Tag: hate

I Hate These Streets (Short-Story)

We’re All George Floyd

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

I hate walking down this street, I always have I guess, but for different reasons now. I walked this street for years to get to my job, before I used worry about having to defend myself against street thugs, robbers, drug dealers and other criminals. I had to keep my head on a swivel, so to speak, before my head “ended up” in a guillotine. But, at least then I knew who my enemies were and how to avoid them if possible and how to “take them on if necessary”. Now it’s a lot harder, the biggest and baddest thugs don’t wear red of the Bloods or blue of the Crips street gangs. Now the thugs wear the deep-dark blue of the local terrorist cell known as the local police department.

These new thugs (technically not new, the first police were slave catchers) rough-up young Black men and women the very same way as the old thugs. The only difference is they do it with the law behind their actions. Guilty until proven innocent, assuming you can afford a good lawyer, most Blacks in the hood can’t and will be turned into the 13th amendment version of slaves .

For a Black man in America, this gentrification is more dangerous than the White supremacist Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. Hell, at least the Angels have to worry about going to jail for their crimes and they only really tend to mess with you if you mess with their bikes, money , women, business or fellow members of their criminal organization.

Two weeks ago a young Black man was leaving his home, where he was taking care of his elderly mother. On that day he intended to go to school , afterwards he was going to go to work, before ultimately returning back to his two-bedroom apartment to cook breakfast for his mother and to give her, her daily medication. While he was in his way to class, in this formerly poor Black neighborhood, he was gunned down by the police.

The officers claimed one of these new residents (tech yuppies ) who have helped gentrify the area, called the cops and claimed he had a gun. He did not, he was in a small neighborhood park, texting his mom, asking her if she was okay and if she needed anything.

This protest is not simply about George Floyd, it’s about fighting against a system of White supremacy.

As I look down from heaven and see my elderly mom crying next to my silver and gray coffin in the middle of our local Baptist church.

“To protect and serve, whom?”

I say to myself from my new home in the clouds.

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THE TOOTH (Short-Story)

missing teet

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

I walked away with one of the man’s canine teeth in my right shirt pocket, of my favorite long-sleeved red and black plaid shirt. I kept the tooth as a reminder, not so much as a souvenir for myself, but as a reminder to the racist creep, who had the nerve to attempt to put his hands on my girlfriend.

“So, please have a seat, and tell me what happened, Mr.Gunner?” the police officer said to me”.

I replied “I left the Moonlight NightClub with my girlfriend at around 1:00 am. A thug, who was hanging outside the club seemed to get very angry when he saw my girlfriend Sara and I holding hands. The sight of an educated black man and his white girlfriend holding hands seemed to make him irate. His face soon turned a fiery red, he got so mad a vain in his neck started beating rapidly and strongly. As we walked down the street, he called me a n#gger and he called my girlfriend a n#gger lover”.

I kind of smirked at the officer and said:

“Being from the Midwest, I’ve been called a n#gger more than a few times, so I did not really get upset, it’s kind of expected, sometimes. But, his words made my girlfriend, become very upset and protective of me. She called him a white-trash, trailer park bigot. In response to her sweet words, he lifted his right hand in an aggressive manner, like he was going to hit her with all of his power. His hands came just a few inches away from her face, but unfortunately for him, my hands were a lot quicker than his, and I knocked him out”.

I omitted that I put his tooth in my pocket, I did not want to ruin the image of us being victims of a hate crime,(which we were) that I believe the police officer had of my girlfriend and me.

“No need to give this racist abuser of women any sympathy”, I quietly said to myself”.

The police officer walked me and my girlfriend over to the frontt of the large gray two-story former warehouse, that now held the Moonlight nightclub. Intoxicated clubgoers were still hanging outside with some of the very burly African-American and Samoan security crew, who were these scary-looking men dressed in all-black with staff written on the back of their shirts in white letters. Those guards secured the interior and perimeter of the club, and looked out for us, just in case the bigot had some friends in the club that we didn’t know about. The lead police officer pulled the Security manager to the side, and lucky for me, he completely backed-up my side of the story.

The police officer looked at me and my girlfriend and said:

You’re free to go.”

The officer then looked at the bigot, who was handcuffed, sitting on the curb, half-dazed with a missing tooth and told him:

“You’re going to jail”

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