ain’t saying fuck me. I see that his nakedness is different from
mine, that his pride is unknown to me. I see that the cop and
the nurse are barely existing and that Huey is vivid and real and
alive, he’s jum ping o ff the page and they are robots, ciphers,
automatons, functionaries, he’s bursting with defiance, the
raised chest, however painful, is bursting with pride. I wonder
if anyone would ever jerk o ff to the picture; you know, black
boy in chains; but I don’t believe they would, I don’t, he’s
nobody’s piece o f meat, his eyes w ouldn’t let you and yo u ’d
w orry what he’d do when he’s uncuffed later, his eyes would
see you and he’d come to get you and yo u ’d know it in your
heart and in your hand. H e’s oppressed. He didn’t learn to read
really until he was eighteen. H e’s been low ; he knows. H e’s
put together a grassroots organization that’s defying the cops;
he’s made it international in scope, in reach, in importance.
H e’s poor. He was born socially invisible but darling look at
him now; manacled on that gurney he is fully vivid and alive
and the white nurse and the white cop are sim ply factotums o f
power with nothing that is their ow n; the life’s with him.
They got nothing that does express
manacled, naked down to his waist, says
proud smile that shows the pain and his clear, wide-open eyes
that don’t look away but look right through you, they see you
front to back; and I’ve been on that bed, it’s the bed o f the
oppressed, the same cuffs, the same physical pain, as bad, I
think as bad, the same jeopardy, I have been on that bed; and
they want him to give in and fade away and yet he has endured
and in the picture he is declaring that he will endure, it is in
every aspect o f his demeanor and the camera shows it, he’s
wounded but he’s not afraid, he’s manacled but he’s not
surrendering; he ain’t fucked; he just ain’t fucked; there’s no
other w ay to say it. Even if he’s been fucked in his life, by
which I mean literally, because I don’t know what he’s done or
not done and there’s not too many strangers to being fucked
on the street, he ain’t been fucked; it ain’t what he is. I love him
for it. I fucking love him for it. He’s spectacular and there is a
deep humanism in him that expresses itself precisely in
surviving, not going under, standing up; even tied down, he’s
standing up; and he’s gone beyond the first steps, the original
Black Panther idea that had to do with arming against police
violence, now he’s an apostle o f social equality and he is
fucking feeding the children; he’s been physically hurt and he’s
been laid out on the bed o f pain and his idea o f what’s human
has gotten broader and kinder and more inclusive, and that’s
revolutionary love, and I know it, and I got it, and while
there’s many reasons he can’t trust me, nor me him, we have
been on the same bed o f pain, cuffed, and I didn’t have his