Saved and SAINTified (58 page)

“Since I was a child. It was just a natural attraction for me. It wasn’t forced or deliberated upon. I didn’t plan it or have to lament over it. I find women of all races attractive. I just have a preference for black women, physically as well as spiritually, and in that sentiment, I’m not alone.”

“You’re damn right! I love
’em too.” D.J. Tornado grinned so wide that his dark purple gums showed. Saint knew what was to come. It was the same thing all the time. They’d try to butter him up with a grand intro and a few shallow compliments—and small talk, there was always the precursor small talk. Then, the hammer would come down.

Saint
took a few swigs of his water from the chilled bottle. He shot a look at the DJ and smiled, a knowing smile. He was hip to the game. He rarely refused an invitation to such ventures. He had no desire to run or hide in the darkness. Saint enjoyed confrontation. He enjoyed educating.

He enjoyed humiliating the perpetual, self-imposed ignorant idiots who
, for some reason, would try to stand toe to toe with him, dance around the courtyard, only to discover his two-step was fierce and they’d go down in flames. On the bright side, he brought in ratings, while they made his book sales soar. It was an even exchange of mortification—only he was never the one feeling badly at the end of the bloody battle.

“All lines are full!” Tornado announced.  “Damn
Saint, you just got here and look at this shit.”

Saint
grinned. “Open the gate, let ’em through,” he encouraged.

“Oh, I will.” Tornado narrowed his eyes, still showing his wide, misleading grin.

Saint showed a sleight of hand and nodded, in a gentlemanly fashion.

“We’ve got Krystal from
Dallas! Hello Krystal, please state your question to our guest, Dr. Saint Aknaten.”

“Hello
, Dr. Actin’!”

Saint
ran his finger along the corner of his mouth and smirked. “It’s Dr. Aknaten, and hello to you too, Krystal.” The caller giggled, her Southern dialect seeming almost forced. She ignored his correction and went on with her statement.

“I really don’t have
... well, I do have a question but I also have a comment.”

“Make it fast, Krystal,” DJ Tornado urged. “We’ve got people waiting to get through, sweetie.”

“Yeah, okay, well, I want tha brothas to know that I’m still down for y’all. There aren’t a lot of black women chasing white men, or Chinese men, or whatever. We still want black men.”

“What is your question, Krystal?”
the DJ interrupted.

She cleared her throat
. “I want to know why you are interferin’ in our relationships? We have enough problems. I don’t have an issue with you havin’ a black wife—good for you, do
you
. But that is
your
life, not everyone else’s. I hate when people that are not black come into our community and try to tell us what to do.” Her tone became increasingly angry.

Saint
grinned, exposing his gleaming teeth under the harsh studio lights. DJ Tornado looked at him inquisitively. Saint rubbed his chin while he listened to the irate caller and casually leaned back in his chair, pivoting ever so slightly.

“
Saint, would you like to respond to that?”

“Yes.” He sat up and rested his folded hands. “Krystal, what we have here is called an intended audience. For instance, when a company makes a product, say, a lightbulb,
that product is for specific people. It isn’t for people that don’t want to be enlightened ... it isn’t for people that prefer candles only. It isn’t for people that don’t like illumination. It isn’t for people that prefer to read, eat and fuck in the dark.”

He watched DJ Tornado quickly turn around in his chair and wave to the producer
. “Hey Joe!” he whispered to a man behind a partition. “Make sure you have your finger on the trigger, man!” Saint knew what that meant. It meant that he wouldn’t be asked to tone down his profanity, and that they’d let some slip by but other ones, they’d silence. He didn’t care; he was going to have his say, just the way he wanted it served—hot, hard, fast and brutal.

“So Krystal, I’m not interfering in your relationships, that of the black community as you stated
, and with that said, please don’t try to interfere in mine either and that is what you are inherently doing, when you try to tell me what my business is, and who it should be with, as it pertains to my passions.” Saint smiled and clasped his hands together. “If things were going so swimmingly for you, you wouldn’t give a shit about what I was doing and saying because I’d be a mere ripple in the ocean ... there would be no consequences to my presence. The people that need my message
get
it and
want
it. The people that don’t,” he shrugged, “it wasn’t meant for them. So in other words, Krystal,” his deep voice dropped lowered, “you are
not
the intended audience. Stay in the dark, hurricane Krystal, and enjoy yourself...”

“
Damn!” DJ Tornado put his fist up to his mouth and laughed, instigating with all of his might. “He said you were like hurricane Sandy, only your name is Krystal ... you in the dark, sis! I like that. That was slick.”

The DJ nodded in Saint’s direction. Again, Saint wasn’t falling for it.

“Okay, let me let her respond.”

Saint
peered at him, knowing he’d find out soon enough, Tornado would turn this into an eating frenzy. The man was just biding his time; the day was still young.

“All of that bullshit
he just said was unnecessary!”

“Now hold on, Krystal, you can’t
—” the DJ interrupted.

“No, you didn’t tell
him
to hold on! I want to—”

He cut off her mike.

“Okay, hold up!” DJ Tornado made an ‘x’ with his hands, for a time-out. “Callers, I need to make one thing clear. Don’t call here goin’ off and then get mad when this man defends himself and another thing, we are not a show for kids, but watch the language. I’m not tryna get fined. Now Krystal, I’m going to take your line off mute now, and you can continue on.”

Saint
watched him push a green button.

