Push Back

I have not worked on my ghetto manuscripts for ages, and when it comes to my poetry, this censor was psychological. I did not wish to discover that my savagery would be sated through troping the murder of lesbians, as occurs in the deflated climax of Discard Me Tenderly. That strangulation exposition is stilted, and not a very good depiction of intramural disability abuse. At the time that this was an active work in progress, however, I saw this violence trigger as an illustration of self-hatred, trying to destroy the crippled body by destroying the projected sycophant, and in mental health terms, maybe this is what my supervisor Linda did to me in the reenactment, the travesty, actually, of when she first hired me. Burning me and countless others under her was her act of self-hatred. After these events completed their cycle, I did not want to write about killing women, discovering any kind of satisfaction in that, so I concentrated on the real freelancing, and since 2008 that has been akin to revving an empty engine, but this is more than psychoanalytic. I no longer derive much pleasure in literary journals, if I ever did, and trying to get back to any positive pleasure in the construction of narrative is rusty, but I am attempting to regroup, and need to cease worrying about my legacy, my hope of cementing establishment through my philly byline. So this is my posting break on top of my poetry break which is a deflection from the stress of having bitten off too much, and I started an argument with Jonathan Capehart's dismay in his comment section and I am telling you that also, and think that he and other black journalists oversimplify their contention about the rise of racism in the age of Obama. I take a dim view of urban black norms because I simply cannot respect them and their sensibility of collective freedom through a mutually restrictive propriety. Capehart and others may be quick to shame someone like me, but they don't have an answer for the punishment I've taken in the black community either. If I had the late Helen Gurley Brown's power, I'd hire Capehart to work for me at a publication, but I don't want him wiping my ass as a caretaker, or abusing me like Debra and Trudy did, and I'm tired of feeling alienated by living in a black city. My willingness to be vocal about my class resentment has next to nothing to do with the president. It is about the destruction of my economic viability, and yes, I'd fire Debra Horne in less than five seconds. Why? She is ignorant, and not particularly competent in her narrow views on compliance. To my mind this is not Jim Crow jingoism, but if you view it differently, it is also not your personal experience, is it?