TRIPPIN ABOUT HISTORY

The following is a story short about a presumptuous individual who, because of his prior education and "middle class" status / views about race of persons taking his college course, projects them upon his students to resolve what presents opposing views on life and the opportunities it presents. It is difficult to judge someone we do not know, it causes us to go....

Trippin About History (one man act/stage play)

A small bus appeared in front of the temporary classroom building. Small enough for the sixteen to twenty person group elected to accompany him on this tour of history and possible future. He flailed his arms beckoning his students to quickly mount the chariot that had been prescheduled to host "the select" into his realm of Blackness. Lingering behind, as usual, was the mother. A would be big sister to the temporary students to his class. Two temporary students that should not yet be in existence in this or any other world, but here never-the-less. They... the two temporaries... were only three to four feet tall but, made an occasioned appearance in his audience of uneducated faces. Uneducated and obviously low classed. The temporaries were not here today, but those who were, including this mother, would all learn something about class today. Class, and what it took to make a REAL person.

The YOUTH... the young mother... in her mother's cast out dress stepped upon the bottom rung to eternity only to be greeted by his snidely placed comment, "Come on middle class, get the lead out." She cast a weak smile up at him and choked back an urge to explain about her children and the baby-sitter. At eighteen, she had already progressed further than he would ever have imagined in the traumas of life. She had already been divorced. Already had two children from the catholic marriage. Already been abused by that husband and by stepfathers of altering eras throughout her short life. Never knew her own father and already knocked down in ego and existence by the mother that loved her. She was already beneath the bottomless pit. He couldn't knock her any lower. She had high morals and a high opinion about the way life should be. For her, that constituted middle class... if no other way but in ethics. She needed only for a light to shine from the alternate end of her tunnel vision existence. She caught her explanations mid air and responded with, "Sure." She was a typically atypical pic-an-ninny. (pronounced pick-on-annie)... she was not black in tone; in hue, she was yellow... more tan than not and not black enough for any of Africa but black just the same. Regardless of what ever was intermingled, she could use a good suntan. He was giving her one today.