“Let me make this point and I’m gettin’ off the phone,” she huffed
. “I ain’t callin’ about any damn electricity and lightbulbs, Dr. Aknaten! I called about
you
tellin’ black women to leave our black fathers, uncles, brothers and cousins, and find us a white man. We are strong people, and just like everything else we’ve been through, we will get through whatever perceived crisis you think is happening, just the same. This is the worst advice we could get right now. Right now, we need to be pulling together, not pulling apart.” She slammed her phone down, causing it to crackle through the DJ’s and Saint’s headset. He quickly disconnected her call.

“Do you have a response to that?”
the DJ asked, smiling and shaking his head in fake disbelief as he looked at Saint.

“Yes, and I’ll make it short because I know we need to get to other people.”

“We got out the gate racin’!” DJ Tornado laughed as he slapped the table. “Damn, Houston! It’s kind of early to fight, isn’t it?” He cackled.

Saint
smirked and looked away. “This is a very common reaction from some black men and women who are threatened by my presence. I’ve received countless emails, and at one point in time, phone calls of this same nature, so at this point,” he shrugged, “it’s an old hat. When a person is threatened by another person, it is because they are fearful that some distribution of power will be uneven. Whether that is true or not is no longer the case once adrenaline kicks in. The body and mind, once aligned to this realization, will decide from that point what is going to happen. Krystal is what some people call, stuck in Blackistani.”

“Okay, hold up
—what’s Blackistani, man? Sounds like Pakistan, what is that?”

“It is a collective mentality, a
herd
mentality, if you will, whenever an outsider or even outside thought process comes into the fold and tries to enlighten, educate and for all intents and purposes, assist that herd. The crowd is aroused and the people cling to one another like sheeple. Fear of alienation is very strong and what some black women are doing is turning away in terror, running after the black men who are angry about the ‘alien that has landed’, that being me, and agreeing with them—saying that I am a threat when they know deep down that in fact may not be true, but independent thinking is much frowned upon. They’d rather stick to what is predictable, to what they actually know, than to venture out away from the crowd, and risk alienation and social stigma, as well as other unfavorable consequences.”

“Hmmm, so you are calling Krystal a sheep? You said sheeple.” Tornado paused and grinned from ear to ear.

Saint minced his words. “DJ Tornado, I know it is your job to keep the show riveting, but...”

“No, seriously,
Saint.” He grinned as he twirled leisurely in his seat. “You said herd, you know ... followers, makes me think of sheep, just like you implied.”

“You’re getting off track, but I’ll humor you.”

“Please do.”

“Consider it done. Comedy hour has officially started but no one is laughing
.”

The men shared brief silent exchanges.

“Couldn’t it be that Krystal truly feels that you’re wrong?”

“Of course
, that’s what it is. She is convinced. No one is arguing that.”

“Then why do you imply that she is just dismissing your statements out of fear?”

“Because being convinced and being wrong are not polar opposites, especially if one has not sat down and thought long and hard about why they are clinging to beliefs that are not working well for them. Wrong is wrong—regardless of a badge of emotional approval. They can co-exist quite peacefully.” Saint chuckled and pointed to his chest. “I can be convinced about the fact that the Ravens suck, for instance, but it doesn’t make the shit true. That’s an opinion that every person on this planet is entitled to have. Whether our government says so or not, we all have the right to form an opinion and hold dear to it.”

“So are you saying she is wayward in her convictions or in her reasoning behind
them?”

“It’s more a matter of personal truth and how that plays out for the individual, Tornado. For instance, I can be convi
nced that no one needs a college education. I can cite examples such as Jay Z and Kanye West—two men devoid of college educations, but are millionaires. My two examples however, do not negate the truth of the polar opposite, which is that most people will not grow up and be the next Jay Z or Kanye. My convictions haven’t changed anything, regardless of the reasoning behind them. It didn’t make the shit suddenly true. But I can still feel I’m a thousand percent right. Just because someone
feels
something doesn’t mean diddly squat. Feelings have little to do with the facts.”

“So feelings aren’t valid?”

“Of course they are, they just don’t change shit.” Both men burst out laughing. “That’s the entire problem. Krystal is emotional. When people get too emotional, and don’t balance it with a well-rounded thought process, they don’t listen and half of what they say doesn’t make sense. She isn’t thinking. She isn’t proactive or self-protective. She is stuck within her matrix, which is built out of emotions—the main one being fear. She cares more about the black man’s opinion of her than her own well-being. That’s emotional. There is no rationality to it.”

“Is it because she is a woman?”

Saint laughed, “So now we’ve jumped from racism to feminism and gender bias? You’re not a very good interrogator. I have to admit though, your technique is creative.”

DJ Tornado laughed
. “Nah man, I’m serious. Do you think that women are more emotional than men, as far as this topic?”

“Yes and no. Black men have been more demonstrative through threats of violence and other means to display their displeasure with me. That’s emotional. We
, as men, just show emotions differently. Instead of sitting around crying about it, we will toss someone around, grab a bat or do something even worse that we may regret later. Many women, however, will do what Krystal did. They will exert resistance without even thinking about why they are struggling. She will use her mouth to attack the perceived enemy because that is her training. She has been socialized to not advance and she plays her role well.”

“Damn! Training and socialized to not be advanced
... playin’ shit well! Wow, man, this is gettin’ deep but we need to get to another call. Wyatt, the green-eyed-devil, you’re on the air.”

“Yeah man, what’s up Tornado and your guest
... uh, I can’t pronounce the dude’s name ... what’s ya name again, man?”

“His name is Dr.
Saint Aknaten,” Tornado interjected.

“Yeah,
Saint Aknaten. I’ve heard of him. I first heard about you, man, like two years ago. I ain’t callin’ to argue. I just want some information.”

“Okay, what is your question
, Wyatt?” Saint asked, his eyebrows furrowed.