Some we will have to carry

My late choir director used to say "Until all have crossed, none have crossed and some, we will have to carry." It took me a while to get what that meant, but now that I've got it, I'm trying my best to live by it.

I'm always intrigued by how easy it is for folk to get the wrong end of a stick or to miss the stick entirely. Sometimes, we miss the point of a thing by accident, but sometimes it's willfully done to avoid dealing with all the downstream effects of comprehension, especially if comprehension means seeing someone else's point of view. And so it was with some yesterday, in the aftermath of Jesse Williams' fiery acceptance speech at the BET Awards on Sunday 26 June, 2016. You've seen it of course, but here it is again. I'm sharing it just because it's so good.

Responses on social media have, of course, been mixed. There have been loud praises and equally loud cries of "Racist!". Everyone is entitled to an opinion certainly, but the opinion that most intrigues me is the one that runs thus: Williams is good looking, he's successful, his life is nice, what does he have to complain about? He should just shut the hell up.

Williams' life probably is pretty comfy. Why wouldn't it be? He's a successful actor on a popular and long-running show. That is all very true, but here's the other truth: that's not all there is to his life. He is still very much a person of color in America and that means something. Ask James Blake. Fame does not automatically earn you respect. Moreover, Williams is clearly aware that he's not on this planet alone. His comfort isn't the totality of what he sees when he wakes in the morning. 

None of this really should be special but somehow, it is. Williams' awareness of other realities beyond his own and his willingness to stand up for those whose voices are not as loud, is apparently a surprise. Why? Because all too often we fail to see, hear or acknowledge the existence others, their lives or their needs. It has become our habit to see only ourselves. In our feverish pursuit of success and happiness, and because YOLO, we trample all over each other never noticing that the ground upon which we race is littered with others' bodies, hopes and dreams. Me! Me! Me! It's all we see. Well Jesse's seeing a little more than that. 

Our lack of awareness of each other shows up in myriad ways: we socialize with our devices in hand, spending more time on social media than in actual interaction; we take pictures of ourselves rather than interact with or memorialize the world in which we find ourselves; we don't believe in a changing climate unless there's a drought in our locale; we fail to believe that the world is awash in garbage because there's no trash on our streets and hunger, what hunger? There's food in my fridge!

Some of us have long been this way, entirely blind, deaf and mute to the conditions in which others languish, so when we see Jesse Williams with all his various privileges screamng, "Look! See!" we have to demand that he sit down and shut up cuz what the hell could he be complaining about?  "I'd just like to have one day of his life!" someone told me, because all that exists is the fame, the money and the nice life. The speaker was neither interested in, nor indeed had he any tolerance for, the rest. 

For all the separation it encourages, social media and C21st living do allow for us to create communities of like-minded souls; to create spaces where we can discuss and argue and shape and challenge our belief systems, broaden our perceptions of the world, if we so choose. Through social media and in the real world, if we want to, we can see the Jesse Williams'; the Bree Newsomes and meet the women of the Black Lives Matter movement or explore any of a thousand other social &/or economic justice issues before lunch and maybe, just maybe, learn a thing or two. If we wish to.

If we wish it, we could learn that resistance is NOT futile; that the revolution will in fact occur and be televised. If we're interested, we might discover that there are other experiences beyond our own. If we seek it, maybe just maybe, we can evolve. But if that is to happen, we will have to make room for others to stand up and speak their truth and then we will have to find the strength of will to stand and do the same. 

Many of us are terrified to stand up. We're terrified to lose our place of privilege, such as it is. We're so afraid of the consequences of speaking our truth freely and fiercely that we silence ourselves and others. "Shut up Jesse! Go along and we'll all get along.This too shall pass." We are so drunk on the system's few benefits that we participate in our own subjugation and demand that everyone else take up the posture of willing subjugant. Jesse ain't buying it. 

"Until all have crossed, none have crossed and some we will have to carry." Williams is committed to this idea. If, as he said, you are not committed to a similar idea, SIT DOWN, just sit the hell down. 

