INTRODUCTION
Today I will make the argument explicitly and I shall not refrain, even at the expense of hurting our feelings. Duty demands my strident tone, and I must ‘work the works of Him that sent me,’ like I mean it. I going to tell Black people the truth, and then hopefully we can build from there. Nigratude, it turns out that we have grossly overestimated our abilities. This is not so much due to race itself, or any intrinsic factors proceeding therefrom, as perhaps Charles Murray might suggest. Oh no, it is the result of deliberate and accidental forces in the development of Black culture and its academic and professional understandings of itself.
Our minority and former slave status necessarily meant that at all times there were individual Negros that took on a level of academic, artisan, or professional skills that clearly demonstrated that they, a Black person, could compete at the highest levels of White mainstream standards and even excel them. Many Black men and women throughout American history were successful in these regards and in addition were able to achieve high positions and titles in the segregated world, and/or in the post-Civil Rights era White mainstream world.
For a time, all was well with post-Civil Rights era integration and Black middle-class development. We Blacks had proven that we were capable of performing, competing, and even excelling standards in many varieties of fields. Thus increasingly, we had the benefit of jobs and positions at even the highest reaches of the White mainstream American public (government, state, local), and private (corporate) institutions. But behind this facade of fulfilling Martin Luther King’s ‘Dream’, lay dire unforeseen consequences for the Negro. Consequence one was that Black academic and professional achievement began to be seen as ‘exceptions’ by us and the White mainstream. Yes, initial integration experiences proved the case that Black people could compete, but exceptions, no matter how hard they try, can never replace or outweigh ‘the rule’ in the backs of people’s minds. We Blacks know all too well that whatever Obama, Tiger Woods, and Simone Biles accomplished, the rule for Black people and the White mainstream is that they are exceptions. This is so much the case that Black children continue to say with a straight face in some communities that caring about one’s schoolwork or behavior, is acting White, or acting lame. And presumably most of the Black kids aren’t lame or White, thus to be Black, or act Black is necessarily constrained by the idea that being serious about oneself is not necessary to be ‘authentically Black’.
That Black kids don’t want to be considered ‘lame’, Trump/Musk and Trump’s Republican Party, have rhetorical ease and comfort as they blame many (if not all) America’s problems and institutional dysfunctions on the fact of America’s history of DEI and other post-Civil Rights era ‘policies’ aimed precisely at ‘helping the Negro’. According to that logic, weak minded Whites ‘caught a case’ (like we niggas ‘catch cases’) of ‘White guilt’, and arbitrarily and without merit started making seats for niggas at White people’s tables, even if niggas required a ‘booster seat’ to sit there. Ergo Trump/Musk and the Republicans are all too happy to summarily fire Blacks in ‘high positions’ or ‘high visibility positions’. Thus, it is assumed every Negro in a position is assumed to only have gotten there through the affirmations and DEI seats of those Whites suffering from ‘a case’ of ‘White guilt’. Trump/Musk is all too happy to fire Black professionals, with the overt approval of the Republican party, and the tacit approval of White mainstream America in general. So it is clear what White folk and niggas think is the rule, no matter how many, and in what fields we Negroes produce exceptions of high achievement.
Consequence #2 and obviously related to consequence #1, is that if the only places for Blacks to prove they can compete at the highest levels is in, and on the behalf and behest of the White mainstream government and corporate bodies, and that is subject to White political will (or the absence of it like the Trump/Musk regime), Black people either have wait for ‘favorable winds’ before launching themselves into an industry or profession they would like to rise high in, or Black people that possess the capacity and capabilities to perform at the highest levels, absent those favorable winds, must perpetually wonder what they could have achieved if they had the opportunities presented by ‘favorable winds’. Are White folk dependent on ‘favorable winds’, or some other peoples ‘good graces’ to display their talents, and if they were would they rest content in their situation? Are we Negroes not a bit too content with the situation? It is quite obvious post-Trump/Musk that being dependent like this has its drawbacks.
Furthermore, if whether or not Black excellence has a chance to show and prove itself is dependent on White whims and how White folks feel about us, vis a vis Trump/Musk, then that is a very unreliable thing for one’s opportunities at excellence to depend upon. Thus all consequences, #1 & #2 combined ensue and Black excellence is nearly all for naught, as Blacks and Whites think it is as exceptions that Black individuals and Blacks as a culture and polity have anything of value to contribute. Thus ain’t no nigga children desperate enough or ‘deceived’ enough to excel in school, or golf because of the experiences and examples of Obama and Tiger Woods. He/she nigga child knows intrinsically that those are ‘exceptions’, and what ‘Negro’ behaviors they see around them that prove to be ‘the rule’. Furthermore and guess what, no White folk are out there looking to promote or hire the next Woods or Obama either, not just because of the ‘exceptional’ difficulty of finding needles in Negro haystacks or ‘niggas in the woodpile’, but because it is presently unfashionable and politically incorrect in the Trump/Musk era.
