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B Y

T A

-N E

H IS

I C O

A T

E S

B etw

een the W orld and M

T he B

eautiful Struggle

B etw

een

th e W

o rld

d M

B etw

een

th e W

o rld

d M

' I, T

a-N eh

isi C o

ates

S P

IE G

E L

& G

R A

N E

W Y

O R

--- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - ·

. ~--.,;•.·'' !

Betw een tlze W

orld and M e is a w

ork o f nonfiction. Som

e nam es and identifying

details have been changed.

C opyright©

2015 byT a-N

ehisi C oates

A ll rights reserved.

Published in the U nited States by Spi~gel &

G rau, an im

print o f R

andom

H ouse, a division o

f Penguin R andom

H ouse L

L C

, N ew

Y ork.

SPIEGEL & GRAU and the H

O U

SE colophon are registered tradem arks

o f Penguin R

andom H

ouse L L

C .

T he title o

f this w ork is draw

n from the poem

"B etw

een the W orld and M

e" by R

ichard W right, from

W liite M

ichard W

right. U sed by perm

ission o f John H

aw kins &

A ssociates, Inc., and the E

state

ofR ichardW

right.

G rateful acknow

ledgm ent is m

ade to the follow ing for perm

ission to reprint

previously published m aterial:

C hris C

alhoun A gency: E

xcerpt from "K

a' B a" by A

m iri B

E state o

f A m

iri B araka. R

eprinted by perm ission o

f the C hris C

alhoun A gency.

John H aw

kins & A

ssociates, Inc., and the E state ofR

ichardW right: E

xcerpt from

"B etw

een the W orld and M

e" from M

ite M an Listen! by R

ichard W right,

ichard W right. R

eprinted by perm ission o

f John H

aw kins &

A ssociates, Inc., and the E

state o f R

ichard W right.

Sonia Sanchez: E xcerpt from

"M alcolm

" from Shake Loose M

y Skin by Sonia Sanchez (B

1999 by Sonia Sanchez. R

eprinted by perm ission o

f Sonia Sanchez.

ISB N

978-0-8129-9354-7 eB

ook IS B

N 978-0-679-64598-6

P rinted in the U

nited States o f A

m erica on acid-free paper

random housebooks.com

spiegelandgrau.com

19 18 17

16 15 14

B ook design by C

aroline C unningham

F or D

av id

an d

K enyatta,

w h

o believed

A nd one m

orning w hile in the w

oods I stum bled suddenly

upon the thing, Stum

bled upon it in a grassy clearing guarded by scaly oaks

and elm s

A nd the sooty details of the scene rose, thrusting them

selves

betw een the w

orld and m e . ...

-R IC

H A

R D

W R

IG H

B e

tw e

e n

e W

o rld

n d

M e

D o not speak to m

e of m artyrdom

of m en w

ho die to be rem em

bered

on som e parish day.

I don't believe in dying

though, I too shall die.

A nd violets like castanets

w ill echo m

S O

N IA

SA N

C H

E Z

Son, Last Sunday the host o

f a popular new s show

asked m e

w hat it m

eant to lose m y body. T

he host w as broadcasting

from W

ashington, D .C

., and I w as seated in a rem

ote stu- dio on the far w

est side o f M

anhattan. A satellite closed

the m iles betw

een us, but no m achinery could close the

gap betw een her w

orld and the w orld for w

hich I had been sum

m oned to speak. W

hen the host asked m e about

m y body, her face faded from

the screen, and w as replaced

by a scroll o f w

ords, w ritten by m

e earlier that w eek.

T he host read these w

ords for the audience, and w hen

she finished she turned to the subject o f m

y body, al- though she did not m

ention it specifically. B ut by now

I am

accustom ed to intelligent people asking about the

condition o f m

y body w ithout realizing the nature o

f their request. Specifically, the host w

ished to know w

hy I felt

6 7

T A

-N E

H IS

J C O

A T

E S

that w hite A

m erica's progress, or rather the progress o

f those A

m ericans w

ho believe that they are w hite, w

as built on looting and violence. H

earing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness w

ell up in m e. T

he answ er to this ques-

tion is the record o f the believers them

selves. T he answ

er is A

m erican history.

T here is nothing extrem

e in this statem ent. A

m ericans

deify dem ocracy in a w

ay that allow s for a dim

aw areness

that they have, from tim

e to tim e, stood in defiance o

f their G

od. B ut dem

ocracy is a forgiving G od and A

m er-

ica's h eresies-tortu

re, theft, en slavem

en t-are so com

m on

ong individuals and nations that none can declare them -

selves im m

une. In fact, A m

ericans, in a real sense, have never betrayed their G

od. W hen A

braham L

incoln de- clared, in 1863, that the battle o

f G ettysburg m

ust ensure "that governm

ent o f the people, by the people, for the

people, shall not perish from the earth," he w

as not m erely

being aspirational; at the onset o f the C

ivil W ar, the U

nited States o

f A m

erica had one o f the highest rates o

f suffrage in the w

orld. T he question is not w

hether L incoln truly

m eant "governm

ent o f the people" but w

hat our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term

"peo- ple" to actually m

ean. In 1863 it did not m ean your m

other or your grandm

other, and it did not m ean you and m

e. T

hus A m

erica's problem is not its betrayal o

f "governm ent

o f the people," but the m

eans by w hich "the people" ac-

quired their nam es.

T his leads us to another equally im

portant ideal, one

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

that A m

ericans im plicitly accept but to w

hich they m ake

n o conscious claim

. A m

ericans believe in the reality o

f "race" as

a defined, indubitable feature o

f the natural w

orld. R acism

-th e need to ascribe bone-deep features to

people and then hum iliate, reduce, and destroy th

e m

- inevitably follow

s from this inalterable condition. In this

w ay, racism

is rendered as the innocent daughter o f M

other N

ature, and one is left to deplore the M iddle Passage or

the T rail o

f T ears the w

ay one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenom

enon that can be cast as be- yond the handiw

ork o f m

en. B

ut race is the child o f racism

, not the father. A nd the

process o f nam

ing "the people" has never b een

a m atter o

f genealogy and physiognom

y so m uch as one o

f hierarchy. D

ifference in hue and hair is old. B ut the belief in the pre-

em inence o

f h u

e and hair, the n otion

that these factors can correctly organize a society and that they signify deeper attributes, w

hich are indelible-this is the new idea at the

heart o f these new

people w ho have been brought up hope-

lessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are w hite.

T hese new

people are, like us, a m odern invention. B

ut unlike us, their new

nam e has no real m

eaning divorced from

the m ;chinery o

f crim inal pow

er. T he new

people w

ere som ething else before they w

ere w hite-C

atholic, C

orsican, W elsh, M

ennonite, Jew ish

-an d

if all our na- tional hopes have any fulfillm

ent, then they w ill have to be

som ething else

again. Perhaps they w

ill truly becom

e A

m erican and create a nobler basis for their m

yths. I can-

8 9

T A

-N E

H IS

I C O

A T

E S

not call it. A s for now

, it m ust be said that the process o

f w

ashing the disparate tribes w hite, the elevation o

f the belief in being w

hite, w as not achieved through w

ine tast- ings and ice cream

socials, but rather through the pillaging oflife, liberty, labor, and land; through the flaying o

f backs; the chaining o

f lim bs; the strangling o

f dissidents; the de- struction o

f fam ilies; the rape o

f m others; the sale o

f chil- dren; and various other acts m

eant, first and forem ost, to

deny you and m e the right to secure and govern our ow

n bodies.

T he new

people are not original in this. Perhaps there has been, at som

e point in history, som

e great pow er w

h ose

elevation w as

exem pt from

the violent exploitation o f

other hum an bodies. If there has been, I have yet to dis-

cover it. B u

t this banality o f violen

ce can never excuse A

m erica, because A

m erica m

akes no claim to the banal.

A m

erica believes itself exceptional, the greatest and no- blest nation ever to exist, a lone cham

pion standing be- tw

een the w hite city o

f dem ocracy and the terrorists,

despots, barbarians, and other enem ies o

f civilization. O n

e cannot, at once, claim

to be superhum an and then plead

m ortal error. I propose to take our countrym

en's claim s o

f A

m erican exceptionalism

seriously, w hich is to say I pro-

pose subjecting our country to an exceptional m oral stan-

dard. T his is difficult because there exists, all around us, an

apparatus urging us to accept A m

erican innoc~nce at face value and not to inquire too m

uch. A nd it is so easy to

look aw ay, to live w

ith the fruits o f our history and to ig-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

nore the great evil ·done in all o f our nam

es. B ut you and I

have never truly had that luxury. I think you know .

I w rite you in your fifteenth year. I am

w riting you be-

cause this w as the year you

saw E

ric G arner ch

ok ed

to death for selling cigarettes; because you know

now that

R enisha M

cB ride w

as shot for seeking help, that John C

raw ford w

as shot dow n for brow

sing in a departm ent

store. A nd you have seen m

en in uniform drive by and

m urder T

am ir R

ice, a tw elve-year-old child w

hom they

w ere oath-b,;und to protect. A

nd you have seen m en in

the sam e uniform

s p u

m m

el M arlene P

innock, som eone's

grandm other, on the side o

f a road. A nd you know

now , if

you did not before, that the police departm ents o

f your country have been endow

ed w ith the authority to destroy

your body. It does not m atter if the destruction is the result

o f an unfortunate overreaction. It does not m

atter if it originates in

a m isunderstanding. It does n

ot m atter if the

destruction springs from a foolish policy. Sell cigarettes

w ithout the proper authority and your body can be de-

stroyed. R esent the people trying to entrap your body and

it can be destroyed. T urn into a dark stairw

ell and your body can be destroyed. T

he destroyers w ill rarely be held

accountable. M ostly they w

ill receive pensions. A nd de-

struction is m erely the superlative form

o f a dom

inion w

hose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and hum

iliations. A ll o

f this is com m

on to black people. A

nd all o f this is old for black people. N

o one is held re- sponsible.

11 10

T A

-N E

H IS

I C O

A T

E S

T here is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or

even in this m

om en

t. T h

e destroyers are m erely m

en en

- forcing the w

him s o

f our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. It is hard to face this. B

ut all our p

h rasin

g-race relations, racial chasm , racial justice, racial

profiling, w hite privilege, even w

hite suprem acy-serves

to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dis-

lodges brains, blocks airw ays, rips m

uscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. Y

ou m ust never look aw

ay from

this. Y ou m

ust alw ays rem

em ber that the sociology, the

history, the econom ics, the graphs, the charts, the regres-

sions all land, w ith great violence, upon the body.

T hat Sunday, w

ith that host, on that new s show

, I tried to explain this as best I could w

ithin the tim e allotted. B

ut at the end o

f the segm ent, the host flashed a w

idely shared picture o

f an eleven-year-old black boy tearfully hugging a w

hite police officer. T hen she asked m

e about "hope." A

nd I knew then that I had failed. A

nd I rem em

bered that I had expected to fail. A

nd I w ondered again at the indis-

tinct sadness w elling up in m

e. W hy exactly w

as I sad? I cam

e out o f the studio and w

alked for a w hile. It w

as a calm

D ecem

ber day. Fam ilies, believing them

selves w hite,

w ere ou

t on the streets. Infants, raised to b

e w hite, w

ere bundled in strollers. A

nd I w as sad for these people, m

uch as I w

as sad for the host and sad for all the people out there w

atching and reveling in a specious hope. I realized then w

hy I w as sad. W

hen the journalist asked m e about m

y body, it w

as like she w as asking m

e to aw aken her from

the

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

m ost gorgeous dream

. I have seen that dream all m

y life. It is perfect houses w

ith nice law ns. It is M

em orial D

ay cookouts, block associations, and drivew

ays. T he D

ream is

treehouses and the C ub Scouts. T

he D ream

sm ells like

pepperm int but tastes like straw

berry shortcake. A nd for

so long I have w anted to escape into the D

ream , to fold

m y country over m

y head like a blanket. B ut this has never

been an option because the D ream

rests o n

our backs, the bedding m

ade from our bodies. A

nd know ing this, know

- ing that the D

ream persists by w

arring w ith the know

n w

orld, I w as sad for the host, I w

as sad for all those fam ilies,

I w as sad for m

y country, but above all, in that m om

ent, I w

as sad for you. T

hat w as the w

eek you learned that the killers o f M

i- chael B

row n w

ould go free. T he m

en w ho had left his

body in the street like som e aw

esom e declaration o

f their inviolable pow

er w ould never be punished. It w

as not m y

expectation that anyone w ould ever be punished. B

ut you w

ere young and still believed. Y ou stayed up till 11

P.M .

that night, w aiting for the announcem

ent o f an indict-

m ent, and w

h en

instead it w as announced that there w

as n

on e you

said, "I've got to go," and you w

en t into your

room , and I heard you crying. I cam

e in five m inutes after,

and I didn't hug you, and I didn't com fort you, because I

thought it w ould be w

rong to com fort you. I did not tell

you that it w ould be okay, because I have never believed it

w ould be okay. W

hat I told you is w hat your grandparents

tried to tell m e: that this is your country; that this is your

12 T

A -N

E H

IS J C

O A

T E

w orld, that this is your body, and you m

ust find som e w

ay to live w

ithin the all o f it. I tell you now

that the question o

f how one should live w

ithin a black body, w ithin a

country lost in the D ream

, is the question o f m

y life, and the pursuit o

f this question, I have found, ultim ately an-

sw ers itself.

T his m

ust seem strange to you. W

e live in a "goal- oriented" era. O

ur m edia vocabulary is full o

f hot takes, big ideas, and grand theories o

f everything. B ut som

e tim e

ago I rejected m agic in

all its form s. T

his rejection w as a

gift from your grandparents, w

ho never tried to console m

e w ith ideas o

f an afterlife and w ere skeptical o

f preor- dained A

m erican glory. In accepting both the chaos o

f his- tory and the fact o

f m y total end, I w

as freed to truly consider how

I w ished to live-specifically, how

do I live free in this black body? It is a profound question because A

m erica understands itself as G

od's handiw ork, but the

black body is the clearest evidence that A m

erica is the w

ork o f m

en. I have asked the question through m y read-

ing and w ritings, through the m

usic o f m

y youth, through argum

ents w ith your grandfather, w

ith your m other, your

aunt Janai, your uncle B en. I have searched for answ

ers in nationalist 1nyth, in

classroom s, ou

t on the streets, and on

other continents. T

h e question is unansw

erable, w h

ich is

not to say futile. T he greatest rew

ard o f this constant inter-

rogation, o f confrontation w

ith the brutality 9£ m y cou

n -

try, is that it has freed m e from

ghosts and girded m e

against the sheer terror o f disem

bodim ent.

.. • if i.. : .. t ' L i I f

1 4

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

A nd I am

afraid. I feel the fear m ost acutely w

henever you leave m

e. B ut I w

as afraid long before you, and in this I w

as unoriginal. W hen I w

as your age the only people I knew

w ere black, and all o

f them w

ere pow er:fully, ada-

m antly, dangerously afraid. I had seen this fear all m

y young life, though I had not alw

ays recognized it as such. It w

as alw ays right in

front o f m

e. T he fear w

as there in the extravagant boys o

f m y neighborhood,.in their large

rings and m edallions, their big puffy coats and full-length

fur-collared leathers, w hich w

as their arm or against their

w orld. T

hey w ould stand on the corner o

f G w

ynn O ak

and L iberty, or C

old S pring and Park H

eights, or outside M

ondaw m

in M all, w

ith their hands dipped in R ussell

sw eats. I think back on those boys now

and all I see is fear, and all I see is them

girding them selves against the ghosts

o f the bad old days w

hen the M ississippi m

ob gathered 'round their grandfathers so that the branches o

f the black body m

ight be torched, then cut aw ay. T

he fear lived on in their practiced bop, their slouching denim

, their big T

-shirts, the calculated angle o f their baseball caps, a cata-

log o f behaviors and garm

ents enlisted to inspire the belief that these boys w

ere in firm possession o

f everything they desired.

