On Living While Black in America...

My older sister, Deborah, was much more enlightened than I much earlier in life. She celebrated Black history and got Mr. McNeil, a Black teacher doing his best to enlighten White students while making Black students proud of ourselves and our history as he taught Black history to all students in a predominantly white school. My Sister got "it" before the rest of us did. Sorry Mr. McNeil, I wish I had listened more attentively but I heard you later, loud and clear! Your efforts were not in vain. Your voice mattered...

My sister rejected the notion of gifting for Christmas and instead came home from college talking about this thing called Kwanzaa. She wore daishikis, cornrowed more afros for 50 cents than I can count, participated in protests and knew what apartheid was long before others her age knew or cared about South Africa or even knew Nelson Mandela's name. She was really into Black pride and knowing our history...

There were five children in my family. In time we all became as progressive and informed as Debbie (she hates when I call her that but that). Over time, we converted, or shall I say influenced, our Mom who used to say to us, "I don't know where you kids get this from", referring to our strong stance regarding our Blackness. She was too busy trying to raise five children on her to own to be preoccupied with issues of race unless or until it was just too blatant to ignore "in your face" racism or when it affected one of her babies, then there was hell to pay (smile). I get it! It was about survival for her...

Her response and attention changed as we got older. Like many a Black Mother, she had ceramic figurines of random people about the house. All were white, as was the depiction of Jesus Christ in most Black households, not ours, but most... I will never forget coming home one day and Mommy had painted everybody Brown! No more white figurines were to be found and of course never to be purchased again in our house! Still, I love it! My Mama was woke! Priceless!!! I can't recall the time frame so I am not able to speak as to what might have been happening that inspired her to get her paint on'. If she were here, I would ask her. Talk to your people folks. No guarantees for having those conversations later. I was 26 when Mommy passed. Of course I thought I had all the time in the world. No Promises...

I do vividly remember however, one day her being angered at work. She was a Social Service Aide at a Headstart program, now known as day care or pre-school. Headstart was a government or publicly funded program giving poor Black babies a head start in front of our White peers who were staying home playing with their Mothers until that first day of kindergarten whilst we were getting nourished both physically and academically in preparation for that first day of school. My guess is that it was income driven and basically free. Black Panther Breakfast program and others were doing the same. Day care now is unaffordable and Headstart is largely a thing of the past, certainly not as prevalent. Of course it is, poor kids in America with a leg up? That was taking the stated commitment of the premise of Affirmative Action, to level the playing field for Black Americans, much too serious... Spit out the Kool-Aid. Not gonna' happen! Not on some folks' tax dollar. Instead, energies were expended to ensure our families were broken as our parents were paraded as welfare queens and deadbeat dads. That is the preferred image for the media and many others in America, the land of liberty, equality and justice for all...

A part of my Mother's job was to occasionally secure emergency funding for families in need. Apparently these funds were made available through the town we lived in and my Mother had had contact with the town representative in charge of this fund on many occasions. This woman, the Mother of a classmate who obviously had never bothered to ask him who was that Black girl in his class picture, obviously thought my Mom was white. Something about that last name. It can be deceiving...

On one occasion, the final one I suppose, when Mommy called to get emergency relief for a family, the woman (I won't call her name) said "Mrs. Higginbotham, I think there is a nigger in the wood pile!" My Mom had never heard that expression before and I did not understand it until much later in life when I began teaching myself Black history and learned that often escaped Slaves were hidden in the wood pile to avoid being re-kidnapped and tortured for running away, because we were supposed to want to stay. OK...

So Mommy asked Mrs. No Name to repeat what she had just said, which she did without a moments hesitation. My Mom responded that she thought it was time they met. She and her red headed ride or die White girlfriend (ironically I have a red headed ride or die friend too!), Mrs. Anne Meaney, drove to municipal hall with Mrs. Meaney trying to calm her down all the way. What I would have given to see the face of the city worker when she came face to face with Mrs. Higginbotham. Nowadays we would have sued the town and demanded her termination. We were quite young when this happened, Debbie and I were likely still in grammar school but Mommy told us about this incident so the fire was always in her belly, burning deep down inside, buried under her necessity to survive and provide for her family but she knew it and thankfully we heard it...

My older Sister however heard it first, heard it loudest and certainly inspired the other four of us to be in tuned to what is required and what it means to be Living While Black in America. Still, it ain't easy...

Today, I celebrate my big sister for feeling the fire and for lighting the torch. Thank you Deborah for being the Ungawa in my Black Power!

~Hugs,
Lil' Sis #1!

Living While Black In America...

A few days ago I got off the #3 train at the newly renovated 145th Street train station in Harlem. It's all shiny, brand spanking new, well lit and adorned with beautiful ceramic wall tile murals of Black art. One would think that as a resident, I would be excited about these improvements that are accompanied by new sidewalks and newly paved streets popping up all around Harlem but I am not... Instead, I know, that despite Black folks living here for ages and holding it down, never were we respected as a community of taxpayers and metro riders worthy of such cleanliness and upgrades.

Instead, the improvements smack me in the face as signs of the inevitable gentrification of Harlem [and most American cities] and the perception that dignity, respect and attention is more due some taxpayers, who are poised to take over the community, than the current... So NOW the city and MTA can find interest in and resources for improvements, even when or where none seemed due...

This reminds me of being invited by a politically engaged friend to a meeting in the 5th Ward of Washington, DC where she was very active. I lived in Ward 2. It was some time during the 90's when DC was still very much chocolate, predominantly Black. A developer had invited the community to come hear about all the new stores and fancy and/or overdue improvements that were being proposed for their neighborhood, presumably to secure their support instead of their protest at city hall, to distract them by making them think the improvements and shiny new name brand stores were intended for or would benefit them. He nearly turned beet red with embarrassment when I asked if these improvements were all of a sudden being proposed not for the benefit of the audience he was addressing but for a new audience he anticipated was soon to move in. He could not deny it. And the beat goes on... Nothing nice about gentrification...

While I resented and was appalled by how dirty the subway stop certainly was, knowing that it had not been properly cleaned or resurfaced in decades, gave me some proud sense of walking in the footsteps of Black heroes and dignitaries that made Harlem historical such as Malcolm X, Zora Neal Hurston, Cab Calloway, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois and too many more to mention who surely had also stood on that dirty platform and traversed those filthy stairs. Somehow washing away the build up of debris and covering it with new shiny paint and beautiful ceramic wall tiles, in a sad and very irrational way, also washed away some of our history as is happening in so many of our urban centers throughout the country. Oh, if only those subway walls could have talked...

Living While Black in America, it ain't easy...