PART II THE ART OF POLISHING TURDS
A dreaded game from childhood ran as follows. Nerdy or ‘lame’ (literally or figuratively) kid gets an unexpected pat on the back. He pays little attention and continues on about his business. Moments later someone comes up to him (usually a friend of the local bully) and kicks him. When he protests, the bully shows him the sign of his back that says ‘Kick Me’, and says facetiously that “you said to kick you, we were just doing what you asked?”
I read my AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) today, I realized that Black politics, Black political culture, and Black leadership is walking around mainstream America and the world with a sign on our backs (that we didn’t put there) that say the equivalent of ‘Kick Me’. It is as though we had a sign on our collective backs that says “I am a fool”, and the only reason we can’t tell is because unlike the obvious nature of ‘kick me’, the fact that everybody is treating you like a muthafuckin fool is way harder to discern, more especially because of the fact that he (the bully) and others have always treated you like a fool. Ergo, to you they are not treating you any ‘apparently’ worse, and you can’t notice the difference.
To go a little further, what if every race of people has been given a superpower. One race could fly. Another race was equally at home on land or in the sea. Another race had a massive semi-hive mind brain(s) that can perform extremely complex mathematical and scientific technical disciplines and subjects requiring extremely high levels of organizational ability. And the last race, symbolized forever in irony, by their Brown skin, that race, by God, they are just good at ‘polishing turds’.
They can take any old turd and polish it so good you barely remember that it was once a hot steaming pile of shit. But we burnish it, bronze it, shine it, sculpting and shaping the lumpy molded claylike turd into the image of a man, a suffering man, a man in perpetual miseries because he hasn’t figured out that polished or not, his art is still a turd. And thus the only use for his work, is to fertilize other people’s fields and make them productive, the way the Rolling Stones took the Blues of the American Negro, made themselves rich and famous in the process, and built careers lasting scores of years!
And yet even with such evidence, the Negro has not wondered aloud if he might be that vigorously productive with his own field(s), if he utilized his turds for a better purpose than polishing them up, and making art and sculpture out of them. And by default, any art you make out of polished turds is by nature nearly immediately destroyed by wind, rain, and other forces of nature; the very definition of the opposite of what Jesus said, ‘build you house on a rock’! But to use the same ‘turd’ you once used for art, to fertilize your own fields, the wind, rain, and trampling underfoot by animals and insects would only help the development and fertility of your field. Unexpected things would grow besides what you planted because animals and insects travel, eat berries, nuts, and seeds, shit them out on your field, engendering the growth of beneficial plants and fruits that you never expected.
But no, we niggas just keep taking turds and polishing them until they resemble actual leaders!
Turd #1 (Per the AJC Newspaper week of 6-25-25) First Black owned bank in Western United States now in Rockies. Apparently, Negroes are to congratulate themselves because the ‘Black Bank desert’ from Houston, Texas, to LA is ended because of this bank’s organization. This has been ‘achieved’ (we turd polishers love that word) by putting “Redemption Holding Co.” in the Rockies. Thus, the bank is headquartered (and pays taxes) in a city with a Black population of under 3%. Talk about polishing turds! Ashley Bell, CEO, and (watch this) Berneice King (little girl king keep your dream) Senior VP for Corporate Strategy, tell us that they are committed to competing in Utah to earn the business of customers from all backgrounds. WTF! I thought we were celebrating a Black bank that ostensibly and in theory, was designed to generate profits and interest for Black consumers who have so few opportunities to do so, no matter where they live. Here again, our superpower is polishing turds.
The ‘shine on the turd’ comes when we consider the fact that inherent in the precisely worded description of “Redemption Bank Holding Co“, is that it is the first time a bank has been ‘owned’ by a ‘Black led’ investment group in the western United States. Well dear reader, ‘Black led’ investment groups come in many different shapes and sizes. For instance, apparently if an organization is 98% White, except its CEO Ashley Bell, and Sr. VP Berniece (I’m a lawyer, business executive, ordained minister, and social justice warrior) now ‘big girl King’, that company qualifies as ‘Black led’. Really? Here again, talk about polishing turds. This is genius level, or perhaps even ‘superpower’ level turd polishing. But let us close these matters by giving Berneice and Ashley the benefit of the doubt, regarding that steaming turd they are riding and presenting to the Negro public as though we should be proud, excited and happy…over a polished turd shaped in the image of a man, a suffering man, breaking the chains of slavery in a midwestern State that is less than 3% Black.
