#pimpriddles

by: The Ignant Intellectual

So often, the people excluded from conversations are those who don't speak academic language, or a particular type of English. However, the other day, I witnessed the most magical thing.
There was an older man in Core Workshop. Around 55 or 60. Black. Salt and pepper hair. Rich Chocolate skin. Named Lucas. He is one of our pest control employees who...controls pests.
He was interesting. He reminded me of a grandpa mixed with an uncle. He pressed me for my activist credentials. I think he initially read me solely as a high-falutin academic who spends all their time around white folk in elite institutions and has either lost or never had regular degular street experience.

Let me tell you how difficult you Blacks are! And how off y'all be in reading people.

So once I passed his never-ending battery of tests ending in me saying "Lucas. You can't train or workshop people into equity. And I say that as the agency's Lead Trainer who spends a lot of time training people. Ain't the agency still racist?!".

​It was then that he gave me that old Black man smirk of approval. You know the one. And he relaxed.

So over the course of the workshop, something is happening that I didn't initially realize was happening. Most white folk and many of the non-Black people of the global majority are slowly becoming excluded from the convo. All because of how Lucas, myself, and like 10 other participants are framing concepts. Lucas has an astute analysis, and Lucas speaks in what I have long-ago termed..."pimp riddles". The only people I know who speak in "pimp riddles" are Black people. Not POC. Black people. The main Black people who speak in "pimp riddles" are older Black people. Mostly men. With Southern roots. Black American Black men with Southern roots, to be specific. And the younger ones who do, have old souls. If, upon reading the phrase "pimp riddles", you don't immediately have an idea of what it is...I can't explain no further than that. IYKYK.

So anyway, the convo is great IMO but I didn't realize what made it so great was that we were framing things and speaking in ways that are seldom included in astute theoretically-based conversations...had in public...at work...around white folk.

We got to spend a lot of time talking about equity, and racism, and ANTI Blackness like your uncle and cousins and grandma talk about it. Long winded vs concise. Conceptually vs singular words/quick phrases. Qualitatively vs quantitatively. Experientially vs theoretically.

What a lovely day that was!!

It was quite an interesting spin on "accessible language". For once, accessible meant that Black folk understood it.

Ok. Bye.
-----------------------------------------
Author (Zerandrian Morris) is:
​
Capital 'B' Black. Big Dream Dreamer. Patricia's Only Child. Thought Leader. Lover. Social & Cultural Critic. Published Writer. Speaker. Social Justice Trainer & Facilitator. Spelman Dude. New Orleanian. Non-Conformist. The Bridge Between The Hood & The Ivory Tower. The Ignant Intellectual. Kind, Not Nice. Master-Procrastinator-In-Recovery. Not The Only Zerandrian. Analog Kid Trapped In A Digital Adulthood. Affectionate Asshole. Hood Historian. Nostalgia Nomad. Random Minor Note You Hear In Major Songs.