To be a rational adult is to understand that there’s almost always a legal and more productive way to solve problems than exchanging physical blows that can harm, kill and result in imprisonment.

However, I’ve yet to have a conversation with one Black person who did not derive at least a little bit of enjoyment from the massive Aug. 5 riverfront brawl in Montgomery, Ala. Multiple people have prefaced the conversation with, “I don’t like violence, but…” before talking excitedly about the video.

If you’re reading this, there’s a near-zero chance you haven’t watched or listened to any of the countless angles of raw video of the incident, the voice overs, the re-enactments or the viral track from a Detroit rapper. If you’ve even touched social media, you’ve come across countless (brilliant) memes involving the use of a folding chair as a weapon.

(Speaking of which, that Nathaniel Alexander, a Black man from Virginia, patented the folding chair in the early 1900s is wild.)

Black folks did what we do masterfully: Take an otherwise sad event, meme it to oblivion and create one of the best reasons this year to date to log into social media. Whereas Black Twitter (or Black X, which sounds like a turn-of-the-century adult video network) was a bit more divided and restrained in regards to Carlee Russell’s shenanigans, Montgomery has us formed as one like Voltron.

In case you’re just waking from a week-long coma, the whole affair kicked off when co-captain Damien Pickett attempted to clear out a small pontoon boat docked in a space designated for his commercial vessel Harriott II, which appeared to be full of our aunties, uncles and cousins.

The operators of that boat leaned on their aggressive whiteness and chose not to dip quietly, and a verbal argument between Pickett and the owners turned violent when Richard Roberts swung on him. Pickett attempted to defend himself, but several other white people swooped in to attack him even as he laid on the ground.

Apparently, Roberts and company had parked their boat in the Harriott II’s docking space in the past, and, despite the N-word allegedly being tossed out by one of the white people during the incident, police say there isn’t enough to charge Pickett’s attackers with a hate crime.

That’s the sad part. Everything else is pure glory in a video app.

It’s not that Black folk lost our collective mind and succumbed to blood lust, though – social and historical context frame our enjoyment of the incident. Outsiders see a bunch of people scrapping; we see community, defense of our own and some long-overdue getback.

Rumors abound that the location of the incident was that of an auction block for chattel slaves, which were carried up the Alabama River to Montgomery via steamboat centuries ago. Even if that isn’t true, Montgomery is not a massive city, so it’s likely auction blocks operated not far away.

If you’re the superstitious type – the type who might believe all those folks have died at Georgia’s Lake Lanier because the ancestors have squabbles – then you might accept that Montgomery’s tragic history of Black suffering motivated the ghosts of our ancestors to guide hands (and chairs) to mete out the most gratifying ass-whipping since Floyd Mayweather, Jr. beat the brakes off of Conor McGregor.

Nearly 70 years ago, the Civil Rights movement catalyzed in Montgomery when Rosa Parks was arrested for not moving to the back of a bus in December 1955. Following the arrest, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Holt Street Baptist Church, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was born and change (eventually) came.

The Montgomery of 2023 is the slave trader’s wildest nightmare: Steven Reed, who became the first Black mayor in the city’s history when he was elected in 2019, has overseen a decrease in violent crime as well as record job growth, thanks in large part to the city’s Hyundai plant and its focus on electric vehicles.

Reed, who’ll likely be re-elected later this month, kept it professional when PBS asked him outright if he thought the incident was race-related.

Well, look, I saw what you saw and what millions of other people saw,” he said. “…does it meet the FBI standard for hate crime? So far, we have been told no. But the case is still ongoing.”

Reed is a Morehouse College Omega, though…I’m sure he enjoyed the videos with his wife in the privacy of their home.

Fortunately, justice regarding the incident is pointed in the right direction: Roberts, 48, Allen Todd, 23, and Zachary Shipman, 25, all white men, were charged with misdemeanor third-degree assault for attacking Pickett and the 16-year-old wunderkind who Michael Phelps’d off the boat and proved to White people everywhere that Black people can, indeed, swim.

Internet justice also did its work: Chase Shipman, owner of Vasser’s Mini Mart in Selma, Ala., had his business review-bombed and deleted his social media when the internet sleuths determined he was one of the white men involved in the melee.

As of press time, the only Black person on the police’s radar is Reggie Gray, who made history with a folding chair, which needs its own publicist at this point. Did Gray need to whack the White lady sitting on the ground with the chair? Probably not. Is anyone Black looking to turn him in for it? Definitely not.

Taken at face value, the whole incident is an unfortunate testament to interminably frayed race relations in America. And, in the immortal words of Fudge from Higher Learning, “One beatdown’ll never compare to 439 years of captivity.”

But Montgomery was a moment for us. White people will have lots of questions, or they will only see the violence and not seek to contextualize it. Just remember that your schadenfreude is your own, and you owe no one an explanation for it.

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Dustin J. Seibert is a native Detroiter living in Chicago. He loves his own mama slightly more than he loves music and exercises every day only so his French fry intake doesn’t catch up to him. Find him at wafflecolored.com.