Roger Porter

I’m 17 years old and it’s a Saturday night.

I’m driving my mother’s 1994 blue Honda Accord with two of my friends in the back seat. We’re about to get on the freeway to check out this party when we see two of our other friends riding in the opposite direction. So we both pull over and because I haven’t seen the other two guys since they dropped out of school, we have a little reunion on the side of the street.

We laugh, clown a little and try to figure out where we want to go. Everything is all good; the weather is warm, the women are out and it’s just a care-free atmosphere. Then we all stop talking as we notice a police car pull up behind us.

“Hey is everything alright?” One of the cops asks us, not out of concern, but to put us on the defensive.

We tell him “yeah” like, of course everything is OK why wouldn’t it be?

“Whose car is this?”

“That’s my mother’s car,” I respond quick and agitated.

“Hey don’t get an attitude with me bro. I’ll have everybody here lying face down with their hands behind their backs.”

Then another squad car pulls up and as I stare at the officer who is doing all the talking and is now a few steps away from me and I experience an epiphany. It felt like that moment represented a perfect culmination of my teenage experience — it was as if my ethnic identity had now become perfectly clear.

When I was 13, I remember walking home from school one day and having a black woman around my mother’s age, with huge burning eyes, ask me if I had any rocks to sell her. By the time we were 15, everybody asked us for dope; Mexicans, White people and black folks as well. They would ask me, my cousin and our friends for drugs while we walked home from football practice with our pads on like that was our one purpose on Earth. 

And when we went to the corner store on E. 15th, down the street from my cousin’s house, to get some Now & Laters or some Funions or Donald Duck orange juice, the old Korean lady would shout “Philly Blunt?” as she held two cigars up, one in each hand, behind the cash register. And we would have to tell her, just like we told all the dope fiends, “NO!”

So now there are like five cops gathered around us and I suddenly understand that I, along with my friends, are now fully-grown monsters. I mean if criminality had a color then it was the same complexion as us. If criminality had features then it would look exactly like our reflections in the mirror. If criminality had a dress code then it would wear its pants, shirt and shoes exactly like we did.

“I got a report about a fight … is there any fighting going on here?”

“Naw, no fighting.”

“Can I see your drivers license?”

I show it to him and he looks at it with a flashlight because apparently he needs to analyze every letter and every number. When he’s done, he tells us to have a good night and both of the squad cars speed off to their next confrontation.

My friends and I stay there for a few minutes and try as hard as we can to regroup. But needless to say, we find it to be impossible.

3/28/11

Roger Porter           

         What ever happened to Master P? I saw his son Lil Romeo on a commercial for “Dancing with the Stars” the other day and I was deeply saddened. It almost completely ruined my day to see the heir to the once mighty No Limit Empire ballroom dancing on a show for B rate celebrities. It sounds crazy now but by the time I got to high school I thought the dynasty would never crumble. Boy was I wrong.

            It’s hard to imagine a man that was once so “Bout It, Bout It” disappear from the scene the way Master P did. Not after being at a house party the summer of the 9^th grade and watching everybody go ballistic when “How you Do Dat Dere” came on, not after coming home on the bus after a varsity football game in the 10^th grade listening to that Ghetto Dope album on a boom box and hearing the whole bus scream “Pass me them thangs! Let’s Get em!” in unison. Ahhh, my No Limit memories are endless. Back then I never would have believed that the dream team of Mystical, Snoop Dogg, C-Murda, and Master P would ever be disassembled but I guess things change. And in the end even a gold plated tank isn’t indestructible.

            Thanks for the memories P. The late 90’s wouldn’t have been the same without you.

3/27/11

Roger Porter

                Recently I’ve been called a sexist by two of my female friends because I won’t let my 6 year old daughter listen to Rihanna’s latest music on the radio. They say I’m being a hypocrite because I let her listen to the likes of Wacka Flocka, and Gucci Mane. I do beg your pardon but to me these are two completely different issues.

                I mean my daughter has been listening to Rihanna for literally her whole life. As a matter of fact we both used to jam to Disturbia. “Dum- dum de-dum dum dum dah-dum dum, dis-tur-bi-a” man those were the days. When Rihanna was still a teenager and her music was so innocent. Even Nickelodeon Kids Bop covered that joint, but now her material is just way too extreme. And I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about me. I mean I’m not one of those ultra-conservative parents when it comes to music, film, and art. I allow my child to be exposed to many different forms of expression, however, there is something about hearing my little one sing; “TAKE IT, TAKE IT, TAKE IT, TAKE IT” in the back seat of my car that I will not tolerate. Every time that song comes on we go straight from KMEL to KBLX with the quickness.