I saw it in their custom

s o f w

ar. I w as no older than five,

sitting out on the front steps o f m

y hom e on W

oodbrook A

venue, w atching tw

o shirtless boys circle each other close and buck shoulders. F

rom then on, I knew

that there w as

a ritual to a street fight, bylaw s and codes that, in their very

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

need, attested to all the vulnerability o f the black teenage

bodies. I heard the fear in the first m

usic I ever knew , the m

usic that pum

ped from boom

boxes full o f grand boast and

bluster. T he boys w

ho stood out on G arrison and L

iberty up on Park H

eights loved this m usic because it told them

, against all evidence and odds, that they w

ere m asters o

f their ow

n lives, their ow n streets, and their ow

n bodies. I saw

it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded

bam boo earrings that announced their nam

es thrice over. A

nd I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how

they w

ould cut you w ith their eyes and destroy you w

ith their w

ords for the sin o f playing too m

uch. "K eep m

y nam

e out your m outh;' they w

ould say. I w ould w

atch them

after school, how they squared off like boxers, vas-

elined up, earrings off, R eeboks on, and leaped at each

other. I felt the fear in the visits to m

y N ana's hom

e in Phila- delphia. Y

ou never knew her. I barely knew

her, but w hat

I rem em

ber is her hard m anner, her rough voice. A

nd I knew

that m y father's father w

as dead and that m y uncle

O scar w

as dead and that m y uncle D

avid w as dead and

that each o f these instances w

as unnatural. A nd I saw

it in m

y ow n father, w

ho loves you, w ho counsels you, w

ho slipped m

e m oney to care for you. M

y father w as so very

afraid. I felt it in the sting o f his black leather belt, w

hich he applied w

ith m ore anxiety than anger, m

y father w ho

beat m e as if som

eo~e m ight steal m

e aw ay, because that is

16 T

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

exactly w hat w

as happening all around us. E veryone had

lost a child, som ehow

, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns. It w

as said that these lost girls w ere sw

eet as honey and w

ould not hurt a fly. It w as said that these lost boys had

just received a G E

D and had begun to turn their lives

around. A nd now

they w ere gone, and their legacy w

as a great fear.

H ave they told you this story?W

hen your grandm other

w as sixteen years old a young m

an knocked on her door. T

he young m an w

as your N ana Jo's boyfriend. N

o one else w

as hom e. M

a allow ed this young m

an to sit and w ait

until your N ana Jo returned. B

ut your great-grandm other

got there first. She asked the young m an to leave. T

hen she beat your grandm

other terrifically, one last tim e, so

that she m ight rem

em ber how

easily she could lose her body. M

a never forgot. I rem em

ber her clutching m y sm

all hand tightly as w

e crossed the street. She w ould tell m

e that ifl ever let go and w

ere killed by an onrushing car, she w

ould beat m e back to life. W

hen I w as six, M

a and D ad

took m e to a local park. I slipped from

their gaze and found a playground.

Y our grandparents spent anxious

m inutes looking for _m

e. W hen they found m

e, D ad did

w hat every parent I knew

w ould have done--he reached

for his belt. I rem em

ber w atching him

in a kind o f daze,

aw ed at the distance betw

een punishm ent and offense.

L ater, I w

ould hear it in D ad's voice--"E

ither I can beat him

, or the police:' M aybe that saved m

e. M aybe it didn't.

A ll I know

is, the violence rose from the fear like sm

oke

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

from a fire, and I cannot say w

hether that violence, even adm

inistered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked

us at the exit. W hat I know

is that fathers w ho slam

m ed

their teenage boys for sass w ould then release them

to streets w

here their boys em ployed, and w

ere subject to, the sam

e justice. A nd I knew

m others w

ho belted their girls, but the belt could not save these girls from

drug dealers tw

ice their age. W e, the children, em

ployed our darkest hum

or to cope. W

e stood in the alley w here w

e shot bas- ketballs through hollow

ed crates and cracked jokes on the boy w

hose m other w

ore him out w

ith a beating in front o

f his entire fifth-grade class. W e sat on the num

ber five bus, headed dow

ntow n, laughing at som

e girl w

hose m

other w as know

n to reach for anything--cable w ires,

extension cords, pots, pans. W e w

ere laughing, but I know

that w e w

ere afraid o f those w

ho loved us m ost. O

u r par-

ents resorted to the lash the w ay flagellants in the plague

years resorted to the scourge. To be black in the B

altim ore o

f m y youth w

as to be naked before the elem

ents o f the w

orld, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease. T

he nakedness is not an error, nor pathology. T

he nakedness is the cor- rect and intended result o

f policy, the predictable upshot o

f people forced for centuries to live under fear. T he law

did not protect us. A

nd now , in your tim

e, the law has be-

com e an excuse for stopping and frisking you, w

hich is to say, for furthering the assault o

n your body. B

ut a society that protects som

e people through a safety net o f schools,

18 T

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governm ent-backed hom

e loans, and ancestral w ealth but

can only protect you w ith the club o

f crim inal justice has

either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has suc- ceeded at som

ething m uch darker. H

ow ever you call it,

the result w as our infirm

ity before the crim inal forces o

f the w

orld. It does not m atter if the agent o

f those forces is w

hite or b lack

-w h

at m atters is our condition, w

hat m at-

ters is the system that m

akes your body breakable. T

he revelation o f these forces, a series o

f great changes, has unfolded over the course o

f m y life. T

he changes are still unfolding and w

ill likely continue until I die. I w as

eleven years old, standing out in the parking lot in front o f

the 7 -E leven, w

atching a crew o

f older boys standing near the street. T

hey yelled and gestured at ... w ho? ... another

boy, young, like m e, w

ho stood there, alm ost sm

iling, gam

ely throw ing up his hands. H

e had already learned the lesson he w

ould teach m e that day: that his body w

as in constant jeopardy. W

ho know s w

hat brought him to that

know ledge? T

he projects, a drunken stepfather, an older brother concussed by police, a cousin pinned in the city jail. T

hat he w as outnum

bered did not m atter because the

w hole w

orld had outnum bered him

long ago, and w hat do

num bers m

atter? T his w

as a w ar for the possession o

f his body and that w

ould be the w ar o

f his w hole life.

I stood there for som e seconds, m

arveling at the older boys' beautiful sense o

f fashion. T hey all w

ore ski jackets, the kind w

hich, in m y day, m

others put on layaw ay in S

ep-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

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tem ber, then piled up overtim

e hours so as to have the thing w

rapped and ready for C hristm

as. I focused in on a light-skinned boy w

ith a long head and sm all eyes. H

e w as

scow ling at another boy, w

ho w as standing close to m

e. It w

as just before three in the afternoon. I w as in sixth grade.

School had just let out, and it w as not yet the fighting

w eather o

f early spring. W hat w

as the exact problem here?

W ho could know

? T

he boy w ith the sm

all eyes reached into his ski jacket and ptilled out a gun. I recall it in the slow

est m otion, as

though in a dream . T

here the boy stood, w ith the gun

brandished, w hich he slow

ly untucked, tucked, then un- tucked once m

ore, and in his sm

all eyes I saw a surging

rage that could, in an instant, erase m y body. T

hat w as

1986. T hat year I felt m

yself to be drow ning in the new

s reports o

f m urder. I w

as aw are that these m

urders very often did not land upon the intended targets but fell upon great-aunts, P

T A

m others, overtim

e uncles, and joyful children-fell upon them

random and relentless, like great

sheets o f rain. I knew

this in theory but could not under- stand it as fact until the boy w

ith the sm all eyes stood

across from m

e holding m y entire body in his sm

all hands. T

he boy did not shoot. H is friends ptilled him

back. H e

did not need to shoot. H e had affirm

ed m y place in the

order o f things. H

e had let it be know n how

easily I could be selected. I took the subw

ay hom e that day, processing

the episode all alone. I did not tell m y parents. I did not tell

2 0

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m y teachers, and if! told m

y friends I w ould have done so

w ith all the excitem

ent needed to obscure the fear that cam

e over m e in

that m om

en t.

I rem em

ber being am azed that death could so easily rise

up from the nothing o

f a boyish afternoon, billow up like

fog. I knew that W

est B altim

ore, w here I lived; that the

north side o f Philadelphia, w

here m y cousins lived; that

the S outh Side o

f C hicago, w

here friends o f m

y father lived, com

prised a w orld apart. Som

ew here out there be-

yond the firm am

ent, past the asteroid belt, there w ere

other w orlds w

here children did not regularly fear for their bodies. I knew

this because there w as a large televi-

sion resting in m y living room

. In the evenings I w ould sit

before this television bearing w itness to the dispatches

from this other w

orld. T here w

ere little w hite boys w

ith com

plete collections o f football cards, and their only w

ant w

as a popular girlfriend and their only w orry w

as poison oak. T

hat other w orld w

as suburban and endless, organized around p

ot roasts, blueberry pies, firew orks, ice cream

su n

- daes, im

m aculate bathroom

s, and sm all toy trucks that

w ere loosed in w

ooded backyards w ith stream

s and glens. C

om paring these dispatches w

ith the facts o f m

y native w

orld, I cam e to understand that m

y country w as a galaxy,

and this galaxy stretched from the pandem

onium o

f W est

B altim

ore to the happy hunting grounds o f M

r. Belvedere. I obsessed over the distance betw

een that other sector o f

space and m y ow

n. I knew that m

y portion o f the A

m eri-

can galaxy, w here bodies w

ere enslaved by a tenacious

B E

T W

E E

N T

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W O

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D A

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gravity, w as black and that the other, liberated portion w

as not. I knew

that som e inscrutable energy preserved the

breach. I felt, but did not yet understand, the relation be- tw

een that other w orld and m

e. A nd I felt in this a cosm

ic injustice, a profound cruelty, w

hich infused an abiding, ir- repressible desire to unshackle m

y body and achieve the velocity o

f escape. D

o you ever feel that sam e need? Y

our life is so very different from

m y ow

n. T he grandness o

f the w orld, the

real w orld, the w

hole w orld, is a know

n thing for you. A

nd you have no need o f dispatches because you have

seen so m uch o

f the A m

erican galaxy and its in h

ab itan

ts- their hom

es, their h o

b b

ies-u p

close. I don't know w

hat it m

eans to grow up w

ith a black president, social netw orks,

om nipresent m

edia, and black w om

en everyw here in their

natural hair. W hat I know

is that w hen they loosed the

killer of M ichael B

row n, you said, "I've got to go." A

nd that cut m

e because, for all our differing w orlds, at your

age m y feeling w

as exactly the sam e. A

nd I recall that even then I had not yet begun to im

agine the perils that tangle us. Y

ou still believe the injustice w as M

ichael B row

n. Y ou

have not yet grappled w ith your ow

n m yths and narratives

and discovered the plunder everyw here around us.

B efore I could discover, before I could escape, I had to

survive, and this could only m ean a clash w

ith the streets, by w

hich I m ean not just physical blocks, nor sim

ply the people packed into them

, but the array o f lethal puzzles

and strange perils that seem to rise up from

the asphalt it-

2 2

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self. T he streets transform

every ordinary day into a series o

f trick questions, and every incorrect answ er risks a beat-

dow n, a shooting, or a pregnancy. N

o on

e survives u n

- scathed. A

nd yet the heat that springs from the constant

danger, from a lifestyle o

f near-death experience, is thrill- ing. T

his is w hat the rappers m

ean w hen they pronounce

them selves addicted to "the streets" or in love w

ith "the gam

e:• I im agine they feel som

ething akin to parachutists, rock clim

bers, B A

SE jum

pers, and others w ho choose to

live on the edge. O f course w

e chose nothing. A nd I have

never believed the brothers w ho claim

to "run," m uch less

"ow n," the city. W

e did not design the streets. W e do not

fund them . W

e do not preserve them . B

ut I w as there,

nevertheless, charged like all the others w ith the protec-

tion o f m

y body. T

he crew s, the young m

en w ho'd transm

uted their fear into rage, w

ere the greatest danger. T he crew

s w alked the

blocks o f their neighborhood, loud and rude, because it

w as only through their loud rudeness that they m

ight feel any sense o

f security and pow er. T

hey w ould break your

jaw , stom

p your face, and shoot you dow n to feel that

pow er, to revel in the m

ight o f their ow

n bodies. A nd their

w ild reveling, their astonishing acts m

ade their nam es ring

out. R ep

s w ere m

ade, atrocities recounted. A nd so in m

y B

altim ore it w

as know n that w

hen C herry H

ill rolled through you rolled the other w

ay, that N orth and Pulaski

w as n

ot an intersection but a hurricane, leaving on ly splin-

ters and shards in its w ake. In that fashion, the security o

B E

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W O

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these neighborhoods flow ed dow

nw ard and becam

e the security o

f the bodies living there. Y ou steered clear ofJo-

Jo, for instance, because he w as cousin to K

eon, the don o f

M urphy H

om es. In other cities, indeed in other B

alti- m

ores, the neighborhoods had other handles and the boys w

ent by other nam es, but their m

ission did not change: prove

the inviolability o f their block, o

f their bodies, through their pow

er to crack knees, ribs, and arm s. T

his practice w

as so com m

on that today you can approach any black person raised in the cities o

f that era and they can tell you w

hich crew ran w

hich hood in their city; and they can tell you the nam

es o f all the captains and all their cousins

and offer an anthology o f all their exploits.

T o survive the neighborhoods and shield m

y body, I learned another language consisting o

f a basic com ple-

m ent o

f head nods and handshakes. I m em

orized a list o f

prohibited blocks. I learned the sm ell and feel o

f fighting w

eather. A nd I learned that "Shorty, can I see your bike?"

w as never a sincere question, and "Y

o, you w as m

essing w

ith m y cousin" w

as neither an earnest accusation n or a

m isunderstanding o

f the facts. T hese w

ere the sum m

onses that you answ

ered w ith your left foot forw

ard, your right foot back, your hands guarding your face, one slightly low

er than the other, cocked like a ham m

er. O r they w

ere answ

ered by breaking out, ducking through alleys, cutting through backyards, then bounding through the door past your kid brother into your bedroom

, pulling the tool out o

f your lam bskin or from

under your m attress or out o

2 4

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your A didas shoebox, then calling up your ow

n cousins (w

ho really aren't) and returning to that sam e block, on

that sam e day, and to that sam

e crew , hollering out, "Y

eah, nigger, w

hat's up now ?" I recall learning these law

s clearer than I recall learning m

y colors and shapes, because these law

s w ere essential to the security o

f m y body.

I think ofthis as a great difference betw een us. Y

ou have som

e acquaintance w ith the old rules, but they are not as

essential to you as they w ere to m

e. I am sure that you have

had to deal w ith the occasional roughneck on the subw

ay or in the park, but w

hen I w as about your age, each day,

fully one-third o f m

y brain w as concerned w

ith w ho I w

as w

alking to sch ool w

ith, our precise num ber, the m

anner o f

our w alk, the num

ber o f tim

es I sm iled, w

ho or w hat I

sm iled at, w

ho offered a pound and w ho did n

o t-all o

f w

hich is to say that I practiced the culture o f the streets, a

culture concerned chiefly w ith securing the body. I do not

long for those days. I have no desire to m ake you "tough"

or "street," perhaps because any "toughness" I garnered cam

e reluctantly. I think I w as alw

ays, som ehow

; aw are o

f the price. I think I som

ehow knew

that that third o f m

y brain should have been concerned w

ith m ore beautiful

things. I think I felt that som ething out there, som

e force, nam

eless and vast, had robbed m e o

f ... w hat? T

im e? E

x- perience? I think you know

som ething o

f w hat that third

could have done, and I think that is w hy you m

ay feel the need for escape even m

ore than I did. Y ou have seen all

the w onderful life up above the tree-line, yet you under-

B E

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W O

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stand that there is no real distance betw een you and T

ray- van

M artin, and thus T

rayvon M artin m

ust terrify you in

a w

ay that he could never terrify m e. Y

ou have seen so m

uch m ore of' all that is lost w

hen they destroy your body. T

he streets w ere· not m

y only problem . If the streets

shackled m y right leg, the schools shackled m

y left. Fail to com

prehend the streets and you gave up your body now .

