See, that’s why we can’t have anything

My plan for this Memorial Day was to spend the entire day drinking beer, eating a shiteload of barbecue, and watching the Sopranos marathon on A&E. But of course I had to get called into work that morning, so, alas, I only spent about half the day drinking beer, eating a shiteload of barbecue and watching the Sopranos marathon on A&E.

I suppose it could've been worse though. To date, I've yet to be shot at by a guy named Wufgang while sitting in a Cadillac Escalade with two Mexican kids on Memorial Day. Fat Joe, meanwhile? Not so much. Supposedly, that's pretty much what happened to Joey Crack the other day. Both of said Mexican kids died in the shooting and Fat Joe is now wanted in Miami for questioning.

Why was Fat Joe sitting in a Cadillac Escalade in front of a coffee shop at 6 a.m. on a Monday morning? Were the scones really that good? And why was some ignorant-ass black guy going around calling himself "Wufgang," and what caused him to shoot those poor Mexican kids sitting in the Escalade with Fat Joe? Who knows, but my guess is this why Fat Joe is being sought for questioning.

Obviously Fat Joe can't just walk into the Miami police department and be like, "Yeah, those were the two kids I paid to carry my weed around in a Louis Vuitton duffle bag, and, here, let me point out the perp for you while I'm at it." Not only would that be snitching, which is verboten in hip-hop (as if his album sales aren't bad enough already), but it might also be self-incriminating.

So Fat Joe skipped town right after said incident, not unlike the way Diddy fled L.A. the night Biggie was killed without so much as arranging for his corpse to be flown back to New York. Of course Fat Joe's excuse is that he already had some shows scheduled out of the country for this week; and the thing is, the cops already picked up Wufgang, so I'm sure he's hoping this whole thing blows over while he's away.

Just beyond hip-hop's silly stop snitching ethos and the fact that this is the umpteenth such incident in the past couple of years in which some weed carrier has turned up dead while the bag's true owner has managed to escape without harm (think about it), I find this whole thing kinda sad in that it highlights the fact black people can't go anywhere, not even on vacation, without getting involved in some shit.

Interestingly enough, there was a separate controversy this weekend in which black Memorial Day revelers in Miami were complaining that they were being profiled by the police and various business establishments. Indeed about 800 people were arrested this year, down from about 1,000 last year, and 60 guns were confiscated, which seems rather insane for what's supposed to be a motherfucking vacation weekend.

Which begs the question: What is it about black people, and the hip-hop community in particular, that we can't seem to go anywhere en masse without all sorts of shit jumping off? Are people going on vacation for the sole purpose of committing a crime, or does it just sort of happen when there's too many of us around?

Or am I just making this shit up because I'm a racist?