One of the many reasons I find Republicans unforgivably retrograde and plainly wrongheaded is their obvious leanings toward white supremacy. This I just can’t fucking comprehend. If nothing else, (and of course there is plenty else), black culture is what has consistently given us the best music and slang in America, forever. Lawrence Welk is a perfect example of what happens to white musicians without black guidance. I cherish African-American culture. I’m one of those white people who Chris Rock recently described as “people who love black people even more than black people do.”
But perhaps this has been because my experiences with black people have been nothing but positive. My beloved Godmother is an exquisite black woman, of extraordinary talent. My favorite musician, since I was 4 years old, is still Stevie Wonder. I wanted Bill Cosby to be my Dad when I was 7-9. I watched Fat Albert, Good Times and Sanford & Son. Martin Luther King I found to be one of the most compelling figures in history. I drew a picture of him in second grade that said “MARTIAN LUTHER KING” in big letters. Most of all, I was in second grade with about 40% black kids, and had no problems with it whatsoever. They were all exceptionally kind to me, and acted protective towards me, even from each other. (we had a minor scuffle at that pajama party, Felicia, but let’s forget all about that.) They liked that my name was Cinnamon. “That’s Cinnamon!” They’d say, when I walked by. I didn’t know why a lot of them knew my name, but they were just being friendly.
I’ve always felt that black people had cornered the market on coolness and talent, which are currencies I’ve always valued more than other currencies. I still feel that way.
I was politely in awe of the residents of Marin City - a town just across the freeway from the houseboats, where most of the black citizens of the area lived.
Marin City was completely surrounded by freeways as part of the overwhelmingly racist Eisenhower Freeway Act — a program which was ostensibly designed to deter enemies during a land invasion, but which factually ghettoized black neighborhoods by separating them, via freeways, from the main white commercial centers and neighborhoods.
In my mind’s eye, all black people in Marin City had gliding, glamorous walks, and their feet always hit the sidewalk on the down beat. I used to visualize them striding around with floppy newsboy hats, rhinestone pantsuits and radios on their shoulders, dispensing both wisdom and hilarity like they were in a bayside version of Old Harlem.
I went to a very integrated elementary school, and, being a houseboat girl, rode on the “black bus” to and from school.
From first through fifth grade, I thought black people had incredible style, the coolest shoes, and the best recess games in the world; the most advanced of the contrapuntal jumprope jingle/ handslapping games. These songs you only find among children — they live in the collectivity of fourth grade, but the black ones were way more complex and meaty than “Say Say Oh Playmate” or “Miss Mary Mack.”
STEP
Step step
CLAP
STEP
Step step
CLAP
Really
(step step, CLAP)
Really
(step step, CLAP)
Really my name is (Cintra)
Really my sign is (Libra)
Really
(step step, CLAP)
Really
(step step, CLAP)
I’m mean, I’m clean like a foxy machine
I’m a pro
P-R-O. Woah.
You go to another school
(STEP step step, CLAP)
They beat you like they say they would
(STEP step step, CLAP)
Boom
Sha-la-la-la-la-boom
Sha-la-la-la-boom
Sha-la-la-la
BOOM
I had a huge amount of admiration for a girl named Renata Hill (for once, I am using the real name.) I found her mysterious and fascinating. She was allegedly part of a Marin City girl gang called “GANGSTER X” — this was written on the back of her jacket (she once told me it was slang for marijuana. ) She was a tiny girl with a wiry, double-jointed and indestructible frame that defied gravity, like she was made of titanium springs. I am writing this to immortalize Renata like Dolemite, or Paul Bunion, because she was so impossibly fast and graceful and strong, she was my personal Bruce Lee. She was a physical genius who could do things like jump five feet vertically from a standing position. She inspired awe and trembling.
She double-dutched in backwards splits, with two of her friends using a 6-foot loop of crocheted rubber bands, looking like like she was in a sped-up videotape of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Smoke came from her shoes. Her double dutching was a spectacle of such astonishing physical impossibility, if an Olympic recruiter had ever seen her, she might have been Simone Biles — or any kind of athlete whatsoever.
She really won me over when she beat up the class asshole, a guy who tormented me regularly. He was a strong bully of a white jerk who read “Lord of the Rings” and worked out a lot; Renata was about a head smaller than he was, but all of a sudden there they were in the tan bark one day at recess and Renata was kicking his face in a blur of crazy karate which you knew her insane older brothers, Ricky and Bobby, had taught her. Ricky, Renata and Bobby used to throw each other around the schoolyard like trained French acrobats. Renata always seemed to be hurtling through the air.
I was in fifth grade, but I used to tutor Renata’s older brother Ricky, who had somehow made it to eighth grade without being able to read very well. It was a somewhat humiliating situation and one that he endured with grace and humor.
Ricky liked using the tutoring time to make me learn Bootsy Collins lyrics:
Rhinestone rockstar doll baby baba
I wanna be your choice
Wi-i-ind me up
I wanna play it for you baba
(Bootsy Collins, of course, became one of my favorite musicians).
Ricky would have me perform this for his friends, and they would point and laugh at me, reciting Bootsy lyrics in my dumb white voice. It sent them into hysterics. It was all in good fun.
I heard years later that Ricky was shot during an armed robbery at a gas station. I am not sure if it’s true or not.
I’ve never found Renata on social media, but I try occasionally. I’ve always wanted to write her a fan letter. I’ve always hoped her superhuman energies were eventually channeled in some positive direction. She was the closest thing to a natural superhero I’ve ever seen in real life.
Artwork: “ALICE WALKER,” oil on canvas, Cintra Wilson, 2023
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Growing up as a working class kid on the edge of Harlem, N. Y., I had some experiences very similar to yours, straddling to a point, as far as I could the vast cultural chasm between my buds and me. Your post resonates.