The week after George Floyd was killed by a police officer, I was sitting on my stoop, chatting with my neighbor. She’s a retired FDNY ladder chief in her sixties. She grew up here in Bedstuy. Our homes share a party wall and fence line. Before the virus, when the weather was nice, I’d often see her carrying supplies back and forth from her house next door to her two other properties, less than a quarter mile away. She’s a grandmother, a home owner, a real estate investor, and restaurant owner. She is black. And she said something that day that took me by surprise.
“Do you know why firemen like working in black neighborhoods? It’s ‘cause in neighborhoods like these – they know. They know that’s where they get to be real firemen. When they get called up to a house, they don’t ask – they don’t have to ask – they just go in and fuck shit up. They go straight for their axes and they kick down doors and break open walls. It could be the smallest thing – a gas leak. It don’t matter. They don’t concern themselves with small stuff like tracking mud on the floor. In the white neighborhoods, they know they got to be careful. They have to get the owner’s permission to do anything.”
The time I fired an M16 in Camden, NJ
Typical diesel-powered 5 ton truck, similar to the one I rode in the back of. This one is “open”, but there are canvas coverings that allow the bed to be fully enclosed.
In the late summer of 1991, my unit was returning from a JRTC rotation at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. I was in the back of a five ton dump truck with other members of second squad third platoon. Every man under the rank of E4 was stuffed in the back, along with his M-16, ruck, and duffel. There were several trunks and canvas bags filled with our gear: concertina wire, shovels, post hole diggers, picks, cutters of various sizes, crimpers, gauntlets, a pneumatic tamper, grappling hooks, ropes, D-rings, and camouflage netting. There may have even been some C4 in there. I had no idea if that would even be, strictly speaking, in compliance with all the uh… civilian laws. But no one really gave a shit. We’d only be on the civilian roads and highways for another hour and a half tops. The back of the truck was like a carefully arranged sock and underwear drawer. Men were closest to the tailgate, followed by the soft gear like duffels, rucks, and camo netting, followed by the heavy stuff that could crush your hands. Along both sides of the truck, ran two low benches. I sat on one of them at a spot right by the tailgate. Although we had the canvas coverings on, the night air was nice, so we left the back completely open. Conversation was still on the happenings at Fort Chaffee, where my company played the role of an OPFOR sapper unit.
What Joes talk about in the back of 5 ton trucks
Yo man, you remember that kid Potts? The one we captured on the… what, second day? [looking around] Yeah, the 88 mike from the 25th ID. The morning we got him, and we stopped so Harvey could go take a shit, I peeked around the corner of the truck, and it looked like a fuckin’ tail was growing out of his ass. [laughter] That thing must’ve been eighteen inches long. My fuckin’ GOD.
Dude, have you ever seen H****k do that thing with his dog tags? Fuckin’ sick. He takes it apart so it’s just one long chain, then snorts one end up his nose and coughs it up out of his mouth. So now, he’s got one end sticking out of his nose, and another end coming out of his mouth. [laughter] He pulls both ends of the chain back and forth, and starts singin’ a fuckin’ song!
Did you hear what happened with H**den? That fuckin’ piece of shit tried getting out of the box before we even went in. Made up some shit like he couldn’t feel his foot. [disbelief and contempt]. So he gets to the hospital, but he gets an appointment with an E6 - special forces medic. Ranger tab, jungle school, the fuckin’ real deal. Dude sticks a needle into Hayden’s foot, and bam! Tells him, you’re going back to duty son.
What in the fuck is up with W****r? [knowing glances] Dude, have you seen his pillow? There’s like a yellow halo around where his head is. Fuckin’ fuck…! [inviting everyone to let that sink in] You need to talk to him man. I don’t know when that motherfucker showers, but it’s like, weird, you’d think he would stink like dog shit. But he don’t. What’s up with that?
Camden, NJ - where “carjacking was invented”
Shortly after crossing the Ben Franklin bridge, we stopped off at a McDonald’s to get some chow. The neighborhood reminded me of Waukegan, IL – lots of check cashing places and storefront displays with small things on white pegboard; streets littered with fast food wrappers; bags blowing around in the wind. When we piled back into the truck, someone announced that we were in Camden, and would need to stay on side streets for a little while before getting back on the tollway. A minimum of three guys popped open the top pockets of their LBE’s, looking for unspent magazines. I instantly knew what they were up to. Leighton was driving, so he probably wouldn’t give a shit. There were no NCO’s in our truck, so no real grownups. I opened up my right cargo pocket, where I had stashed one magazine of blanks at near full capacity. I held it in my hand for all of one second, scanning the faces of my friends to see if they were serious about doing what I knew they all wanted to – then put it into my rifle.
