Melvin P. on the blackout

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(posted to Melvin P., late of Marxmail, on Pen-l. Melvin is a retired
African-American autoworker from  Detroit who was part of the black
nationalist auto caucus movement in the 1970s.)

Steal of the Dark and the dark of the still.

Electricity returned 18 hours ago with the electrical grid in Detroit and
the affected surrounding area being blacked out for roughly 24-26 hours.
When the lights flickered and went out the fuse box was quickly checked and
after five minutes the neighborhood began pouring out on the streets. The
lights went out at 4:14 Detroit time. "Is it a terrorist attack asked one
neighbor?"

"Hey, the traffic lights are out, this got to be serious."  It was rush hour.

The standing crowd - especially the younger folks wanted to know what I
thought.

"I don't know but everybody need to unplug their computers, refrigeration,
air conditioning and anything else big so that when the electricity comes
back on you won't burn out any thing. What I do know is that with that
ignorant ass George Bush around, anything can happen."

Car radios were turned on and the local FM Stations - once known as black
stations and curiously called "Urban Stations," had lost their signal and
everyone sought out a national signal. The doors on the conversion van are
opened wide and the radio turned up loud enough to be heard half a city
block. Power had been lost on the East Coast and the real temperature was
approaching the mid 90s.

The wife suggested I go get some ice "just in case." I looked at her and
said this isn't that serious. She looked at me and I looked at her. She
looked back at me and I looked backed at her. She looked back at me looking
back at her and I looked back at her looking back.

After an hour a couple of the fellows were rounded up and we jumped into
the van to get some ice. There was about three-quarters of a tank of gas
and the wife car always has a full tank of gas. At the gas stations lines
were forming and we got eight bags of ice.

By 6:30 the crowd slowly began coming through the door. Cousin Webb his
wife and their two kids. Daughter Shamelle and her two kids and Ebony - 20,
living at home had returned with a few of her "side kicks."  Everyone is on
the front porch in this city of 16 thousand - 2.3 square miles and with an
infrastructure capability for 60,000, surrounding by that sea called
Detroit. The electrical power telephones are out and of the seven phones
and two lines in the house two of the phones do not required an independent
electrical source. The young folks have cell phones. By 7:30 the women folk
have fixed enough food for all the kids hanging out in front of the house
and a never before experienced peace is descending on the entire city.
Something is seriously missing in the environment. The spontaneous mass
consciousness has everyone smiling at the same time.  The noise of the city
has died and the mass industrial framed senses of generations industrial
workers are adjusting to the sound of nothing or the music of sound - quiet.

The news comes in slowly and it will start getting dark about 9:30 or in an
hour or so. The wife gave that looked that said, "Did you check?" I looked
at the cousin and he nodded. Living in a duplex, the young fellows residing
adjacent to us - renters, smile and want to show me their hollow point
bullets. The "heaters" - guns, "Roscoe's," "gats" and "crowd pleasers," are
never to far away and this universal knowing makes the city extremely
peaceful. The area outside Detroit are declaring Marshall law and imposing
curfews.

I think to myself "I would not want to be that accidental 'nigga' trapped
in traffic caught after the curfew." You know - that guy, who the police
always say was doing something and decided to run for no reason. After all
what sane person runs or tries to avoid the police when all one has to do
are prove they are innocent? The mayor of Detroit is being interviewed on
the radio and explaining why the city is not imposing a curfew. He
mentioned how the local Homeland Security team was the first in the nation
to present its plan to the Federal Government and explains that the weekly
meetings have just paid off.

I think to myself - apparently the Mayor of Detroit is not as stupid as
everyone knows he is. Then twenty minutes later an official announcement is
made retracting his statement making it clear that there will be a 10:00 PM
curfew but the city is told the police will be "gentle" because there is
nothing to panic about or any uneasiness in the city. Pressure from the
Homeland Security Team has been felt and the out laying areas that
perpetually feel the "oppressed" hoards are coming to get them and "Detroit
all ways want to be different."

Guilt is a "mutherfuc*er." Especially when one understands that their
imperial foot is permanently on your neck and believes millions - the
oppressed hoards surround them waiting to exact individual retribution. The
oppressed masses generally want the foot off their neck and to simply be
left alone. Having been criminalized since roughly 1790 in the North and
the focal point of the American Gulag, since 1776, and having had all
living space highly narcotized since 1965 Watts and Detroit 1967, has in
fact distorted the Anglo American people - as a people, and imposed the
political framework in America that creates and reproduces fascist like
President George Bush Jr. All that is lacking is the universal application
of the Gulag - which is proceeding with the fascist like efficiency of the
expanding Homeland Security.

