The Burbank Happening and Other Signs of Intelligent Life

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

For this essay, I have to turn on my race consciousness switch. Switch turned on.

I cruised into Burbank around 7:00 p.m. Actually, I arrived at 7:00 p.m. on the dot which was quite cool. The traffic jams were brutal getting out of San Diego, crossing through Orange County, and slow driving through downtown Los Angles. I left home at around 3:30 p.m. and, even with a 3:30 p.m. departure, it was touch and go all the way around. The drive should have taken 2 hours but you know LA traffic on a Friday afternoon.

Once upon a time, I was accustomed to living my life among intellectuals and writers as a law professor. The pleasure nowadays is a rare treat for me. I have nothing against lawyers but, outside of law schools, lawyers are not driven by the pursuit of ideas and understanding the universe. Lawyers tend to be logic dominant, client-driven, difficult personalities. Lawyers see people at their worst, if you think about it. I have needed the counsel of lawyers on six occasions in my life. Of those six occasions, four involved attorneys and parties at their most petty and unpleasant levels. One lawyer rambled on and on about how awful opposing counsel was. Small-minded gossip while he ran up the billable hour meter for me. Think the divorce lawyers in the movie Marriage Story. My lawyer experiences were not uplifting.

But my close encounters with intellectuals and writers have always left me feeling a natural high. And such was the case at The Burbank Happening last night.

The Burbank Happening as I call it was the brain child of Jake Mackey with Free Black Thought and Kimi Katiti with the Substack The Faction. My Free Black Thought Podcast co-host, Michael Bowen, contributed to the event but was unable to attend. We missed you, Michael.

As I entered the room alive with voices, drinks and goings on, I caught the eye of Jake. We had last met “at a secure undisclosed” location in downtown San Diego. That was my vibe of the gathering of intellectuals, thinkers and writers. From the outside, the black building was non-descript in an edgy part of town. But up three floors from the street was an electric meeting of thinkers from throughout the country. The headliner for the evening was Professor Wilfred Reilly, one of the leading non-conformers in the public square these days.

Back to the Burbank Happening and Jake…

Jake was the perfect host. After exchanging pleasantries, Jake introduced me to Kimi, a young writer and non-conformer who gives me hope. I first learned of Kimi from her podcast appearance on HERD-LESS with Salome Sibonex (produced in partnership with Revolution of One). I played the podcast while driving to Burbank. Kimi’s story is a remarkable one of living within two narratives about race, one being a focus on universal humanity in South Africa and the other a focus on oppression and marginalization in American colleges. Eventually, Kimi came to an epiphany in her life. The narrative of victimization led Kimi to sadness and despair. How did Kimi find her way out to the other side of joy and happiness in life?

Check out her podcast appearance for the answer. (Kudos to Salome for an excellent interview. The entire interview was inspired.)

After meeting Kimi and feeling awestruck/smile, I sat beside a fellow southerner at the table. I don’t come across many native southerners in my life. And my seatmate felt the same way. We shared tales of growing up in the South, how our racial lives were the same and the differences between the Upper South and the Lower South. We both observed the fulfillment of having an open-minded conversation steeped in curiosity. I love the curious! They are my people!

The rest of the evening was more of the same. All around me were characters and personalities — writers, directors, producers, a high school teacher here, an entrepreneur there. I was in my element. I asked, and answered, questions with the authenticity of a toddler. All around me were non-conformers and dissidents. No one spoke in tongues. In other words, no one communicated through dogma and slogan words.

It was glorious. (Did I say that already?)

For a moment, we all created an oasis of free thought, black and otherwise. I felt free to ask questions and probe deeply. No weirdness. No scrunching of the nose. No robotic replies… Robotic conversation: I don’t know the question but the answer is systemic racism. I am woke. You are marginalized Black Man. What is this you say? You have retired from Blackness? Does not compute. Error. Error.

My long-time and faithful readers will recognize this observation — there were no Klingons in sight!

(My wife has MSNBC on this evening. Good old Rev. Al Sharpton speaks.)

My brain felt nourished. I left the group a smarter person. I was mildly surprised that someone like Kimi wanted to know more about me and my lonely Substack. How I wish I were 25 or 29 again, a young writer in the Big City of the Angels.

I decline to tell you anyone’s race or ethnic group. Why? Because it did not matter to me in the moment at the Burbank Happening. The Burbank Happening was a communion of fellow souls, not avatars for any race.

