So You Work At Club Monaco

My brother is a sweet soul, I'm often paternal to all my siblings but him especially because he is the last born. He's a character, takes less bullshit than any other person I know, often surprises me, his spunk, because we are often a calm clan, at least on the surface. He's home for the summer holidays and yesterday ventured out into the city to continue a job search he has been adamant about for months before the summer began, several offers he has received, but one often does not want to spend the entire summer herding other people's children around ridiculous stretches of man-made nature at Camp "insert-pseudo-native-american-name-here." Alternative? Well, retail of course.

Who knew it was such a serious affair? Who knew selling over-priced khakis and striped shirts was something to be snotty about? The forty year old queen, and I use this in the most derogatory sense, not to set the struggle back, but to emphasize that this bitch was, well, bitchy! The conversation unfolded something like this 'So what do you know about Club Monaco?,' a callous eye roll, taking my brother in as though he were America's regret, and finally a yawn...Did I miss something? What the hell is there to know about Club Monaco? You sell clothing! Or is it the fact that you cloth the gentrified masses that makes you so special?...please. And at this point I am officially the angry black man, but why not? Who in their right mind looks down on an 18-year-old coming to you for employment, would you be more comfortable if he was on the corner where you can ignore him? Is he more familiar to you in thug-gear? Can you more easily digest him in sexual mandigo fantasies? Why is it just alright to pour your fear and despise on him alone?

I was livid when my brother recounted this to me, he was indifferent, found it funny even. I was angry not because I give two flying f**** about Club Monaco, but because this country will do something sinister to you when you accumulate enough of these, miniature disasters; it takes my proud brother and makes him confused; it takes his self-esteem and places it underneath over-priced loafers, or maybe worse, it takes his zest for life and magicks it into apathy, and it turns my rage into constipation that slowly eats me dead. This country will dissolve you if you have the misfortune of being born black, and male. New York City is no exception, he who tells you different is a fool and should of course be pitied.