. And yet, this ban does not exempt police officers or members of the military.

*2 In 1978, Warren McCleskey, a Black man, was sentenced to death for the murder of a white police officer. He’d robbed a furniture store along with three accomplices. He was given the death sentence, that bloody promise.

He appealed his sentence, citing both the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual) and the Fourteenth (equal protection), and used a study conducted by Dr. David C. Baldus that found that people who killed white people were over four times more likely to receive the death penalty.

Warren McCleskey lost the case. It established in America the precedent that even solid statistical evidence of racial bias did not offend the Constitution.

*3 In a 5–4 majority decision the Supreme Court ruled against McCleskey, saying the data produced was best presented to legislative bodies, not the courts. The majority decision was authored by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

All nine justices were white.

After Justice Powell retired, he was asked if there were any decisions he would change, if given the chance. He said yes, and cited McCleskey v. Kemp.