Drone Operator

20/20 vision is a minimum, the requirement is nigh perfect eyesight
Also an ability to forget mistakes, perfection is a matter of hindsight
Twitchy sharp reactions, prior experience required with video games
Competitive and driven, a team player who is willing to inflict pain

The best candidates are baby faced, call them bloodless assassins
On-the-job training provides numerous opportunities to crash weddings
With major flexibility in working hours, you can embrace the impromptu
And enforce the home truth: "Visit America before America visits you"

A tapestry of pixels pored over for distinctive signals
A keen test of reflexes as you launch the predator missile
GPS-directed, with spotter verification to paint the target
Like the Brimstone missile, the system is designed for "fire-and-forget"

Working at a remove from the ground action
Remote control, pushing buttons with abandon
The bearer holds to the belief in things unseen
Detachment of spirit, signature strikes, this is the American dream

Classified findings laid out the executive decrees
Gave the benefit of the shadows, the veil of secrecy
Thus protected by covering memos providing limited liability
A free reign, then, to sow the seeds of excess mortality

Someone who takes pride in their tools, a skilled master
Nicknamed their vessel the mobile widow maker
An early recruit, adept at the drudge of targeted killing
Televised slaughter, quiet as it's kept, can be so thrilling

Yet it's not all fun and games, even with precision munition
This daily front seat, private viewing of target acquisition
Spheres of influence, inventive vehicle for force projection
Delivery platform, artisanal even, for heat-seeking execution

Gamer heroes
Beast mode
Player ratings
Cheat codes

The new warfare, defense authorization for collateral damage
Our benefits package leaves you anesthetized from the foreign carnage
Sharp maneuvers, joystick exertions that satisfy
Pax Americana, raining vengeance out of the sky

Top Secret. The role calls for security clearance with polygraph
Mentoring skills are sought after, you'll be managing junior staff
Pinpoint expertise wrought from a distance while wearing a headset
An exciting workplace, with only the occasional regret

Burn out is a possibility, but is cast as acceptable loss
For this kind of wet work, even at a remove, has its costs
Conscience optional, foot soldier of the war on terror
The clean and delicate hands of the drone operator

Drone Operator, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Remote Control by Loose Ends
• Out of the sky by Van Hunt
• Cold Blooded by Rick James
• I've Committed Murder by Macy Gray
• Cold Blooded by Common
• Remote Control by Beastie Boys
• Cold Blooded by Gary Clark Jr.
• From a Distance by Bette Midler
• Kill Screen by Shadow Shadow
• Automaton by Jamiroquai
• Drone Operator's Lament by Radarcave

Bonus beats albeit very destabilizing: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Killer by The Meteors

File under: humour, satire, hatchet job, blood, war, alienation, modernity, USA, politics, culture, outrage, observation, perception, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: December 18, 2022

Goody Two Shoes

People who use the word stakeholders with serious intent
Said with a raised, furrowed brow of discernment

People who want to be there for you, to be your ally
And look, for all intents and purposes, as if they're about to cry

People who want to step out of their comfort zone
Who want you to know that you don't face this struggle alone

People who live to create that shared, teachable moment
Who need us to stand together, and face the challenge of the present

People who could never feel your pain,
   and are scared to transgress boundaries
Who recognize the terrible legacy,
   and those matters of historical iniquities

People who want to atone for the system's structural inequality
Who seek to address important matters of diversity and justice

People more liberal than thou, more ethical than thou
Who are more caring, more thoughtful than thou

People who are empathy personified
Who point to all the common ground you share

People who are similarly, if not more, outraged
Who are deeply concerned by the situation, and, above all, who care

...

I'm tired. Sometimes it's best to keep mum.

I see you. Sometimes it pays to just listen.

I hear you. You don't need to relieve your anxiety for my benefit, nor indeed for yours.

I'm tired. I can hardly summon up the energy to don the mask of concern.

I'm tired. The mask of civility I wear already weighs a ton.

This country will chew you up, drop you for nothing, we both know this.

Today's atrocity joins a long line of rank murder and injustice.

I'm tired. As you can see, my skin is no protection.

I'm tired. Rather it's the reverse, an oft fatal affliction.

I'm tired. And remember, my children have to walk in these same frayed shoes.

My friend, give me a minute, bear with me, Goody Two Shoes.

Just one moment, a little space. Please. Just a few minutes for mourning.