Jesse has crossed and he ain't ashamed to turn back to carry a few. Whatchu doin'? If the best you've got is to suggest that Jesse be quiet, maybe you should have a seat?

Pride

I've often wondered why 'Gay Pride'. "What's to be proud of?", I've long wondered. "Isn't that like being proud to be right-handed? I'm not proud of my right hand." But it occurred to me recently that 'pride' replaces its opposite 'shame' and that tying gay to pride made sense in a world where all too often, gay and pride didn't live in the same house. 

For decades, both the families of and the gay people themselves have been afraid and ashamed of who they were. I know this too well myself. When a family member died several years ago, we never celebrated the ending of that life in the way we should have. Why? The absence of 'pride'. As a matter of fact, there was a surfeit of shame. Our country wasn't at the pride place, truth to tell I don't know if it is yet but at least we don't have 'gay conversion therapy'.....I hope. 

My cousin was a magnificent human being. He was a cook, an artist, a plant fanatic with a serious green thumb. He was a son, a brother, a nephew, an uncle, a deeply and dearly loved cousin to me and others. He was one of my Granny's favorites (we are were her favorites). He had a big bawdy laugh and an irrepressible joie de vivre. He was kind, he was strong but, and I use that word deliberately, he was gay. And so, constrained by the social context, we did what we did. It was a mistake surely and one I still regret, but we grow as we go and so today I write in honor of him whom I loved so dearly.

'Pride' allows people to come into themselves, to own themselves and be themselves, setting shame, fear, anger, angst aside. So, 'gay agenda' talk aside, this is 'Pride' season. Be proud because that's a whole helluva lot better than its opposite. It's healthier. It's happier. It's just better, simply put. 

You are respected and loved and while Marriage Equality is a great beginning, there is more to be done. Housing and employment discrimination remain to be conquered. The Caribbean and other parts of the developing world still have a very long way to go but we live in hope. Here's to the Brave Ones trying to live authentic lives in those spaces where sometimes being who you are can be as dangerous as the Pulse Nightclub, Orlando was two weeks ago. 

And for those clamoring about 'straight pride', yeah no, that's not a thing. The whole 'pride' nomenclature stands in apposition to the other thing. It is a reclamation of that which folk have been denied: pride in who they are and how they were created. Straight people ain't never been denied nothing on the grounds of their sexuality. Until you've been shamed or forced to hide because of the way you are, the way you were made, you ain't got nothing to worry about. It is those who've had to beg a lodging, beg for a little end, beg for equality, who have to remind themselves, or be reminded, that 'pride' can and should be theirs too.

Happy Pride!

****************************

I wrote this last year for Pride Weekend. In light of the events of Orlando, it's even more important to make room for the idea of gay pride because the opposite - shame - is quite possibly what is at the root of the Orlando massacre and the loss of life and the loss of an entire community's sense of security.

Shame harms not only the one shamed, but places the individual in the untenable position of hating not only themselves, but others who are able to live their lives openly and in peace. 

I have long said that if one person's life has no value, then naturally, others must have none either. This is why we can kill each other over a slight or a pair of shoes, because if my life is without value but yours has value, then something must of needs be wrong with me. That cannot be. That tension must be resolved and I guarantee, we won't like how it gets resolved. 

Achieving Vanzantian 'thing' state

  

Iyanla Vanzant often demands of her clients that they call a thing a thing. "Call a thing a thing!" she insists, meaning that you must name your pain if you ever wish to heal your pain. When it comes to excessive force and death in custody, our problem is that we can't seem to agree that there even is a pain. That's a problem.

This is Sandra Bland. She died under strange circumstances in 2015. If this meme is to be believed, 499 others died last year alone in the great state of Texas. That number of deaths in cutsody sounds like a 'thing' to me. Iyanla would say it's past time to name it and do something about it.