B ut fail to com

prehend the schools and you gave up your body later. I suffered at the hands o

f both, but I resent the schools m

ore. T here w

as nothing sanctified about the law s

o f the streets-the law

s w ere am

oral and practical. Y ou

rolled w ith a posse to the party as sure as you w

ore boots in

the snow , or raised an um

brella in the rain. T

h ese w

ere rules aim

ed at som ething o

b v

io u

s-th e great danger that

haunted every visit to Shake & B

ake, every bus ride dow n-

tow n. B

ut the law s o

f the schools w ere aim

ed at som ething

distant and vague. W hat did it m

ean to, as our elders told us, "grow

up and be som ebody"? A

nd w hat precisely did

this have to do w ith an education rendered as rote dis-

cipline? T o be educated in m

y B altim

ore m ostly m

eant alw

ays packing an extra num ber 2 pencil and w

orking qui- etly. E

ducated children w alked in single file on the right

side o f the hallw

ay, raised their hands to use the lavatory, and carried the lavatory pass w

hen en route. E ducated

children never offered excuses-certainly not childhood itself. T

he w orld had no tim

e for the childhoods o f black

boys and girls. H ow

could the schools? A lgebra, B

iology, and E

nglish w ere not subjects so m

uch as opportunities to

. 2 6

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better discipline the body, to practice w riting betw

een the lines, copying the directions legibly, m

em orizing theorem

s extracted from

the w orld they w

ere created to represent. A

ll o f it felt so distant to m

e. I rem em

ber sitting in m y

seventh-grade French class and not having any idea w hy

I w as there. I did not know

any French people, and noth- ing around m

e suggested I ever w ould. France w

as a rock rotating in

another galaxy, around another sun, in another

sky that I w ould never cross. W

hy, precisely, w as I sitting

in this classroom ?

T h

e question w as never answ

ered. I w as a curious boy,

but the schools w ere not concerned w

ith curiosity. T hey

w ere concerned w

ith com pliance. I loved a few

o f m

y teachers. B

ut I cannot say that I truly believed any o f them

. Som

e years after I'd left school, after I'd dropped out o f

college, I heard a few lines from

N as that struck m

Ecstasy, coke, you say it's love, it is poison Schools where I learn they should be burned, it is poison

T hat w

as exactly how I felt back then. I sensed the

schools w ere hiding som

ething, drugging us w ith false

m orality so that w

e w ould not see, so that w

e did not ask: W

h y

-fo r us and only u

s-is the other side o f free w

ill and free spirits an assault upon our bodies? T

his is not a hyperbolic concern. W

hen our elders presented school to us, they did not present it as a place o

f high learning but as a m

eans o f escape from

death and penal w arehousing.

B E

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W O

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D A

N D

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Fully 60 percent o f all young black m

en w ho drop out o

f high school w

ill go to jail. T his should disgrace the coun-

try. B ut it does not, and w

hile I couldn't crunch the num -

bers or plum b the history back then, I sensed that the fear

that m arked W

est B altim

ore could not be explained by the schools. Schools did not reveal

truths, they concealed them

. Perhaps they m ust be burned aw

ay so that the heart o

f this thing m ight be know

n. U

nfit for the schools, and in good m easure w

anting to be unfit for them

, and lacking the savvy I needed to m aster

the streets, I felt there could be no escape for m e or, hon-

estly, anyone else. T he fearless boys and girls w

ho w ould

knuckle up, call on cousins and crew

s, and, if it cam e to it,

pull guns seem ed to have m

astered the streets. B ut their

know ledge peaked at seventeen, w

hen they ventured out o

f their parents' hom es and discovered that A

m erica had

guns and cousins, too. I saw their futures in the tired faces

o f m

others dragging them selves onto the 28 bus, sw

atting and cursing a\ three-year-olds; I saw

their futures in the m

en ou

t on the corner yelling obscenely at som

e you n

g girl because she w

ould not srnile. S om

e o f them

stood outside liquor stores w

aiting on a few dollars for a bottle.

W e w

ould hand them a tw

enty and tell them to keep the

change. T hey w

ould dash inside and return w ith R

ed B

ull, M

ad D og, or C

isco. T hen w

e w ould w

alk to the house o f

som eone w

hose m other w

orked nights, play "F uck tha

Police;' and drink to our youth. W e could not get out. T

he ground w

e w alked w

as trip-w ired. T

he air w e breathed

2 8

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w as toxic. T

he w ater stunted our grow

th. W e could not

get out. A

year after I w atched the boy w

ith the sm all eyes pull

out a gun, m y father beat m

e for letting another boy steal from

m e. T

w o years later, he beat m

e for threatening m y

ninth-grade teacher. N o

t being violent enough could cost m

e m y body. B

eing too violent could cost m e m

y body. W

e could not get out. I w as a capable boy, intelligent, w

ell- liked, but pow

erfully afraid. A nd I felt, vaguely, w

ordlessly, that for a child to be m

arked off for such a life, to be forced to live in fear w

as a great injustice. A nd w

hat w as the

source o f this fear? W

hat w as hiding behind the sm

oke screen o

f streets and schools? A nd w

hat did it m ean that

num ber 2 pencils, conjugations w

ithout context, Pythago- rean theorem

s, handshakes, and head nods w ere the differ-

en ce betw

een life and death, w ere the curtains draw

ing dow

n betw een the w

orld and m e?

I could not retreat, as did so m any, into the church and

its m ysteries. M

y parents rejected all dogm as. W

e spurned the holidays m

arketed by the people w ho w

anted to be w

hite. W e w

ould not stand for their anthem s. W

e w ould

not kneel before their G od. A

nd so I had no sense that any just G

od w as on m

y side. "T he m

eek shall inherit the earth" m

eant nothing to m e. T

he m eek w

ere battered in W

est B altim

ore, stom ped out at W

albrook Junction, bashed up on Park H

eights, and raped in the show ers o

f the city jail. M

y understanding o f the universe w

as physical, and its m

oral arc bent tow ard chaos then concluded in a box.

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

T hat w

as the m essage o

f the sm all-eyed boy, untucking the

piece--a child bearing the pow er to body and banish

other children to m em

ory. Fear ruled everything around m

e, and I knew , as all black people do, that this fear w

as connected to the D

ream out there, to the unw

orried boys, to pie and pot roast, to the w

hite fences and green law ns

nightly beam ed into our television sets.

B ut how

? R eligion could not tell m

e. T he schools

could not tell m e. T

he streets could not help m e see be-

yond the scram ble o

f each day. A nd I w

as such a curious boy. I w

as raised that w ay. Y

our grandm other taught m

e to read w

hen I w as only four. She also taught m

e to w rite, by

w hich I m

ean not sim ply organizing a set o

f sentences into a series o

f paragraphs, but organizing them as a m

eans o f

investigation. W hen I w

as in trouble at school (w hich w

as quite often) she w

oul,I m ake m

e w rite about it. T

he w rit-

ing had to answ er a series o

f questions: W hy did I feel the

need to talk at the sam e tim

e as m y teacher?W

hy did I not believe that m

y teacher w as

entitled to respect? H

w ould I w

ant som eone to behave w

hile I w as talking?

W hat w

ould I do the next tim e I felt the urge to talk to

m y friends during a lesson? I have given you these sam

e assignm

ents. I gave them to you not because I thought

they w ould curb your behavior-they certainly did not

curb m in

e-b u

t because these w ere the earliest acts o

f in- terrogation, o

f draw ing m

yself into consciousness. Y our

grandm other w

as not teaching m e how

to behave in class. She w

as teaching m e how

to ruthlessly interrogate the

3 0

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subject that elicited the m ost sym

pathy and rationalizing- m

ysel£ H ere w

as the lesson: I w as not an innocent. M

y im

pulses w ere not filled w

ith unfailing virtue. A nd feeling

that I w as as hum

an as anyone, this m ust be true for other

hum ans. If I w

as n ot innocent, then they w

ere n ot in

n o-

cent. C ould this m

ix o f m

otivation also affect the stories they tell? T

he cities they built? T he country they claim

ed as given to them

by G od?

N ow

the questions began burning in m e. T

he m aterials

for research w ere all around m

e, in the form o

f books as- sem

bled by your grandfather. H e w

as then w orking at

H ow

ard U niversity as a research librarian in the M

oorland- Spingarn R

esearch C enter, one o

f the largest collections o

f A fricana in the w

orld. Y our grandfather loved books

and loves them to this day, and they w

ere all over the house, books about black people, by black people, for black peo- ple spilling off shelves and out o

f the living room , boxed

up in the basem ent. D

ad had been a local captain in the B

lack P anther Party. I read through all o

f D ad's books

about the Panthers and his stash o f old Party new

spapers. I w

as attracted to their guns, because the guns seem ed hon-

est. T he guns seem

ed to address this country, w hich in-

vented the streets that secured them w

ith despotic police, in its prim

ary language--violence. A nd I com

pared the Panthers to the heroes given to m

e by the schools, m en

and w om

en w ho struck m

e as ridiculous and contrary to everything I knew

. E

very February m y classm

ates and I w ere herded into

3 2

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assem blies for a ritual review

o f the C

ivil R ights M

ove- m

ent. O u

r teachers urged us tow ard the exam

ple o f free-

dom m

archers, F reedom

R iders, and F

reedom Sum

m ers,

and it seem ed that the m

onth could not pass w ithout a

series o f film

s dedicated to the glories o f being beaten on

cam era. T

he black people in these film s seem

ed to love the w

orst things in life--love the dogs that rent their chil- dren apart, the tear gas that claw

ed at their lungs, the fire- hoses that tore off their clothes and tum

bled them into the

streets. T hey seem

ed to love the m en w

ho raped them , the

w om

en w ho cursed them

, love the children w ho spat o

them , the terrorists that bom

bed them . W

hy are they show -

ing this to us? W hy w

ere only our heroes nonviolent? I speak not o

f the m orality o

f nonviolence, but o f the sense

that blacks are in especial need o f this m

orality. B ack then

all I could do w as m

easure these freedom -lovers by w

hat I knew

. W hich is to say, I m

easured them against children

pulling out in the 7-E leven parking lot, against parents

w ielding extension cords, and "Y

eah, nigger, w hat's up

now ?" I judged them

against the country I knew , w

hich had acquired the land through m

urder and tam ed it under

slavery, against the country w hose arm

ies fanned out across the w

orld to extend their dom inion. T

he w orld, the real

one, w as civilization secured and ruled by savage m

eans. H

ow could the schools valorize m

en and w om

en w hose

values society actively scorned? H ow

could they send us out into the streets o

f B altim

ore, know ing all that they

w ere, and th

en speak o

f nonviolence?

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

I cam e to see the streets and the schools as arm

s o f the

sam e beast. O

ne enjoyed the official pow er o

f the state w

hile the other enjoyed its im plicit sanction. B

ut fear and violence w

ere the w eaponry ofboth. Fail in the streets and

the crew s w

ould catch you slipping and take your body. Fail in the schools and you w

ould be suspended and sent back to those sam

e streets, w here they w

ould take your body. A

nd I began to see these tw o arm

s in relatio n

- those w

ho failed in the schools justified their destruction in the streets. T

he society could say, "H e should have

stayed in school," and then w ash its hands o

f him .

It does not m atter that the "intentions" o

f individual educators w

ere noble. F orget about intentions. W

h at any

institution, or its agents, "intend" for you is secondary. O

u r

w orld is physical. L

earn to play defense--ignore the head and keep your eyes o

n the body. V

ery few A

m ericans w

ill directly proclaim

that they are in favor o f black people

being left to the streets. B ut a very large num

ber o f A

m er-

icans w ill do all they can to preserve the D

ream . N

o one

directly proclaim ed that schools w

ere designed to sanctify failure and destruction. B

ut a great num ber o

f educators spoke o

f "personal responsibility" in a country authored and sustained by a crim

inal irresponsibility. T he point o

f this language o

f "intention" and "personal responsibility" is broad exoneration. M

istakes w ere m

ade. B odies w

ere broken. People w

ere enslaved. W e m

eant w ell. W

e tried ou

r best. " G

ood intention" is a hall pass through history, a

sleeping pill that ensures the D ream

3 4

A ·N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

A n unceasing interrogation o

f the stories told to us by the schools now

felt essential. It felt w rong not to ask w

hy, and then to ask it again. I took these questions to m

y fa- ther, w

ho very often refused to offer an answ er, and instead

referred m e to m

ore books. M y m

other and father w ere

alw ays pushing m

e aw ay from

secondhand answ ers-even

the answ ers they them

selves believed. I don't know that I

have ever found any satisfactory answ ers o

f m y ow

n. B ut

every tim e I ask it, the question is refined. T

hat is the best o

f w hat the old heads m

eant w hen they spoke o

f being "politically con

sciou s"

-as m uch a series o

f actions as a state o

f being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for cer- tainty. S

om e things w

ere clear to m e: T

he violence that undergirded the country, so flagrantly on display during B

lack H istory M

onth, and the intim ate violence o

f "Y eah,

nigger, w hat's up now

?" w ere not unrelated. A

nd this vio- lence w

as not m agical, but w

as o f a piece and by design.

B ut w

hat exactly w as the design? A

nd w hy? I m

ust know

. I m ust get out ... but into w

hat? I devoured the books because they w

ere the rays o f light peeking out

from the doorfram

e, and perhaps past that door there w as

another w orld, one beyond the gripping fear that under-

girded the D ream

. In this bloom

ing consciousness, in this period o f intense

questioning, I w as not alone. Seeds planted in the 1960s,

forgotten by so m any, sprung up from

the ground and bore fruit. M

alcolm X

, w ho'd been dead for tw

enty-five years,

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

exploded out q f the sm

all gatherings o f his surviving apos-

tles and returned to the w orld. H

ip-hop artists quoted him

in lyrics, cut his speeches across the breaks, or flashed his likeness in their videos. T

his w as the early '90s. I w

as then approaching the end o

f m y tim

e in m y parents' hom

e and w

ondering about m y life out there. If! could have chosen

a flag back then, it w ould have been em

broidered w ith a

portrait o f M

alcolm X

, dressed in a business suit, his tie dangling, one hand parting a w

indow shade, the other

holding a rifle. T he portrait com

m unicated everything

I w anted to be--controlled, intelligent, and beyond the

fear. I w ould buy tapes o

f M alcolm

's speeches-"M essage

to the G rassroots,'' "T

he B allot or the B

u llet"

--d ow

n at

E veryone's Place, a black bookstore on N

orth A venue,

and play them on m

y W alkm

an. H ere w

as all the angst I felt before the heroes o

f February, distilled and quotable. "D

on't give up your life, preserve your life," he w ould say.

"A nd if you got to give it up, m

ake it even-steven." T his

w as not b

o astin

g -it w

as a declaration o f equality rooted

n ot in

better angels or the intangible spirit but in the sanc-

tity o f the black body. Y

ou preserved your life because your life, your body, w

as as good as anyone's, because your blood w

as as precious as jew els, and it should never be sold

for m agic, for spirituals inspired by the unknow

able here- after. Y

ou do not give your precious body to the billy clubs o

f B irm

ingham sheriffs nor to the insidious gravity

o f the streets. B

lack is beautiful-w hich is to say that the

black body is beautiful, that black hair m ust be guarded

3 6

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

ag;rinst the torture o f processing and lye, that black skin

m ust be guarded ag;nnst bleach, that our noses and m

ouths m

ust be protected ag;rinst m odern surgery. W

e are all our beautiful bodies and so m

ust never be prostrate before bar- barians, m

ust never subm it our original self, our one· o

f one, to defiling and plunder.