They were on the expressway headed north. Going up and into the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar world of black into which each of their lives extended, yet above their heads and even more, out of their reach until today. College is about new experiences, education and submersion into thought. At each level the pressure expands two-fold until the victim intellectually out fathoms his origin. They were destined for an untold hue within the black hole. He was immersed in a conversation with two guys from her classroom. One of them was seated next to her, the other sat next to him in the seats just in front of her. Donald, the young man next to her, was attempting to relay his ideas on religion and the theory of supreme being. Keith, an older guy in the seat ahead of her, was turned at an angle to face Donald in preparation with his rebuttal. With interjection of His summation, His own theory; they resolved no audible final answer to this mystery. The subject was tossed around between the three of them like a hacky-sack1 for almost thirty minutes before they invited her opinion. The bus pulled off the expressway into inner city traffic heading east on one of the worst roadways in Chicago. They were in the middle of the ghetto. hacky sack: small ball shaped item used for group or individual play, concentration device. There were children dashing about everyplace, uncontrolled and unwatched; shabbily dressed in hand-me-down clothes, and some in items salvaged from the dumpsters behind neighboring apartments. There were abandoned cars made into shells of metal cast onto open glazed dirt lots. At one stoplight, a tall thin black man with a monkey was visibly hawking peanuts in Uncle Sam bags. It reminded her of the man that pushed a cart beneath their window somewhere deep in her past. His cart had fruit and the same uncle Sam bags on it. She had looked out early one morning at the sound of his call... "PEA-NUUUUTs..... 'rrringes, get cha fruit heah!" They had moved to an apartment on the west side of Chicago. There were seven apartments in one four flat building. The peanut man was a daily occurrence then and there; and obviously here and now in this neighborhood. Back then, a rat had run up her brother's pants leg. Right now, she could feel a rat trying to run up on her intelligence. Without much digestion of the question placed upon her lap, she replied, "Based upon the history of the black man in America, his existence and hope for a future, I BELIEVE in a supreme being. My grandfather is and always has been a respected minister of the African-Methodist Episcopal church and they have always attended Southern Baptist Conventions. They have a good life. Yes, I believe in there is a God." He looked her in the eye squarely, as he had many times upon her arrival in class... whether early or late, and regardless of what she wore. "Most black people do put their belief in what they can not see or touch," he paused to assure himself that he was relaying a stern misdemeanor, then continued; "...They base their belief on what they were told. What has that God done for you?" The bus poured on through the balance of ghetto existence between I-57 and Lake Michigan. It was an ocean of waste. There were splashes of purple and green painted flats, whitewashed grey siding falling away from the walls they protected on houses patched with asphalt shingles. Patches of bare sideboards showed in places on some houses; pure carbon scorches marked walls and roofs of others. Brick houses (two and six flats) with grassless front yards riddled with rag wearing children running and screaming in every direction supported the view along the endless road ahead of them. They turned abruptly into an area she had never seen. Among the infested properties which had just esponged their minds eye appeared a vision of wonder. Yellow stone homes with Arabic inflections of gold and ivory platelets sprung before them. It was like a fold out book, two and three story elevations on alternate houses that stretched the entire block. It was of royal opulence. Unfit for this area and a definite object to arouse jealous hearts. Kentucky bluegrass in front and at the visible sections of back yards provided a magic carpet for the imagination's return to what is reachable in life. A black man in a Mercedes appeared emerging from the garage at the rear of one home. The garage door closed automatically behind him and the wrought iron gate opened automatically as she strained to see the individual. Brown skin. Not too black, not militant looking but in a suit with a tie like she imagined herself with someday in the invisible future of her life. It was broad daylight. The man was not attending a gala after five affair. It was his regular attire. She was impressed. Impressed with the altitude of the cast before her. A man, black but not dirtied by the soil implied by the color of his skin. "Did you see that man?" He did not respond now. She was not certain that He had seen the image. She wanted him to see the man that had passed before her eyes. The Man that existed in this world of child abusers and wife beaters. The MAN that was attainable even within the black skin planted upon him, her and the class that He was locking them into. He was engrossed in the discussion of race religion and class of the negro in the 1970's. He was enraptured with his intelligence and role as teacher, teaching them... the unintelligible about class in a classless race. "This is the Muslim community. They worship one god... ALLAH. They have many black businesses and are not a part of the black community. They are the representation of class in Black America." The slow roll of the small tour bus allowed them time to inhale and digest the difference in the Muslim community and their own black community. "I want a summary of your opinion, your hypothesis of what and why such a difference exists in the African-American. I want you to tell me... include the homes two or three blocks back, the green and purple paint. And by the way, don't ever paint your home that color. I want you all to remember this and what you are about to see, especially if you've never seen it or been there before; you remember it.

Summaries are due by the end of the month." As He sat back in the empty seat ahead of her, next to Keith, the tour bus continued on to stony Island and pulled into the parking lot of an enormous Arabic building. He announced, "This is the Mosque. It is the equivalent of the church in your community. It is where they pray and meet collectively." With that, he let silence and the balance of the tour reveal fathom and emotion to their nubile intellect. In the vestibule of the Mosque were two separate entries. At one side was a hat and coat rack, at the other was a rack with scarves hung across brass hooks mounted to the wall on that side of the foyer. They were allowed in briefly, but in separate groups, as male and female. He followed the group in, tailing the group of males urging the mother and few other females to follow their escort. They were seated briefly on separate sides as a short lecture was provided by a man in suited uniform describing the structure of the building and short summary of the religion.

Within five minutes, they were escorted back out of the building. He returned to control at the bus, prompting them to, "...get the lead out" and reminding them of summaries due at the end of the month. Back in their seats, Donald began rattling about his philosophies on life, Keith reflected on these and blacks in music, other students talked indiscriminately about things back at home... the coming weekend or the limited realm of their money. He sat quietly listening to conversations next to him, behind him and saying nothing. The mother said nothing to anyone, not to Him, not to the Donald or to the other students; about anything. Back on the college campus, while unloading from the bus and before leaving to their individual cars, He reminded the group of their class summarizations due for URBAN HISTORY 101. As she departed, he tossed the question of God and the black man back at the mother. "Remember your history and eat at home."

The "mother" returned on a later date to the end point of the instructor's tour. She enrolled her two small children from the catholic marriage and herself in their records under registered name changes. She had the intention of becoming Muslim, to practice Islam in its traditional form to escape an abusive husband who threatened to kill their two children to allow himself access to another woman, a younger woman born three years later than his wife; his new start. Islam would be their protector. She became Khadija. Her daughter was registered as Latifah and her son as Hasan. She had chosen Muhammad because Elijah Muhammad had presented her with the deciding factor to seek a higher truth in religion. It was 1975.