SNIKT!

What’s the point of confronting someone when you can’t take it to the ultimate conclusion?

I was in the drive-thru of a fast food joint when a lady who came in from another entrance cut me off. I pull out of line, park my car, and walk to hers with a pissed off look. I ask her if she saw me, and she asks if I saw her. She claims to have been waiting since before I showed up, but I looked and saw no one. What could I do? Nothing, but tell her she was wrong and walk away. I would have liked to drag her form the car and beat the shit out of her, but I couldn’t because I’d end up in jail.

That’s when I learned there’s no point in facing conflict. What would be the point of threatening a person if you can’t follow through? It’s like children standing toe to toe, each daring the other to throw the first punch, because they know that person is the one who will get the brunt of the punishment for fighting.

At my job, a service tech fails to deliver the equipment I ordered. I call him and ask what’s going on and he claims to never have received it. It’s done in such an arrogant manner that I want to respond aggressively but can’t. I have to work with this person, and what if I’m wrong. What if the printer broke or ran out of ink? How stupid would I look charging someone with laziness? As I’m trying to decide what to do, he just cuts in and tells me to re-send the infogram. I want to beat his head in, but what would be the point if it leads to my termination?

All my life I’ve avoided conflict, and now that I feel I have the strength to fight for myself, there’s nothing I can do. I remember when I was young, very young, I was living in Hawthorne and there were two black girls who I would play with, but one day they turned violent (a common trait amongst African American women). I was in a standoff - them pushing me to take action and fight, and my own fear. I don’t remember why I was afraid. It may have been because they were girls. Or, maybe I was afraid of losing. My mother was watching this whole thing from the bedroom window and she called me indoors to chew me out for letting girls push me around. She worked me into such a bother – and my fear of her outweighed my fear of them – that I tore out the house and back to the two girls who were waiting for me. I was ready to fight, and they were already bored. Still, I pushed it, accepting their open invitation to a brawl. They backed down, but they’d gotten what they wanted. They proved their superiority.

After that I wouldn’t back down from fights, but would lose them before anything could happen. To me, it was all about visuals. The look of anger in a person’s eyes. The clenched fists. The body quivering with anger so powerful they begin to cry from it all. I tried to immolate movies I had seen where the hero made this grand stance, but it never worked. Instead of striking fear into my enemies, I was a big crybaby. The final result also mattered to me, but no one else. As long as I was on my feet, I didn’t lose. In high school, I was fighting this one student who I had a “friendship” with; that is to say, we weren’t friends at all. We were “play fighting”, but soon emotions took over and it became very real. My first act was to start kicking, using what I’d learned from Doc. He made me refrain from kicking, and stick to arm strikes. Neither one of us got a winning blow, but he did push me back. Just then, two other boys who I knew showed up. They cheered us on, and I thought they were with me, but then the started cheering for my opponent. Why? He hadn’t knocked me down. If anything, it was a stalemate. Why root for him?

Perhaps violence is just another thing I see differently than anyone else. Some would say that modern warfare technology is to save lives, but I see it as man dehumanizing it. Making it easier to kill someone from a distance because we lack the courage, strength, and reason to look someone in their eyes before taking their soul. War is deterrent for violence, but we’ve taken the bite out of it. Soldiers understand this, but they aren’t the ones making policy. And then, there are those who just don’t get it.

So, why do anything? Why get in someone’s face? Why defend your rights? Ultimately, what does it matter, unless you’re willing to take the risk of losing everything? People think the law protects them, but it doesn’t. The law doesn’t promote justice; it’s a set of rules, that’s all. Its purpose is maintaining order, nothing more. A person can treat you like shit, but as long as you don’t hit them, it’s order. Why do you think a person is presumed innocent? If not for that rule, you could lynch a known criminal in the streets. Of course, being human, we’d fuck that up and kill someone wrongfully accused.

What hope is there in the meantime for people like me? People who want to stand up for ourselves, but can’t? What can we do for justice?

Absolutely nothing. Just accepted that in this life, we are cowards. We are the weak. Our weakness is our lives, what we have, what we’re afraid to lose. If a man has something to lose, he can be controlled. Strength is not caring and sacrificing everything, and I’m not that strong. A lot of people aren’t.