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[name redacted]

As I entered [name redacted] this afternoon to buy salads, I turned on my racial consciousness switch again. I wanted to size up race and my shopping experience. Would I observe oppressed black customers? Would I be unable to withstand the white gaze? Would I be profiled? Would my racial consciousness discern structures of oppression in the shopping aisles?

I wanted to know because…maybe the Burbank Happening was a fringe outlier event.

With my racial consciousness switch turned on, I strained to notice race. It is not easy. San Diego is only 6% black. I live in a middle class part of town by and large. There were hundreds of customers all around. After walking to the back of the store which took about three minutes, I noticed an Asian American woman with her child. Her child had a soft Afro which led me to presume Dad might be black. Sure enough and as I walked out of the salad section, I saw Dad and the second child who was clearly mixed, part Asian and part Black.

The second example of race relations I saw was an interracial couple. The husband/boyfriend was black. The wife/girlfriend was white. They were shopping together for steaks for dinner. How romantic. No evidence here of any systemic racism, oppression or marginalization. I just saw a normal couple shopping together for dinner in the meat section.

A final example into race caught my attention. As I was standing in the checkout lane, I observed a cute girl skipping around a display. I could tell from her light brown skin and her wavy, curly hair that she was of black descent but she struck me as someone with a more complex ancestry. And just like clockwise, she skipped in front of me and stood beside her Mom, a white, blonde-haired woman.

Did I observe other blacks? Yes, I did. I saw perhaps six other black people, including one couple where both spouses were black. My point is half of the black people I saw were involved in interracial relationships. All of the black children I saw were mixed. This is my San Diego shopping experience today in the year 2024.

No Jim Crow signs. No racial hostility, just color indifference by hundreds of fellow customers. I would wager you a candy bar I was the only customer with my racial consciousness switch turned on. The times, they are a changing.

Here is an observation to consider. Before we moved out to San Diego in 1992, I recall meeting a black man at our Southern Towers apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. I mentioned that we were moving to San Diego. He replied things were different out in California. Whites and blacks date each other. Hmmn. I registered the comment in light of my own experience in high school. My wife and I had no white social friends in Alexandria.

Once we moved out to San Diego, we had no black friends! It was a different world from where we had come from. Then Paradise was lost/double smile. A certain family member moved to town and brought to my known world black culture and consciousness of the East Coast.

For several years, my mind would notice the pattern when I saw interracial couples in San Diego. I reached the point by 2010 when I no longer noticed, or cared. Today, I have to force myself to notice by turning on my racial consciousness switch. I think that is progress of a sorts. What do you think?

Was my shopping experience this afternoon unique?

After leaving [name redacted], I succumbed to hunger for an In-and-Out burger. In-and-Out is a popular establishment in southern California. Bad for the arteries, good for the taste buds. The Keto diet will be continued another day. I stepped into the burger place and I kid you not. Directly in front of me in line was a mixed race girl, part black, with her Asian American pal. Just the nature of life. This is the world I live in. This is my known world.

Half of the 100 customers were Hispanic. Perhaps 40% were White. The balance of customers were Asian. There was one black family present. I detected zero race consciousness. I bet you a milk shake I was the only person with my racial consciousness switch turned on.

It is a good world.

Conclusion: The Burbank Happening is part of a greater intellectual movement throughout the country today. Writers, scholars, screenplay writers, novelists, and playwrights sense there is more to life than dogma and slogan words. Those of a curious bent will question. And if the threat of bullying is too great, the non-conformers and dissidents will feel out the landscape and seek others across southern California and the country and the world who refuse to live in tribalism.

To be color indifferent may be the greatest gift and legacy of the Burbank Happening. As we return to our colleges, universities, film projects, short stories, children’s books, novels, essays and entrepreneurial dreams, we should keep ever most in our creative hearts and souls the power of the authentic few over the robotic many. If someone rejects curiosity, those who are curious will have the upper hand in life. Life is too organic and passionate and complex to be reduced to a racial box. To perceive nuance and complexity is to discern the spiritual, the divine, the higher calling.

As I left Burbank, I was aglow in self-knowledge. Those who love the individual are not alone. We who see the person before the group are doing the noble thing which will endure across the ages. A tip of the hat to Jake and Kimi for keeping the flame of non-conforming writers alive during these conforming times.

Before the collective, there was the individual.