From: "Rodney Coates" To: "Racial-Religious-EthnoNationalist Violence Studies" Date: Sat, 17 Aug 96 11:21:12 +0 Reply-To: "Rodney Coates" Subject: Conversations with a Madman: Part I Conversations with a Madman: rodney coates/96 Some called him a prophet others a madman, some knew him to be a teacher while others saw him as an idiot. To us, he was just a kind old man who always greeted us with a smile, a quarter for some sweets and some advice and answers for our never ending questions. Often, in spring and summer, we would gather outside his little house and listen for hours as he told marvelous stories or just plain talked. There he would sit, in that beat up old chair with its tattered stained cushion flattened by years of supporting his weight - and speak to our needs. In the background we could hear his phonograph playing a scratchy record over and over again. This night the song was a jazzy version of "Ain't no sunshine". As we waited for him to begin the refrains of the song continued, and as if a part of that song his voice rose in unison. "No - Ain't no sunshine, Ain't no sunshine and never will be no sunshine for those who refuse to see the sun. The blind will not see, the deaf will not hear the dumb will not speak of that sun and of that day. Be not confused, despair only leads to blindness, hate to deafness, and ignorance dulls the mind." And then he was quiet, waiting for his words to sink in, for our thoughts to catch up to the spaces he had created. As I looked up, I saw a shooting star, I heard the crickets murmur, I felt the gnats buzzing about my head and the sting of mosquitoes on my arms and legs...and I waited. His gaze seemed to sift our hearts and race through the mental mazes of our minds. As we succumbed to that gaze again he began to speak, this time the quiet of his voice lifted our minds to the mountain of his soul. Porn queens and whorish kings sitting on gilded plastic thrones of greed. Tracking your fortunes, killing them softly with products and prophets of doom and despair. Brother man, Sista woman in that there Mercedes Benz have you forgotten when we were friends. Twas a time me you understood Now seems you've forgotten the hood. Damn the whales, save the children remove the bumper stickers from cars place them on your heart. Wasted lives and fitful dreams, sordid pleasures and dreadful schemes. Listless lives in corporate jungles stolen desires from another's moment. Manufactured lies to sooth a troubled soul. Postcards from death's back door. Human machines watching the bottom line pinching pennies, distorting evil and calling it good. Polluting minds, souls, earth, air, ocean and streams. making fortunes while angst stalks the old Broadway. Feeble excuses for failure to comply to life's calls for righteousness. Paradoxical lives struggling to be ontological phenomenas searching the dumps. Tired of standing at the gate, lady Liberty lay's in state. Strangers turned away without hope didn't know the right folks. Angry cries from the basement tears washing away the dirt. Blues sung on Sunday morning gospel sold on every corner. And then he paused, sat back down and the silence pursued our minds. His gaze seemed to rest upon me, I could see the veil lift from his eyes, suddenly I realized that they were jet black, clear with no sign of age. A bright spark seemed to reside in the pupil, a pool of hope and wisdom welled up inside his soul. Unable to keep his stare long I blinked and when I reopened my eyes he was gone and in his place -mist. With his words tearing at the strings of our souls, in quiet we left. umoja Only when lions have historians will hunters cease being heroes. African Proverb Without struggle there is no progress. Frederick Douglass The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Steven Biko yours in the struggle Rodney D. Coates Director of Black World Studies Associate Professor of Sociology Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45056 513 529-1235 email: coatesrd@casmail.muohio.edu