                I just can’t believe the nerve of Rihanna and I can’t understand how some women view that as empowering. Personally when I hear a woman singing “Take it, Take it” it sounds like it’s glorifying rape in the same vein that Lil Webbie was glorifying rape when he sang “Girl Gimmie Dat!” (Another song that got no radio play in my car). And to make matters worse on her next single she says “Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me.” OK so more power to Rihanna for liking S & M. I know she’s not the only one but I do find the theme of violent sex in her music to be particularly disturbing considering the fact that she was just involved in a very high profile domestic abuse case two years ago. I for one have not been able to separate her new music from the battered young girl that I saw on that infamous photograph shown on TMZ after Chris Brown put his hands on her. And I know life goes on but for me the whips and chains are just a bit much, and as far as my daughter is concerned you can forget about it.

                So yeah maybe I am a little hypocritical for letting songs about females “Dropping it low” and so forth get play in my ride while Rihanna doesn’t. As I’m writing these words I realize that I do need to be more consistent as a parent, therefore, I’m pretty sure Wacka Flocka will be banned next. But as of right now grown up Rihanna gets no love on daddy’s radio. I will not take it.

3/26/11

Roger Porter

So I’m hitting the heavy bag at the boxing gym the other day when I notice my young Afghan friend walk through the door. As he walks toward me I realize I hadn’t seen him at the gym in about 3-4 months. So I momentarily stop my workout to say what’s up and ask where he’d been. He just looked at me while shaking his head. Then he leaned in close to me and said in a tone slightly above a whisper;

“I ain’t gone lie. A nigga got shot up hella bad you feel me.”

“For real?” I responded kind of surprised that he had gotten shot but even more surprised that he considered himself to be a nigga.

“Yeah dude. These Mexican Norteno niggas got at me over some punk ass shit.”

And I stood there dripping with sweat feeling tired and dumbfounded. I was wondering when did the “N” word become so universal. I mean I’ve been hearing Cambodians, Mexicans, and even some white boys refer to themselves as niggas since high school but it was something about this particular occasion that really struck me. I started asking myself does he feel like a nigga because he grew up poor, or because he is an immigrant, or because he had been shot, or because he listened to rap music, or simply because he wasn’t white. And even more importantly, is that OK?

My parents of course would answer that question with a resounding NO! Both of them having grown up in the segregated south they always felt like it is never Ok for anyone to use that word under any circumstances, but then again we always disobeyed. When my siblings and I got out of the earshot of adults we said the “N” word just as frequently as we used the “F” word and the “S” word. And even though all of our playmates were black we still knew it was wrong. We all knew about slavery, the KKK, the lynchings, and the marches but we still decided to throw that word around like it was harmless but now it was being thrown back at me.

I felt like maybe I should have been offended but I really wasn’t. I was just like wow this guy sounds really dumb. I thought about something C-Lo Green said back in the day when he was one of my favorite rappers and not just a soul singer. It was on the Goody Mobb’s “Still Standing” album when he dropped the line; “You ain’t a nigga because you black/ You a nigga because of how you act.” Well in that case if he wanted to be a nigga that badly then I guess I had to let him be that nigga. The choice was his.

3/25/11

Roger Porter

                There is something very pure about training camp. Something completely consuming and deeply spiritual. There is something very raw and addictive about having dozens of people crowd around you and having each one of them tell you that you can do it. That you can accomplish your goals, and then there is something so inspiring about having a goal that is so attainable. And it doesn’t even matter whether or not ones chances of achieving that goal are great or slim, for one knows without a shadow of a doubt what he has to do—beat that man. Beat that Man!

            And you work harder than you ever imagined you could every day of the week. And you put your heart and soul in the ring. And you give up all those things that you love and desire. And your life is split right down the middle between what’s good and what’s evil. And you live amongst all those good things and keep all that is evil out of body and out of sight. And it is by these means that the human experience becomes pure. And it is only through the art of boxing that the individual athlete is able to become a walking extension of god.

