My heart breaks and weeps for this city. With all the unabated and unaddressed gunfire and illegal drugs, I say a prayer for this town just as I do for my three sons and grandson each night.

But I recognize citizens, especially skinfolk, can’t afford to spend an inordinate amount of time on their knees, head bowed, and eyes closed. That’s when you fall for the okey-doke and get flimflammed. That’s when folks in leadership will try to convince you with one hand that it is their duty and responsibility to ensure your safety and health but use the other hand to do nothing to actually accomplish it. That sleight of hand magic is not new. The late Bishop Desmond Tutu explained it. “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible, and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we
had the Bible, and they had the land.”

People are so used to passive, indirect and soft talk from weak souls that anything resembling assertive communication feels like an attack. If you speak unapologetically and with passion, honesty and candidness, people that aren’t used to direct communication take it as angry and threatening. I’ve heard from people, especially my skinfolk, that they won’t support me because I’m too militant. I find it interesting that these folks, who have an issue with me, never speak directly to me. I always have to hear it 3 rd hand or read it somewhere. In an online discussion recently, a friend wrote that sometimes you have to be willing to be the villain in other’s lives. I agreed, saying people who have never met me have labeled me the scary Black boogeyman and I will do nothing to try to change that perception. If my willingness to speak up and out on issues of inequity and injustice, fight for the poor and those in the margins, call out by name white racists and Black bigots who engage in hate inspired divisive idiocy qualifies me to be a monster, then it will be Halloween every day in my life.

I heard that silly rationale back in 1996 as I was summoned to the Miller Recreation Center by the Civil Rights gatekeepers of local Black culture. They laughingly ordered me to stand before a geriatric tribunal of irrelevancy to answer for my so called militancy. The now deceased leader, who was a local pastor, said in a booming voice, “Mr. Hardin, we called you here today to tell you how ashamed, embarrassed, and appalled we are at how you talk to our Mayor and City Manager.

They’re helping our community out of the goodness of their heart, and you’re making it difficult.” Before walking out, I told them they were nothing but a bunch of bought and paid for house slaves. As I look at the condition of the West End today, with all the decades of false and failed promises, double talk, and inaction, where is all that love from the heart they chastised me for interfering with?

I was so confused by these repeated character assassinations, I had to go to my large hard cover dictionary that is well past its prime and shelf life due to overuse. I wanted to ensure I knew what the word actually meant. The book spoke out saying a militant is one who is, “combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause, and typically
favoring extreme, violent, or confrontational methods.” I’ve never bombed a building, stormed the US Capitol or any other lesser structure, been in handcuffs, engaged in a violent act, or even participated in a ridiculous pointless protest march. Yet simply because I elicit strong emotions from people who have to examine their prejudices and biases
because of my unapologetic approach to addressing instances of injustice, I’m the villain in their stories. Nina Simone said, “My thing, what I hope to do all the time, is to be so completely myself, that people who meet me, are confronted with what I am, inside and out…And this way they have to see things about themselves, immediately.”

I quit caring about perceptions when I tried to pay my mortgage with the opinions of others and the check bounced. I’ve been called an “Uncle Tom sellout Ni**er” by skinfolk and a “race baiting angry Black guy that hates whites” by those who don’t look like me. Either way, unless I’ve claimed you on my IRS 1040, I care little what those who assign erroneous character assessments think. And that’s what angers most people. I care more about progress than recognition and awards. I care more about equity and fairness than acceptance and inclusion. I have enough friends at this point in my life. Trust me, I’m good.

Kenneth L. (Kenny) Hardin is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.