It seems to me that you have to know there's a problem - a 'thing' - when the Bureau of Justice Statistics has three or four different reporting categories for deaths in custody. Surely that's an indicator that there's a thing out there needing our attention? And that's just the deaths. There's also this report, dated November 2015, which gives a broad overview of complaints of non-lethal force between 2002 and 2011. And still we don't seem to be ready to call it a thing yet.

As a nation, our great challenge is that we seem to be able to explain away nearly every instance of excessive force or death in custody rendering it ever less likely that we'll get to 'thing' state. Generally, we  engage in grotesque victim-blaming that typically goes like this: "If - insert deceased's name here - had just - insert police order here - this would not have happened". The best (worst) case of that I've heard was a woman who claimed that Tamir Rice was at fault in his own death because - I kid you not - he was big for his age. 

In this week's "What's happening in the world of excessive force" video, a woman is being subdued by two police officers. The fact  that these two men are larger than the alleged criminal and yet there doesn't seem to be any attempt to subdue her without first doing violence to her person is troubling enough. More troubling though, are the comments already being bandied about. Yes, I get it! Mall Security said she brandished a knife and as we all know, security and police officers are never mistaken - neither accidentally nor on purpose - about these things. So please, carry on with the beat down. "What else did she expect?", "You don't understand what these officers have to deal with every day!" And so on.

I appreciate that police work is difficult work, but there are other difficult jobs. Teaching is difficult; so is trash collecting; so too are rocket science, bus driving and hair braiding. All jobs are difficult if for different reasons. The level of complexity or outright unpleasantness of a job however serves as neither explanation  nor justification for abusing the people with whom one is required to deal. That's just not how this works. You don't get 'OK you can beat on folks or spit in their eye' points just because your job's difficult. And if you do, where does one sign up? I'm asking for a friend.........

In Texas, according to the meme above, five hundred lives ended after 500 people - some of them most assuredly innocent - had the misfortune to have encounters with the police. In Texas. One state. One. Out of fifty. Are we OK with these and other losses? We OK with that? We are OK with folk being dead for running a red light or failing to indicate a lane change (Sandra Bland's initial cause for her stop); robbery; murder absent even a cursory look in at the court house? We're OK with this judge, jury and executioner on the sidewalk business?

The greater issue to me, greater still than the prevalence of these extra-judicial deaths, is the fact that we can't seem to agree that there's even a problem; that these data describe a crisis unfolding right in front of us; that the data describe a thing.

It's clear that the whole of Houston, the whole of Texas, the whole of America isn't going to recognize that there's a problem until the chickens come home to roost and there's chicken sheet every which where. How soon might we be getting to that point?

I'm not going to argue with anyone ever again about what it is that folk like me need to do to stay safe. It's all bullsheet anyway. James Blake was standing on the street minding his business when he was tackled by a police officer who mistook him for someone else. There is no safety. We accept that. Tamir was playing with a toy gun and John Crawford was buying a toy gun in Walmart. There is no safety. Charles Blow's son was walking on the Yale University campus. There is no safety. All they needed to do to avoid trouble, was be at home and sometimes even that isn't enough. Guilty or innocent, we are not safe. The end.

Remember Sandra Bland. Remember Texas. Sandra died under inexplicable circumstances in 2015. It turns out, the meme is wrong, the actual number of dead is 550. Are we there yet? Is this thing a thing yet? Can we call it? Iyanla? Where you at girl?

Pause for a moment and just contemplate how many dead - outside the bounds of jury trial and state-sanctioned execution the data represent. Just consider that for a second. Consider what has been lost. Consider the mothers, the fathers, the brothers and sisters who have been lost. And then, having considered that for just a second, decide whether you're OK with it. I'm not but it sure looks like we are cuz we don't seem to be doing anything other than justisplainin' why the dead caused their own deaths, and the injured their own injuries.

Houston, we have a problem. That we have to discutez ad nauseum and argue over whether there's a problem? That's the real problem or part of it. The dead are but a symptom. The data don't lie. People are dying but then, are the dead even 'people'? Maybe that's the real problem.

