I’m on tour, promoting a graphic novel biography about Black cyclist and turn-of-the-century champion, Major Taylor. Born in Indianapolis in 1878, Taylor went on to race on three continents, literally fighting his way to the top, past racist opponents and the resurgence of racist oppression in the Jim Crow era.
As a person of color, there’s a separate map in my head that I superimpose on my surroundings. It’s a directory for navigating conflict: neighborhoods to be aware of or avoid, plus whereabouts of police, locals, or just eyes following you. My whole hometown of Ventura, California, growing up was a danger zone of verbal assault (always from passing cars, of course). When I lived there, Blacks comprised less than 2% of the population. Not enough of a demographic to threaten, but despised anyway.
When I was young, this map had other odd features, like safe places behind enemy lines. I remember being in a tattoo parlor (that shall remain nameless) and watching someone in the waiting room with tears of rage welling in his eyes. A skinhead. But it was well known you didn’t start trouble there.
Then there were the ostensibly neutral or gray areas. I was a punk adjacent youth. That subculture’s social progress bona fides are uneven at best. The Déjà Vu was one of the area’s fly-by-night, all-ages venues housed in a former auto showroom. I only went once. A friend's band was opening.
This was at the tail end of the grunge era. The Muffs had just been signed. There was a capacity crowd, and I remember two pits going simultaneously. The resultant sweat and humidity condensed on the ceiling and dripped back onto the audience. Given the preponderance of teens, it was quite a fragrant experience.
And then there was one sweaty guy who insisted on brushing against me. I’d kept well away from the main action, and the venue wasn’t as cramped as all that. The second brush confirmed it. It was intentional. He was a muscular but small guy, easily three inches shorter than I was. I clocked his haircut, then the matching ones of his companions who were watching from the sidelines; all of them were physically much larger.
He was sent to offend me and my “personal space.” One push back and they would’ve descended. Nice try. I nodded back in a friendly way, thoroughly confusing them. Then I turned back to the show, still keeping an eye on them.
Two were dispatched, the small one again and a medium sized variety. I was neo - I didn’t need any meth sweat and axe body spray on my textured tee (it was 1994!) and one almost lost his balance, trying to make contact. Frustrated, they moved onto bullying people in the pit and throwing sieg heils.
Two songs into Phooey’s set and the lead singer took a pause.
“What’s up with all the Sieg Heils? White supremacy? The guitarist for the first band was Mexican. The guitarist for the next band, Also Mexican..." Then he declared: "And I am Jew!” He took his thumb and forefinger and held them in a triangle shape against his face, making a big nose gesture. The crowd erupted with laughter. “1, 2, 3, 4,” and they were into the next song.
Phooey wasn’t great or even that good of a band. But they became my favorite for the next few hours. I learned later that the skinhead contingent had tired of waiting for me to emerge from the club. They descended on a random white guy, delivering a beating just shy of requiring medical attention. He was a redhead, so perhaps they took issue with his phenotype as well.
I’ve been the racial exception, the solitary “representative” in many spaces since. I had to become adept at code switching but more importantly, navigating.
Major Taylor had to do all that in a much more dangerous and hostile environment. He had to be undeniable because anything less would’ve been invalidated.
That moment at the Déjà Vu was a formative experience. There was nothing stopping the skins from dragging the singer from that stage. But he spoke hilarious truth to power. I’ll always remember that.
