R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
—Aretha Franklin
“So, what you’re saying is we shoulda sent a telegram saying we set up a chapter in Chinatown.”
“Right on. Coulda sent a field marshal and three guards around to test your knowledge. Saved everybody some time.”
Instead, Legitimate Way girls take up with some Panther brothers, slip into the Great Star Theater across the street on Jackson, and do some serious necking and feeling during the kung fu features. Wap. Eeow. Aiiieeeee! Now, between the kissing sweeter than honey, it must have occurred to the brothers that the Legitimate guys, not to mention the girls, might be hiding some serious talents. Whip out fists of fire, deadly kicking. Rip off the shirts and start swinging nunchukus and spitting poison darts and daggers. Shit. Whose sister are you, anyway? You get those dirty looks from the villagers on the street. Leways are bold, showing their rebel colors, doing it to piss off their families, shock the old guys from the Six Companies. Same sisters with crushes on the cable car drivers, riding the cars to draw attention from those big black men in uniform.
Turns out Legitimate Ways is made of mostly the Chinatown-born kids who are getting their butts kicked by the foreign-born. Call them FOBS, Fresh Off the Boat, but they call themselves the Wah Ching. Gangster kids hanging out doing the dirty shit for the tongs, petty extortion, illegal fireworks, gambling, drugs. Wah Ching working their territory, doing their hustle, training with their sifu. Independent of their origins, both Leways and Wah Ching in and out of juvie and the Log Cabin. Some Wah Ching move over to Legitimate, push cues at the pool hall. Pool hall is a legitimate business. Give the gangsters jobs to keep them outta trouble. War on Poverty money forked over to lease the place. But twice a day, police raid the hall, take down names and descriptions. Stop the brothers with their fucking warrants for someone on the street between the movie house and the pool hall. Is it you? You all look the same, anyway. Depending, “protect and serve” can mean to trip, kick, box, and club. Part of their gangster control program, they say. It’s pure harassment. Liberal capitalist venture is screwed from the start.
White Russian kid from the Potrero hangs out with Leways like he’s Chinese. Maybe he is. Speaks more Chinese than the ABCs. Friend of RG from his hippy days. Crosses the Broadway/Columbus border daily. Supplies the brothers with sources for quality drugs. Parks his hopped-up ’Cuda on the street and works in the stolen parts. Mechanical genius. Political genius, too. He’s saying, take note, police brutality is under control in Oakland. Got to follow the path of the Panthers. Got to get the police off their backs. Running out of fooling. It’s not about give the lumpen jobs. It’s about organize the lumpen. RG and the Russian put together a plan. Notice when the black brothers come around, the Wah Ching stay at bay. That’s what we gotta do; we gotta join up. It’s a war, anyway. Got to get some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Not enough to be Wuxia heroes. One-armed swordsmen. One-armed boxers. Fighting at a disadvantage. And it’s just a lost arm! Check out a history of disadvantages. How many Wuxia heroes promise themselves to a life of nonviolence and have to give it up? It’s an impossible dream. Brutality on the street. The only thing the brothers know is how to fight their way through. The Wuxia got one thing. Got a philosophy about fighting. That’s what the Panthers offer. Study up. Revolution’s coming. Pick up the gun.
Panther’s getting antsy. What he wants. What he needs. Needs what’s in that pipe. Goes to the door and peeks down the hall. Nobody there at this hour. It’s dead.
RG looks skeptical. Aren’t they used to surveillance? Aren’t these the Stalinists who invented it?
Panther’s got an idea. He’s got a bottle of perfume for his honey, bought in Paris. “Smell this stuff.”
Oof.
That’s why women use just a little bit on the wrist. Molecules move through the air and whip it to you. Yeah, it was expensive; bought it to impress the French lady at the glass counter. Revolutionaries have style, why not? O.K., let’s sacrifice this boujwah shit. Buy the baby something else along the way. Give her her profits when he gets home. Empty out that silver caviar bowl and pour this potion out. Set it up near the door for full effect. “Gimme your lighter.” That’s the spark. Test the alcohol content like it was a Molotov cocktail. Hey, who was this cat, Molotov? We setting a new standard for his invention. Bringing it back home.
Silver bowl is burning like the eternal flame, set up next to the slit under the door. “O.K., hippie, we got some incense going.”
Panther and RG settle back in their chairs, ready to puff up some full flavors.
Meanwhile, the eternal flame is growing. Some of that sweet honey spilled over onto the carpet. Burning up the carpet. Spreading to the door. Flames rising up like it’s a tinderbox, and they ain’t even holding out against hostile forces. RG sees it from his direction. Spits out his smoke. “Oh, fuck! We got a situation!”
The Lumpen has no choice but to manifest its rebellion in the Universities of the Streets.
—Eldridge Cleaver
The Black Panther
June 27, 1970