I loved M alcolm

because M alcolm

never lied, unlike the schools and their fa~ade o

f m orality, unlike the streets and

their bravado, unlike the w orld o

f dream ers. I loved him

because he m

ade it plain, never m ystical or esoteric, b

e- cause his science w

as n ot rooted in the actions o

f spooks and m

ystery gods but in the w ork ·of the physical w

orld. M

alcolm w

as the first political pragm atist I knew

, the first honest m

an I'd ever heard. H e w

as unconcerned w ith

m ak-

ing the people w ho believed they w

ere w hite com

fortable in their belief. If he w

as angry, he s;rid so. If he hated, he hated because it w

as hum an for the enslaved to hate the

enslaver, natural as Prom etheus hating the birds. H

e w ould

not turn the other cheek for you. H e w

ould not be a better m

an for you. H e w

ould not be your m orality. M

alcolm

spoke like a m an w

ho w as free, like a black m

an above the law

s that proscribed our im agination. I identified w

ith him .

I knew that he had chafed ag;rinst the schools, that he had

alm ost been doom

ed by the streets. B ut even m

ore I knew

that he had found him self w

hile studying in prison, and that w

hen he em erged from

the j;rils, he returned w ielding

som e old pow

er that m ade him

speak as though his body w

ere his ow n. "If you're black, you w

ere born in jill;' M al-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

colm s;nd. A

nd I felt the truth o f this in the blocks I had to

avoid, in the tim es o

f day w hen I m

ust not be caught w alk-

ing hom e from

school, in m y lack o

f control over m y body.

Perhaps I too m ight live free. Perhaps I too m

ight w ield the

sam e old pow

er that anim ated the ancestors, that lived in

N at T

urner, H arriet T

ubm an, N

anny, C udjoe, M

alcolm X

, and sp

eak -n

o , act-as though m

y body w ere m

y ow n.

M y reclam

ation w ould be accom

plished, like M alcolm

's, through books, through m

y ow n study and exploration.

Perhaps I m ight w

rite som ething o

f consequence som eday.

I had been reading and w riting beyond the purview

o f the

schools all m y life. A

lready I w as scribbling dow

n bad rap lyrics and bad poetry. T

he air o f that tim

e w as charged

w ith the call for a return, to old things, to som

ething es- sential, som

e part o f us that had been left behind in the

m ad dash out o

f the past and into A m

erica. T

his m issing thing, this lost essence, expl;rined the boys

on the corner and "the babies having babies." It explained everything, from

our cracked-out fathers to H IV

to the bleached skin o

f M ichael Jackson. T

he m issing thing w

as related to the plunder o

f our bodies, the fact that any c!;rim

to ourselves, to the hands that secured us, the spine that braced us, and the head that directed us, w

as contestable. T

his w as tw

o years before the M illion M

an M arch. A

l- m

ost every day I played Ice C ube's album

D eath Cert_ijicate:

"L et m

e live m y life, if w

e can no longer live our life, then let us give our life for the liberation and salvation o

f the black nation." I kept the B

lack Pow er episodes o

f Eyes on

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

the P rize in m

y w eekly rotation. I w

as haunted by the shadow

o f m

y father's generation, by Fred H am

pton and M

ark C lark. I w

as haunted by the bodily sacrifice o f M

al- colm

, by A ttica and Stokely. I w

as haunted because I be- lieved that w

e had left ourselves back there, undone by C

O IN

T E

L P

R O

and black flight and drugs, and now in

the crack era all w e had w

ere our fears. Perhaps w e should

go back. T hat w

as w hat I heard in the call to "keep it real."

Perhaps w e should return to ourselves, to our ow

n pri-

m ordial streets, to our ow

n ruggedness, to our ow

n rude

hair. Perhaps w e should return to M

ecca.

M y only M

ecca w as, is, and shall alw

ays be H ow

ard U ni-

versity. I have tried to explain this to you m any tim

es. Y ou

say that you hear m e, that you understand, but I am

not so sure that the force o

f m y M

ecca-T h

e M ecca-can

be translated into your new

and eclectic tongue. I am not

even sure that it should be. M y w

ork is to give you w hat I

know o

f m y ow

n particular path w hile allow

ing you to w

alk your ow n. Y

ou can no m ore be black like I am

black than I could b~ black like your grandfather w

as. A nd still,

I m aintain that even for a cosm

opolitan boy like you, there is som

ething to be found there--a base, even in these m

odern tim es, a port in the A

m erican storm

. Surely I am

biased by nostalgia and tradition. Y our grandfather w

orked at H

ow ard. Y

our uncles D arnani and M

enelik and your aunts K

ris and K elly graduated from

there. I m et your

4 0

A •N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

m other there, your uncle B

en, your aunt K am

ilah and aunt C

hana. I w

as adm itted to H

ow ard U

niversity, but form ed and

shaped by T he M

ecca. T hese institutions are related but

not the sam e. H

ow ard U

niversity is an institution ofhigher education, concerned w

ith the LSA T, m

agna cum laude,

and P hi B

eta K appa. T

he M ecca is a m

achine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy o

f all A frican

peoples and inject it directly into the student body. T he

M ecca derives its pow

er from the heritage o

f H ow

ard U ni-

versity, w hich in Jim

C row

days enjoyed a near-m onopoly

on black talent. A nd w

hereas m ost other historically black

schools w ere scattered like forts in the great w

ilderness o f

the old C onfederacy, H

ow ard w

as in W ashington, D

.C .-

C hocolate C

ity -an

d thus in proxim

ity to both federal pow

er and black pow er. T

he result w as an alum

ni and professorate that spanned genre and generation-C

harles D

rew ,

A m

iri B araka, T

hurgood M arshall, O

ssie D

avis, D

oug W ilder, D

avid D inkins, L

ucille C lifton, T

oni M or-

rison, K w

am e T

ure. T he history, the location, the alum

ni com

bined to create T he M

ecca-th e crossroads o

f the black diaspora.

I first w itnessed this pow

er out on the Y ard, that com

- m

unal green space in the center o f the cam

pus w here the

students gathered and I saw everything I knew

o f m

y black self m

ultiplied out into seem ingly endless variations. T

here w

ere the scions o f N

igerian aristocrats in their business suits giving dap to bald-headed Q

s in purple w indbreakers

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

and tan T im

bs. T here w

ere the high-yellow progeny o

f A

M E

preachers debating the clerics o f A

usar-Set. T here

w ere C

alifornia girls turned M uslim

, born anew , in hijab

and long skirt. T here w

ere Ponzi schem ers and C

hristian cultists, T

abernacle fanatics and m athem

atical geniuses. It w

as like listening to a hundred different renditions o f

"R edem

ption S ong;' each in a different color and key.

A nd overlaying all o

f this w as the history o

f H ow

ard itself. I knew

that I w as literally w

alking in the footsteps o f all

the T oni M

orrisons and Z ora N

eale H urstons, o

f all the Sterling B

row ns and K

enneth C larks, w

ho'd com e before.

T he M

ecca-th e vastness o

f black people across space- tim

e--could be experienced in a tw enty-m

inute w alk

across cam pus. I saw

this vastness in the students chopping it up in front o

f the Frederick D ouglass M

em orial H

all, w

here M uham

m ad A

li had addressed their fathers and m

others in defiance o f the V

ietnam W

ar. I saw its epic

sw eep in the students next to Ira A

ldridge T heater, w

here D

onny H athaw

ay had once sung, w here D

onald B yrd had

once assem bled his flock.

T he students cam

e out w ith

their saxophones, trum pets, and drum

s, played "M y F

avor- ite T

hings" or "Som eday M

y P rince W

ill C om

e." S om

e o f

the other students w ere out on the grass in front o

f A lain

L ocke H

all, in pink and green, chanting, singing, stom ping,

clapping, stepping. S om

e o f them

cam e up from

T ubm

an Q

uadrangle w ith their room

m ates and rope for D

ouble D

utch. S om

e o f them

cam e dow

n from D

rew H

all, w ith

their caps cocked and their backpacks slung through one

' '

4 2

A •N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

arm , then fell into gorgeous ciphers ofbeatbox and rhym

e. Som

e o f the girls sat by the flagpole w

ith bell hooks and Sonia Sanchez in their straw

totes. Som e o

f the boys, w ith

their new Y

oruba nam es, beseeched these girls by citing

Frantz Farron. S om

e o f them

studied R ussian. S

om e o

f them

w orked in bone labs. T

hey w ere Panam

anian. T hey

w ere B

ajan. A nd som

e o f them

w ere from

places I had never heard of. B

ut all o f them

w ere hot and incredible,

exotic even, though w e hailed from

the sam e tribe.

T he black w

orld w as expanding before m

e, and I could see now

that that w orld w

as m ore than a photonegative o

f that o

f the people w ho believe they are w

hite. "W hite

A m

erica" is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive pow

er to dom inate and control our bodies. Som

etim es this

pow er is direct (lynching), and som

etim es it is insidious

(redlining). B ut how

ever it appears, the pow er o

f dom ina-

tion and exclusion is central to the belief in being w hite,

and w ithout it, "w

hite people" w ould cease to exist for

w ant o

f reasons. T here w

ill surely alw ays be people w

ith straight hair and blue eyes, as there have been for all his- tory. B

ut som e o

f these straight-haired people w ith blue

eyes have been "black;' and this points to the great differ- ence betw

een their w orld and ours. W

e did not choose our fences. T

hey w ere im

posed on us by V irginia planters

obsessed w ith enslaving as m

any A m

ericans as possible. T

hey are the ones w ho cam

e up w ith a one-drop rule that

separated the "w hite" from

the "black," even if it m eant

that their ow n blue-eyed sons w

ould live under the lash.

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

T he result is a people, black people, w

ho em body all phys-

ical varieties and w hose life stories m

irror this physical range. T

hrough T he M

ecca I saw that w

e w ere, in our

ow n segregated body politic, cosm

opolitans. T he black di-

aspora w as n

ot just our ow n

w orld but, in

so m any w

ays, the W

estern w orld itself.

N ow

, the heirs o f those V

irginia planters could never directly acknow

ledge this legacy or reckon w ith its pow

er. A

nd so that beauty that M alcolm

pledged us to protect, black beauty, w

as never celebrated in m

ovies, in television,

or in the textbooks I'd seen as a child. E veryone o

f any im

port, from Jesus to G

eorge W ashington, w

as w hite. T

his w

as w hy your grandparents banned T

arzan and the L one

R anger and toys w

ith w hite faces from

the house. T hey

w ere rebelling against the history books that spoke o

f black people only as sentim

ental "firsts"-first black five- star general, first black congressm

an, first black m ay

o r-

alw ays presented in the bem

used m anner o

f a category o f

T rivial Pursuit. Serious history w

as the W est, and the W

est w

as w hite. T

his w as all distilled for m

e in a quote I once read from

the novelist Saul B ellow

. I can't rem em

ber w here

I read it, or w h

en -o

n ly

that I w as already at H

ow ard.

"W ho is the T

olstoy o f the Z

ulus?" B ellow

quipped. T ol-

stoy w as "w

hite," and so T olstoy "m

attered," like everything else that w

as w hite "m

attered;' A nd this view

o f things w

as connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense o

f dispossession. W e w

ere black, beyond the visible spectrum

, beyond civilization. O u

r history w as in-

f t '

4 4

A 0 N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

ferior because w e w

ere inferior, w h

ich is to say our bodies

w ere inferior. A

nd our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the sam

e respect as those that built the W est.

W ould it not be better, then, if our bodies w

ere civilized, im

proved, and put to som e legitim

ate C hristian use?

C ontrary to this theory, I had M

alcolm . I had m

y m other

and father. I had m y readings o

f every issue o f The Source

and Vibe. I read them

not m erely because I loved black

m u

sic-I d id

-b u

t because o f the w

riting itsel£ W riters

G reg T

ate, C hairm

an M ao, dream

ham pton-barely older

than m e-w

ere ou t there creating a n

ew language, on

e that I intuitively understood, to analyze our art, our w

orld. T his

w as, in and ofitself, an argum

ent for the w eight and beauty

o f our culture and thus o

f our bodies. A nd now

each day; out on the Y

ard, I felt this w eight and saw

this beauty, not just as a m

atter o f theory but also as dem

onstrable fact. A nd

I w anted desperately to com

m unicate this evidence to the

w orld, because I felt-ev

en if I did not com

pletely k n

o w

- that the larger culture's erasure o

f black beauty w as inti-

m ately connected to the destruction o

f black bodies. W

hat w as required w

as a new story, a new

history told through the lens o

f o·ur struggle. I had alw ays know

n this, had heard the need for a new

history in M alcolm

, had seen the need addressed in m

y father's books. It w as in the

prom ise behind their grand titles-C

hildren of the Sun,

W ondeiful

E thiopians of the A

ndent C

ushite E

m pire,

The A

frican O rigin of C

ivilization. H ere w

as not just our history but the history o

f the w orld, w

eaponized to our noble

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

ends. H ere w

as the prim ordial stuff o

f our ow n D

re a m

- the D

ream o

f a "black race"-o f our ow

n T olstoys w

ho lived deep in the A

frican past, w here w

e authored operas, pioneered secret algebra, erected ornate w

alls, pyram ids,

colossi, bridges, roads, and all the inventions that I then thought m

ust qualify one's lineage for the ranks o f civiliza-

tion. T hey had their cham

pions, and som ew

here w e m

ust have ours. B

y then I'd read C hancellor W

illiam s, J.

A .

R ogers, and John Jackson-w

riters central to the canon o f

our new noble history. F

rom them

I knew that M

ansa M

usa o f M

ali w as black, and Shabaka o

f E gypt w

as black, and Y

aa A santew

aa o f A

shanti w as b

lack -an

d "the black

race" w as a thing I supposed existed from

tim e im

m em

o- rial, a thing that w

as real and m attered.

W hen I cam

e to H ow

ard, C hancellor W

illiam s's D

e- struction of B

lack C ivilization w

as m y B

ible. W illiam

s him -

self had taught at H ow

ard. I read him w

hen I w as sixteen,

and his w ork offered a grand theory o

f m ulti-m

illennial E

uropean plunder. T

he theory relieved m e o

f certain troubling questions-this is the point o

f nationalism -and

it gave m e m

y Tolstoy. I read about Q ueen N

zinga, w ho

ruled in C entral A

frica in the sixteenth century, resisting the Portuguese. I read about her negotiating w

ith the D

utch. W hen the D

utch am bassador tried to hum

iliate her by refusing her a seat, N

zinga had show n her pow

er by ordering one o

f her advisers to all fours to m ake a hum

an chair o

f her body. T hat w

as the kind o f pow

er I sought, and the story o

f our ow n royalty becam

e for m e a w

eapon.

;

4 6

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

M y w

orking theory then held all black people as kings in exile, a nation o

f original m en

severed from our original

nam es and our m

ajestic N ubian culture. Surely this w

as the m

essage I took from gazing out on the Y

ard. H ad any

people, anyw here, ever been as spraw

ling and beautiful as us?