Laurent Gbagbo

Roger Porter

I just want to take this time to remind people that while America is still rejoicing over the recent political overthrow in Egypt and supporting the next one in Libya there are still people being murdered at will in the Ivory Coast. At least 400 hundred human beings have been killed in that small West African nation since the presidential elections in November but you would be hard pressed to find a front page article on the topic or see the media saturated with images of the conflict. There is no Western Alliance helping to restore any semblance of peace there and you won’t hear people talking about it at your local Starbucks. You won’t hear students debating about it on your local college campuses either.

For the Ivory Coast is a black African country, and even worse still, a black African country with no oil. Therefore there is no reason for any capitalist superpower to get involved. Even the murder of 7 unarmed women protesting the refusal of former president Laurent Gbagbo to cede power failed to create global outrage. Maybe it’s because Gbagbo isn’t the prototypical bad guy like Muammar Gaddafi. Maybe he doesn’t talk as loud or dress as conspicuously. Or maybe it’s because the infamous brown paper bag test (initially used in the Pre-Civil war south to denote the more acceptable shades of black) is being used to dictate American foreign policy. You be the judge.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110324/wl_africa_afp/icoastpoliticsunrest_20110324143927

Roger Porter

                I just saw this girl I went to college with yesterday and I swear to god she was looking pretty as hell. But she looked pretty in a professional stylish kind of way, you know with the purple petticoat and the Bluetooth in her ear. I saw her sitting in her parked car on Telegraph and I immediately recognized her—although I hadn’t seen her in like 4 years—and she recognized me as well.

                So I walked around to the driver’s side and she gets out of the car and we’re just standing there talking in the street. I asked her about some of her friends and she asked me about my daughter. I said she looked good and she said I looked good as well. Everything was cool I mean we were vibing and everything but as I looked at her I felt as though I should ask her for her phone number or give her mine. I mean here was this beautiful educated woman preparing to take the MCAT and she was right there smiling in my face. But then as she’s talking to me I’m talking to myself and I’m saying, Damn I really don’t want to cheapen this moment by asking for a punk ass phone number.

I don’t know if that ever happens to you but I just didn’t want her to think that I was only having a conversation with her because I wanted something else; like a phone number, or a date, or sex. I didn’t want to do the typical thing (you know what everybody expects me to do in that situation). So I just told her it’s always a pleasure and left.

Roger Porter

As I lay suffering in the intense discomfort created by the countdown to the verdict that will inevitably change my city – maybe even the whole country – forever, I have come to realize what most saddens me about the murder of Oscar Grant and subsequent trial of Johannes Mehserle.

It isn’t the fact that Grant was shot in the back while he was laying face down on the ground, and it isn’t the fact that after the “accidental” shooting the first thing that Mehserle thought to do was to handcuff a mortally wounded man and search him for weapons (emergency medical personal wasn’t called until several moments later).

Oscar Grant leaves behind so many things, among them a daughter who is the same age as my little girl. The fact that his daughter Tatianna will never see her father again because of Mehserle’s deplorable actions on that platform that night is extremely frustrating, but there is one thing that bothers me even more.

What saddens me more than anything else about this murder is the collective failure of every branch of law enforcement to condemn or even criticize Mehserle for killing an unarmed man. There has not been one police officer of any kind to state publicly that what Mehserle did was wrong and that he does not represent all police officers.

I think about the reactions of the community when those officers were murdered on 74th and MacArthur. There wasn’t just one person who called 911 there where multiple calls. There was also a man who ran to the scene of the crime to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation on one of the officers. In the aftermath of the event, there were several religious leaders and community members who openly expressed there disdain for the actions of Lovelle Mixon because it doesn’t matter who you kill in a just society, murder is wrong – period.

But what happens to a society when the very people who are supposed to stand for justice do not see it that way? Perhaps even more importantly, how are we as a society supposed to react once we realize that the police reserve the right to take our lives without being held accountable by the courts or even on the most basic level, they won’t even be held accountable by their own peers?

How in a just society can we value their lives as dearly as our own while they shoot us in the back in front of scores of people and handcuff us while we quickly bleed to death?

I think about the concept of justice, and I pray that it be served soon in that court room in Los Angeles. But I also wonder about the lack of trust. How are we to ever trust these people who repeatedly place there “fraternity in blue” over the humanity of the very people who they have sworn to protect and serve?

This piece was originally published July 6, 2010 at OaklandLocal.com