If it takes a village, avoid Turnerville

The African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child. If that is the case, what does it take to raise a rapist? A murderer? A thief? A man or woman of no integrity? What does the village need to do (or not do) to have such spectacularly bad results?

Over the last couple of weeks, we've all been held spellbound by the conviction and sentencing of the former Stanford swimmer now convicted rapist, Brock Turner. We were further held in thrall by the rapist's father's, mother's and friends' words in support of their boy. Many of the rest of us looked on in shock, awe and morbid fascination. And rage. There was plenty of rage too.

Some of us understand and accept that it is more than the first family that builds the character of an individual. But what happens when the circles surrounding a child fail to make a decent human being of him/her? What do you do when you see this happening? Do you see it happening? And who's responsible or picks up the pieces when your bad child goes out into the world and wrecks havoc or creates misery?

The case of rapist Brock Turner, is one that is worthy of some study methinks. How does this happen? How do we prevent it from happening? This handsome, smiling swimmer/son/brother/rapist, has now been convicted of 3 felonies. He was raised, by all appearances, with every possible benefit and blessing. Two parents in the home - though we know nothing of the quality of that relationship; gainful and steady employment for the breadwinner; financial resources and emotional support from a stay-at-home mother, and yet, a rapist is what came out the other end. We've been led to believe that all things being equal, perfect people will result. We've certainly been fed a steady diet of 'single parent homes breed malefactors', so the Turner Turn Out is more than a little troubling. All things looked to be more than equal, and yet a rapist is the outcome.

Brock Turner, felon, convicted rapist

The African proverb claims that it takes a village to raise a child. What is the address of this child's village? Who is in it? I need to know cuz clearly that's a zip code I may need to give a wide berth.

Based on the letters of support from his father, his mother, his friend, I think we have a pretty good idea about how things go in Turnerville. I for one won't be venturing too close. Like I said: wide berth.

We must ask ourselves some serious questions not just about Turner himself, that he would harbor thoughts of performing a sex act on a person too drunk to consent, but also about the long list of friends and family who had no difficulty casting him in the role of victim. If this is his village, how could we expect anything more from him than this outcome? Was that a reasonable expectation? Show me your village and I will draw you your child.

I understand wanting to cast blame equally on both parties. No seriously, I do. His family, understandably, wants to believe that he's not really a rapist, except that well, he is. I understand the urge, but don't encourage or support it for a nano-second.

Drinking to excess doesn't make one a rapist, a bully, an exhibitionist or the life of the party. Drunkenness exposes that which we would typically cover with propriety and/or basic decency....if we've been taught these things. Drink lowers our inhibitions, allowing the seamy underbelly of who we are to come out to play. This is why there is no one type of drunkard. Some folk are maudlin drunks; some angry; some hyper-sexualized; some humorous; some Socratic. This rape was evidence of Turner's underbelly. That underbelly came out to play though thankfully it got caught. Given his punishment, can we say that we've dissuaded it from coming out ever again? If the other residents of Turnerville don't get that (1) drink is not an excuse, (2) they bear some responsibility too and (3) begging for a light sentence only ensures that this very thing may happen again down the road, how is the village to encourage, model or teach a new behavior?

When the poor or people of color (or people sitting at the intersection of Poor and Brown Streets) run afoul of the law, our society has no difficulty blaming their culture; the environments in which they grew up; or their social and familial influences for their behavior. We have no trouble not only blaming them, but also widening the aperture and blaming everyone who looks like them. Please tell me, who all have we blamed for the way Turner turned out? I haven't heard too much said about his character or his predilections in the media.

Turner won't even see the inside of a prison for his felonious assault of another human being, though that is undoubtedly where he ought to be. Rather, he will pass the time - likely a paltry three months - in a county jail and in protective custody to boot. He will be entirely insulated from the real hard consequences of his actions. He will exit the jail in the height of summer, and return to the warm, loving (enabling) embrace of Turnerville before the summer of 2016 is history. He will return to the village that raised him to be who and what he is. I wonder, are we expecting a happy ending to this story cuz I'm not seeing it from where I sit in the cheap seats.

