still fighting. teaching love

Constant. Rage. My literary father, James Baldwin, said it.

I live in the age of #BlackLivesMatter. I also live in an age where we are deciding whether or not to take down Confederate monuments. 

It's hard. What people don't seem to understand about racism is just how major the devaluing of Black life is. We see it in Flint with the poisoning of water. We've seen it with Katrina. We've even seen it in our fight for reparations, where the "radical" economic justice candidate can't even deliver justice to one of the most oppressed populations on this imperial settler colony. 

I just came from New York City. Just yesterday, I was minding my business in Washington Square Park when I was approached by a group of people with a camera. I was interviewed for a webseries on complexities. When prompted the question about my own complexities, I took a minute to think exactly what I wanted to say. I had a lot on my mind, from Baltimore, to activism, to being a writer. A lot. 

But I took the time to unpack a lot of stress about being young, Black, and working class. If the interview gets posted, great. If not, it was a much needed statement from myself. Just hearing the words come out of my mouth felt therapeutic. 

I have to wonder, how much fighting we got to do? Will we be fighting for reparations on Saturn Colony II in 2154? I can imagine, in the days where space travel is common, little Black kids sitting outside on a stoop knowing they'll never see the world from space. The battle against white supremacy and the anti-Blackness woven into our culture will never cease to exist. And my arms are tired. 

Tired of thinking about those with "unmarketable" names not getting callbacks. Tired of walking past homeless people in a city where entire streets need to be demolished. Tired of faking the image of someone who's okay. Tired of thinking about alternative pasts and how people vilify those who would've had my behind enslaved. Tired of the prosperity gospel that tells me to pray harder as if I hadn't had generations praying for my soul. My freedom. If I pray any harder I'll end up looking like FKA twigs' on her M3LL155X cover. (I love FKA twigs).

I'm fighting. I'm taking punches I can't see. My eyes are swollen and my arms are tired, but my body tells me, in the voice of Precious, my grandmother "Boy you better keep going." I hear her words in my fingers that write this blog post. In my fingers I find resistance and revolution, sizzling like a fresh Ginger Ale on a Sunday afternoon in mid July.  Fre

I'm still fighting because I know love. My grandma taught me love. My teachers taught me love. My mother taught me love too. Each individual taught me love and worth in another way, but it was all love, and it is all the reason I'm in such predicament. 

Because I know the value of my Blackness, I can't stand seeing others who may not and thus, I tell them. In one poem, I wrote the line "I become modern day abolitionist" because there's something noble and purposeful about being an abolitionist. I owe them - the Harriet Tubmans, the John Browns - my gratitude, for my freedom. But the abolitionist movement is not yet done. Not when an entire system is built off of the criminalization of your people, throwing them in jails where slavery is still legal by the same amendment that was supposed to set you free.

But I know this because of love. Love makes me the mother lion fighting to the death for her cubs. Love keeps me on this Underground Railroad where I sneak in tidbits about Black radicalism in my daily conversations with young folk. Love keeps me healthy. Love keeps me human. And that's all it is. Love and pain. Pain at the dirty water in Flint Michigan. Pain at the amount of youth that would've been served better by recreational centers than juvenile prisons. Pain for the unskilled worker who's merit is challenged on the same land while the descendants of the enslaved still haven't received their check. Pain at those who lost homes in Rosewood, Tulsa, Philly, and Seneca Village. Pain for anyone on the mother continent that could've been my cousin. Pain for the enslaved mother who saw her son get sold, only to never see him again. Pain for her and the grandchildren she may never know. 

But at the end of the day, through this cycle of joy and hurt - the Black American experience for some - I'm still fighting. Teaching love the same way my grandma, mother, teachers, friends, and ancestors taught me. 

You Ever Read A Book About Yourself? - On Writing Technique and Grandmas

My professor, A.J Verdelle, and I exchanged books. I gave her Buck by MK Asante and she gave me her own, a literary classic and praised by Toni Morrison, The Good Negress. I secretly hope she gives me this copy; she can have Buck. I also hope to one day give her a copy of my own book. 

I'm on page 94. I've read the inside jacket, the acknowledgements, and the praise on the back of the book. I think about the age of the work. It's as old as I am. Incredible. But even more, I think about the object. The book. And to think my professor is the author of the book. These words are hers, and not to diminish the work of editors or others, but her name is on the front. This is her work. Neesy, Margarete, and Luke edward are hers. Big Jim and Dana are hers. Even Lontz (one of my favorite parts right now) is hers. My professor would probably tell me "It's not mine anymore. The work is published." I can the conversation; I'd be sitting in her office on the second floor of Holmes Hall, and she'd be behind the desk glancing between her screen and me. But I'd still think its hers.

