I’m sitting in my hovel in Williamsburg reading an issue of Vice thinking: ‘I’m fucking jealous of these guys.’ I’m new in Brooklyn, trying to drop my out-of-towner mentality, and adopt the cool, care-free attitude that is necessary for social survival in the ‘Burg.

The employees at Vice are so cool that they get everything I need to know, edit it into small, skewed, bite-sized pieces, then forcibly shove chunks down my mental esophagus. In much the same way the dentist shoves those short cotton tampons into the sides of your gums post-op, or like the first penetration during anal sex; a bit of discomfort followed by either more discomfort or perverse pleasure.

This discovery leads me to deduce that regardless of what the magazine has done in the past (there was backlash for statements made about blacks moving to Williamsburg) or what the letters say about hating one of the founders for being some lucky Paki scum (not necessarily my opinion, but worthy of repetition), it stands to reason that since I’m black and like this editorial work so much, they must have some cool black kids working there. Right?

So I check the website viceland.com. Holy fuck! I can’t believe my eyes. In the ‘About Us’ section, which has recent staff pictures, there are only two pictures of black employees, and the first one is actually a fucking white guy in blackface. That shit is so fucking, not fucking, cool. The other guy’s not even a cool black-looking black dude either, just some Pharrel look-alike acting very smug and coon.

Scheisse!

So associating with the locally produced youth culture mag might actually get me shut out of the black part of the ‘Burg (which I actually still haven’t found), and by definition if someone has to define your cool, then you’re so far away from it you’re beyond help But ef it, I’ve got assimilation on my mind, by any means necessary. I stick what I think to be my identification of cool under my arm and head out skipping to the beat of my newly acquired iPod.

While sitting at sidewalk café on Bedford Avenue eating a six dollar sandwich from Fabian’s (which I later found out is probably the most uncool café in the ‘Burg) my mind registers the high concentration of cool, hip, black people that populate this once Polish neighborhood.

There are all cool beyond cool. It’s like, you know how white people used to say ‘I have a friend who’s black and he’s/she’s not like that.’ Well all the grandsons and granddaughters of those singular black friends now live in Williamsburg; all of them.

It’s so moving to see them all openly expressing their ‘blackness’, growing unwieldy afros and wearing old school Cazal frames in order to better fit in by standing out. Trying to blend but ending up looking like fucking Duck Hunt.

I finish my sandwhich and cross the street for a bit of record hunting. As I peruse the shelves observing this ultra-cool, blingless-blackness phenomenon from the ‘Hipster-hop’ section of Ear Wax it dawns on me that Harlem’s not really the next Harlem; Williamsburg’s the next Harlem. These blacks are slowly infiltrating the neighborhood in order to stage a passive-aggressive type Billboogie take over.

Everything, all the puzzle pieces fall into place. The balance of race/class differences is perfect. As one young Hispanic ‘nigga’ described it to his girl: “You got the yuppies, and you got the thugs, but it’s all love.” It’s the perfect opportunity. The time is right. These blacks are smarter than I thought.

As I watch it all galvanizing on the street just beyond the pane of glass with big colorful cartoon letters ‘xaW raE’ I become really excited.

I exite the record store, empty handed because they don’t have ‘Ready to Die’ on vinyl, and make eye contact with one of those Williamsburg blacks. In a split-second gesture, he raises and lowers his chin at me, while maintaining eye contact. Something I am sure brother Malcolm would have called the ‘Negro Nod’ had he witnessed it. I raise a clenched fist and in my mind shout “Black Power!” but he pretends not to understand.

It is now obvious to me what I must do. I must delete my barber’s number from my cell phone, stop visiting Rain on Friday nights and stock up on Afro Sheen. I also need to ditch my iPod in favor of a monster boom box that requires eight D-sized batteries for about an hour if tape play.

Now I know I don’t have to be down with the Vice crew to be cool. All I gotta do is chill, sit back, be black and wait. My ass may be dumb, but I ain’t no dumbass. Muthafuckas!