None of the guys in my squad were from Jersey, so the only things we knew about Camden, we learned from Specialist Duncan in first platoon. He had a car, and was a little older than us – twenty three. He released a lot of air when he spoke – a fact I learned one day when he was talking to my buddy Hardesty. I was standing 2 or 3 feet away. When Duncan laughed, his breath came at me like a focused blast of sweaty butthole and pancake syrup. I was 19 years old, and up until that moment, had no idea it was possible for a human being’s mouth to smell like an ass. Duncan liked shooting his mouth off about all the hoes in Camden who was down with OPP and doin’ all kinds of nasty ass shit. Camden! Wall to wall niggas’ that’ll put a cap in yo’ ass, just for some mo’ crack money. All of Duncan’s stories followed this basic forumala: hoe + fucked up shit + cap in the ass. I’m not sure who it was, but someone else at some point in the custodial chain of Camden lore (someone white) added something to Duncan’s canonical works – maybe Waterman or Barnes – I heard they invented the carjacking in Camden!
Still sitting down, I held my rifle on my lap with the barrel barely sticking out of the truck. I figured that way, it would be a lot less flagrant. My buddy D sat on the opposite site of me, same setup. I had maybe 15 or so rounds, he had about the same. We agreed to wait until we were nearly on the tollway entrance before going fully automatic, and only if there were no cops in sight. When that happened, we depressed our triggers right out into the open night air, slightly above the cars on a major highway in New Jersey. I can’t even be sure if anyone slammed on the brakes, swerved out of the way, or anything. Me and D were laughing our asses off, and ducking into the back of the truck by the camo nets.
The Presumption of Savagery
As a 19 year old soldier, I fired an automatic weapon out of an open military vehicle without so much as a single wtf thought bubble. I did so under the cover of an alibi many people now recognize as patently absurd:
These people don’t care, they’re used to this kind of shit. The place is a hell hole any way. Besides, nobody will notice. These neighborhoods are so loud, it’s like I’m just letting off some firecrackers. No harm, no foul.
It’s embarrassing to admit that I have anything in common with the 45th president of the United States, but in this case, I do: an implicit bias that is steeped in the presumption of savagery on ppb (persons possessing blackness). Ironically, black people are not exempt from this themselves. It’s a weird phenomenon, but documented by very smart people. I’m guilty of foisting this presumption on to ppb, and even inwardly directing it at myself (note: I am technically a ppb). Unlike #45 though, I view the reflexive presumption of savagery as a problem – one that I actively work to expose in greater detail in my own life.
My carelessness doesn’t have has consequences
When my neighbor shared her comment with me on the stoop, I heard it as an indictment against carelessness – not a condemnation of the FDNY. It rang true to me because I could see that very same carelessness had wormed its way into my own life, with no explicit invitation. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how the consequences multiply when other members of our society permit this carelessness to go unchecked.
“They are all (thick-skinned) thugs” (medical edition)
An emergency room doctor who speaks with a middle-aged black man about a fever and flu-like symptoms, asks the man for a subjective assessment of his own pain, later corrects for “blackness”, and finally recommends a discharge with a prescription for Motrin; the man dies three days later at his home (this is a true story of one of my friends’ friends). 40% of medical students (currently) believe that black people are dulled to pain
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“They are all thugs” (sports edition)
NFL fans who react to a black quarterback doing a touchdown celebration as a direct frontal assault on western civilization
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“They are all thugs” (scholastic edition)
A teacher conducting online zoom class notices a bb gun in the background of her 9 year old black student’s bedroom; she panics, kills the video stream, and recommends expulsion
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“They are all thugs” (police edition)
A woman walking her dog in Central Park who doesn’t like what a black birdwatcher said to her, then calls the police feigning tears, explaining that a black man in the park has just threatened her
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“They are all thugs” (political edition)
Republican senators who react to a black president wearing a tan suit, calling it a national disgrace, but later stay very quiet when a white president vigorously endorses grabbing women by the pussy
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“They are all thugs” (vigilante edition)
A chubby latino man in Florida who “keeps an eye” on things in his neighborhood notices a black teenager – Trayvon Martin – exit a convenience store. This young man went out to buy some skittles. Martin was wearing a hoodie, and this fact + the fact that Martin is a ppb arouses the suspicion of the chubby man, who is documented as saying… “This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something”… and later “these assholes, they always get away.” Moments later, the chubby man kills the teenager. He claims he was justified because he was afraid for his life
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A good read (If you’re interested)
There’s a long-established intellectual tradition that predates American slavery that basically says this:
“Of course blacks are less human than white Europeans! There are multiple shifting rationales for it! As a group, they are <boilerplate bromides here>. Black suffering isn’t really human suffering – they are such fakers! Everyone knows their pain receptors are dull! modulate your compassion and trust accordingly.”
Most people with a high school education have heard of the Tuskegee airmen, but you may not have heard of Dr. Marion Sims – a man who submitted enslaved black women to experimental surgical techniques without anesthesia. Ibram X. Kendi has done a great job of recounting the historical determinants of this complicated subject matter in a great book called Stamped from the Beginning.