The night began on a whim, as all the good ones do.
I had a last minute Bluesfest ticket in my pocket, and barely anything else. I was broke. The summer had been long and hot and cruel. I had been living in my head the past few weeks, pondering in the sea of perhaps. After so much thinking, it was time for a full night of electric doing. I packed up and fucked off, heading towards the music.
1.
As I approached Bluesfest, Mykki Blanco’s “Wavvy” floated towards me from afar, loud enough to hear but not close enough to feel. I cursed myself for being late. I finally got through the gates and into that fresh new hell, settling in with a beer. Death Grips began soon enough. MC Ride peeled off his shirt and languidly gyrated around the stage, making me forget about all other men. A white guy made beats while a black guy rapped to a crowd of mostly white kids, who sang along grinning and bucking. But I didn’t think about this then. In that sunny field, race did not occur to me. Our relationship was two dimensional: artist and audience, creator and observer. There were no other forces at work, nothing else to consider. But the night was still young.
2.
After a near religious experience with Björk, it was time to leave. Like caged animals we burst into the downtown core, sneering and sweaty and ready for the night to really begin. We knew of an event called Partyy, and made our way towards Mugshots, hurling water bottles and insults, full of an acidic desire for action. Our young, pliable bodies were eager to be mistreated. We arrived to a scene that was nearly dead, and began to console ourselves with cheap beer. While waiting for more friends and drugs to arrive, I skimmed Twitter and learned of George Zimmerman’s release that night. The alcohol solidified in my stomach. There was a crack in my rose coloured shades.
How?
Later on the dance floor, I would pause and take in this scene: a group of white kids dancing and singing along to a hip hop song by a black artist where every single verse ended in the word ‘nigger.’ The veneer was stripped away, and I took no pleasure in my pulsing body, instantly sober and aware. I ordered another beer, sat down, and crawled into myself. To the rescue, my friends and MDMA arrived. I greedily parachuted a hit, waiting for the serotonin to bring me back to a time when I hadn’t realized it was a crime to be a black boy in America.
3.
Mykki Blanco showed up at some point. I was too busy dancing and forgetting to fawn, but she was a sight: shirtless and bare, all caramel hair and too cool to care about the crowd forming around her. Word spread of a secret basement show. We left the bar and went to a park, still rolling, and a water balloon/paint fight erupted. I quietly smoked in the corner, immune to the shrieks that were shrill with youth. I watched as naked girls and boys climbed into fountains, gave each other their bodies, took regrettable Instagram photos. I was too much of a fucking loser to take part. I inhabit peripheries, look from the outside in. Besides, I liked that shirt too much, and I was marinating in hate and horror.
4.
Half a pack of cigarettes and one cab ride later, we arrived at the final chapter of our night. I descended down some crusty stairs into a smoke filled basement, rank with anticipation.
“I haven’t free styled in awhile” a familiar voice slurred, amplified and, although sluggish, aggressively present. I descended and saw Mykki, elevated by only an inch of a make-shift stage, surrounded by shirtless boys and wayward girls.
Under a canopy of dollar store christmas lights, backed only by a drum set and warbly bass guitar riffs, Mykki began, eyes half closed in concentration, like a madonna:
“Fuck what they did / To Trayvon / Fuck what they did / To Trayvon.”
The veil wasn’t just lifted, it was set on fire.
Over and over again, Mykki chanted, lamented and denounced. Amidst a night of hedonistic escapism, there it was: a reminder of reality, of what the world looked like in the daylight, away from parties and dance floors and rented basements covered in drunken graffiti.
Under this harsh new focus, the night, and all nights like it, seemed graceless. My mind reeled. I was face to face with the culture of denial that surrounds contemporary racial politics. In a society where states are united under Obama, we pretend that racial tension has evaporated. That the hurtful, dangerous thoughts that clouded our great and grandparents’ minds haven’t trickled down. In the pursuit of political correctness, we say that we do not see colour, that this is a great utopia of post-racialized culture. Here it is okay to say the ‘n word’—as long as you’re just singing along. You don’t need to read into words-cum-insults like ‘ghetto’ and ‘ratchet’ because we have arrived.
But then, a verdict gets handed down in the night. Like a cuff to the ears, you are stunned out of this constructed perfection that is quick to announce its colour blindness. Opening your eyes you realize, at 4 a.m. on the least likely of nights, that these past few hours were full of refusal and polarization. While yours is a world of white audiences and black artists, of black words and white ears, it is also a place of white cops and black boys.
Later, I watched the sun rise on my balcony. But like all things that night, the passion was muted. I didn’t have any answers.
I still don’t.