I ask again: what village raised this child? I need a name and a zip code. I'm adding to my 'do not venture here after dark' list. Steubenville is first, Turnerville takes second.

Cherry-picked history

In light of the awful events of last Sunday 12 June 2016, when a possibly self-loathing and most assuredly angry young man killed 49 people, we've been hearing a great deal about "the worst/deadliest mass shooting event in American history". At the risk of being indelicate or engaging in what some would refer to as the Oppression Olympics, can we just talk a moment?

What occurred in Orlando was horrific. Let me state that at the outset. Anderson Cooper did a wonderful piece in which he reminded us that the victims of the Orlando shooting were real living breathing people, not gays, not Hispanics. They were folk with lives and loves; fights to be fought and dreams to dream; genius and stupidity and flaws and brilliance. People. Real people. People who today are no more. That said however, can we just talk about this worst in US history business?

Here's the truth: this most recent shooting event, as awful, violent, terrifying and heartbreaking as it was, was not the worst in US history and those who know a little bit of US history know this to be true. Various articles and writings have been offered that include a more exhaustive list of events with far greater death tolls so I won't belabor that particular point, I will however point out that this moving goal line that is the beginning of US history is really a huge problem and perhaps part of why some of us feel as though we're not making the kind of progress on dealing with the various -isms we should.

This summer, the US celebrates its 240th birthday. Two hundred and forty years. That's a lot of years of 'freedom'. That's a lot of years of 'equality'. That's a lot of years of 'rights'. And yet, the questions begging to be asked and answered though are freedom for whom; equality for whom and rights for whom?

In those two hundred and forty years there has been much unrest and violence against various non-White groups over these very questions: freedom, equality and rights. Some of the interactions have been rightly described in history books as massacres, because that's what they were, so it seems a little odd that we'd look upon this one awful event and say that it's the worst in US history, when it is so clear that it wasn't. Shaun King offers a long list that you should read in his well-researched article for the NY Daily News which proves the point.

The reality is that history doesn't start when we decide to start taking notice. History didn't start after 9/11, no matter how much we like to pretend that it did; neither did history start after the liberation of Europe. History also didn't start after the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We don't get to adjust the window according to when we started acting right, or when we were in the right and someone else in the wrong.

History is not a thing of convenience, much as we Americans might like it to be. Whether we want it to or not, all of it counts, all. So the massacre at Wounded Knee? That counts. It's history. It's ours. We own it. We built that. From the article, "The U.S. Cavalry opened fire on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation on December 29, 1890, killing 150 Lakota in a single incident after more and more land was taken from the rightful owners." The Tulsa Race Riots of 1921? That too counts. It's history. It's ours. We own it. East St. Louis, 1917? History. Ours.

Mob stopping street car; East St. Louis, July 2, 1917

The problem of resetting the history clock to a more convenient time (or a time when we look better) is that it prevents us learning anything from the parts of our history that we fail to acknowledge. It's like posting a picture on a dating site from 10 years and 100 lbs ago. It's not just misleading, it's an outright lie and your dates are going to call you on it.

America was born, toddled and came to adulthood bathed in the blood of the other. This is not an opinion, it is a statement of fact. (Again, Shaun King's article is a pretty good place to start your research if you don't believe me.) I acknowledge that this is an uncomfortable truth but it is truth nonetheless. Violence against our gay brothers and sisters is only a part of the larger story of violence against that which America's majority didn't like and sought to control or destroy. That's the history.

Rosewood burning, 1923

As much as a nation might like to blot out the vilest parts of its history, this isn't the way to do it. There is, in fact, no way to do it. It's yours. It's ours. We wrote it. We did it. Now, we gotta own it and in so doing, grow from it.

By pretending that other tragedies have either not occurred or aren't worth being considered, we suggest that some lives (and deaths) are unimportant.....sort of like the shooter did with these 49 precious souls on Sunday morning.