You ever read a book about yourself? You ever felt so close to a character that you feel you can predict their next move, not because you know them, but because you are them?

I might be Neesy. 

I was born in South Carolina and was raised by my grandmother. I did spend some time up North, in Baltimore where I currently live, with my mother and little brother, but most of my life is centered in the small town of Florence, South Carolina. Neesy was also Southern, raised by her own grandmother in Virginia, until the calling came for her to come back to Detroit to help her mom with a new baby. Neesy's grandma is my grandma. I not only picture the feeling of being snatched away from her Virginia home, but I feel it, not in my heart, but in my soul. I shiver. The feeling is all too familiar. I see Grandma's back porch and a car outside, and I see her standing there, waiting for the call to pull off, and I see the car and dirt under it as it pulls out of the clay road driveway. I see the long roads without lights. Growing up, I never thought it weird. But my three days in South Carolina, riding from Florence to Hemingway with only a car light to guide, the experience felt surreal. And dangerous. This is the broke Black South for you. 

When I see Neesy at the parade, I see myself, all big, Black and Jeremy, at the parade. I see purple and gold streamers. Old cars and happy Black people just loving themselves and loving their alma mater. This is the Wilson High School homecoming parade. Wilson was a mostly Black school. An annual event in Florence, people come from across the country to celebrate at one of the biggest and Blackest events in the area. Both my mom and my aunt are Wilsonians. Wilsonians are some of the proudest people you'll ever meet.

On page 81, Neesy describes Luke edward and his relationship to Granma'am. This part was the part that inspired me to write this piece. Between this page and the one before it, my soul ached and my heart heaved. My grandma was 48 when I was born. She'll be 68 this year. I remember a time before she held on to things for support. I remember a time before I was able to reminisce about things. I remember a time when getting from the truck to the door wasn't so long as it is now. I remember when arthritis was only a word I knew, not the pain and the effort I currently see now. The book made me want to call up my grandma and paint the house. As much as I am Neesy, I can be a Luke edward too; at least in that sense.

This is life. 

Neesy as a character is young, curious, and assertive. To be written in such a way requires a level of talent and technique that merits "Truly extraordinary" from Toni Morrison. The level of characterization and the precise placement of punctuation reminded me of the power of words. 

In the power of words, there's several things I'll always remember from my professor including: circling your verbs, writing in scenes, thinking about objects, and starting from the ground up. As I write Mitch, I now understand that I absolutely must read it aloud before submitting it anywhere. Beyond finding out grammar mistakes, I'm sure I'll find flaws in the rhythm of the words. It'll also help me deliver pregnant, as my professor calls them, places. 

You ever read a book about yourself? You ever read about yourself so rawly, you had to close the book and just think. On page 94, I thought about what I'd read and decided to write a blog post. I love to write. I love to read. I'm learning how to write about what I read as professor told me I should. So far, it's been fun. 

Jeremy Discusses Literature: "Apollo" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I read "Apollo" sitting in the Weinberg Center at Johns Hopkins University. It was in the "New Yorker", sitting on a regular coffee table in the waiting area and I only noticed it after skimming through the magazine. 

I was supposed to read six books this summer by request of my English Professor A.J Verdelle. I only read two- one being Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez and the other being a book on screenwriting. But I've been all into short-fiction, rereading classic authors like Vonnegut and Bradbury, teasing the science-fiction part of my mind. But "Apollo" was a very captivating story. It was short and sweet and a reminder that not all stories had to be bizarre or carry a large scope.

"Apollo" is a brief glimpse into a young man's relationship with his houseboy. An interest in kung fu created ___. The two grow close, and things start to change for the both of them, until Raphael, the houseboy, catches a disease called Apollo. The narrator, Okenwa's, parents split the two until Raphael can get better, but Okenwa, not having any of it, breaks the rules and gives Raphael his medicine. Once Okenwa catches the disease, things get even more complicated and emotions turn towards malice. "He spoke as though I were a child, as though we had not sat together in his dim room." In an act of frustration, Okenwa does something unthinkable.

Apollo is a great story from start to finish. It doesn't go right into the story, but takes us outside of it starting with introducing the parents and his growing up. The characterization of the parents makes them human, and all too real. They're strict, they don't take any mess, and they're full of love and concern - much like the African parents in the memes. If you don't know, check out the Twitter hashtag #GrowingUpAfrican.

From the language to the storytelling, Apollo is a very nice ten minute read. The strong characterization, without knowing too much about setting or time, creates enough of a story for us to attach ourselves to the characters. Apollo creates a story using people and action moreso than background noise. She writes with a rhythm that's easy to follow; sentences have this smooth flow and the words she uses seem to be chosen wisely. It's an easy read. The information isn't an overload and action keeps the story flowing.

Have you read it? What do you think? Let's discuss below!