Brazen Street Beggars

As Hurrican Havana related tropical storms rain away my Saturday in NYC, allow me a long, senseless moment to talk about a new breed of street beggars...

One of the most unique, random aspects of minority life in America is the mutual public acknowledgement between those of the same ethnic gender. Unless they work in a restaurant kitchen or are at a Tyler Perry play for some reason, they are typically around a ton of other white folk, so I don't know if they developed this type of encounter too often. For minorities it has generally become second nature. Let's say a Mexican woman sees another Mexican woman while shopping at a Crate & Barrel in suburban Portland...I guarantee you they share a smile. And that seemingly reflexive smile was actually an unspoken conversation: "I see you mija. Word to Mexico, you're hair is looking extra bonita."

Black men are notorious for this kind of public acknowledgement. We do The Head Nod. We have to be the smallest ethnic group of free citizens in the US. With, like, 90% of the black male population in jail, I think that Native American eunuchs are more populous among the free American citizenry than my negroes and I. Add to that the somewhat shared self-consciousness many deal with when walking, banking, shopping or doing anything amongst the general public -- the idea that everyone is looking at them, looking down on them and, on a psycho-analysis level, looking past/beyond them. This has made for generations of gestural greetings for people that we don't know personally, but with which we feel an intrinsic kinship strong enough to be compulsed to making direct eye contact and nodding one's head -- sometimes even mustering an accompanying waist level fist-pump or even actual mumblings like "alright now" or "yes sir" or "what's happnin, man." This is actually outrageous given the cold dearth of human pleasantries exchanged between normal strangers on the street or in marketplaces. Black men even Head Nod when they pull up next to each other in cars. If you subscribe to the notion that black men -- succumbing to socioeconomic gravity of few opportunities -- are the quintessential "crabs in a barrel" ethnic gender; then these random moments on the street should have been the subject of an academic documentary long ago. To this day, the moment after I hit a brutha with a head nod, I still marvel at the ventriloquist quality of the whole encounter. in urban cities, you tend not to make eye contact with people you pass on the street or going the opposite way on a shopping mall escalator (unless you live in the south or the sticks). Yet, there is this outside, emotional, definitely historical force that moves you to begin peering up as the brown face encloses, make eye contact and nod your head. It's not always a noble motivation...sometimes it might be "I see you black man and I'd like to keep my wallet and watch; let's not be a statistic" or "I see you black man and I know you might think I want ruckus, but I'm gonna flash you this grin, nod my head and mumble a barely audible greeting. This all means that you can relax; I don't want us to be a statistic." But most of the time it's "I see you black man. And I know you see me and you "see" me. Peace."

This whole excessively long, rambling string of reflective babble was a tragically non-sequitor way of talking about the new breed or brash Street Beggars.

Yeaaahhhh, I know, sorry.

This same familiarity and unspoken kinship between black men has made for some extremely alarming encounters between me and black men that clearly aren't bums, but they're begging like bums.

Don't get it twisted: I'm not Armstrong Williams or Bill Cosby. This isn't some derogatory reprimand calling for shiftless nigras to get to tuggin on their boot straps. I def don't believe there's a work ethic problem amongst black men. Like Obama said, a lot of these folks (poor, struggling folk in general) don't even have the metaphoric boots to begin with. But there's always a fringe in any group. And there's a very small percentage of black men -- albeit very brazen and audacious -- that have begun taking advantage of the Afro-American Man kinship. The same unwritten, unspoken, ethereal, internal, abstract "thing" that moves us to Head Nod, moves some kats to walk up to us and have exchanges like...

Brazen Street Beggar: "sup, bruh. I don't mean no harm, ya know. No disrespect, but I aint even gonna lie to you...I need 'bout sixty-fo cent to go wit my dollar, 'fo I can kop dis 40. I aint even gon' lie to you man...I'm just tryna' feel mellow tonight."

Me: "I can dig. But you know good-n-well that I don't have 64 random cent in my pocket. Here's a buck, tho."

Far be it for a kat like me to deny a dude a little late night medicine. He caught me going into the "hood-spot", the liquor store that stays open til 1am on weeknights (every city has one). This happened earlier this year. That, when I got back in the car, I recapped the story to my boy. But I was more amused at the preface to his request, the fact that street begging is always annoying, but never "harmful" or "disrespectful" and, of course, the grand preposterous'ness of asking me for an amount of money -- 64 cents -- that would include pennies.

But it was my dude that made, perhaps, the most keen social observation of the year (save for my Pops' early summer epiphany that there's no such thing as a young "wino"). After I expressed my amusement and annoyance at the "bum's" request-preface and donation-amount, my boy was like, "and this ni$$a wasn't even a bum!"

He continued: "Dude...look at us. He's like 50 and we're some young dudes. I'm drivin' this old whip with a carseat in the back. You got on a tattered replica jersey, faded sweats and flip-flops. This dude got on brand new Nikes and a new jean jacket! We look like some scufflin dudes that ran out the crib to kop a night cap and this clown looks like he just got off work! What made him think he could ask for money?! That ni$$a don't need 64 cent!"

Then he said it: "Man, a black dude sees another black dude and he don't even gotta be a bum to beg like a bum."

It was so true. Not more than a week later, I was at a gas station. A young kat, maybe in his early 20s came up to me, commented on that vintage Smif-n-Wessun I was pumping, then dutifully asked for a dollar, followed me in the store and kopped a brew right in front of me! Whatever happened to the lies about "bus fair" or getting a meal. Not with this cat. He seemed like a perfectly able-bodied, non drug-addicted young man, except, I guess it was a broke week for him, so he automatically felt that our blackman-kinship entitled him to a loose dollar in my pocket. This was basically akin to him approaching me and saying "Say, b!:$h, how much you got on my Colt 45?!"

Black men usually don't take these far-reaching, "you-got-some-super-nerve" liberties with any other ethnic gender (forget white folks, who, at least they have guilt. A blackbum will approach a Caucasian light years before they approach the disapproving gaze of a black woman).
Check it out sometime. A real blackbum will approach a sidewalk table of white folks with dough-eyes, a severe limp and all the "so sorry to bother you angelic people"-deference in the world, maybe invent a sobb-story or create a sobb-story cardboard-sign "I Loss My Woman To STDs, Will Cry For Food". Right after the performance, he'll see a fellow blackman and get all chummy, come struttin' over on some, "say man, let me hold bout 40 bucks so I can kop some taste and have a little disposable income left to snatch me a whore. Ya dig? I know you dig."

That's for real beggars...but the Brazen Street Beggar -- the ones that aren't homeless, insane or down on their luck, but merely temporarily too broke to kop a brew or a steaksub -- wouldn't even fathom bringing these wack requests to regular folk.

I'm in NYC right now and I've always found Gotham's homeless people to be oddly refreshing. Last year, on my way to the office, I'd post at least 10,000 hobos lining Broadway, but I wouldn't be bothered once, save for an occasional jing-jing from a cup'o coins. It makes me appreciate both the fact that NYC's homeless lot stays invisible and unassuming after years of cruel New Yorker treatment, but it also makes me appreciate the other sector of beggars -- the street performers, the kids selling Twix for $10/bar, the dudes that approach you with stories like, "Man, I'm tryna get enough dough to give to my b!+$h so she can get an abortion." They may be brash, but at least they're not brazen.