Balloon

[Segue]
Look, I’m learning a lot
I’m learning a lot from my white family, I am
You know? And you know what? Yeah… People always say, “Because, Wanda, we’re all the same.”
No, we’re not
We’re not all the same
We’re different. But we’re equal
We’re different, but we’re equal

And that’s the thing
That’s what we have to respect
Like, I’m learning things from my family, I’m learning how to play
Oh, ’cause black people don’t play
We don’t play

Some of the first things that we were taught as a kid, right?
You’re over there, acting up
Your parents tell you, “Hey, better stop playing. Oh, you think I’m playing with you? Keep playing here, Keep playing, keep playing.”

Learning how to play, White people play all the time, Just make up shit
You don’t even know what you’re playing, Just play
I had to learn this
Like, we had a birthday party over the weekend, so, during the week, you know, there’s still some balloons floating around. I get up Monday morning, I’m coming downstairs, my son takes a balloon, kicks it, and it hits me right in the face
First thing I do, “Boy, you better stop playing.”

He laughs, he takes another balloon, kicks it… almost knocks my glasses off
I’m like, “Oh, Lucas, you think I’m playing with you? Keep playing with me. Keep playing with me, hear?”
My wife hears me yelling, She runs into the living room

“Baby, what’s the problem? Qu’est-ce qui se passe? Ça va? Ça va?”

“No. No it’s not ça va!” “You want to know what… I’ll tell you what happened. Uh, Lucas here just kicked me in the face…”

And now I’m hearing myself. Uh…

“Uh, Lucas kicked me in the face… uh, with the balloon, uh… I haven’t had coffee yet, okay? First…” “And he did it twice, twice, And, uh… And, uh, you know, it was that little knot part, the knot part on the balloon. You know, that little knot in the balloon? Yeah, that knot part hit me right… You… You were playing, huh? You were playing. I’m sorry, baby. I… I didn’t know you were playing. Okay, stop crying. Stop crying. It’s okay. All right. You got to let me know we’re playing or something. I didn’t know, right?”

So then my wife just looked at me like I was an asshole. He goes off to school and she’s like

“What is your problem? Why did you…”

I said

“Look, first of all, you need to take it down a notch, all right? You ain’t gonna be in my face like this, okay? And, second of all, I behaved the way I was supposed to behave, okay? All right? I’m a black woman, all right? I come downstairs in my living room and this little white boy kicks me in the face.”

Just saying
But I felt bad. I did feel… I did. I felt bad. I did. So what I… So what I did, when he came home from school, I had all the balloons lined up.
Oh, I was ready for his ass
Soon as he walked in the door, I was like
“Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! You want to play? You want to play? Boom, boom, boom!”
I took care of him
All kind of shit
All kind of shit