H-ALI-iography

Muhamnad Ali

I'm so tired of being outraged. I'd like to believe that I'm out of rage but I suspect not. I suppose I could roll over and play dead but then that would leave me even worse off.

Every day, I feel like I'm being assaulted on multiple fronts. It's wearying. And yet, I have much for which to be grateful....it's not the 1800's and I'm free and not just technically so. It's not the early 1900's and I can vote. Still, as I wrote many weeks ago, I feel like Pyrrhus is dogging my heels.

Last night, as I was watching CBS' 60 Minutes, I heard the dreaded words again "he transcended race, religion" in the preamble to the report on Muhammad Ali and I wondered, "Will this ever end?"

For no reason that I can articulate, I really thought I could expect better from Lesley Stahl. But why? Why would I expect better from her? Has she somehow proved to me that she's so evolved that she wouldn't drop that nugget and keep moving like it ain't nothing? What's my proof that Lesley Stahl ain't another talking head, talking without thinking? Ain't no proof. I just assumed.....and you know what happens when you assume (you make an ASS of U and ME).

And then there's all the caterwauling over the death of Muhammad Ali. Listen, I'm not saying that the acknowledgements of The Greatest's greatness are fake, I just wonder how many of these people hailing him as great really would have been of the same mind had he been floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee and trash talkin' like a boss today. I don't actually have to wonder but it's fun to pretend like I don't know the answer to that question.

It wasn't a month ago that Piers Morgan was fighting mad at Beyoncé for releasing Lemonade complaining that he liked her better when she was more malleable. It wasn't three months ago that right wing talk radio and conservative media in general were up in arms about Bey's Formation. It was barely a year ago that the right wing felt that Freddie Gray's and Laquan McDonald's deaths were entirely justifiable. It wasn't quite a year ago that folk were pitching up to raise money for the defense of the indefensible actions of Dylan Roof. At the same time, Roof's judge was asking for our kind thoughts for the family of the malefactor because God knows their lives had been upended by the actions of the boy (miscreant?) they raised. In the same span of time, there has been an explosion of Black anger channeled into the Black Lives Matter movement and activism. In response, we've heard a thousand negative things about Black activism, not the least of those being that BLM is a terrorist group. Why do we not think that the Ali whom we honor today, wasn't a fan of BLM? Was he not the BLM of his age? Or are we just going to pretend that Ali wasn't an activist and that his activism wasn't an enormous part of his character and brand?

When the men of the St. Louis Rams team came on the field with their hands up in recognition of the Mike Brown shooting, the DailyMail online headline the next day screamed, "Rams players should be PUNISHED for 'hands up' Ferguson protest". The St Louis police demanded and apology. The gesture was described by St. Louis PD as 'tasteless, offensive and inflammatory' much, I imagine, as Ali's refusal to be conscripted to fight in Vietnam was. And now folk wanna make like Ali was all that? Ali was a Ram or perhaps better put, the Rams are the new Ali but y'all ain't see that. You ain't see it in the 1960's with Ali, we ain't see it in 2014 with the Rams and folk ain't trying to see it now either.

Richard Sherman, Seattle Seahawks CB

Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers QB

When Richard Sherman and Cam Newton were blowing up the place with their amazing feats of athleticism and smack talk, all folk didn't do was call them n*ggers. Sportscasters and others in the blogosphere certainly wasted no time calling them thugs or arrogant, and now folk wanna make like Ali was all that? Ali was Newton and Sherman before either young man was a twinkle in their fathers' eyes or better put, Cam and Sherman are the Alis of this new age.

Please forgive me if I say, "Spare me the public grief and hagiography!" It's hagiographic ramblings if you had no use for the individual during his life and at the height of his power but now, deceased, he is this great man we should revere. Stop! Just stop. Spare me. Spare us. And spare yourself the humiliation....though there's probably no humiliation. Ali was an earlier incarnation of BLM, the same BLM many now revile. Watch some of the video of his interviews and tell me it ain't true.