I needed m ore books. A

t H ow

ard U niversity, one o

f the greatest

collections o

f books could

be found

in the

M oorland-Spingarn R

esearch C enter, w

here your grand- father once w

orked. M oorland held archives, papers, col-

lections, and virtually any book ever w ritten by or about

black people. F or the m

ost significant portion o f m

y tim e

at T he M

ecca, I follow ed a sim

ple ritual. I w ould w

alk into the M

oorland reading room and fill out three call slips for

three different w orks. I w

ould take a seat at one o f these

long tables. I w ould draw

out m y pen and one o

f m y

black-and-w hite com

position books. I w ould open the

books and read, w hile filling m

y coI11position books w ith

notes on m

y reading, n ew

vocabulary w ords, and sentences

o f m

y ow n

invention. I w ould arrive in

the m orning and

request, three call slips at a tim e, the w

orks o f every w

riter I had heard spoken ·of in classroom

s or out on the Y ard:

L arry N

eal, E ric W

illiam s, G

eorge Padm ore, Sonia San-

chez, Stanley C rouch, H

arold C ruse, M

anning M arable,

A ddison G

ayle, C arolyn R

odgers, E theridge K

night, Ster- ling B

row n. I rem

em ber believing that the key to all life

lay in articulating the precise difference betw een "the

B lack A

esthetic" and "N egritude." H

ow , specifically, did

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

E urope underdevelop A

frica? I m ust know

. A nd if the

E ighteenth D

ynasty pharaohs w ere alive today, w

ould they live in H

arlem ? I had to inhale all the pages.

I w ent into this investigation im

agining history to be a unified narrative, free o

f debate, w hich, on

ce uncovered, w

ould sim ply verify everything I had alw

ays suspected. T

he sm okescreen w

ould lift. A nd the villains w

ho m a-

nipulated the schools and the streets w ould be unm

asked. B

ut there w as so m

uch to k n

o w

-so m

uch geography to cover-A

frica, the C aribbean, the A

m ericas, the U

nited States. A

nd all o f these areas had histories, spraw

ling liter- ary

canons, fieldw ork, ethnographies. W

here should I begin?

T he trouble cam

e alm ost im

m ediately. I did not find a

coherent tradition m arching lockstep but instead factions,

and factions w ithin factions. H

urston battled H ughes, D

B ois w

arred w ith G

arvey, H arold C

ruse fought everyone. I felt m

yself at the bridge o f a great ship that I could not

control because C .L

.R . Jam

es w as a great w

ave and B asil

D avidson w

as a sw irling eddy, tossing m

e about. T hings I

believed m erely a w

eek earlier, ideas I had taken from one

book, could be sm ashed to splinters by another. H

ad w e

retained any o f ou

r A frican inheritance? F

razier says it w as

all destroyed, and this destruction evidences the terrible- ness o

f our capturers. H erskovitz says it lives on

, and this evidences the resilience o

f our A frican spirit. B

y m y sec-

ond year, it w as natural for m

e to spend a typical day m e-

diating betw

een Frederick

D ouglass's

integration into

4 8

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

A m

erica and M

artin D elany's

escape into

nationalism .

Perhaps they w ere som

ehow both right. I had com

e look- ing for a parade, for a m

ilitary review o

f cham pions m

arch- ing in ranks. Instead I w

as left w ith a braw

l o f ancestors, a

herd o f dissenters, som

etim es m

arching together but just as often m

arching aw ay from

each other. I w

ould take breaks from m

y reading, w alk out to the

vendors w ho lined the streets, eat lunch on the Y

ard. I w

ould im agine M

alcolm , his body bound in a cell, study-

ing the books, trading his hum an eyes for the pow

er o f

flight. A nd I too felt bound by m

y ignorance, by the ques- tions that I had not yet understood to be m

ore than just m

eans, by m y lack o

f understanding, and by H ow

ard itself. It w

as still a school, after all. I w anted to pursue things, to

know things, but I could not m

atch the m eans o

f know ing

that cam e naturally to m

e w ith the expectations o

f profes- sors. T

he pursuit o f know

ing w as freedom

to m e, the right

to declare your ow n curiosities and follow

them through

all m anner o

f books. I w as m

ade for the library, not the classroom

. T he classroom

w as a jail o

f other people's inter- ests. T

he library w as open, unending, free. Slow

ly, I w as

discovering m yself. T

he best parts o f M

alcolm pointed the

w ay. M

alcolm , alw

ays changing, alw ays evolving tow

ard som

e truth that w as ultim

ately outside the boundaries o f

his life, o f his body. I felt m

yself in m otion, still directed

tow ard the total possession o

f m y body, but by som

e other route w

hich I could not before then have im agined.

I w as not searching alone. I m

et your uncle B en at T

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

M ecca. H

e w as, like m

e, from one o

f those cities w here

everyday life w as so different than the D

ream that it de-

m anded an explanation. H

e cam e, like m

e, to T he M

ecca in search o

f the nature and origin o f the breach. I shared

w ith him

a healthy skepticism and a deep belief that w

e could som

ehow read our w

ay out. L adies loved him

, and w

hat a place to be lo v

ed -fo

r it w as said, and w

e certainly believed it to be true, that now

here on the E arth could

one find a m ore beautiful assem

bly o f w

om en than on

H ow

ard U niversity's Y

ard. A nd som

ehow even this w

as part o

f the search -th

e physical beauty o f the black body

w as all our beauty, historical and cultural, incarnate. Y

our uncle B

en becam e a fellow

traveler for life, and I discov- ered that there w

as som ething particular about journeying

out w ith black people w

ho knew the length o

f the road because they had traveled it too.

I w ould w

alk out into the city and find other searchers at lectures, book signings, and poetry readings. I w

as still w

riting bad poetry. I read this bad poetry at open m ies in

local cafes populated m ostly by other poets w

ho also felt the insecurity o

f their bodies. A ll o

f these poets w ere older

and w iser than m

e, and m any o

f them w

ere w ell read, and

they brought this w isdom

to bear o n

m e and m

y w ork.

W hat did I m

ean, specijically, by the loss o f m

y body? A nd

if every black body w as precious, a one o

f one, if M alcolm

as correct and you m ust preserve your life, how

could I see these precious lives as sim

ply a collective m ass, as the

am orphous residue o

f plunder? H ow

could I privilege the

5 0

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

spectrum o

f dark energy over each particular ray oflight? T

h ese w

ere notes on h

ow to w

rite, and thus notes on h

to think. T he D

ream thrives on generalization, on lim

iting the num

ber o f possible questions, on privileging im

m edi-

ate answ ers. T

h e D

ream is the enem

y o f all art, courageous

thinking, and honest w riting. A

nd it becam e clear that this

w as not just for the dream

s concocted by A nlericans to

justify them selves but also for the dream

s that I had con- jured to replace them

. I had thought that I m ust m

irror the outside w

orld, create a carbon copy o f w

hite claim s to

civilization. It w as beginning to occur to m

e to question the logic o

f the claim itself. I had forgotten m

y ow n self-

interrogations pushed upon m e by m

y m other, or rather I

had not yet apprehended their deeper, lifelong m eaning. I

w as only beginning to learn to be w

ary o f m

y ow n hu-

m anity, o

f m y ow

n hurt and an g

er-I didn't yet realize that the boot on your neck is just as likely to m

ake you delu- sional as it is to ennoble.

T he art I w

as com ing to love lived in this void, in the

not yet know able, in the pain, in the question. T

he older poets introduced. m

e to artists w ho pulled their energy

from the v

o id

-B u

b b

er M iley, O

tis R edding, Sam

and D

ave, C . K

. W illiam

s, C arolyn Forche. T

he older poets w

ere E thelbert M

iller, K enneth C

arroll, B rian G

ilm ore. It

is im portant that I tell you their nam

es, that you know that

I have never achieved anything alone. I rem em

ber sitting w

ith Joel D ias-Porter, w

ho had not gone to H ow

ard but w

hom I found at T

he M ecca, review

ing every line o f

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

R obert H

ayden's "M iddle Passage." A

nd I w as stunned by

how m

uch H ayden m

anaged to say w ithout, seem

ingly, saying anything at all-h

e could bring forth joy and agony w

ithout literally w riting the w

ords, w hich form

ed as pic- tures and not slogans. H

ayden im agined the enslaved, dur-

ing the

M iddle

Passage, from

the

perspective o

f the enslavers-a m

ind-trip for m e, in and o

f itself; w hy should

the enslaver be allow ed to speak? B

ut H ayden's poem

s did not speak. T

hey conjured:

You cannot stare that hatred dow n

or chain the fear that stalks the watches

I w as not in any slave ship. O

r perhaps I w as, because so

m uch o

f w hat I'd felt in B

altim ore, the sharp hatred, the

im m

ortal w ish, and the tim

eless w ill, I saw

in H ayden's

w ork. A

nd that w as w

hat I heard in M alcolm

, but never like th

is-q u

iet, pure, and unadorned. I w as learning the

craft o f poetry, w

hich really w as an intensive version o

f w

hat m y m

other had taught m e all those years ag

o -th

e craft o

f w riting as the art o

f thinking. P oetry aim

s for an econom

y o f tru

th -lo

o se and useless w

ords m ust be dis-

carded, and I found that these loose and useless w ords w

ere not separate from

loose and useless thoughts. P oetry w

as not sim

ply the transcription o f notions-beautiful w

riting rarely is. I w

anted to learn to w rite, w

hich w as ultim

ately, still, as m

y m other had taught m

e, a confrontation w ith m

y ow

n innocence, m

y ow n

rationalizations. P oetry w

as the

5 2

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

processing o f m

y thoughts until the slag o f justification fell

aw ay and I w

as left w ith the cold steel truths oflife.

T hese truths I heard in the w

orks o f other poets around

the city. T hey w

ere m ade o

f sm all hard things-aunts and

uncles, sm oke breaks after sex, girls o

n stoops drinking

from m

ason jars. T hese truths carried the black body be-

yond slogans and gave it color and texture and thus re- flected the spectrum

I saw out o

n the Y

ard m ore than all o

f m

y alliterative talk o f guns or revolutions or paeans to the

lost dynasties o f A

frican antiquity. A fter these readings, I

follow ed as the poets w

ould stand out on U Street or re-

pair to a care and argue about everything-books, politics, boxing. A

nd their argum ents reinforced the discordant

tradition I'd found in M oorland, and I began to see dis-

cord, argum ent, chaos, perhaps even fear, as

a kind o f

pow er. I w

as learning to live in the disquiet I felt in M

oorland-Spingarn, in the m ess o

f m y m

ind. T he gnaw

- ing discom

fort, the chaos, the intellectual vertigo w as not

an alarm . It w

as a beacon. It began to strike m

e that the point o f m

y education w as

a kind o f discom

fort, w as the process that w

ould not aw ard

m e m

y ow n especial D

ream but w

ould break all the

dream s, all the com

forting m yths o

f A frica, o

f A m

erica, and everyw

here, and w ould leave m

e only w ith hum

anity in all its terribleness. A

nd there w as so m

uch terrible out there, even am

ong us. Y ou m

ust understand this. B

ack then, I knew , for instance, that just outside o

f W

ashington, D .C

., there w as a great enclave o

f black peo-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

pie w ho seem

ed, as m uch as anyone, to have seized control

o f their bodies. T

his enclave w as P

rince G eorge's C

o u

n ty

- "P

G C

ounty" to the lo cals-an

d it w

as, to m y eyes, very

rich. Its residents had the sam e hom

es, w ith the sam

e backyards, w

ith the sam e bathroom

s, I'd seen in those tele- vised dispatches. T

hey w ere black people w

ho elected their ow

n politicians, but these politicians, I learned, su- perintended a police force as vicious as any in A

m erica. I

had heard stories about P G

C ounty from

the sam e poets

w ho opened m

y w orld. T

hese poets assured m e that the

P G

C ounty police w

ere not police at all but privateers, gangsters, gum

p.en, plunderers operating under the color oflaw

. T hey told m

e this because they w anted to protect

m y body. B

ut there w as another lesson here: T

o be black and beautiful w

as not a m atter for gloating. B

eing black did not im

m unize us from

history's logic or the lure o f the

D ream

. T he w

riter, and that w as w

hat I w as becom

ing, m

ust be w ary o

f every D ream

and every nation, even his ow

n nation. Perhaps his ow

n nation m

ore than any other, precisely because it w

as his ow n

. I began to feel that som

ething m ore than a national

trophy case w as needed if I w

as to be truly free, and for that I have the history departm

ent o f H

ow ard U

niversity to thank. M

y history professors thought nothing o f telling

m e that m

y search for m yth w

as doom ed, that the stories I

w anted to tell m

yself could not be m atched to truths. In-

deed, they felt it their duty to disabuse m e o

f m y w

eapon- ized history. T

hey had seen so m any M

alcolm ites before

5 4

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

and w ere ready. T

heir m ethod w

as rough and direct. D id

black skin really convey nobility? A lw

ays? Yes. W hat about

the blacks w ho'd practiced slavery for m

illennia and sold slaves across the Sahara and th

en across the sea? V

ictim s of a

trick. W ould those be the sam

e black kings w ho birthed all

o f civilization? W

ere they then both deposed m asters o

f the galaxy and gullible puppets all at once? A

nd w hat did

I m ean by "black"? You know, black. D

id I think this a tim e-

less category stretching into the deep past? Yes? C ould it

be supposed that sim ply because color w

as im portant to

m e, it had alw

ays been so? I rem

em ber taking a survey class focusing on C

entral A

frica. M y professor, L

inda H eyw

ood, w as slight and be-

spectacled, spoke w ith a high T

rinidadian lilt that she em -

ployed like a ham m

er against young students like m e w

ho confused agitprop w

ith hard study. T here w

as nothing rom

antic about her A frica, or rather, there w

as nothing rom

antic in the sense that I conceived o f it. A

nd she took it back to the legacy o

f Q ueen N

zin g

a-m y

T olstoy-the

very sam e N

zinga w hose life I w

ished to put in m y trophy

case. B ut w

hen she told the story o f N

zinga conducting negotiations upon the w

om an's back, she told it w

ithout any fantastic gloss, and it hit m

e hard as a sucker punch: A

m ong the people in that room

, all those centuries ago, m

y body, breakable at w ill, endangered in the streets, fear-

ful in the schools, w as not closest to the queen's but to her

adviser's, w ho'd b

een broken d

ow n

into a chair so that a queen, heir to everything she'd ever seen, could sit.

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R LD

A N

D M

I took a survey o f E

urope post-1800. I saw black people,

rendered through

"w hite"

eyes, unlike

any I'd

seen b

efo re-th

e black people looked regal and hum an. I re-

m em

ber the soft face o f A

lessandro de' M edici, the royal

bearing o f B

osch's black m agi. T

hese im ages, cast in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, w ere contrasted w

ith

those created after enslavem ent, the Sam

ba caricatures I had alw

ays know n. W

hat w as the difference? In m

y survey •

course o f A

m erica, I'd seen portraits o

f the Irish draw n in

the sam e ravenous, lustful, and sim

ian w ay. Perhaps there

had b een

other bodies, m ocked, terrorized, and insecure.

Perhaps the Irish too had once lost their bodies. Perhaps being nam

ed "black" had nothing to do w ith any o

f this; perhaps b

ein g n

am ed

"black" w as ju

st som eone's n

am e for

being at the bottom , a hum

an turned to object, object turned to pariah.

T his heap o

f realizations w as a w

eight. I found them

physically painful and exhausting. T rue, I w

as com ing to

enjoy the dizziness, the vertigo that m ust com

e w ith any

odyssey. B ut in those early m

om ents, the unceasing con-

tradictions sent m e into a gloom

. T here w

as nothing holy or particular-in m

y skin; I w as black because o

f history and heritage. T

here w as no nobility in falling, in being bound,

in living oppressed, and there w

as n o inherent m

eaning in

black blood. B lack blood w

asn't black; black skin w asn't

even black. A nd now

I looked back on m y need for a tro-

phy case, on the desire to live by the standards o f Saul B

el- low

, and I felt that this need w as not an escape but fear

5 6

A ·N

E H

JS J C

O A

T E

again-fear that "they;' the alleged authors and heirs o f the

universe, w ere right. A

nd this fear ran so deep that w e ac-

cepted their standards o f civilization and hum

anity. B

ut not all o f us. It m

ust have been around that tim e

that I discovered an essay by R alph W

iley in w hich he

responded to B ellow

's quip. "T olstoy is the T

olstoy o f the

Z ulus," w

rote W iley. "U

nless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties o

f m ankind into exclusive tribal

ow nership." A

nd there it w as. I had accepted B

ellow 's

prem ise. In fact, B

ellow w

as no closer to T olstoy than I w

as to N

zinga. A nd if I w

ere closer it w ould be because I

chose to be, not because o f destiny w

ritten in D N

A . M

y great error w

as not that I had accepted som eone else's

dream but that I had accepted the fact o

f dream s, the need

for escape, and the invention o f racecraft.