Throughout all the news broadcast we are informed that the prison system in
America is secured. This is of course the code word that was once called
"upholding Law and Order." Various government officials outside "Detroit
proper" make it clear that looters and those tipping over cars will be
sentenced to 10 years prison but everyone knows they do not mean the white
youth that perpetually destroy property and burn cars in celebration of
sport events.

Night descends on the city and the house partying begins. Drinks are poured
and the beer flows peacefully and freely. No one here drinks Budweiser and
one wonder how groups of people - national groups, inexplicably bound can
be so different.

All the young people are usurped and nothing with vulgar rap lyrics can be
played. Playing selective cuts Michael Jackson's 1979 "Off The Wall" album
and generous doses of Motown, The Dramatics, Manhattans, selected cuts from
"Steely Dan" - "Don't Take Me Alive," "FM" and of course Rikki Don't Lose
That Number," empowers me enough to put on Horace Silver's  "Song for My
Father," and before you know it Lee Morgan is blowing "sidewinder."

Candles light the inside of the house and the youngsters are being prepared
to sleep on the living room and dining room floor. No one wants to sleep
upstairs - 4 bedrooms, and I know "big man" next door is going to sleep on
the porch, after his five kids are put to bed. Even while partying the
anger is that on the part of the younger fellows about 25 to 33 years old.
Every discussion about work is always driven to the brutal discrimination
that is a permanent feature of the life of the oppressed nationalities in
America. About midnight the "ghetto bird" - police helicopter, fly by
shining a huge spot light for no apparent reason. The "ghetto bird" hardly
flies in Detroit and without the sound of electricity and industrialization
the bird seems out of place. Apparently the police would like to go home
and enjoy the quiet.

The adults begin turning in for the night around 2:00 am and it is a very
clear nights with stars visible. A huge orange moon flows in the sky and
the dark and quiet feel like a protective blanket and energizes all. The
peace is overwhelming. No longer are our sleeping hours punctured by the
sound of police cars, blasting their siren for no purpose other than
terror. The city of Highland Park is peaceful and the first wave of peace
cascaded into the city when the city government and police department
collapsed almost two years ago. Every category of crime began plunging with
the collapse of the police department. The killings and shooting virtually
disappeared over night with only random shooting involving turf wars for
drug distribution. With the police department collapsed, the profit driven
organized character of violence - buttressed by the police themselves,
begins decay.  The wife and I sleep in the van with the air conditioner
running. After an hour I go into the house to get a comforter. It gets to
cold and the cold makes me sick having worked in a hot engine plant 30 years.

At 5:00 I wake up and hit the gas pedal to make sure the engine is still
running. It is running at an unusual even pace. The fingers are crossed for
opting for Chrysler's 318 engine. After a total running time of seven hours
I burnt about a quarter of a tank of gas - 30-gallon tank. Everyone is
still sleep and the daylight is starting to hit. A quick "shit, shower and
shave" is taken and I head for the front porch armed with 4 books - the
Selected Works of Marx and Engels in three volumes and "A Dictionary of
Marxist Thought" edited by Tom Bottomore. The "Dictionary" is really a
horrible book that has me working part-time on a text of Marxist
definitions. A little over one hundred terms have been compiled so far, but
this is two many. Something as simply as antagonism is absent from the
"Dictionary" and every definition is more than less separated from an
understanding of industrial society as it operates and is given shape on
the basis of the bourgeois property relations.

The news - radio, is turned on and nothing eventful has taken place over
night in the city. Big man - the next-door neighbor, hits his front porch
and he talked about the quiet and the quiet of the 318 engine. He had slept
on the front porch until daybreak in his underwear. Big man and I talk
about "firing up the barbecue pits" and he hopes like hell the power will
be out at lease 3 days. That way he will not have to return to the part
plants he works at supplying the Big Three in Detroit. We talk about the
Arab storeowners who slept in their stores fearing looting and break ins.
Business we ordered to shut down for all of Friday to ensue that the
electrical grid would not be strained when power went back n line. This of
course is out of the question for people with a merchant history spanning
countless generations.

As we talk it starts raining and we hope that it rains most of the day and
not for 30 minutes only to make the day miserable when the sun comes out. A
young man or a man who appears to be young is walking fast down the street
headed out way. As he approaches walking briskly he looks familiar and it
turns out to be my brother. "What's up brother" - as we embrace. "Did you
walk over?"

