On Race, Legacy and Healing.
I've always been an astute observer of race ever since I was a child. Like most other children, I saw things without the filtered lens of cognitive dissonance we all eventually learn to see things in adulthood. And I asked many questions. Perhaps too many for the adults around me.
Like so many other Americans from my generation, I spent a considerable amount of time in front of the television. I learned a lot from watching shows like Sesame Street and The Electric Company - and noticed right away that those two shows were diverse in a way most other television shows were not. I came to understand, tacitly, that most shows did not have characters that looked like me or my family, and if I did see people who looked like my family or people in my neighborhood they were either terribly poor, yet noble- (Good Times) or rich and unreasonable (The Jeffersons). Little House and the Prairie, Charlie's Angels, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley - they were all shows that took place far from anything that I was ever familiar with.
Other than television my life was primarily Black and brown although as I started school I would notice that most of my teachers were white. I remember when my family moved into 1199 Ocean Avenue that there were only two white families left in the building. They were all moving out, as we were moving in. White Flight it's called, and I remember being quite intrigued by the speed in which "they" seemed to be disappearing. One of the white families that were left at 1199 was the Woodstock's and I remember them woman being incredibly friendly to us neighborhood children, while her husband not so amused.
I had pretty decent teachers at my public school- P.S. 152 - but there was something sinister creeping into my neighborhood and unfortunately, I wasn't immune to it. It had to do with violence and crime and although not all the kids were involved, there were quite a few of us who got caught up. Back then, it wasn't unusual to be at a party and for the place to get shot up - and for someone you know to have been shot. Getting shot, pregnant or imprisoned was commonplace. There were those who stayed away from the troubles - but there were others, like myself who went charging full speed ahead.
This all started to really come to a head when Reagan took office. For some of us - Brooklyn was like a war-torn country. There were many middle-class havens, but for many of us this was not an option. Although I was quite young at the time, around 9 or 10, it was not uncommon for me to get into fights. At 152 it was the girls who fought the most. We Vaselined our faces, unhinged our hooked earrings and lunge at each other while a human fortress was formed around us by instigators, friends and onlookers. It was not unusual to have a scratched up face and we learned the value of cocoa butter for removing scars from back then.
I often wondered where all this violence came from. Why did I fight as much as I did? I was a smart kid - had even been chosen to be in P.S. 152's IGC class - Intelligent Gifted Children program. But there was a pain there, a hurt - so much more than I can get into in a blog post, but something I know too many of our children feel .
Oftentimes when I discuss the trap of poverty, well-meaning folks say, "but you made it out." As if I am some proof that it is surmountable. The thing is - we need to stop focusing on the exceptions and make certain patterns the rule. We know that early childhood trauma leaves, very often, permanent damage - unless these traumas are dealt with. On a historical note - what about our collective trauma- genetic trauma?
Many folks want us to talk about our Blackness without talking about slavery - but for me - until racism is dealt with systematically and completely - I personally cannot do this. Science will tell you that the legacy of Jewish Holocaust is passed down to generations but there is not much done about the African Holocaust. No one talks about the devastation done to the continent or to descendants of this peculiar institution. The more one digs into this silence the more one learns about the deep connection between wealth and slave labor. It doesn't matter if you are speaking about African slavery or the conditions in which much of our goods are being made today - from chocolate to sneakers.
Black liberation is not tied to the American dollar. The American dollar is tied to Black subjugation. There is a meme going around now, where a Jewish man is supposedly saying that the Black race will never amount to anything because we do not keep our money in our community. To believe this is to believe that we have never tried. But there are those of you who know differently - and we know that overtime we attempt to have any self-sufficiency we are met with violence. Terror.
My mentor - Marie D. Brown has a shackle in her house. She bought it for about $100 and it is probably a shackle from a slave ship. It's heavy. It's a trip to hold it - to know that human beings were held by these. Many forget that the industrial revolution was made very possible by the market for these shackles - and every other steel instrument needed in the institution of slavery. I think every Black person who wants to embrace their past and move towards healing ought to hold this. It shouldn't be on sale. We should have a place of healing - just for us. To add insult to injury the shackle was sold by a white person, which is most often the case.
When I was in Rhode Island, one of the gentlemen I got used to talking to in the morning told me that many of the houses in that town had shackles in the basement. Rhode Island and the rest of New England is so beautiful, but so many don't want to talk about where the wealth came from. Rhode Island, and the town I stayed in was a ship building town - and you better bet that much of the ships went to slaving. The town is almost exclusively white, as so many other towns throughout the States that are white are. We are separate and so unequal - yes.
adieu,
the lab