In theory, it could be possible that many niggas got together to fund a bank. Ashley, and Negro celebrity friends of Berneice, who as previously mentioned, in addition to being Senior VP for Corporate Strategy, is also a lawyer in good standing with the State Bar of Georgia, an ordained minister, Jr. honorary drum major for justice, and if I’m not mistaken CEO of the King Center here in Atlanta, got together for the purposes of founding and funding a bank. Would Oprah, Tyler, etc., deny Berniece, baby girl King! Of course not, the devil is a lie (unless he is aiding in the polishing of turds). But no, according to the AJC article, the principal partners are ALLY Financial (a mainstream financial institution so big it bought the old GMAC financing unit) and Central Bank Corporation, both of which are White mainstream banks. So in essence, ALLY and Central Bank Corp had a DEI or some other social justice agenda (or had one pre-Trump), set aside for a ‘minority led’ group of investors, whose faces are Black, and duty done post-George Floyd (that’s how long ago many of these projects were greenlighted by mainstream corporations pre-Trump). Talk about polished turds being passed off as achievements!
PART III Cue Outkast ‘Just polishing turds, just polishing turds’
The next polished turd I saw in the AJC was in review and advertisement for a new production called ‘The Young John Lewis” about the Civil Rights era pioneer. What a hot steaming pile of shit, now shined, buffed and presented to the Negro public as though it were an ‘achievement’. I feel like Lloyd Benson when he debated John Quayle, “yes sir, I’ve seen some achievements in my life, and you aren’t one of them!” No disrespect to John Lewis, but we need to get his ass off the altar fast before niggas go so far in our own pagan worship of our so called ‘heroes’ and ‘sheroes’, that we forget that those folks were inspired to help niggas. They didn’t do what they did for niggas so we could worship them, while shit in our communities is worse than it was during the heyday of their political and activist careers. But we’d rather dance and prance around as we circle the golden calf, conveniently made not from gold, but from formed, shaped, sculpted, and shined turd.
But as I said, my terror at the horrors being perpetrated against the Atlanta Black public in that the AJC and nearly all media outlets in Atlanta, routinely serve up ‘polished turds’ which they pass off as having ‘informational’, that is to say, intellectually nutritional value. You have seen the example of the grand announcement of the first all-White, minority led Negro bank, west of Houston, and east of LA. It is conveniently led by Berneice King who lets us be frank, isn’t setting the world on fire in any of her certified professions. She doesn’t have any, any other responsibilities, why is she this incompetent! No, how the fuck is she this incompetent? Berneice has not been that productive, even though she is the daughter of a ‘King’, she has all the legal credentials it takes to practice law, she has all the ministerial ordination and credentials it takes to pastor, and even Bishop churches. Yet, she has not been that productive even though she boasts of being a foot soldier for social justice and peace (but the Black community is full of violence). She is the director of the King Center and its environs, and yet it relies upon its relationship with the National Park Service to survive. What the fuck are we paying Berneice for! And now Berneice tells us she is the VP of Corporate Outreach at ‘Redemption Bank’. And trust me, she won’t excel at that role either. Is Berneice saving Black families, one family at a time, starting with her own? Wait she’s not married, and like Stacy Abrams, with whom she bears a remarkable resemblance and personality traits (if nothing else), nary a prom picture or credible relationship with a man has ever surfaced about her. Furthermore, she was perpetually arguing with her brothers over leadership and the disposal of their father’s belongings, to the point Dexter’s death didn’t seem to cause much of a ripple in her activities. This is surprising because let her tell it, excellence is in her DNA (if not ours as regular niggas).
What Berneice has succeeded royally in doing, is turning her father into a pagan devotional cult object for which she is the high priestess extraordinaire. A golden calf, crafted out of turds into the artwork of a pained, suffering man and martyred man, to be worshipped by the adoring Black public, and the elite White mainstream as she gathers them at her temple every year for the Annual Martin Luther King Day Event. That is what she is good at, and has been practicing all these years, not actually leading Black people to better outcomes. But let us leave Berneice alone before I am accused of it being something personal. I suppose it is, I always thought she was kinda cute, in the same sense I thought Stacy Abrams was kinda cute. I like them kinda thick-ish too. I like them smart, and from a good home. But these two are off the market. Of course I’ve been a broke ass nigga the majority of my life, and the difficulty of presenting myself as anything different, even momentarily, would have represented a sacrifice I was not prepared to make. But I sure would have dated ‘li’l girl King if I had run across her’ at the Bankhead Courts, Bowen Homes, Mechanicsville and Harris Homes reunion parties. But I’m not sure she ever went.