I'm tired. Internally displaced. It really doesn't bear contemplating.

After the killing of Daunte Wright.

Tired, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. Musical relief of sorts. (spotify version)

• Tired Little One by Alice Russell
• Then I'll be Tired of You by Stanley Turrentine
• Tired by Kelly Price
• Born Tired by Jhené Aiko
• So Tired by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
• I'm Tired by D.O.7. Shirati Jazz

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See previously: Defensive Accounting

File under: culture, observation, humour, perception, empathy, satire, race, liberal, concern, sympathy, strategy, grief, mourning, USA, violence, alienation, displacement, immigration, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: April 13, 2021

Internal Exile

The ellipses in our family narratives always get filled in eventually
It is this unhurried and meandering discourse that frustrates outsiders
Yet to us, who seemingly navigate these blind spots
   with unerring accuracy,
The discursive vagaries of the oral tradition lie at the heart of the matter

Nay, we have the certainty that the story will indeed be told
Will be shared in its own time and place, before we grow old
Truth and reconciliation will overcome secrets and lies
So it was that I learned about the matter of internal exile

You see, it is a matter of fact that the man known as The Founder
Sometimes called Osagyefo, His Messsiahship, Ghana's first leader
Issued an executive instrument ordering that my grandfather
And four of his friends, then at Mawuli - they were school teachers
Be sent into internal exile, abruptly and without giving a reason
They were no longer authorized to live and work in the Volta region

Sixty odd years later, I'm still rather inclined to take it personal
I've been told to let bygones be bygones, that it's not my battle
I hear the rejoinders, the man was fighting imperialism
The liberation struggle and other exigencies, colonialism

It's ancient history; those were heady days. Perhaps it was random
We know all too well what he said: Seek ye first the political kingdom
And it was internal exile, they'll say, as if to restore the balance
At least it wasn't preventive detention or, worse, a disappearance

I pieced it together, that's the reason why my Aunt was born in Kyebi
And why my Uncle will squint and snort heartily
And then will bring up rogues and Young Pioneers
And why Mum always pauses
   when you start going on about the man and that age
And tells you that she had already started at boarding school during those years
And how she was determined to not go to ideological college
And those training camps, and declare allegiance to the CPP party
And the deafening silence in my grandfather and grandmother, it still rings
They would shrug and move the conversation on,
   they made the best of things

Our view on The Founder is thus born of an intimacy with his failings
We have no patience for apologists who deflect,
   and mention his weakness
Pointing to machinations among his entourage and political stress
They have no leg to stand on, he was right there in the middle of things
Personally applying his stamp on policies, he gave his endorsement
For better or worse, to the conflation of state, party, and person

Whether it is being advised daily about Danquah's prison routine,
Involvement in university appointments or meddling in nutrition
The historical record shows him as the decision maker
   who signed the decrees
The starvation diets that were designed for those he refused to free
I've seen the squalid scrawls in the margins
   of bureaucratic memos of his pen
So it was unsurprising that there was rejoicing
   when his reign came to an end

Heck, I hear you say, with a rather knowing smile,
Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn famously bore internal exile,
And many others too, it couldn't have been that hard
The world got Crime and Punishment and even Cancer Ward

After all, those years in Kyebi were a life removed from Siberia,
Papa, Da, and your aunts and uncles didn't get burnt by the sun
Well, Lenin too got in on the act, I'll have you remember
And generations learned bitter lessons about what is to be done

And so we come to the former prisoner's dilemma
Whether to forgive and forget, move on and write new chapters
Or whether to bear the grudge,
   as not everyone can be like Nelson Mandela
My grandparents decided that it was best to deflect with silence and laughter

...

Some time ago, I had a discussion, it was late one night
With two men, acquaintances, about Bloodbath, South Carolina
I probed and questioned them at length, seeking their insight
About all manner of blind spots and the weight of trauma
We honed in on the discomfort of the skin that they were living in
Now that I think of it, I was being holier-than-thou about matters of sin
I had quite forgotten about my own family's misgivings and traditions
That I wasn't too far removed from similar deflections and misdirection

I won't flinch from the rough beast, as if in denial
I'm quite prepared to bear the costs of internal exile
Rather than turn my back on the conflicted legacies of men
For soul insurance, there's no limit to what I am prepared to spend

