The PUBLISHER ’ S Pen
I look around the streets of New York ( and Northern New Jersey ) to get a gauge on what ’ s really going down .
The PUBLISHER ’ S Pen
Then , there are the barbershops . When I say “ barbershops ”, I don ’ t mean salons . Because you can pretty much pick up the pulse of any community in that dusty spot where there are only 3 or 4 chairs .
Most brothers have one particular barber . Yet , the older I get , the more I find that the barbershops that I grew up around in the City of Detroit are hard to come by .
So , I juggle where I go . For example , if I know this brother over here has to pick up his kids at 3 p . m ., I ’ ve got to get there at 7 a . m . If I know this OTHER barber uses a straight edge and I need to get a quick shave , that ’ s where I ’ m going . If I see a barber sweating at 11 a . m . on a Saturday morning and it ’ s taking him an hour to cut just one head , I know he ’ s been at the club the night before .
The point I ’ m making is this here : Pay attention to the most minute detail .
I had to share that with a young brother the other day . What he forgot was that the world views him as a Black Man , standing 6 ’ 5 and tipping the scale at 240 . His mere presence in a roomful of people will draw attention just on GP .
What the folks , who might have had a preconceived notion about this manchild , don ’ t know is that I study situations . And , even though the young brother might have had all the physicality of a potential threat to some , I had a moral duty to pull him aside and let him know that I watched the entire chain-of-events because his inexperience showed .
The young brother was only 27 years old . Unprotected , if nobody pulled his coat .