Part III
But the next item on our list in the new play, a hip-hop musical called ‘Young John Lewis.” The AJC, colluding with other forces within the Black community announced with a straight face, a musical production about John ‘good tubba’ Lewis when he was a young man. The musical is described as a mix between Hamilton and a Tyler Perry play. My readers know damn well what’s coming next, ‘talk about polishing turds’! And if that weren’t enough, the tickets are $55. Remember the old ‘Outkast’ song ‘crumblin erb’, use that same cadence and tonality from here till the end of this essay every time you read the words ‘polishing turds, just polishing turds’. Yes, insert that refrain and you’ll have a self-expressed auditory example of the crime being perpetrated upon Black people, who can only be called innocent, if we make profound ignorance a characteristic of being innocent. Oh yes, cue ‘Old Dirty Bastard’, yeah baby I like it raw.
The AJC reviewer of the musical was Leon Stafford, paid polisher of turds (cue Outkast sample). He said that one of the best scenes in the musical was a scene in which Stokley Carmichael and John Lewis debated, which the playwriters wrote as a music number that to Leon Stafford sounded like a rap battle between Jay Z and Drake. Ladies and gentlemen, either that is genius, or it’s a polished predictable turd being passed off as legitimate theatre. But don’t worry it gets worse.’
We are told sanctimoniously and all too self-satisfied, that the playwriters and producers worked with ‘The Lewis Foundation’. Thus they punctiliously went about their duty to present an encapsulation of John Lewis life in as accurate terms as possible. But I am not directing the reader’s attention to the fact that the director is ‘just polishing turds, just polishing turds’, I am directing the reader’s attention to the fact that there is a such thing as “The John Lewis Foundation.” What the fuck has it been doing all these years…just polishing turds, just polishing turds. Thats exactly what it has been doing all these years. And that is precisely how with all the problems niggas got in 2025, notwithstanding Trump’s new America, the ‘John Lewis Foundation’ feels that what niggas need most, is a hip-hop musical about what John Lewis was like in his young days, before he became a Civil Rights, icon, that is to say, before he became a pagan ‘golden calf’ to be adored an worshipped by ignorant assed Negroes in some kind of pagan Civil Rights Era worship. Fuck what John Lewis was like as a kid in Alabama, there are thousands John Lewises growing up with no daddy, in every major chocolate city in America, whose lives will get cut so short they don’t even make it to the age of the ‘young John Lewis’ portrayed in the new Hip-hop musical. Just polishing turds, just polishing turds.
Speaking of ‘polishing turds’, the musical tried to check all the liberal socialist-atheist feminist/womanist and LGBTQIA+ checkboxes by highlighting Black women’s ‘unsung’ role in the movement, and Bayard Rustin’s contributions, him being a gay Black man. No disrespect to Black women or the noted movements, but when characters are thrown into shit productions simply to check boxes, it still doesn’t overwhelm the fact that it’s still a shit production of little value. As I said, just polishing turds, just polishing turds. In the production there are cameos from Emmet Till, who I would have much rather his character come back from the dead to lecture John Lewis character and the audience about how shocked and surprised he was when he came back to life in present times, to see how many nigga athletes and entertainers seem to have a fetish for White women, considering what happened to him. This should have included some take on Shannon Sharp, but that wasn’t in the musical. Instead, Emett Till’s ghost encourages the young John Lewis not to ‘let everybody down, remember what happened to me’. In the final scene of the play, John Lewis responds to Emmet Till’s ghost saying, “I’m going to keep on making noise, I’m going to keep on making good tubba.”
You have heard my arguments. I shall not trouble the reader any further, ‘good tubba’ or not. Suffice it to say, that I have presented my case that Black people are in the habit of polishing turds for dramatic effect, rather than using turds for what they are best and originally designed for, varying roles and purposes in fertilization and the growth of useful crops and bacteriological life. But no, we keep making ‘art’ out of our turds, polishing it, and then claiming it is far, far more than an actual turd. And White mainstream lets us do it, because if you have a sign on your back that says ‘kick me’, a bully (Trump for instance) will kick you and claim you made him do it. If you have a sign on you back that says “I am a fool”, people will treat you like one, and you may never know. Thus you get used to your ridiculous behavior and call it normative.
Sat. June 21st
