King James Version

Common English Bible

Blood Brothers

My black stepbrother is a walking storm of troubles. He drinks too much. He does other things that he shouldn’t and he’s served prison time.  When we were younger, someone sliced him with a broken beer bottle. The scar runs down his face and across his nose, splitting the nostril in two. He’s never gotten over it.  He’s a good man and would do anything for me – his laugh puts everyone at ease.  But he scares people to death. His braided hair dangles around his neck like snakes.  He flashes gang signs in every picture.  Imagine the last black man who startled you on the street.  That’s him.

In his black neighborhood, a white face is rare.  I park in front of the house and neighbors peep outside their curtains.  Other blacks envy that he has a white brother.  They’re jealous of his access to white world. He also prefers white women (like his father) and black girls will never make peace with it. Someone like my mom was treading into enemy territory.  As a nurse, she brought compassion and accountability to their impoverished world – a white angel comfortable in any setting.  She never married my stepfather and they caused tremendous grief for my grandparents.  It lasted twenty years.  That’s plenty long for cruel words and hard feelings to set in.  In the end, my mother and grandmother reconciled but it was always there.  I know what people said about my mom…what outsiders thought.  I turned out gay and my mother hated it. She was embarrassed but looking back, it was a normal reaction. Mom’s gone now and it doesn’t matter.  Now the focus is on what she left behind.

After years of substance abuse, my brother’s heart failed and we almost lost him. Through the miracle of America’s safety net, a defibrillator saved his life. It protrudes beneath his skin like a Borg implant. He’s self-conscious and always wears a shirt. Many in his neighborhood do not. The defibrillator is a constant reminder of his chaotic past. His bloody fights, his stints in jail and running from the law. He moved to Dallas in January and has been arrested three times. He has warrants at home and cannot return. The state considers him 100% disabled but there are problems with SSI. He receives $200 a month in food stamps.  His mother receives $180 for supporting one of his five children all from multiple women.  His father gets $43.00.  Next week, I’m taking my brother to the Social Security office to replace his lost card. He uses a jail ID that never expires. Everyone cross your fingers that it goes well.

He doesn’t steal and makes money hustling on the streets. Dice and card games…sometimes running errands. His pants hang off his behind and we both agree that thugs are scary. When I post a racial comment or make an uncomfortable observation, I must consider him. Truth creates enemies. We both know of the horrors in his neighborhood.  The child abuse, drug abuse, incest and domestic violence that plague far too many black homes. His neighbors are welfare rats raising bastards on the government dole. Uneducated pawns destroyed by public schools and Democrat promises.  No one ever moves on up.  He lives with his mother, daughter and half-brother (who is also gay) on the edge of a larger ghetto. The small homes have kept yards and his street is clean. A huge hospital with a trauma unit lies directly north. A murky creek runs east and the ghetto is due south. A Budweiser facility takes up half a block to the west. This is what’s meant by truth is stranger than fiction.  It’s the perfect literary setting for poor blacks.

Black culture’s death spiral dominates the national conscience. Few will admit it, but it’s not going away.  Nationwide minorities are committing horrendous crimes.  My stepfather lives with his 94 year old mother in government apartments. Last week, Mexicans kidnapped a black teenager who lived above them. The Mexicans stabbed the boy over drugs and dumped him in the desert. No one in white world noticed but that’s changing. Today, whites themselves are targets.  For decades, minorities understood to leave whitey alone.  Not today.  Now they’ll shoot you in the face.  Whites are gunned down without fear of the white man’s law.  None of this pleases me to report and it’s troubling. I’m the ultimate Utopian who envisioned a world united under American ideals.  Every man, woman and child enjoying prosperity eked out from hard work and liberty. This is now the impossible dream.  The Americans lowered standards to allow monsters the right to pursue happiness.

Whites must understand that the Democrat’s race war kindled a raging fire in the poor black man’s heart.  They’re envious, bitter and enraged by what Sharpton and Obama feed them.  They feel segregated from society and if my brother were a stranger, we’d be at odds.   My white father abandoned his family and a black poker player with a purple feather stepped in.  Mom said always trust in God’s plan.  Perhaps reward is indeed on the other side. If injustice is vindicated, heaven will be majority black. So get ready.