After tiktok user Andy Slater posted a request to have someone describe the videos of the Alabama Boat Brawl and the events that happen in them as they swept all of our social media timelines. Andy, who is blind, opened the floor for both literal and poetic interpretations of the event. The following is a telling from the perspective of the hat that was thrown in the air by the boat captain.
The way I saw it, there were three things that were absolutely undeniably true.
First of all, that little boat didn’t belong there. Small little speed boat sitting on the dock where there is supposed to be a big big boat. Little boat shouldn’t be in a big boat place. Another thing was, while we weren’t sure who exactly was supposed to move the little boat, we were sure that it was gonna get moved.
Really it was just all of us doing our jobs. People driving the big boat, my guy keeping the dock clear, me blocking the sun out my guys eyes and then blocking the sun off the back of his neck when he got a little agitated and turned me around- which I usually don’t like but in this instance I didn’t mind because I could tell he was having a hard time. These white boys had already made him explain it so many times- Little boats shouldn’t be in the big boat place. Every time he explained it to one white man, they’d walk away and a new one would appear and ask to have it explained again when everybody already knew that little boats shouldn’t be in a big boat place because that was the first thing that was undeniably true. So after my guy said it, and the little people on the big boat screamed it, and Ludacris said it, you’d think that’d be enough. It’s frustrating because my guy doesn’t play about his job. It’s serious work with a serious responsibility and he likes it because it feels good to have a good job with a good responsibility like keeping the dock clear or keeping the sun out of people’s eyes.
Then they pushed my guy! One of these Kid Rock body doubles in salmon shorts shoves my guy so hard I almost fall off the back of his head and I think my guy feels me almost fall off so he takes me off his head. He takes me off his head while this pack of Post Malone's forms a little mob 3 on 1- no, four! With another one running up from behind to join and my guy needs his hand free. I think he’s gonna set me down somewhere but instead he throws me straight up into the air. I spiral into the sky. And now the third thing that’s undeniably true is that I ain’t never coming down from here. I’m twirling up high in the blue sky and every brown eye in a mile radius stops and turns to look at me. Stare at me. Then they all move. I only catch the next few bits in spurts when I’ve spun another 360 and my eyes are turned to the view.
They're jumping him, my guy is putting up a fight but they’re jumping him and running back to their little boat in the big boat place but the second the action starts down below on the dock, running knees start to piston towards the fight from above. Next there are three new guys with hard bodies and washed legs running up against the little boat. They’re pulling those goons back onto the dock for a fight. I see people in the water. There’s a single boy on top swimming to the dock and when you look past him underneath the surface there are Igbo people on the ocean floor making his way with the waves. Black hands in the water give him a boost onto land.
Next there 10, no 20, no 25 kinfolk beating on these thugs and their little boat. These motherfucker would run up and beat on their pale George of the Jungle chests and get rightfully done up. I see a lady from off the little boat get kicked off the dock and into the water. They’d throw a punch and get 10 back. I see police badges sitting around in the middle of all this, watching it happen, doing nothing to stop it- which I usually don’t like but in this instance I didn’t mind. They didn’t get into it until one of our guys started beating a Jason Aldean fan into the side of another big boat with a white folding chair that he must have brought with him from home because its the only folding chair on the dock and he’s the only one that’s got one. He swung hard into a man that was trying to grab him. Then hard again. Then hard again. Found the lady who had just gotten out of the water and gave her a good hit too. That might’ve been the line but I don’t know- all you hear was cheering and clapping and “c’mon” and cameras clicking and beating on the porthole windows. And I just kept on going up.
When I got high enough, past the trees and the birds and planes and clouds it was all cheering and clapping. And Toussaint was cheering, and Malcolm was clapping. And Harriet was cheering. And sojourner clapping. And James was singing. And Toni clapping. And Jackie Robinson swung a chair. Yup. I ain’t never coming down from here.
Just subscribed…what an undeniable blessing.