Internal Exile, a playlist

Sade and Cameo provide the soundtrack to alternately haunt and invest our skins and memories to equip us for life in the torrid zone. (spotify version)

• Haunt Me by Sade
  Paradoxically this was the lullaby that I sung the most to my children. It is etched in their psyche as bedtime music despite the lyrics. Irony is indeed the key register of African life.
• Skin I'm In by Cameo
  The horn section is unparalleled, I could listen for hours even as the lyrics sink in.
• Turn My Back On You by Sade
  A shadow's burden never sounded so sweet.
• Back and Forth by Cameo
  Everything is written in sand

I nominate this internal displacement for the Things Fall Apart series. Do let me know what banner might be appropriate.

File under: displacement, exile, politics, Ghana, Africa, history, memory, culture, observation, perception, outrage, dislocation, rogues, dictator, alienation, family, personal, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: March 14, 2021

Masks of Civility

Masks of civility were our usual garments
Even as we boiled silently with rage
The understanding was that this healing process
Would allow those others to turn the page
A lifetime of turning the other cheek had rendered us quiescent
Still, it was altogether unbearable, this internal displacement

In this liminal zone, we lived strange days of fiction
Weary travelers in a land of contradiction
To expose the molten core of reinforced steel would betray our purpose
The arc of providence, historians said, would surely bend towards our shores

Our national anthem lifted every voice against the strife
We played the rhythm of loss badly for our kind of life
We were close companions of the shape of dread
Who sang I can't breathe, the chant of the living dead

Tracing its contours like connoisseurs of anticipation
The country's dream was a hollow promise, empty marketing
The mantra goes the customer is always right, of course
Meanwhile, you get what you pay for, there's no buyer's remorse

The knives are out, they aren't even bothering to hide their intent
They're coming for us with everything they've got in their rearguard action
The fig leaves of due process were revealed as decorative nipple pasties
Functional, yet entirely ornamental, their bosom's virtue exposed freely

They parade around the poles of propriety as they strip rights and tease
Unvarnished power grabs their sordid maneuvers as befits back room sleaze
The cynicism of state capture revealed in their state of undress
Squalid encounters with the long coat contingent, expect nothing less

In practice when no preemptive measures can be afforded,
The bearer is denied the privilege of rage
This normalcy prohibition leaves us bereft and misdirected
Consigned perpetually to post-facto outrage

Traverse minefields of hurt feelings and cultural sensitivity
The slate of unease is always wiped clean for the loud minority
Thus our usual reliance on truth and reconciliation is misplaced
Masks of civility are the province of the internally displaced

Masquerade a playlist

A soundtrack to deflect attention from this note. (spotify version)

• Masquerade by Alyson Williams
• The Masquerade is Over by Lou Donaldson
• This Masquerade by George Benson
• The Masquerade is Over by Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley
• The Masquerade Is Over / Since I Fell For You by Jerry Butler
• The Mask by Fugees
• Behind the Mask by Michael Jackson
  Late era MJ was full of musings about identity and authenticity.
• The Charade by D'Angelo
  The black messiah speaks on this
• The Mask by Miles Davis
  We end this playlist in abstract sounds of musical dissonance. A phantom thread of displacement runs through Miles's entire oeuvre.

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See also: Normalcy Prohibition

This internal displacement is part of a series: In a covidious time.

File under: normalcy, displacement, race, privilege, civility, rage, philosophy, alienation, USA, culture, observation, perception, memory, poetry, identity, legacy, power, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, covidious, toli

Writing log: March 13, 2021

Normalcy Prohibition

We'd gathered after the cosmopolitan professor's lecture
At the round table, there was a little wine and conversation
In the Green Room at the Headliners Club,
   idle chat about its architecture
Members only, the joint was swank,
   believe me, you couldn't beat the location

Breathtaking views, it felt like floating,
   there, on the top floor of the Chase Tower
We were enjoying this dinner in honor of the renowned philosopher
Prime cuts of steak with all the trimmings, not your standard buffet
And for those otherwise minded, dinner options included a vegan entrée

The ethicist speaks of identity was the stated title of the talk
Typically lucid, he was promoting his latest book, he'd kept it short
A Cambridge man, he deftly navigated the day's fraught politics
No pointed commentary about the mogul-turned-President's antics

One of the participants at the round table was an august professor
You know the type, long praised for his robust, classical philosophy
He started to expound on the quality of rage throughout Western history
The uses of wrath and its unfortunate modern suppression despite its validity