A nd still and all I knew

that w e were som

ething, that w e

w ere a trib

e-o n

on e hand, invented, and on

the .other, n o

less real. T he reality w

as out there on the Y ard, on the first

w arm

day o f spring w

hen it seem ed that every sector, bor-

ough, affiliation, county, and corner o f the broad diaspora

had sent a delegate to the great w orld party. I rem

em ber

those days like an O utK

ast song,painted in lust and joy. A

baldhead in shades and a tank top stands across from B

lack- burn, the student center, w

ith a long boa draping his m us-

cular shoulders. A conscious w

om an, in stonew

ash w ith

her dreads pulled back, is giving him the side-eye and

laughing. I am standing outside the library debating the

R epublican takeover o

f C ongress or the place ofW

u-T ang

'·

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

C lan in the canon. A

dude in a T ribe V

ibe T -shirt w

alks up, gives a pound, and w

e talk about the black bacchanals o f

the season-F reaknik, D

aytona, V irginia B

each--,m d w

e w

onder if this is the year w e m

ake the trip. It isn't. B ecause

w e have all w

e need out on the Y ard. W

e are dazed here because w

e still rem em

ber the h ot cities in

w h

ich w

e w ere

born, w here the first days o

f spring w ere laced w

ith fear. A

n d

now , here at T

h e M

ecca, w e are w

ith ou

t fear, w e are

the dark spectrum on parade.

T hese w

ere m y first days o

f adulthood, o f living alone,

o f cooking for m

yself, o f going and corning as I pleased, o

f m

y ow n room

, o f the chance o

f returning there, perhaps, w

ith one o f those beautiful w

om en w

ho w ere now

every- w

here around m e. In m

y second year at H ow

ard, I fell hard for a lovely girl from

C alifornia w

ho w as then in the habit

o f floating over the cam

pus in a long skirt and head w rap.

I rem em

ber her large brow n eyes, her broad m

outh and cool voice. I w

ould see her out on the Y ard on those spring

days, yell her nam e and then throw

up m y hands as though

signaling a to

u ch

d o

w n

-b u

t w id

er-lik e

the "W " in

"W hat up?"T

hat w as how

w e did it then. H

er father w as

from B

angalore, and w here w

as that? A nd w

hat w ere the

law s out there? I did not yet understand the im

port o f m

y ow

n questions. W hat I rem

em ber is m

y ignorance. I re- m

em ber w

atching her eat w ith her hands and feeling

w holly uncivilized w

ith m y fork. I rem

em ber w

ondering w

hy she w ore so m

any scarves. I rem em

ber her going to India for spring break and returning w

ith a bindi on her

5 8

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

head and photos o f her sm

iling Indian cousins. I told her, "N

igga, you black" because that's all I had back then. B ut

her beauty aud stillness broke the balance in m e. In m

y sm

all apartm ent, she kissed m

e, aud the ground opened up, sw

allow ed m

e, buried m e right there in

that m om

ent. H

ow m

any aw ful poem

s did I w rite thinking o

f her? I know

now w

hat she w as to m

e -th

e first glim

pse o f a

space-bridge, a w orm

hole, a galactic portal off this bound and blind planet. She had seen other w

orlds, and she held the lineage o

f other w orlds, spectacularly, in the vessel o

f her black body.

I fell again, a short tim e later and in sim

ilar fashion, for another girl, tall w

ith long flow ing dreadlocks. She w

as raised by a Jew

ish m other in a sm

all, nearly all-w hite tow

n in Pennsylvania, and now

, at H ow

ard, ranged betw een

w om

en and m en, asserted this not just w

ith pride but as though it w

ere norm al, as though she were norm

al. I know

it's nothing to you now , but I w

as from a p

lace-A m

erica- w

here cruelty tow ard hum

ans w ho loved as their deepest

instincts instructed w as a kind oflaw

. I w as am

azed. T his

w as som

ething black people did? Y es. A

nd they did so m

uch m ore. T

he girl w ith the long dreads lived in a house

w ith a m

an, a H ow

ard professor, w ho w

as m arried to a

w hite w

om an. T

he H ow

ard professor slept w ith m

en. H is

w ife slept w

ith w om

en. A nd the tw

o o f them

slept w ith

each other. T hey had a little boy w

ho m ust be off to col-

lege by now . "Faggot" w

as a w ord I had em

ployed all m y

life. A nd now

here they w ere, T

he C abal, T

he C oven, T

6 0

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

O thers, T

he M onsters, T

he O utsiders, T

he Faggots, T he

D ykes, dressed in all their hum

an clothes. I am black, and

have been plundered and have lost m y body. B

ut perhaps I too had the capacity for plunder, m

aybe I w ould take an-

other hum an's body to confirm

m yself in a com

m unity.

Perhaps I already had. H ate gives identity. T

he nigger, the fag, the bitch illum

inate the border, illum inate w

hat w e

ostensibly are not, illum inate the D

ream o

f being w hite, o

f being a M

an. W e nam

e the hated strangers and are thus confirm

ed in the tribe. B ut m

y tribe w as shattering and

reform ing around m

e. I saw these people often, because

they w ere fam

ily to som eone w

hom I loved. T

heir or- dinary m

om ents---answ

ering the door, cooking in the kitchen, dancing to A

dina H ow

ard---assaulted m e and ex-

panded m y notion o

f the hum an spectrum

. I w ould sit in

the living room o

f that house, observing their private jokes, one part o

f m e judging them

, the other reeling from

the changes. She taught m

e to love in new w

ays. In m y old house

your grandparents ruled w ith the fearsom

e rod. I have tried to address you differently---an idea begun by seeing all the other w

ays of!ove on display at T he M

ecca. H ere is

h ow

it started: I w oke up one m

orning w ith a m

inor headache. W

ith each hour the headache grew . I w

as w alk-

ing to m y job w

hen I saw this girl on her w

ay to class. I looked aw

ful, and she gave m e som

e A dvil and kept going.

B y m

id-afternoon I could barely stand. I called m y super-

visor. W hen he arrived I lay dow

n in the stockroom , be-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

cause I had no idea w hat else to do. I w

as afraid. I did not understand w

hat w as happening. I did not know

w hom

to call. I w

as lying there sim m

ering, half-aw ake, hoping to

recover. M y supervisor knocked on the door. S

om eone

had com e to see m

e. It w as her. T

he girl w ith the long

dreads helped m e out and onto the street. She flagged

dow n a cab. H

alfw ay through the ride, I opened the door,

w ith the cab in m

otion, and vom ited in the street. B

ut I rem

em ber her holding m

e there to m ake sure I didn't fall

out and then holding m e close w

hen I w as done. She took

m e to that house o

f hum ans, w

hich w as filled w

ith all m

anner oflove, put m e in the bed, put E

xodus on the C D

player, and turned the volum

e dow n to a w

hisper. She left a bucket by the bed. She left a jug o

f w ater. She had to go

to class. I slept. W hen she returned I w

as back in form . W

e ate. T

he girl w ith the long dreads w

ho slept w ith w

hom -

ever she chose, that being her ow n declaration o

f control over her body, w

as there. I grew up in a house draw

n be- tw

een love and fear. T here w

as no room for softness. B

ut this girl w

ith the long dreads revealed som ething e

lse -

that love could be soft and understanding; that, soft or hard, love w

as an act o f heroism

. A

nd I could no longer predict w here I w

ould find m y

heroes. Som etim

es I w ould w

alk w ith friends dow

n to U

Street and hang out at the local clubs. T his w

as the era o f

B ad B

oy and B iggie, "O

n e M

ore C hance" and "H

ypno- tize." I alm

ost never danced, as m u

ch as I w

anted to. I w as

crippled by som e childhood fear o

f m y ow

n body. B ut I

i i ;

6 2

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

w ould w

atch how black people m

oved, how in these clubs

they danced as though their bodies could do anything, and their bodies seem

ed as free as M alcolm

's voice. O n

the outside black people controlled nothing, least o

f all the fate o

f their bodies, w hich could be com

m andeered by

the police; w hich could be erased by the guns, w

hich w ere

so profligate; w hich could be raped, beaten, jailed. B

ut in the clubs, under the influence o

f tw o-for-one rum

and C

okes, under the spell o f low

lights, in thrall o f hip-hop

m usic, I felt them

to be in total control o f every step, every

nod, every pivot. A

ll I then w anted w

as to w rite as those black people

danced, w ith control, pow

er,joy, w arm

th. I w as in

and out o

f classes at H ow

ard. I felt that it w as tim

e to go, to declare m

yself a graduate o f T

he M ecca, if not the university. I w

as publishing m

usic review s, articles, and essays in the local

alternative new spaper, and this m

eant contact w ith m

ore hum

an beings. I had editors-m ore teachers-and these

w ere the first w

hite people I'd ever really know n on any

personal level. T hey defied m

y presum ptions-they w

ere afraid neither for m

e nor o f m

e. Instead they saw in m

y unruly curiosity and softness som

ething that w as to be

treasured and harnessed. A nd they gave m

e the art o f jour-

nalism , a pow

erful technology for seekers. I reported o n

local D

.C ., and I found that people w

ould tell m e things,

that the sam e softness that once m

ade m e a target now

com

pelled people to trust m e w

ith their stories. T his w

as incredible. I w

as barely out o f the fog o

f childhood, w here

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

questions sim ply died in m

y head. N ow

I could call and ask people w

hy a popular store closed, w hy a show

had been canceled, w

hy there w ere so m

any churches and so few

superm arkets. Journalism

gave m e another tool o

f ex- ploration, another w

ay o f unveiling the law

s that bound m

y body. It w as beginning to com

e together-even if I could n

ot yet see w hat the "it" w

as. In M

oorland I could explore the histories and tradi- tions. O

u t on the Y

ard, I could see these traditions in ef- fect.

A nd w

ith journalism , I could directly ask people

about the tw o

--o r about anything else I m

ight w onder. So

m uch o

f m y life w

as defined by not know ing. W

hy did I live in a w

orld w here teenage boys stood in the parking lot

o f the 7-E

leven pulling out? W hy w

as it norm al for m

y father, like all the parents I knew

; to reach for his belt? A nd

w hy w

as life so different out there, in that other w orld past

the asteroids? W hat did the people w

hose im ages w

ere once beam

ed into m y living room

have that I did not? T

he girl w ith the long dreads w

ho changed m e, w

hom

I so w anted to love, she loved a boy about w

hom I think

every day and about w hom

I expect to think every day for the rest o

f m y life. I think som

etim es that he w

as an inven- tion, and in som

e w ays he is, because w

hen the young are killed, they are haloed by all that w

as possible, all that w as

plundered. B ut I know

that I had love for this boy, P rince

Jones, w hich is to say that I w

ould sm ile w

henever I saw

him , for I felt the w

arm th w

hen I w as around him

and w as

slightly sad w hen the tim

e cam e to trade dap and for one

6 4

A -N

E H

IS J C

O A

T E

o f us to go. T

he thing to understand about Prince Jones is that he exhibited the w

hole o f his given nam

e. H e w

as handsom

e. H e w

as tall and brow n, built thin and pow

erful like a w

ide receiver. H e w

as the son o f a prom

inent doctor. H

e w as born-again, a state I did not share but respected.

H e w

as kind. G

enerosity radiated off o f him

, and he seem

ed to have a facility w ith everyone and everything.

T his can never be true, but there are people w

ho pull the illusion off w

ithout effort, and P rince w

as one o f them

. I can only say w

hat I saw , w

hat I felt. T here are people

w hom

w e do not fully know

, and yet they live in a w arm

place w

ithin us, and w hen they are plundered, w

hen they lose their bodies and the dark energy disperses, that place b

ecom es a w

ou n

d .

I fell in love at T he M

ecca one last tim e, lost m

y balance and all m

y boyhood confusion, under the spell o f a girl

from C

hicago. T his w

as your m other. I see us standing

there w ith a group o

f friends in the living room o

f her hom

e. I stood w ith a blunt in one hand and a beer in an-

other. I inhaled, passed it off to this C hicago girl, and w

hen I brushed her long elegant fingers, I shuddered a bit from

the blast. She brought the blunt to her plum

-painted lips, pulled, exhaled, then pulled the sm

oke back in. A w

eek earlier I had kissed her, and now

, w atching this display o

f sm

oke and flam e (and already feeling the effects), I w

as lost and running and w

ondering w hat it m

ust be to em brace

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

her, to be exhaled by her, to return to her, and leave her high.

She had never know ri her father, w

hich put her in the com

pany o f the greater num

ber o f everyone I'd know

n. I felt then that these m

en -th

ese "fathers"-w ere the great-

est o f cow

ards. B ut I also felt that the galaxy w

as playing w

ith loaded dice, w hich ensured an excess o

f cow ards in

our rariks. T he girl from

C hicago understood this too, and

she understood som ething m

o re-th

at all are not equally robbed o

f their bodies, that the bodies o f w

om en are set

out for pillage in w ays I could never truly know

. A nd she

w as the kind o

f black girl w ho'd been told as a child that

she had better be sm art because her looks w

ouldn't save her, and then told as a young w

om an th

an h

e w as really

pretty for a dark-skinned girl. A nd so there w

as, all about her, a know

ledge o f cosm

ic injustices, the sam e know

ledge I'd glim

psed all those years ago w atching m

y father reach for his belt, w

atching the suburban dispatches in m y living

room , w

atching the golden-haired boys w ith their toy

trucks and football cards, and dim ly perceiving the great

barrier betw ee;,_ the w

orld and m e.

N othing betw

een·us w as ever p

lan n

ed -n

o t even you.

W e w

ere both tw enty-four years

old w hen you w

ere born, the norm

al age for m ost A

m ericans, but am

ong the class w

e soon found ourselves, w

e ranked as teenage par- ents. W

ith a w hiff o

f fear, w e w

ere very often asked if w e

planned to m arry. M

arriage w as presented to us as a shield

against other w om

en , other m

en, or the corrosive m on

ot-

6 6

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

ony o f dirty socks and dishw

ashing. B ut your m

other and I knew

too m any people w

ho'd m arried and abandoned

each other for less. T he truth o

f us w as alw

ays that you w

ere our ring. W e'd su

m m

on ed

you ou

t o f ourselves, and

you w ere not given a vote. If only for that reason, you de-

served all the protection w e could m

uster. E verything else

w as subordinate to this fact. If that sounds like a w

eight, it shouldn't. T

he truth is that I ow e you everything I have.

B efore you, I had m

y questions but nothing beyond m y

ow n skin in the gam

e, and that w as really nothing at all

because I w as a you

n g m

an, and n ot yet clear o

f m y ow

hum an vulnerabilities. B

ut I w as grounded and dom

esti- cated by the plain fact that should I now

go dow n, I w

ould not go dow

n alone. T

his is w hat I told m

yself, at least. It w as com

forting to

believe that the fate o f m

y body and the bodies o f m

y fam -

ily w ere under m

y pow ers. "Y

ou w ill have to m

an up," w e

tell our sons. "A nyone can m

ake a baby, but it takes a m an

to be a father."T his is w

hat they had told m e all m

y life. It w

as the language o f survival, a m

yth that helped us cope w

ith the hum an sacrifice that finds us no m

atter our m an-

hood. A s though our hands w

ere ever our ow n. &

though

plunder o f dark energy w

as not at the heart o f our galaxy.

A nd the plunder w

as there, if I w ished to see it.

