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Crip vs. Crip

By Walela Nehanda
via the Poetry Foundation

Crip (noun): slang for a disabled person/the whole of
     the disabled community/
a school of thought
Example: “I’m on crip time” 
Meaning: Time bends differently when the universe that is
     my body dictates it 

Crip (noun): a Black gang that originated in Los Angeles
The word can be used in reference to a gang member or
     the gang itself
Example: “Nipsey Hussle’s death made gangs, including
     Crips, unite in grief” 
Meaning: Black is still Black no matter if you wearing red or blue 

I heard the word crip for the first time when 
I was kid cuz I got family from South Central. 
And there are gangs and manufactured wars 
and crimes of survival. And there are crips 
who are crips and don’t know it 
—like Maccapone, a man who was protective 
of the ways death finds organizers. Was known 
to wrestle with the pigs at 2 a.m. if it meant another 
one of us got home safely. He, steady waving
a large Pan Afrikan flag while carrying
a “No Justice, Fuck Peace” sign
right out in front of the Crenshaw Mall. 
 
He offered himself as a shield to me
with, “You good?” when I was 23
and tryna get home without being harassed.
Offered a “You good?” when I was 24
and working my first short-lived job 
after my diagnosis. “You good?”
was our “I got you.” 

When Mac dies after having neurosurgery
in another South Central hospital.
Another hospital that churns out death
more than remedies even after the discharge. 
When Mac dies, my grieving—all our grieving—
is organizing and activism. We, all so young
and naive back then but committed to liberation
or self-determination or to call something ours,
to name the oppression that hung over our heads
with acidic rain. We wanted what Mac wanted:
something better. 

In 2019, I saw the word crip
used by someone who didn’t bang on Twitter
—wondered if the hood was being appropriated yet again
& questioned if they don’t understand how in South Central,
you don’t wear blue cuz you crip. 
Red means blood, and as the numbers
on the street signs get bigger,
the colors matter more.
So don’t wear nothin suspicious
unless you want a: Where you from?
Meaning: Who are your people?
Meaning: What street you live on? 
Meaning: Who do you know that we know too?
Meaning: You better answer and quick
before—

In a parallel reality,
crip is an invitation to community.
I am told it is a positive reclamation of disability, 
at least I think so, or so it seems some weeks,
and other months I am exiled for simply being a “negro.”
Meaning: I am too audacious for saying being Black
and disabled is real different from being white and disabled. 
Meaning: Solidarity sometimes ain’t functional.
Meaning: There’s a quick snap to delegitimize us  
Meaning: We go quietly into a purgatory 
 
So what would it mean
to be a Black crip in South Central, Los Angeles,
for a disabled Black child in 2019 who isn’t a crip
and yet somehow both will be synonymous
with: danger.
Meaning: You ain't safe no place 
Meaning: You ain't welcome nowhere 
Meaning: Where are you really from? 
Meaning: Who do you actually belong to? 
Meaning: Who are you without a name? 

There is a duality of language. 

I don’t claim crip cuz of how I learned it.
My family, music, Mac and the Rolling 60s, 
the Jungles and BPS, my fiancée and her twin
wanting that “hood aesthetic” so bad, 
my best friend actually living on the street 
where drive-bys happen so often
—there’s a permanent vigil,
and this shit prolly don’t make sense
to a lotta y'all, right? It’s not meant to. 
There goes that duality of language again, 
the double entendre,
the one foot in and another out. 
I’m just over here trying to jimmy open
the door to my imagination.
Meaning: Where do I go to find 
the name for where Black
disabled people
belong?

A Note from the Editor
July is Disability Pride Month. Read more from our Disability Poetics collection.

Source: Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir (Kokila - Penguin Random House, 2024)

I'm Pegasus! I fetch the Poetry Foundation's Poem of the Day and crosspost it to cohost. Find more details about me here.

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