Thank You Mr. Crab

So, I've been unemployed for a while now and trying to find my way. Along with my unemployment came feelings of being unaccomplished and frustration. I felt like I was 18 all over again. Thoughts of going to the military to gain some skills and make myself more marketable. Thoughts of going to college again. Feeling like I wasted years of my life in education now that I'm going in a different direction.

My mother reunited with an old friend and bragged about his connections/network. He had me call some people for what I assumed to be guidance and support. I spoke with two of them. One was a younger guy around my age that was very encouraging. The other seems to be older and possibly more accomplished. The older one had a no nonsense approached and ended up advising me, "cut the hair, cut the crap."

Maybe I was foolish enough to believe that the world wasn't so caught up in being clean cut. I guess I saw that episode of Living Single when Kyle refused to cut his hair and made the mistake of thinking that was based on reality. My conversations through email got more intense with this older guy and eventually ended up in me exploding and telling him what I thought about him. To me he was another example of a black man that excels and instead of helping uplift others kicks them while they're down. Luckily I had the privilege of communicating with this guy.

I remember writing a poem called ex-girlfriend. The last line of the poem was the deepest to me. It said, "A young black man trying to survive in this world, who woulda thought that his poison would be a young black girl."

I know that I'm still young, but reflecting on that line now, I can see how young I truly was when I wrote that statement. I had heard the stories about black people being like crabs in the barrel, pulling each other down. The more I experience life, the more I am revealed to the truth in that story. As militant and pro black as I feel inside, it goes against all of the logic that I should have obtained from my experiences. Black people have always been more detrimental to me in life and yet I constantly speak of racism and bias from white people. Is there something wrong with me?