O n

e sum m

er, I traveled out to C hicago to see your

m other. I rode dow

n the D an R

yan w ith friends and be-

held, for the first tim e, the State Street C

orridor--• four- m

ile stretch o f dilapidated public housing. T

here w ere

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

projects all over B altim

ore, but nothing so expansive as this. T

he housing occurred to m e as a m

oral disaster not just for the people living there but for the entire region, the m

etropolis o f com

m uters w

ho drove by, each day, and w

ith their quiet acquiescence tolerated such a thing. B ut

there w as so m

uch m ore there in those projects than I w

as, even in

all m y curiosity, prepared to see.

Y our m

aternal grandm other once visited us during the

pregnancy. She m ust have been horrified. W

e w ere living

in D elaw

are. W e had alm

ost no furniture. I had left H ow

- ard w

ithout a degree and w as living on the im

poverished w

ages o f a freelance w

riter. O n

the last day o f her visit, I

drove your grandm other to the airport. Y

our m other w

as her only child, as you are m

y only child. A nd having

w atched you grow

, I know that nothing could possibly be

m ore precious to her. She said to m

e, "Y ou take care o

f m y

daughter." W hen she got out o

f the car, m y w

orld had shifted. I felt that I had crossed som

e threshold, out o f the

foyer o f m

y life and into the living room . E

verything that w

as the past seem ed to be another life. T

here w as before

you, and then there w as after, and in this after, you w

ere the G

od I'd never had. I subm itted before your needs, and

I knew then that I m

ust survive for som ething m

ore than survival's sake. I m

ust survive for you .

Y ou w

ere born that A ugust. I thought o

f the great spec- trum

o f T

he . M ecca-black people from

B elize, black

people w ith Jew

ish. m others, black people w

ith fathers from

B angalore, bla~k people from

T oronto and K

ingston,

6 8

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

black people w ho spoke R

ussian, w ho spoke Spanish, w

ho played M

ongo Santam aria, w

ho understood m athem

atics and sat up in bone labs, unearthing the m

ysteries o f the

enslaved. T here w

as m ore out there than I had ever hoped

for, and I w anted you to have it. I w

anted you to know that

the w orld in its entirety could never be found in the

schools, alone, nor on the streets, alone, nor in the trophy

case. I w anted you to claim

the w hole w

orld, as it is. I w

anted "T olstoy is the T

olstoy o f the Z

ulus" to im m

edi- ately be obvious to you. A

nd yet even in this cosm opolitan

w ish I felt the old pow

er o f ancestry, because I had com

e to know

ledge at T he M

ecca that m y ancestors m

ade, and I w

as com pelle.d tow

ard T he M

ecca by the struggle that m y

ancestors m ade.

T he

Struggle is

in your nam

e, S am

o ri-y

o u

w ere

nam ed for Sam

ori T oure, w

ho struggled against French colonizers for the right to his ow

n black body. H e died in

captivity, but the profits o f that struggle and others like it

are ours, even w hen the object o

f our struggle, as is so often true, escapes our grasp. I learned this living am

ong a people w

hom I w

ould never have chosen, because the privileges o

f being black are not alw ays self-evident. W

e are, as D

errick B ell once w

rote, the "faces at the bottom o

f the w

ell." B ut there really is w

isdom dow

n here, and that w

isdom accounts for m

uch o f the good in m

y life. A nd

m y life dow

n here accounts for you. T

here w as also w

isdom in those streets. I think now

o f

the old rule that held that should a boy be set upon in

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

som eone else's chancy hood, his friends m

ust stand w ith

him , and they m

ust all take their beating together. I now

know that w

ithin this edict lay the key to all living. N one

o f us w

ere prom ised to end the fight on our feet, fists

raised to the sky. W e could not control our enem

ies' num -

ber, strength, nor w eaponry. Som

etim es you just caught a

bad one. B ut w

hether you fought or ran, you did it to- gether, because that is the part that w

as in our control. W

hat w e m

ust never do is w illingly hand over our ow

n bodies or the bodies o

f our friends. T hat w

as the w isdom

: W

e knew w

e did not lay dow n the direction o

f the street, but despite that, w

e co u

ld -,m

d m

ust-fashion the w ay o

f our w

alk. A nd that is the deeper m

eaning o f your n

a m

e -

that the struggle, in and o f itself, has m

eaning. T

hat w isdom

is not unique to our people, but I think it has special m

eaning to those o f us b

orn ou

t o f m

ass rape, w

hose ancestors w ere carried off and divided up into pol-

icies and stocks. I have raised you to respect every hum

an b

ein g as singular, and you

m ust exten

d that sam

e respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable m

ass o f flesh. It

is a particular, specific enslaved w om

an, w hose m

ind is ac- tive as your ow

n, w hose range o

f feeling is as vast as your ow

n; w ho prefers the w

ay the light falls in one particular spot in the w

oods, w ho enjoys fishing w

here the w ater

eddies in a nearby stream , w

ho loves her m other in her

ow n com

plicated w ay, thinks her sister talks too loud, has

a favorite cousin, a favorite season, w h

o excels at dress- m

aking and know s, inside herself, that she is as intelligent

7 0

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

and capable as anyone. "Slavery" is this sam e w

om an

b orn

in a w

orld that loudly proclaim s its love o

f freedom and

inscribes this love in its essential texts, a w orld in w

hich these sam

e professors hold this w om

an a slave, hold her m

other a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and w

hen this w om

an peers back into the generations all she sees is the enslaved. She can hope for m

ore. She can im ag-

ine som e future for her grandchildren. B

ut w hen she dies,

the w o

rld -w

h ich

is really the only w orld she can ever

k n

o w

-en d

s. For this w om

an, enslavem ent is not a parable.

It is dam nation. It is the never-ending night. A

nd the length o

f that night is m ost o

f our history. N ever forget

that w e w

ere enslaved in this country longer than w e have

been free. N ever forget that for 250 years black people

w ere born into chains-w

hole generations follow ed by

m ore generations w

ho knew nothing but chains.

Y ou m

ust struggle to truly rem em

ber this past in all its nuance, error, and hum

anity. Y ou m

ust resist the com m

urge tow ard the com

forting narrative o f divine law

, tow ard

fairy tales that im ply som

e irrepressible justice. T he en-

slaved w ere not bricks in your road, and their lives w

ere not chapters in ·your redem

ptive history. T hey w

ere peo- ple turned to fuel for the A

m erican m

achine. E nslavem

ent w

as n ot destined to end, and it is w

ron g to claim

ou r pres-

en t circu

m stan

ce-n o m

atter h ow

im p

roved -as the re-

dem ption for the lives o

f people w ho never asked for the

posthum ous, untouchable glory o

f dying for their chil- dren. O

u r trium

phs can never com pensate for this. Perhaps

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

our trium phs are not even the point. Perhaps struggle is all

w e have because the god o

f history is an atheist, and noth- ing about his w

orld is m eant to be. So you m

ust w ake up

every m orning know

ing that no prom ise is unbreakable,

least o f all the prom

ise o f w

aking up at all. T his is not de-

spair. T hese are the preferences o

f the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over h

op e.

T he birth o

f a better w orld is not ultim

ately up to you, though I know

, each day, there are grow n m

en and w om

en w

ho tell you otherw ise. T

he w orld needs saving precisely

because o f the actions o

f these sam e m

en and w

om en

. I am

not a cynic. I love you, and I love the w orld, and I love it

m ore w

ith every new inch I discover. B

ut you are a black boy, and you m

ust be responsible for your body in a w ay

that other boys cannot know . Indeed, you m

ust be respon- sible for the w

orst actions o f other black bodies, w

hich, som

ehow , w

ill alw ays be assigt,ed to you. A

nd you m ust be

responsible for the bodies o f the pow

erful-the policem an

w ho cracks you w

ith a nightstick w ill quickly find his ex-

cuse in your furtive m ovem

ents. A nd this is not reducible

to just y o

u -th

e w om

en around you m ust be responsible

for their bodies in a w ay that you never w

ill know . Y

ou have to m

ake your peace w ith the chaos, but you cannot

lie. Y ou cannot forget how

m uch they took from

us and how

they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold.

II.

O ur w

orld is full of sound

O ur w

orld is m ore lovely than anyone~

tho w e suffer, and kill each other

and som etim

es fail to w alk the air

W e are beautiful people

w ith african im

aginations

full of m asks and dances and sw

elling chants

w ith african eyes, and noses, and arm

though w e spraw

l in grey chains in a place

full of w inters, w

hen w hat w

e w ant is sun.

A M

IR IB

A R

A K

Shortly before you w ere born, I w

as pulled over by the P G

ounty police, the sam e police that all the D

.C . poets had

w arned m

e of. T hey approached on both sides o

f the car, shining their flashing lights through the w

indow s. T

hey took m

y identification and returned to the squad car. I sat there in terror. B

y then I had added to the w arnings o

f m y

teachers w hat I'd learned about P

G C

ounty through re- porting and reading the papers. A

nd so I knew that the P

C ounty police had killed E

lm er C

lay N

ew m

an, then claim

ed he'd ram m

ed his ow n head into the w

all o f a jail

cell. A nd I knew

that they'd shot G ary H

opkins and said he'd gone for an officer's gun. A

nd I knew they had beaten

Freddie M cC

ollum half-blind and blam

ed it all on a col- lapsing floor.

A nd I had read reports o

f these officers choking m

echanics, shooting construction w orkers, slam

- m

ing suspects through the glass doors o f shopping m

alls.

76 T

A ·N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

A nd I knew

that they did this w ith great regularity, as

though m oved by som

e uuseen cosm ic clock. I knew

that they shot at m

oving cars, shot at the unarm ed, shot through

the backs o f m

en and claim ed that it had been they w

ho'd b

een under fire. T

hese shooters w ere investigated, exon

er- ated, and prom

ptly returned to the streets, w here, so em

- boldened, they shot again.

A t that point in A

m erican

history, no police departm ent fired its guns m

ore than that o

f P rince G

eorge's C ounty. T

he FB I opened m

ultiple investigations-som

etim es in the sam

e w eek. T

he police chief w

as rew arded w

ith a raise. I replayed all o f this sitting

there in m y car, in their clutches. B

etter to have been shot in B

altim ore, w

here there w as the justice o

f the streets and som

eone m ight call the killer to account. B

ut these offi- cers had m

y body, could do w ith that body w

hatever they pleased, and should I live to explain w

hat they had done w

ith it, this com plaint w

ould m ean nothing. T

he officer returned. H

e handed back m y license. H

e gave no expla- nation for the stop.

T hen that Septem

ber I picked up The W ashington Post

and saw that the P

G C

ounty police had killed again. I could not help but thiuk that this could have been m

e, and holding y

o u

-a m

onth old by th e n

-I knew that such loss

w ould not be m

ine alone. I skim m

ed the headline-their atrocities seem

ed so com m

on back then. T he story spread

into a second day, and reading slightly closer, I saw it w

as a H

ow ard student w

ho had been killed. I thought perhaps I knew

him . B

ut I paid it no further m ind. T

hen on the

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R LD

A N

D M

third day a photo appeared w ith the story, and I glim

psed at and then focused on the portrait, and I saw

him there.

H e w

as dressed in his form al clothes, as though it w

ere his senior prom

, and frozen in the am ber o

f his youth. H is face

w as lean, brow

n, and beautiful, and across that face, I saw

the open, easy sm ile o

f P rince C

arm en Jones.

I cannot rem

em ber w

hat happened next. I think I stum

bled back. I think I told your m other w

hat I'd read. I thiuk I called the girl w

ith the long dreads and asked her if it could be true. I thiuk she scream

ed. W hat I rem

em ber

for sure is w hat I felt: rage and the old gravity o

f W est

B altim

ore, the gravity that condem ned m

e to the schools, the streets, the void. P

rince Jones had m ade it through, and

still they had taken him . A

nd even though I already knew

that I w ould never believe any account that justified this

taking, I sat dow n to read the story. T

here w ere very few

details. H

e had been shot by a P G

C ounty officer, not in

P G

C ounty, not even in D

.C ., but som

ew here in N

orthern V

irginia. Prince had been driving to see his fiancee. H e

w as killed yards from

her hom e. T

he only w itness to the

killing o f P

rince Jones w as the killer him

self T he officer

claim ed that P

rince had tried to run him over w

ith his jeep, and I knew

that the prosecutors w ould believe him

. D

ays later, your m other and I packed you into the car,

drove dow n to W

ashington, left you w ith your aunt K

am i-

lah, and w ent to the service for P

rince at R ankin C

hapel on H

ow ard's cam

pus, w here I'd once sat am

azed at the parade o

f activists and intellectuals-Joseph L ow

ery, C or-

7 8

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O A

T E

nel W est, C

alvin B u

tts-w h

o preached at that pulpit. I

m ust have seen a great num

ber o f old frieuds there, though

I cannot recall precisely w ho. W

hat I rem em

ber is all the people w

ho spoke o f Prince's religious zeal, his abiding

belief that Jesus w as w

ith him . I rem

em ber w

atching the president o

f the university stand and w eep. I rem

em ber D

r. M

able Jones, Priuce's m other, speaking o

f her son's death as a call to m

ove from her com

fortable suburban life into activism

. I heard several people ask for forgiveness for the officer w

ho'd shot P rince Jones dow

n. I only vaguely re- call m

y im pressions o

f all this. B ut I know

that I have al- w

ays felt great distance from the grieving rituals o

f m y

people, and I m ust have felt it pow

erfully then. T he need

to forgive the officer w ould not have m

oved m e, because

even then, in som e inchoate form

, I k n

ew that P

rince w as

not killed by a single officer so m uch as he w

as m urdered

by his country and all the fears that have m arked it from

birth.

A t this m

om ent the phrase "police reform

" has com e

into vogue, and the actions o f our publicly appointed

guardians have attracted attention presidential and pedes- trian. Y

ou m ay have heard the talk o

f diversity, sensitivity training, and body cam

eras. T hese are all fine and appli-

cable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens o

f this country to pretend that there is real distance betw

een their ow

n attitudes and those o f the ones appointed to

protect them . T

he truth is that the police reflect A m

erica in all o

f its w ill and fear, and w

hatever w e m

ight m ake o

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

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D A

N D

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this country's crim inal justice policy, it cannot be said that

it w as im

posed by a repressive m inority. T

he abuses that have follow

ed from these policies-the spraw

ling carceral state, the random

detention o f black people, the torture o

f suspects-are the product o

f dem ocratic w

ill. A nd so to

challenge the police is to challenge the A m

erican people w

ho send them into the ghettos arm

ed w ith the sam

e self- generated fears that com

pelled the people w ho think they

are w hite to flee the cities and into the D

ream . T

he prob- lem

w ith the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that

our country is ruled by m ajoritarian pigs.

I knew som

e o f this even then,sitting in R

ankin C hapel,

even if I could not yet express it. So forgiving the killer o f

P rince Jones w

ould have seem ed irrelevant to m

e. T he

killer w as the direct expression o

f all his country's beliefs. A

nd raised conscious, in rejection o f a C

hristian G od, I

could see no higher purpose in Prince's death. I believed, and still do, that our bodies are our selves, that m

y soul is the voltage conducted through neurons and nerves, and that m

y spirit is m y flesh. P

rince Jones w as a one o

f one, and they had destroyed his body; scorched his shoulders and arm

s, ripped open his back, m angled lung, kidney, and

liver. I sat there feeling m yself a heretic, believing only in

this one-shot life and the body. F or the crim

e o f destroying

the body o f P

rince Jones, I did not believe in forgiveness. W

hen the assem

bled m ourners bow

ed their heads in

prayer, I w as divided from

them because I believed that the

void w ould not answ

er back.

