Isolation and the Professional Black Male

Well, I wish I would have stayed in the ATL, rather than move to this racially desolate - "Latasian" Bay Area - but that's another story!

If you're Black, male and professional and let's assume well over the age of 30, perhaps you've bumped into this, eh, "phenomena" many-a-time while working amongst your skittish white co-workers: they seem to exert a bit of energy trying to pretend that you do not exist.

Despite the fact that you may be the best man for a particular project - or to have at a conference - they almost always "work around you" - then (reluctantly) work their way towards you - after they -like petulant snots - realize that you *were* the best person for the thing in the first place.

You hear them whispering. You seem them talking to a less-qualified, often inept co-worker (one who often asks *you* for advise, etc.).

Then: watch them squirm as they *finally* approach you for the project - for which you *were* the best qualfied anyway.

Same ol' shit with these people.

Why? Slavery and its legacy that's why: "Ain't no nigger gonna be better than me." That, my friends is engraved - etched - in their very DNA. They are children. And "they" will, relatively speaking, let Hindus, Latinos and Chinese "pass" well before they give you your due.

Is it just me? I don't think so. I've noticed this since I came out of an east-cost college, with a BSCS, well over fifteen years ago. I'm like: "This cannot be happening."

Didn't a Black president just get elected?

Or: "What kind of creatures are these?" I'm an average-looking guy, barely 5' 10", a bit on the lean side, and prone to "talk like a scientist".

Many of my Black "friends" over the years, have told me I "sounded white", which, of course means, that I will *not* engage in that stupid-ass, self-defeating jive-talking or "ebonics" just to make others feel "comfortable" or less intimidated.

Why are these people acting so nervous around me? I mean, they actually turn a ruddy color. They will often do an about-face if they see me walking towards me.

Perhaps, at ripe age of forty, if I start *break-dancing* in the coffee room while snacking on Popeye's chicken, I'll get that long overdue promotion?

Because I am not what they're used to seeing on TV: I am not a rapper, "baller" or a "Martin Lawrence".

They desperately *need* to feel better than everyone else...especially Black folk.

Resentment is at a very high level. Hate-crimes against Blacks are on the rise (over 68% of all hate-crimes are against Blacks). These snakes are writhing in their ugliness of the spirit.

Other Blacks I've talked to - no matter which profession - say the same thing: resentment and extreme discomfort seems to come out of very the pores of these creatures.

Then I realized: "It's we (Blacks) who have grown, not these white people: they haven't really been forced out of their comfort zones."

Whites are spiritually deficient creatures, mindlessly - arrogantly - wreaking social, environmental and psychic havoc everywhere they congregate.

For, you see, once we, Blacks choose to "go beyond the hood", we can't help but grow, to move well beyond our comfort zones.

These nuts - the bane of real spiritual and social progress - are still acting like spoiled, arrogant, oddly skittish snots after over four-hundred years - and in The Age of Obama.

These short-sighted jackasses would out-source their own *mother* in order to sweeten the bottomline.

Whites are their own worst enemy - and the true enemy - the obstacle - to real progess on all fronts that really matter, especially social, financial and environmental.

But, I do thank The Universe for my gainful employment...and my heart does go out to all of the displaced workers...no matter their race or ethnicity.