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HOOD INTUITION
U can tell big things about people from small things dey do. All U need 2 know about a person is easily detectable if U watch them long enough. A woman once said of me, "Dr. Hamilton strikes me as a man who can read a person from how they hold their fork." Spot on
U can tell big things about people from small things dey do. All U need 2 know about a person is easily detectable if U watch them long enough. A woman once said of me, "Dr. Hamilton strikes me as a man who can read a person from how they hold their fork." Spot on
I routinely make snap judgments about people's character. Those who say I'm wrong for doing this, I would argue that I am no different than any other animal in the wild whose survival depends on them competently ascertaining any given situation to avoid death.
Being black means always having survival in the front view mirror. A good number of people living life in the streets are like this too. A competent drug dealer can sniff out a snitch a mile away & none are trusting of random people off cuff. I don't claim to be a thug, but-
in a previous life, I did run w/killers. Lets just say they saw me as different from them. They felt that they were living a life they were forced into, but I somehow had potential to live a legal life they didn't. "School boy" as they called me, became a badge of honor for me.
They were brutal about me not crossing that line n2 their world. In fact I once got the ultimate beat down of my life for agreeing to go on a trip to Miami with a woman I was in love w/ but was known as an interstate drug runner. She was leading me 2 believe she was taking me on-
a vacation to Miami, but was actually attempting 2 get me 2 drive b/c the car had kilos of cocaine secretly stashed in all of the cars exterior frame paneling. When Big Fred found out, dat nigga slapped the chicken grease off my lips. "Schoolboy, how could a college nigga like U-
be so goddam stupid. Dat bitch was trying 2 set U up. She wanted U to drive so if some shit went down, yo dumb ass would take da fall. Keekee in w/dem dam Cubans in Miami. Leave dat bitch alone." After I picked my face off the floor, my ribs & chest were inflamed from all those-
body blows Big Fred gave me. Dat nigga was gangsta. I once saw him beat a man 2 a bloody pulp on MLK Drive for fucking up his money. Between him & his crew & a boat load of strippers, the streets took care of me, which is why til this day, I have an affinity 4 people who eke out-
such a horrible existence in the streets. I always have to remind my wife that the only way we were able to get to her aunt's funeral in Texas during undergrad was a stripper named Cleopatra gave us the travel money after a half hour of work at Magic City.
You see Cleopatra was one of the baddest strippers in Atlanta at the time, but unbeknownst to my wife, she was also one of our physics classmates at Clark Atlanta University. Cleo, as I called her, was smart as shit & was a dual degree engineering major, but she had a completely-
different persona in Atlanta night life. She was involved in all type of shit, not just in the strip club, but tricking at private parties, doing pornos & was a lowkey Madame 4 a brothel in the SWAT (Southwest Atlanta). Cleo was Players Club b4 LisaRaye & backpage b4 backpage.
The crazy shit is Cleo was also Muslim. Nobody & I mean nobody in her family or in college knew about her double life. She was the ultimate fulfillment of the stripper-working-her-way-thru-school stereotype. 2 see the transformation of Cleo from class-2-club was a sight 2 behold.
The 1st time I saw her in da strip club element blew my mind. On campus, dis girl wore baggy clothes & Muslim gear, but in dat club, OMG, she was a beast. I saw Cleo make 10 bands in a few hours one night. Niggas worshipped Cleo. Her body was flawless & she really did look like-
an African goddess. When my wife's aunt died, her parents didn't have enough money to buy her-a plane ticket to Texas. I told Cleo & she was like, "yo, I go to work at 6, come thru by 6:30 & I'll have the bread." When me & my wife pulled up to Magic City, my wife was like,
"why you got me out here atta damn strip club?" U see my wife was a good girl. Like Flip Wilson said, "when I met my wife, she had a Sunday School face & I had Saturday night thoughts." I told my wife dat come hell or high water, I was going to get her to her aunt's funeral &
I did. As a black Muslim, Cleo didn't believe in no black folks missin funerals. So she came thru big time, w/enough money 2 get my wife's tires replaced, an oil change, & travel money for food. We drove to TX. To this day, my wife doesn't remember Cleo being in class w/us &
her parents never knew how we came up with the money to get home...unless dey readin dis shit now. From time to time, I remind my wife of the crucial role strippers played in our life in helping us make ends meet in hard times back in the day. She never knew where the money was-
coming from & I never told her til recently. Some might wonder how was a college kid like me friends with so many strippers & drug dealers. Well, keep in mind, the Atlanta University Center, like many HBCUs, was located in the middle of housing projects & it really was true that-
a lot of female students were working in the strip clubs. I lived in the thick of all dis shit. Hell, Atlanta strips clubs used 2 actually advertise "College Girls Here!" There seemed 2 B a deeply held sexual fantasy about good girls gone bad that many strip clubs exploited.
Now, of course there was an-underbelly of horrible shit many didn't see & a lot of the girls that went into that life neva came out. Even w/Cleo, she went through hell. There were plenty of nights I picked her up bloody, beaten & all coked up. In fact, 1 time, I hadn't seen her-
class in weeks only to find out her & another classmate/stripper friend of ours were being shot up w/heroine & locked inside some apartments off Bankhead. This mafucka was pimping dem out on some Liam Neeson "Taken" shit. Real talk. When I saw Cleo again, she was visibly shaken-
like some real fucked up shit had happened to her. I literally watched that life suck the beauty from Cleo & a ton of other young college girls who strip clubs completely turned out. You could see a girl go from being an innocent high schooler a to a MILF in one year flat
Da streets are unforgiving. However there was 1 bright side 2 all dis dat I really didnt think about til now. Fortunately I was there 2 console these strong black women & pick up right where da strip clubs left off:
I.
FUCKED.
EACH .
AND.
EVERY .
ONE.
OF.
DEESE.
BITCHES.
I.
FUCKED.
EACH .
AND.
EVERY .
ONE.
OF.
DEESE.
BITCHES.
Just joking. Or am I? Remember, I started this post with saying that you can tell big things about people from small things they do, that survival for black people requires split second analysis & judgement of any given situation. I never second guess my intuition.
I move thru the world w/the intuition of strippers & drug dealers. I feel mafuckas out at warpspeed. Any inkling of a mismatch b/t the person I'm talking 2 vs the person I actually believe them 2 B & I unmask niggas like a Trump covid rally. Then I depart. For I never knew them.
