Anatomy of An Abuser, Hebrew-Israelite Style

07 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Hebrew-Israelite, Marriage, Mount Vernon New York, music, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth

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Benson & Hedges Menthol, Blackness, Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Isshin-ryu Karate, Manhood, Psychological Abuse, Religion, The Jammers, Verbal Abuse

Abomination as played by Tim Roth, The Incredible Hulk (2008) screen shot, April 6, 2012. (http://www.comics2film.com). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws, as the image is only used once and is rendered in low resolution to avoid piracy.

This month marks thirty years since my idiot stepfather Maurice Washington first attempted to make me a man, a Black man, a Hebrew-Israelite man, all at the same time, through karate and physical abuse. But there were any number of signs that his conversion to this strange mix of Afrocentricity and Judaism wasn’t genuine, and that his re-entry into our lives as husband and father in April ’81 was teetering on the edge of disaster only twelve months later. At least for me, my older brother Darren, Maurice’s two young boys, and for my mother. Certainly not for him.

As early as September ’81, my chronically unemployed stepfather had started acting strange, expecting us to run errands for him without question or comment. Armed with the conviction that comes with a recent religious conversion (who during the early-80s was “Judah ben Israel;” see my “The Tyranny of Salvation” post from April ’11), Maurice began to demand that we call him “Dad.” We were required to wear our kufis whenever we left 616, which identified us immediately as our stepfather’s kids to our idiot 616 and 630 East Lincoln neighbors.

Maurice also made it mandatory for us to pray aloud every night, giving us a four-page, single-spaced document full of “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe…” lines to recite as part of our daily Black Jewish ritual. The first time we went through it, in both Hebrew and English, it took well over an hour. If we started to nod off, Maurice would slap us upside the head, or actually give us one of his “whuppins.”

His language was also changing, becoming coarser and more threatening as ’81 turned into ’82. For just asking, “Why?” or “What?,” my stepfather would often say, “Take that base outta ya voice, boy, before I cave yo’ chest in!” Maurice would sometimes sing his threats, bellowing “I’m gonna beat yo’ ass, jus’ like a car burns gas,” adding, “And you know that!” at the end. That last part was something he pulled from a song by a disco group called The Jammers. His language was worse now than it had been before he had separated from Mom eighteen months earlier. I found myself scratching my head, and not just because it itched.

By April, Maurice had become a hanger-on at a newly opened Karate studio down the street from 616, next

Benson & Hedges Menthol, hard green pack, April 6, 2012. (http://cigarettespedia.com).

door to the old dry cleaner business on East Lincoln Avenue. He made me come to the studio because he wanted to show me “how to be a man.” But when I saw him on my almost daily runs to the grocery store, he mostly hung out with young Turks and wannabe thugs from the Pearsall Drive projects across the street. Maurice smoked up a storm of Benson & Hedges Menthol while talking about women, being a Hebrew-Israelite, and about me as his kid, at least when I happened to walk by.

My stepfather made it known that he thought of me as soft, a boy who spent too much time in books and not enough time on New York’s mean streets. These despite the fact that we lived in Mount Vernon, a quietly violent city whose meanest streets were on the South Side, the part of town that bordered the Bronx. Not that 616 and the Pearsall Drive projects (consisting of six five-story buildings) down the street didn’t qualify as “mean.” They were tough by North Side standards, but at least people didn’t go into parks with baseball bats attempting to head hunt (see my “A Baseball Bat and a Father’s Absence” post from July ’11).

Maurice had tried to teach me and my older brother Darren Isshin-ryu Karate two years earlier. Despite myself, I did pick up a few moves. Now he decided that I would learn how to fight no matter the consequences. It was all about breaking bones and inflicting maximum pain. When I told Maurice that I didn’t want to learn, he said “You will learn because I’m your father” as he started to throw hard punches into my midsection.

Squidward losing to Seabear, SpongeBob camping episode, 2011, April 6, 2012. (Nickelodeon). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws due to picture's low resolution.

After I yelled “You’re not my father!,” he drop-kicked me to the floor. Maurice, all six-foot-one and 270 pounds of him, then pulled me up by my arms, slammed me back-first into a mirrored wall, and punched me several times in the head, chest, and stomach until several of the men in the studio surrounded him. My stepfather, completely exasperated and winded, yelled “Don’t you EVER say that again, muthafucka! I’ll kill you next time!” I ran for home with a knot on my forehead that didn’t go down for almost a week.