From my seat at the table, I could see all too clearly where this was going
Emeritus, the man had a lifetime of captive audiences
   he was used to lecturing
He could build up a full head of steam
   and, at length, carry on pontificating
All the while pretending to never notice
   the slack mouths of those listening

A frisson of danger would carry his argument
   to its preordained conclusion
He brought up the droit de seigneur or some such grandeur and delusion
The lack of care for conventional wisdom and liberal pieties
He was used to pushing people's buttons and defying boundaries

I pondered the question, perhaps there was a subtlety I was missing
With an audience of academics who speak in code it pays to listen
In any case, I was there as a plus one, The Wife had Prof as her mentor
Which made me not a deep thinker but a mere spousal contributor

My own work, I'd offered earlier,
   explored the issue of neutrality in technology
And how recommendation systems could be brought to bear on society
Whether social platforms, and those who control them,
   could act out of spite
And how to design networks with transparency in mind to be forthright

By the time I mentioned the work on self driving vehicles
That was the recent part of my software practice
I rather feared I'd lost the audience with talk of miracles
And that they would pigeonhole me as an afrofuturist

Still, I don't know what possessed me,
   in the moment, to forgo quiescence
My usual strategy is to remain silent
   when confronted with arrant nonsense
Perhaps it was the fine wine on hand that loosened my normal reticence
I prepared to fortify my tongue to address the implied violence

With a smile as I sipped my red wine,
   I decided to engage in light criticism
I find it to be the strategy of choice in the face of misguided contrarianism
I have long experience dealing with those should have known better
My recommended action is to disarm with a choice proverbial zinger

It is a real privilege, I noted, to be able to afford rage
Not everyone in our societies is granted the honor of escaping the cage
Indeed, some people get quickly branded as uppity
   at the slightest umbrage
In my field, the concept is akin to the principle of least privilege

The least of us, it seems to me, deserve consideration now and again
The freedom of action, by definition, is granted to free men
But at the outset of the road to freedom, there was a touch of dismay
The constitutional settlement for slaves was to be counted as three-fifths
Partial personhood implies partial freedoms that come into play
When you are wrongly accosted on Texas streets by the sheriff

Our host had earlier quoted Publius Terentius Afer,
   better known as Terence,
That Afro-Roman Senator of yore,
   a paragon of uncommon wit and sense
And his enduring aphorism and motto

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto
I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me

I left it there, there was no need to go further, you see

The old professor, finally silent, simply seethed
Daggers in his furious eyes were pointed at me
It was a wonder, given his discourse, that he could repress his rage
Thankfully, those norms of politeness came into play at this stage

I worried that there would be a response, and had prepared my rejoinder
Forgiveness and love was my own take, forbearance in social behavior
I held my fire, if he was to continue with his noxious agenda item,
As a software engineer, I've frequently solved the dining philosophers problem

The guest of honor was more practiced at these matters and promptly
Changed the topic, and brought up further examples in history
Honor codes were an example he'd covered in one of his books
Those duels and other misguided traditions that we now forsook

He conceded my point, but had nicely recovered the tenor of the dinner
With characteristic wit, he'd brought things down from a boil to a simmer
Whereas the lies that bind
   was his preferred framing of matters of identity
I favored truth and reconciliation, poetry as cultural memory

The notion is clear for those who have long borne masks of civility
Of the fool's paradise of considering philosophy detached from equity
Albeit internal displacement is my tribe's underlying condition
I'd like to one day escape from the state of normalcy prohibition

Normalcy Prohibition, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Weary by Amel Larrieux
• Cranes in the Sky by Solange
  A Seat at the Table is all one can ask for
• I Think I'm Normal by Carter Ace
• Ordinary Joe by Terry Callier
• Ordinary Guy by Joe Bataan
• Weary by Solange
• Dinner with Gershwin by Brenda Russell
• Ordinary Life by The Weeknd
• Wrath of Kane by Big Daddy Kane
  I tend to end playlists with something to destabilize things, and wrath has never been bottled up better than with this piece of braggadocio.

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See previously: Internally Displaced

File under: humour, normalcy, displacement, race, privilege, conversation, civility, rage, philosophy, alienation, USA, culture, observation, perception, poetry, memory, identity, legacy, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: March 10, 2021