…it’s like being treated like David Liebe Hart.

“Hi, Bryan!” the person meeting me kind of laughs to themselves for being in the situation of meeting me. “…been a long time! How’s it going?” The person kind of smiles and winces waiting for the “confusing” stream of Bryan they are expecting to wash right over them. Then I just say, “…it’s been kind of how David Liebe Hart is treated—but the difference is I know I’m not that guy.”

Until the typical, property-obsessed, American “white guys” find out I’ve taken their photograph (hey why don’t you tell them! —fuck fair use, right? —let’s teach Bryan a lesson!), I can actually show you what I’m talking about… it looks like this:

[

](http://nope88.blogspot.com/2011/04/adventures-with-david-liebe-hart.html "David Liebe Hart")

Look at the expressions on the faces. It’s a classic composition that could easily been snapped in the Belgian Congo in the 1800s—but the difference is David Liebe Hart chose to put himself in that situation. We can find Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker in the same situation doing the same thing—but this is David Liebe Hart…

I’ve got nothing against the white-Black relations Mr. Hart has set up for himself—hell (and I do mean hell), I might end up in some shit like that too when the solitary confinement starts to wear me down even more…

No folks… you got it all wrong. When I show you this picture of Mr. Hart and some white guy—I am not using it to illustrate how white people treat me—I use it to illustrate how many, many self-described “Black” people treat me. (The very act of mentioning this allows more followers to get on the band wagon—but remember these are just followers.)

To avoid dragging yourself through all of these sooty-bosom words, here’s my point: unlike Jesus, I tend to attempt to form alliances with functional people of African descent—and I will continue to do so. But I often fail to realize that to ‘function’ in a society that is designed to crush you under the concepts of “race” people have developed (and underdeveloped) various world views that ultimately see me as David Liebe Hart. And I cannot be in an alliance with Black people that reach out to me like the white guy in the picture above.

Without naming names, let me sketch out a few Black profiles that can be inserted in the photo above:

The Condescending Colored Academic

You are an academic with a few books under your belt. You hold, say, an assistant professor position (no tenure) but you assume I know nothing about that and what “tenure” means. You are too young to even consider the possibility of being a Marxist or a serious Buddhist (because you are from the “hip hop” generation). You have no idea who Cheikh Anta Diop is yet you seem to make sweeping dismissive statements about ancient Africa without applying any umm… academic discipline or rigor. You assume what you achieved in your life is freaking amazing (since you fail to compare yourself to your predecessors) so there’s an intense solemnity about you by you—and you expect others to as genuflective as the grandeur demands.

The Condemnation-Filled Black Feminist

You are the condescending colored academic with the additional carriage of “gender issues.” I’ve written way, way too much about you (see “Related Links” below).

The Black Tech Manager

Because you are Black you think you are cool—but you are still a manger in the most Dilbert-esque way. You are a monument to mediocrity and you may self-deprecate in the face white script kiddies who do a few things with JavaScript—but you would never dare to imagine what I’ve been doing with technology for the last 18 years in some of the whitest, would-love-to-fire-an-imposter-Black-guy corporate arenas on the West coast of North America. You tend to interrupt me before I get a chance to finish my first sentence because you assume that whatever I know you already know. This kind of makes difficult for me to stop working for white people and branching out into a startup-venture with a true “cultural fit.”

The “Successful” “Black” Filmmaker

I completely understand why you would find me irritating. First of all, because you don’t give a fuck, you are likely to assume that I’m some geeked out tech dude that knows nothing about film. Then, should you find out two or three things about me, you swing to other polar extreme and still find me irritating when I start asking why people like you don’t follow the example of Ang Lee and do your white Hollywood thing but make sure to go back and do your Julie Dash thing too…

The Assimilated Black Professional

When I first launched kintespace.com in 1998, you comprised the majority Black presence on the Internet. You are described as ‘assimilated’ and Black—and you fail to see this as a contradiction of terms. You have every right to be what you want to be—my chief complaint is that instead of respectfully disagreeing with me under the context of ideological differences, you opt to pull high-school-lunch-table shit and call me “crazy”—essentially treating me like David Liebe Hart. Let’s compare our financial statements and see who is in credit-card debt and who is not—who the crazy mufukka now?

The Terrified Black College Kid

I was literally invited to speak under the auspices of our alma mater on your behalf—but your colored organization is so disorganized you don’t even know who I am when I walk through the door. You try to guess who I am by vibing off of me and since I don’t speak with a Barak-Obama accent (and a Barack-Obama concern for your immediate respect) you assume I am an around-the-way, absentee-father, imposter, joke of a “man”…. You are angry that a “loser” like me has any kind of damn job because you know your country—and your people—have failed you because little is waiting for you after you graduate. You literally, literally walk up to the podium to introduce me to an audience you helped to assemble and you mumble and ramble things about me interjecting the phrase “and whatnot” every five seconds as looks of confusion and astonishment sweep through the audience. Your disorganized group asked me to write an introduction for you that turns out to be too long so you just cut it short without concern for its content which allows people to assume that I’ve been working for the Automobile Club of Southern California continuously since 1992—and why the fuck is this AAA guy presenting to us?

In serious conclusion…

My life choices have brought me to places where it is harder and harder to commune with other “outsiders.” Most of the true contrarians I’ve met were encountered in my youth and many of these renegades simply gave up, writing themselves off as being young and stupid. I’ve been young and stupid—but I’ve also been young and brilliant.

One of the ‘brilliant things I’m going to do is post this article on my Blog with a promise to myself that this is that last time I “explore” this issue. I may come back to this article to add another Black profile to the list but no more complaining about this shit. Shit like this goes back to W.E.B. du Bois first ignoring and then talking shit about Marcus Garvey—and I am nowhere near Garvey greatness and there are still 21^st century Negroes today—with Twitter accounts—with more love for du Bois than Garvey.

I think I need to recognize that I did not ‘escape’ the 1950s by being born in the 1960s. There is no amount of writing in Latin glyphs that can “reason” with people not being reasonable. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life policing my invisibility in the context of the so-called “community” in which I self-proclaim existence. Real sharp folk who have real street knowledge are in the very least observant. Pimps have to dress flamboyantly so bitch-ass hoes (of all genders) can “see” them.

“What, Bryan?”

“What do you mean?”

“You so crazy. Tee hee, hee…”