I was slowly learning a very valuable lesson (see my “Never As Good As The First Time” post from April ’11). I didn’t have control over anything in my life, even my emotions. I also learned to not trust Black men, especially fast talkers who thought with their fists and penises like dumb ass Maurice. It took several years for me to unlearn part of that second lesson, no thanks to him.

The Value of An American (Black) Life

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion

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American Life, Final Toxicology Report, George Zimmerman, Life and Death, N-Word, Race, Rick Santorum, Sanford Florida, Trayvon Martin, Value of Human Life, Whitney Houston

Flag and flag pole from US Marine Corps War Memorial, Arlington, VA, March 31, 2006. (Christopher Hollis via Wikipedia). In public domain via Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.

I learned years ago that many in this great country in which I’m a citizen didn’t value my life relative to other citizens. It wasn’t just my right to live that has occasionally come into question. It was my right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” including in K-12 education, higher education, the world of work, where I should live, how I should speak, what I should wear, and whether I should have any success or joy in my life. To have to fight for the most basic and assumed of rights in the richest and most powerful nation on Earth is exhausting, disheartening and maddening.

But enough about my own experience at forty-two years and three months. Recent events involving Whitney Houston, Trayvon Martin and Rick Santorum also illustrate the lack of value some Americans place on other Americans’ lives. We know now after the release of Houston’s final autopsy and toxicology report that in her final days cocaine, alcohol and over-the-counter medications fueled her bloodstream, and years of heart disease combined to an overdose, accidental drowning and death in February. We all know how sad and tragic Whitney’s end was, and the outpouring of support and condolences from all over the world for her and her family.

At the same time, this shows the lack of value Whitney placed on her own life, at least in her final days and moments. More importantly, the death of this once great diva also showed how little the folks around Houston valued her life, and how she lived her life, over her final years and days. I’m not just talking about Whitney’s drug use, alcohol abuse or even taking care of her body and heart. Really, it’s about being a true friend, a person willing to sacrifice a friendship in order to save a friend, to help a friend find herself (or himself, as the case may be). The fact that Whitney is dead is evidence that there weren’t many folks looking out for her best interests in her life, including her.

The Trayvon Martin case is more evidence that some American lives are worth more than others. After more than three weeks of media coverage, we’ve confirmed that, if nothing else. First in line is the great George Zimmerman, the man of the people — at least some of them. He cared another about the life that he took to call Martin among the “assholes [who] always get away” and a “fucking coon.” Second was the Sanford PD, who closed their investigation within hours of beginning it, and took three days to notify Martin’s parents that their seventeen-year-old son was dead. This despite the fact the parents had filed a missing persons report with this same police department. Third in line is the city of Sanford itself, as well as Florida justice in general. It’s been five weeks, and Zimmerman still has yet to be arrested, much less charged or indicted, much less a trial. I guess, in the end, that Zimmerman’s life is worth more than Martin’s to some Americans.

Then there are the words of Rick “Sanitarium” Santorum, a GOP presidential candidate caught frothing out of his butthole for a mouth last Friday. During a speech in Wisconsin, Santorum said “nig-,” then stopped himself, stumbled and started again with “America…” in making a completely different point. Santorum rarely, if ever, describes President Barack Obama as “President Barack Obama.” Him and his opponents have all but allowed constituents to attend their rallies with guns and a bulls-eye with the President’s picture on it. Yet, these pro-lifers supposedly value life. It’s just that they care only for some Americans’ lives, and not others.

The only time we as Americans seem to value the lives of “other” Americans is usually when those others are in uniform, overseas in a theater of action projecting American power. Only then, American lives are far more valuable than the lives of Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and myriad other humans we’ve slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands over the past sixty-two years. But, at least one American life is more valuable than a hundred non-American humans, right?

Today marks forty-four years since James Earl Ray cold-bloodedly murdered Martin Luther King, Jr. while he stood on a balcony of a Memphis motel. He thought that the lives of poor, misguided and racist White Americans was far more valuable than the life of one of the greatest Americans there ever was or will be. Despite forty-four years of using King’s words as fuel for rhetoric and action on civil rights and human justice, we still haven’t solved the problem of the relative value of an American life, especially when it’s a Black one.

Peanuts Land

01 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Jimme, Marriage, Mount Vernon New York, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Youth

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Ass-Whuppin', Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Ebony Pictorial History of Black America, Grounding, Imagination, Inspiration, Intellectual Development, Lucy Van Pelt, Peanuts, Peanuts Gang, Reading, Running Away, Snoopy, World Book Encyclopedia, World War II

Snoopy and Charlie Brown taking a nap, circa 1964, March 10, 2012. (http://wallpaperpimp.com via United Features Syndicate). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws because of low resolution, subject matter and is no longer in production.

