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FREEDOMWAYS
THIRD QUARTER 1973

and grabbed two stools in the midst of the hysteria which had taken over. They ordered a couple of beers, which Mink served up dead-pan but courteously, and began like everyone else to second guess the losing manager's choice of putting in a right-hand pitcher to a left-hand batter. The joint calmed down and the hardhats ordered another round. When Mink stood before them, deftly flicking the spatula to skim off the overflowing foam, one of the hardhats asked if he could pin something on the front of her blouse. The other clients tensed but the hardhats, undoubtedly on another frequency, continued their subtly lascivious program. I heard Mink ask,"What is it?" One of the hardhats had a little plastic American flag, the kind which clips into the lapels.  In a soft understone Mink said, "Look Baby, I DON"T WANT IT!" The hardhats tensed. "You sayin' you won't wear YOUR flag?" Tiny and tense, but cool, Mink's low voice cut through the silence like a straight razor. "Mister," she said, "that flag used to be decent but y'all went an' shit on it so much that I DO NOT WANT NO PART OF IT!" The hard hats were incredulous. "You mean--..." one of them stuttered. "YES. I mean you go an' clean it up. Then I'll think about it." The other hardhat said, "Love it or leave it." Mink's eyes cracked lightning, "Look Muuurrrfuggger," she hissed, "I ain't lookin' for trouble, see? That's why Saturday is my last day here. Ya wanta know why? 'Cause the other day I had to lay one up side the head of the lousy peckerwood that runs this crappy join. Dig?" The thoroughly confused hardhats jerked back from the bar and one of them said whiningly, "But the American flag..." "You heard me," said Mink. "It's because of phoney shits like you hardhats that every time I sees a picket line I get on it. And I don't care WHAT the fuck they picketin' about!" The hardhats sat staring at their half-emptied beer glasses and then when they felt that no one was looking at them they slunk out shaking their heads sadly. A half hour later when I met Ish I asked him if he needed someone for a picketline. Then I told him about Mink and the hardhats. Ish listened with that enigmatical grin of his, his laughing eyes half-shut as if he were taking a rare wine. "Ollie," he mused, "these sisters are something else. There are sisters like the one you're telling me about all over this land and when the MAN looks into their eyes he KNOWS they ain't playing."
Earlier in this article I wrote of the sad history of a so-called Black Renaissance, tragically aborted because it was neither Black nor a Renaissance. Traveling through the betrayed American cities
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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-26 15:41:34