I get that we feel a need to honor those whose body of work speaks volumes. My only request is that we try to be honest in those remembrances. I've written before that as a nation, we are very quick to accept the benefits of the work others have done, even when we've been intellectually and/or morally too lazy to lift a damn finger in the fight. (Shades of the plantation there but I won't go down that particular rabbit hole.)

We proudly claim the benefits of the Civil Rights Movement when we have neither sat down nor have we stood up one single time against oppression. We celebrate freedom when we haven't one time stepped away from our cushy lives and suffered the deprivations of the soldier or his family nor have we lifted a finger to help a homeless vet. And here we are now, loudly celebrating Ali when we have blithely stood for every blasted thing he rebuked and had we had half a chance, we would have called him every thing but a child of God.

Why did I expect Lesley Stahl to know better than to be talking about Muhammad Ali as having transcended race and religion? Why? That's boilerplate celebrate a dead negro language. It's been said of Prince, MJ, MLK and probably every other Black man or woman who 'was a credit to his/her race'. Why would I expect the very people publicly berating the Rams, Sherman and Newton to stand up now and recognize the Ali-ness of all those men for this new era? Why, because I keep hoping - against all reasonable evidence - that there's evolution taking place. Sometimes I can't believe the depths of my own naivete!

Every time we lose an icon we have to hear how they transcended race. Boilerplate. Standard operating procedure. Reflex. Well here's my reflex: thanks but no thanks. We who are Black in life are just as Black in death. Death causes no change in that state. The only transcendence to which we look forward, is the one that takes us into the next dimension. Let me disabuse all and sundry of any belief that we are looking to transcend anything. We good right here. Thanks, but no thanks.

If you can't revere the work we've done while Black, don't bother with the reverence. We managed to survive and sometimes even thrive without broad approbation in life, I assure you we can rest in peace without it in death.  We good right here. Thanks eh, but no.

Transcending negritude, again

Sigh.


What does this mean? What is it that Myers is really trying to say? I have some ideas but I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. I'd be really grateful if someone could tell me what it is he means. Left to my own devices, I'm likely to think he believes that Black people are so consumed with self-loathing that his wishing away our Blackness makes us feel 'better' about the horror that is our Blackness. I don't imagine that I need to say the words but nothing could be further from the truth.

I really ought to be familiar with this line of 'thinking' by now, since it comes up every time a person of color who has contributed significantly to the society passes on (see my earlier writing on the topic) and yet, it shocks and annoys me every daggone time.

This time, I have nothing. I'm not going to try to wax philosophical about it. This time, I'm just asking the question and hoping against all hope that someone brighter than I will have an explanation. I live perpetually in a state of hope.

While I wait, I'm working on the text of a memo to go out to Myers and others of that ilk. It goes sort of like this: if your goal is to promote me, please be advised that saying that you never saw me as Black ain't the way to go. If your goal is to raise my stock, suggesting that you saw my work as separate from my race/gender/gender identity, ain't the way to go.

The reality is that in this country, like it or not, race, gender and gender identity are critical factors in how people of color experience the world. You would know this if your race, gender or gender identity were ever and always open for discussion. You would know this if your every move were evaluated against some set of criteria which you could never attain....unless deceased of course. Then all of a sudden, you were great because you weren't really Black. You would know all this if your race, gender or gender identity could potentially limit your freedoms. If you do not know any of this then, well, that's really on you because we who have been boxed in and blocked out for centuries have been shouting about the limitations and restrictions on our freedoms for quite some time. If in spite of all that talk (up to an including Ali's own utterances on these matters) you're still not clued in, that's on you not on us. Perhaps, if you'd seen Ali's Black skin, you might have had better luck hearing his Black complaints?

Just to reiterate in closing, Ali? Black. Prince? Black. Michael Jackson? You guessed it, Blackity Black Black Black. I'm sure I'll have to do this again some time in the not too distant future but, that's all for now.
Please attempt to govern yourself accordingly which just means, when in doubt, hush yuh mout'.