DMX, arrested again.

“Damn, why you got to be like that?”

We stared each other down like prison gangs ready to mark our territory. She, the grocer cashier, and I, the frustrated customer with so little time before my favorite show started in twenty minutes. I firmly gripped the package of turkey meat like a brick. The argument: the sign said the meat was 2.99 not 5.99. I just wanted to correct the mistake or get some clarification. Normally, the cashier would call in a price check, but she was in a transsexual Queen Kong mood. She just needed to prove me wrong. I didn’t care, the fight was on. I wouldn’t hit a girl, but I surely would press charges. We both walk to the back like a race. I showed here where I picked up the meat. It was obvious, there were 2.99 signs everywhere. The meat I had in my hand was stacked up to the ceiling. The only meat in a five foot radius. Yet, I was wrong. Somebody had stocked the wrong meat. She looked at me with so much attitude and practically screamed, so are you going to get that or not. I pushed back with even more bravado, “where’s the fucking meat that’s 2.99.”

I hate my grocery store. In the beginning, I must admit I was a little suspicious when the new Safeway opened down the street from my apartment. It was too damn friendly. But I was excited since I had already ruined my reputation at my old grocery store. I stumbled in there one very drunk Halloween night dressed like a black cat. I got into their buffet and left trails of chicken wings bones as I frantically searched for milk. They made me pay for chicken wings and took my picture and hung it on their wall of shame. I figured with the new grocery store I could start over.

I got an invitation in the mail to the “new” Safeway grand opening. I like when things are new like babies. They have so much potential but will most likely grow up to be assholes like everybody else. My neighborhood was in the middle of gentrification. I figured in a couple of years with the newer condos springing up everywhere, it’ll probably be as white as the CW television station. My black ass would be replaced with some generic blonde.


The store was huge. It smelled like circus balloons and teeth whitener. I walked into the doors and was pretty much greeted with a blowjob and napkins. They were way too accommodating. It made me nervous. It was as if they were trying too hard for the new whites who were buying condos in the neighborhood. I told myself not to get used to it. It wasn’t going to last. Funny, I woke up that afternoon and DMX had gotten arrested again. I found it odd watching him on TV. Standing in front another judge like a one night stand, he looked so safe in his expensive suit, washed face and puppy dog eyes. I could have never imagined he get high on cocaine again and try to steal cars at an airport. Was it just an act, I told myself as I looked around the “new” Safeway at all the urban faces who just gotten their neighborhood taken over by yuppie whites. They all looked non-threatening. But the hood can’t hide hood for too long. It’s the “you can take the girl out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl.” It’s my struggle to not use the “n” word in 2010 and I’d been saying it my entire life.

I have a flashback to my freshman year in college. I went from a predominate black “inner city” neighborhood to an all white private university. In the beginning, I wasn’t too happy with it. However, I was prepared thanks to UPN for all the stupid white questions I was going to have to swallow like: why does you skin get ashy, why do you use that type of brush, or you an athlete, or if I was affirmative action. And I was like, look bitches, this ain’t Mississippi burning, I would kick your ass so back the fuck off. At that time, every word that came out of my mouth was a threat or motherfucker. Ironically, growing up in “inner-city” I was told I acted to white, but when I got to college I was too black. It was so Halle Berry, confusing. Yet, I quickly learned to adjust—human survival instinct. I would call it the non-threatening black persona. I lowered my voice. I bought a belt and pulled up my pants. I made sure to smile and laugh a lot. I stopped grabbing motherfuckers by their throats. I started to wear khakis and button up shirts. I think I even bought a bow tie. I figured it was too hide the fact I had attended at least three family members and six friends funerals under the age of 18. I figured it was too hide that my father died when I was five years old and my mother was a crack addict. I wanted to hide a life of fried cheese bologna sandwiches, government peanut butter, hope meals (eat and hope you get full), and ghetto poverty. I wanted to hide everything I knew to be true.

I suddenly felt sorry for the girl that I really wanted to pull out her weave. I had no idea what was going on behind all that damn attitude. She worked in an upscale neighborhood and probably took two buses back to her reality. I knew we were more alike than different but she hadn’t learned the game. Or maybe she was just a bitch. I decided to get her fired. I may have appeared non-threatening, but I was still a nigga. And niggas hate other niggas.