"Yea, and it only took me about 40 minutes. The old lady is out of town and
the boy is visiting his grandparents in Florida. I see Bush got a chance to
try out Homeland security. Now all of you mutherfuc*ers got a chance to see
what that Arab in Iraqi is going through. We haven't had any electricity
for a few hours and people panicking for nothing. Even the Iraqi that hated
Saddam hates Bush more than that. No water, no electricity and no way to
have the plenty of nothing that they had in the first place. "

We start laughing. By now the young fellows are on the porch and the
cousins are over and everyone has been told to go get all the perishable
food from their homes because we "Q'ing Today." By noon people are driving
around - up and down the street, like everyone has a lot of gas. Most of
the drivers are women looking for ice and comfort, hitting the stores that
supposed to be closed and the fellows start purchasing beer. All the kids
up and down the block have long ago been feed and all the bicycles are out
and its one big party.

My brother "J" says, "I hope they never get the power back on, at least for
a week. I do not have any money but I got a couple of Western Union money
orders worth about $300."  All of us start laughing as the Sheriff car
passes by. The patrol officer waves and flashes a broad grin. The last 12
hours has been the most peaceful time of their carrier. Our police force
had been collapsed and the Sheriff department patrols the city. There are
simply too many streets and alleyways in industrial cities to start trouble
for nothing and all the sheriff patrols are said to receive special
training before being dispatched to Highland Park. The sheriff basically
gives out tickets and on a couple of occasions when I was parked on the
sidewalk washing and cleaning the cars, slowed down but made a decision to
keep moving.

While we are gathering, talking and playing music, with everyone walking
all the kids on the block, "J" picks up the Dictionary of Marxist Thought
and starts reading passages. I am writing notes about the impressions of
the day. "When the Lights went Out," is written down and I think, this is
corny as hell. "When the Lights dim" was written down and crossed out. "The
Steal of the Night" - with Steal in place of 'still' was written and - yea,
a mutherfuc*er got to steal him some "piece," instead of peace. Big man
asked what I wrote and upon explaining what was written everyone start
laughing and "slapping skin."


"Bush and them done fuc*ed up bad. No matter why the lights went out these
mutherfuc*ers done gave a nigga ten seconds to think and feel the unity.
The power is deep." Everyone star laughing and slapping skin.

"Yea, this different from 9/11 when American white people loved a black
mutherfu*er for about two months, and then remembered that you cannot hug a
mutherfuc*er and keep your foot on his neck."

Everyone start laughing tears. The daughter said the new lottery number to
play is 814. My dumb ass asked "why?" Because 814 replaces 9/11.  Huhh? 814
is when they put a mutherfuc*er in the dark and I hope this shit don't end
for at least a week.

I walked over to the van and looked at the clock and it was about 2:00 and
decided to fire up the Bar Be Q pit and start cussing to myself. "Should
have started the pit before the sun was at the hot spot in the sky."

I thought to myself, "some unity has been produced in the context of decay.
The accidental form is the only form of the historical assertion. Bad
planning does not constitute a crisis."  Then I thought about Karl Marx
definition of a crises in Theories of Surplus Value Volume 2, the section
dealing with "overproduction." Tom Bottomore's "A Dictionary of Marxist
Thought" flashed through my mind and I start shaking my head. "J" asked
what was wrong and I said "nothing."

"You just thinking about that bullshit brother."  We both start laughing.
He was right as the definition of "Western Marxism" flashed through my mind
at the speed of thought. "Western Marxism" - this does not include niggas
or the author could not write something that stupid. Then I thought about
the heading "Crises In Capitalist Society" and wondered how can a person
define this without defining Marx definition of what a crisis is or of what
a crisis consist, abstractly and then concretely. Its not like Marx left
this to chance. I walked back to the porch into the house and got the bag
of charcoal sitting in the hallway as a permanent fixture.

I started laughing out lound and "J" says, "yea, we ain't had this much fun
since we were kids." All of us wondered how long the power would be out.
Flint was on Consumer Power and was not blacked out. Detroit and the other
blacked out areas in the State, were basically with DTE - Energy. Somebody
said, "Man they gonna raise our bill when all of this is over."

While pouring the charcoals into the pit, I said "yep, everyone bill goes
up and they already told them there was enough electricity to make sure the
prisons are on lock down."

"Y'all know the difference between the Arab store owners and them? That
Arab storeowner only wants to sell you something and will do anything to
keep the peace short of giving away the store. They want their foot on you
neck especially if they think you have eaten one more hamburger than them.
You can work a thousand years and a mutherfuc*er think you should have
nothing."

"They slipped up and let us steal a moment of the dark. Where that damn
lighter fluid at?"


Melvin P.


Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org