I loved Charles Schulz’ Peanuts comic strip and his Charlie Brown and Snoopy books growing up. From the time I turned seven all the way through sixth grade, they helped expand my mind and world beyond 616 East Lincoln Avenue, apartment number A32 and Mount Vernon, New York. So much so that when I had read all of the books available to me through Mount Vernon Public Library, I took the idea of Charlie Brown

Lucy and Charlie Brown, from a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, November 20, 1973. (http://billluton.com via United Features Syndicate). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws because of low resolution and subject matter.

to heart. I saw myself as the Black version of the lonely misfit of a kid, who could almost grab the brass ring but couldn’t quite hold on to it, who had some friends, but not close ones.

World Book Encyclopedia literally changed my life between December ’78 and April ’79. And with that change came my ability to use Charles Schulz’ Peanuts as the image in my mind’s eye for understanding it all. It was after running away from home to get away from my new stepfather, the now-and-forever abuser and idiot Maurice Washington, whom had married my mother in October ’78. Because my stepfather had pissed me off with another one of his rules, and because I knew that my guardians had already started to argue about money, I ran away from home. I packed two days’ worth of clothing and walked out with the plan that I would get to New Rochelle, find a boat, stowaway and eventually get to Europe or France. There, I could be free.

The Pelham Manor Police found me three-and-a-half hours later, having lured me into the squad car with the promise of hot dogs and orange soda. My mother gave me the belt-ass-whuppin’ of my life at the time, as it seemed to last forever, with her screaming, “You do this again, you won’t be around to cry about it!” I was on lockdown in me and my older brother Darren’s bedroom for six weeks afterward.

It was during those six weeks of no TV and no going outside that I decided to punish my mother and stepfather by ignoring them with books. I cracked open the “A” volume of the ’78 edition of The World Book Encyclopedia and began reading. And reading. And reading. “I’ll show them!,” I thought. Pretty soon I didn’t miss TV. I didn’t have lots of friends, so going out to play became less and less of a hardship. So I kept reading.

By the time I decided to go outside again, it was April ’79, well past my six-week grounding. But going

McDonald's Big Mac styrofoam container, 1975, February 27, 2011. (bolio88 via Flickriver.com). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws, as picture is for illustrative purposes only, and said container is no longer manufactured by McDonald.

outside to play for the first time in four months felt more alien to me that what I had been doing after reading sections of World Book Encyclopedia. I’d taken what I’d learned about city government, taxes, urban planning, population density, and created what I called “Peanuts Town” in our bedroom. Charlie Brown was the mayor, and Lucy Van Pelt was his wife. Snoopy, of course, was the deputy mayor and in charge of law enforcement. Once my father Jimme came back into our lives, I’d buy Matchbox cars to drive around the city, and created a restaurant and entertainment row of the city that included a McDonald’s Big Mac and Burger King fries containers as restaurants.

By the end of fifth grade in June ’80, my encyclopedic world view had expanded to include national and international issues, including history and World War II. And not just through World Book Encyclopedia, as I cruised through Ebony’s four-volume Pictorial History of Black America collection that spring also. I made “Peanuts Town” the capital of “Peanuts Land,” and Charlie Brown was the president. By this time, Charlie and Lucy had kids, just like I had a younger baby brother in Maurice.

Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace on his doghouse Sopwith Camel, circa 1964 (scanned from Thermos lunchbox), January 23, 2008. (Maravin via Wikipedia). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws because of low resolution, with image no longer in production.

I made up maps of this country, including its natural resources and its naval bases. I’d make ships out of aluminum foil, stamped into shapes using the old, heavy wooden frame windows we had in our bedroom. I had made at least fifty battleships, aircraft carriers and cruisers, preparing for the Soviet threat. All without the prospect of nuclear war.

As I kept reading and using my imagination, my SRA tests for fourth and fifth grade confirmed that all of this deep thinking was paying off. I had raised my reading score from 3.9 (just barely at the fourth grade level) to a 7.4 (the equivalent of an above average seventh grader) by the end of fourth grade, and to an 11.0 by the end of fifth. A story of irony, imagination and naivete, the story of my young life, a boy at the window. One of success, of living, of wisdom and love and understand, of self-discovery, of all the things that makes one human.