8 0

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W eeks w

ore on. N auseating details slow

ly dribbled out. T

he officer w as a know

n liar. A year earlier he had arrested

a m an on false evidence. Prosecutors had been forced to

drop every case in w hich the officer w

as involved. T he

officer w as dem

oted, restored, then p u

t ou t on

the street to continue his w

ork. N ow

, through additional reports, a nar- rative began to take shape. T

he officer had been dressed like an undercover drug dealer. H

e'd been sent out to track a m

an w hose build w

as five foot four and 250 pounds. W e

know from

the coroner that Prince's body w as six foot

three and 211 pounds. W e know

that the other m an w

as apprehended later. T

he charges against him w

ere dropped. N

one o f this m

attered. W e know

that his superiors sent this

officer to follow

P rince from

aryland, through W

ashington, D . C

., and into V irginia, w

here the officer shot P

rince several tim es. W

e know that the officer confronted

P rince w

ith his gun draw n, and no badge. W

e know that

the officer claim s he shot because P

rince tried to run him

over w ith his jeep. W

e know that the authorities charged

w ith investigating this shooting did very little to inves-

tigate the officer and did everything in their pow er to in-

vestigate P rince Jones.

T his investigation produced no

inform ation that w

ould explain w hy P

rince Jones w ould

suddenly shift his am bitions from

college to cop killing. T

his officer, given m axim

um pow

er, bore m inim

um re-

sponsibility. H e w

as charged w ith nothing. H

e w as pun-

ished by no one. H e w

as returned to his w ork.

T here w

ere tim es w

hen I im agined m

yself, like Prince,

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

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tracked through m any jurisdictions by a m

an in a crim i-

nal's costum e. A

nd I w as horrified, because I knew

w hat I

w ould have done w

ith such a m an confronting m

e, gun draw

n, m ere feet from

m y ow

n fam ily's hom

e. Take care ef m

y baby, your grandm other had said, w

hich w as to say Take

care ef your new fam

ily. B ut I now

knew the lim

its o f m

y caring, the reach o

f its pow ers, etched by an enem

y old as V

irginia. I thought o f all the beautiful black people I'd

seen at T he M

ecca, all their variation, all their hair, all their language, all their stories and geography, all their stunning hum

anity, and none o f it could save them

from the m

ark o

f plunder and the gravity o f our particular w

orld. A nd it

occurred to m e then that you w

ould not escape, that there w

ere aw ful m

en w ho'd laid plans for you, and I could not

stop them . P

rince Jones w as the superlative o

f all m y fears.

A nd if he, good C

hristian, scion o f a striving class, patron

saint o f the tw

ice as good, could be forever bound, w ho

then could not? A nd the plunder w

as not just o f P

rince alone. T

hink o f all the love poured into him

. T hink o

f the tuitions for M

ontessori and m usic lessons. T

hink o f the

gasoline expended, the treads w orn carting him

to football gam

es, basketball tournam ents, and L

ittle L eague. T

hink o

f the tim e spent regulating sleepovers. T

hink o f the sur-

prise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks o

n babysitters. T

hink o f W

orld Book and C hildcraft. T

hink o

f checks w ritten for fam

ily photos. T hink o

f credit cards charged for vacations. T

hink o f soccer balls, science kits,

chem istry sets, racetracks, and m

odel trains. T hink o

f all

82 T

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O A

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the em

braces, all the

private jokes, custom s, greetings,

nam es, dream

s, all the shared know ledge and capacity o

f a black fam

ily injected into that vessel o f flesh and bone.

A nd think o

f how that vessel w

as taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him

, sent flow ing back to the earth. T

hink o f your m

other, w

ho had no father. A

nd your grandm other, w

ho w as

abandoned by her father. A nd your grandfather, w

ho w as

left behind by his father.

A nd think o

f how Prince's

daughter w as now

drafted into those solem n ranks and

deprived o f her b

irth rig

h t-th

at vessel w hich w

as her fa- ther, w

hich brim m

ed w ith tw

enty-five years o f love and

w as the investm

ent o f her grandparents and w

as to be her legacy.

N ow

at night, I held you and a great fear, w ide as all our

A m

erican generations, took m

e. N o

w I personally under-

stood m y father and the old m

an tra-"E

ith er I can beat

him or the police." I understood it all-th

e cable w ires, the

extension cords, the ritual sw itch. B

lack people love their children w

ith a kind o f obsession. Y

ou are all w e have, and

you com e to us endangered. I think w

e w ould like to kill

you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that A

m erica m

ade. T hat is a philosophy o

f the disem bodied,

o f a people w

ho control nothing, w ho can protect noth-

ing, w ho are m

ade to fear not just the crim inals am

ong them

but the police w ho lord over them

w ith all the m

oral authority o

f a protection racket. It w as only after you that

I understood this love, that I understood the grip o f m

B E

T W

E E

N T

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W O

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D A

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m other's hand. She knew

that the galaxy itself could kill m

e, that all o f m

e could be shattered and all o f her legacy

spilled upon the curb like bum w

ine. A nd no one w

ould be brought to account for this destruction, because m

y death w

ould 0 not be the fault o

f any hum an but the fault o

f som

e unfortunate··but innnutable fact of"race," im posed

upon an innocent country by the inscrutable judgm ent o

f invisible gods.

T he earthquake cannot be subpoenaed.

T he typhoon w

ill not bend under indictm ent. T

hey sent the killer o

f P rince Jones back to his w

ork, because he w as

not a killer at all. H e w

as a force o f nature, the helpless

agent o f our w

orld's physical Jaw s.

T his entire episode took m

e from fear to a rage that

burned in m e then, anim

ates m e now

, and w ill likely leave

m e o

n fire for the rest o

f m y days. I still had m

y journalism .

M y response w

as, in this m om

ent, to w rite. I w

as lucky I had even that. M

ost o f us are forced to drink our travesties

straight and sm ile about it. I w

rote about the history o f the

P rince G

eorge's C ounty police. N

othing had ever felt so essential to m

e. H ere is w

hat I knew at the outset:T

he of- ficer w

ho killed P rince Jones w

as black. T he politicians

w ho em

pow ered this officer to kill w

ere black. M any o

f the black politicians, m

any o f them

tw ice as good, seem

ed unconcerned. H

ow could this be? It w

as like I w as back at

M oorland again, called by great m

ysteries. B ut by then I

didn't need any call slips; the Internet had bloom ed into an

instrum ent o

f research. T hat m

ust strike you as novel. F

or all o

f your life, w henever you've had a question you have

8 4

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

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B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

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D A

N D

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been able to type that question out on a keyboard, w atch

it appear in a rectangular space bordered by a corporate logo, and w

ithin seconds revel in the flood o f potential

answ ers. B

ut I still rem em

ber w hen typew

riters w ere use-

ful, the daw n o

f the C om

m odore 64, and days w

hen a song you loved w

ould have its m om

ent on the radio and then disappear into the nothing. I m

ust have gone five years w

ithout hearing the M ary Jane G

irls sing "A ll N

ight L

ong." F or a young m

an like m e, the invention o

f the In- ternet w

as the invention o f space travel.

M y curiosity, in the case

o f P

rince Jones, opened a w

orld o f new

spaper clippings, histories, and sociologies. I called politicians and questioned them

. I w as told that the

citizens w ere m

ore likely to ask for police support than to com

plain about brutality. I w as told that the black citizens

o f P

G C

ounty w ere com

fortable and had "a certain im pa-

tience" w ith crim

e. I had seen these theories before, back w

hen I w as researching in M

oorland, leafing through the various fights w

ithin and w ithout the black com

m unity. I

knew that these w

ere theories, even in the m ouths ofblack

people, that justified the jails springing up around m e, that

argued for ghettos and projects, that view ed the destruc-

tion o f the black body as incidental to the preservation o

f order. A

ccording to this theory "safety" w as a higher value

thanjustice,perhaps the highest value. I understood. W hat

I w ould not have given, back in

B altim

ore, for a line o f

officers, agents o f m

y country and m y com

m unity; patrol-

ling m y route to school! T

here w ere no such officers, and

w henever I saw

the police it m eant that som

ething had already gone w

rong. A ll along I knew

that there w ere

som e, those w

ho lived in the D ream

, for w hom

the con- versation w

as different. T h

eir "safety" w as in

schools, p ort-

folios, and skyscrapers. O urs w

as in m en w

ith guns w ho

could only view us w

ith the sam e contem

pt as the society that sent them

. A

nd the lack o f safety cannot help but constrain your

sense o f the galaxy. It never occurred to m

e, for instance, that I could, or should even w

ant to, live in N

ew Y

ork. I did love B

altim ore. I loved C

harlie R udo's and the side-

w alk sales at M

ondaw m

in. I loved sitting out on the porch w

ith your uncle D am

ani w aiting for Frank Ski to play

"Fresh Is the.W ord." I alw

ays thought I w as destined to go

back hom e after co

lleg e-b

u t not sim

ply because I loved hom

e but because I could not im agine m

uch else for m y-

self A nd that stunted im

agination is som ething I ow

e to m

y chains. A nd yet som

e o f us really do see m

ore. I m

et m any o

f them at T

he M ecca-lik

e your uncle B

en, w ho w

as raised in N ew

Y ork, w

hich forced him to

understand him self as

an A frican A

m erican navigating

am ong H

aitians,Jarnaicans, H asidic Jew

s, and Italians. A nd

there w ere others like him

, others w ho, having gotten a

boost from a teacher, an aunt, an older brother, had peered

over the w all as children, and as adults becam

e set on see- ing the full view

. T hese black people felt, as did I, that

their bodies could be snatched back at a w him

, but this set in them

a different kind o f fear that propelled them

out

8 6

A -N

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O A

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into the cosm

os. T h

ey spent sem esters abroad. I never

knew w

hat they did or w hy. B

ut perhaps I alw ays sensed I

w as going dow

n too easy. Perhaps that explains every girl I've ever loved, because every girl I've ever loved w

as a bridge to som

ew here else. Y

our m other, w

ho knew so

m uch m

ore o f the w

orld than m e, fell in love w

ith N ew

ork through culture, through C rossing D

elancey, Breakfast at Tiffany's, l¼

rking G irl, N

as, and W u-T

ang. Y our m

other secured a job, and I follow

ed, stow ed aw

ay alm ost, because

no one in N ew

Y ork, at that tim

e, w as paying for m

e to w

rite m uch o

f anything. W hat little I did m

ake, review ing

an album or a book, covered approxim

ately tw o electric

bills every year. W

e arrived tw o m

onths before Septem ber 11, 2001. I

suppose everyone w ho w

as in N ew

Y ork that day has a

story. H ere is m

ine: T hat evening, I stood on the roof o

f an apartm

ent building w ith your m

other, your aunt C hana,

and her boyfriend, Jam al. So w

e w ere there on the roof,

talking and taking in the sight-great plum es o

f sm oke

covered M anhattan Island. E

veryone knew som

eone w ho

knew som

eoz:ie w h

o w as m

issing. B ut looking out upon

the ruins o f A

m erica, m

y heart w as cold. I had disasters all

m y ow

n. T he officer w

ho killed P rince Jones, like all the

officers w ho regard us so w

arily, w as the sw

ord o f the

A m

erican citizenry. I w ould never consider any A

m erican

citizen pure. I w as out o

f sync w ith the city. I kept thinking

about how southern M

anhattan had alw ays been G

round Z

ero for us. T hey auctioned our bodies dow

n there, in

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

that sam e devastated, aud rightly nam

ed, finaucial district. A

nd there w as once a burial ground for the auctioned

there. T hey built a departm

ent store over part o f it and

then tried to erect a governm ent building over auother

part. O nly a com

m unity o

f right-thinking black people stopped them

. I had not form ed auy o

f this into a coherent theory. B

ut I did know that B

in L aden w

as not the first m

an to bring terror to that section o f the city. I never for-

got that. N either should you. In the days after, I w

atched the ridiculous pageantry o

f flags, the m achism

o o f firem

en, the overw

rought slogans. D am

n it all. P rince Jones w

as dead. A

nd h~ll upon those w ho tell us to be tw

ice as good and shoot us no m

atter. H ell for ancestral fear that put

black parents under terror. A nd hell upon those w

ho shat- ter the holy vessel.

I could see no difference betw een the officer w

ho killed P

rince Jones and the police w ho died, or the firefight-

ers w ho died. T

hey w ere not hum

an to m e. B

lack, w hite,

or w hatever, they w

ere the m enaces o

f nature; they w ere

the fire, the com

et, the storm , w

hich co u

ld -w

ith no

justification--shatter m y body.

I saw Prince Jones, one last tim

e, alive aud w hole. H

e w

as standing in front o f m

e. W e w

ere in a m useum

. I felt in that m

om ent that his death had just been an aw

ful dream

. N o, a prem

onition. B ut I had a chauce. I w

ould w

arn him . I w

alked over, gave him a pound, and felt that

heat o f the spectrum

, the w arm

th o f T

he M ecca. I w

auted to tell him

som ething. I w

anted to say-B ew

are the plun-

8 8

A -N

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IS I C

O A

T E

derer. B ut w

hen I opened m y m

outh, he just shook his head and w

alked aw ay.

W e lived in a basem

ent apartm ent in B

rooklyn, w hich I

doubt you rem em

ber, dow n the street from

U ncle B

en and his w

ife, your aunt Janai. T hese w

ere not great tim es.

I rem em

ber borrow ing tw

o hundred dollars from B

en, and it feeling like

a m illion. I rem

em ber your grandfather

com ing to N

ew Y

ork, taking m e out for E

thiopian, after w

hich I w alked him

to the W est F

ourth Street subw ay sta-

tion. W e said our goodbyes and w

alked aw ay. H

e called m e

back. H e had forgotten som

ething. H e handed m

e a check for $120. I tell you this because you m

ust understand, no m

atter the point o f our talk, that I didn't alw

ays have things, but I had p

eo p

le-I alw ays

had people. I had a

m other and father w

ho I w ould m

atch against any other. I had a brother w

ho looked out for m e all through college.

I had T he M

ecca that directed m e. I had friends w

ho w

ould leap in front o f a bus for m

e. Y ou need to know

that I w

as loved, that w hatever m

y lack o f religious feeling,

I have alw ays loved m

y people and that broad love is di- rectly related to the specific love I feel for you. I rem

em ber

sitting out on B en's stoop on Friday nights, drinking Jack

D aniel's, debating the m

ayor's race or the rush to w ar. M

y w

eeks felt aim less. I pitched to various m

agazines w ith no

success. Y our aunt C

hana lent m e another tw

o hundred dollars; I burned it all on a scam

bartending school. I de-

B E

T W

E E

N T

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W O

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D A

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livered food for a sm all deli in Park Slope. In N

ew Y

ork, everyone w

anted to know your occupation. I told people

that I w as "trying to be a w

riter." S

om e days I w

ould take the train into M anhattan. T

here w

as so m uch m

oney everyw here, m

oney flow ing out o

f bistros and cares, m

oney pushing the people, at incredible speeds, up the w

ide avenues, m oney draw

ing intergalactic traffic through T

im es Square, m

oney in the lim estones and

brow nstones, m

oney out on W est B

roadw ay w

here w hite

people spilled out o f w

ine bars w ith sloshing glasses and

w ithout police. I w

ould see these people at

the club, drunken, laughing, challenging breakdancers to battles. T

hey w ould be destroyed and hum

iliated in these battles. B

ut afterw ard they w

ould give dap, laugh, order m ore

beers. T hey w

ere utterly fearless. I did not understand it until I looked out on the street. T

hat w as w

here I saw

w hite parents pushing double-w

ide strollers dow n gentri-

fying H arlem

boulevards in T -shirts and jogging shorts. O

r I saw

them lost in conversation w

ith each other, m other

and father, w hile their sons com

m anded entire sidew

alks w

ith their tricycles. T he galaxy belonged to them

, and as terror w

as com m

unicated to our children, I saw m

astery com

m unicated to theirs.

A nd so w

hen I rem em

ber pushing you in your stroller to other parts o

f the city, the W est V

illage for instance, al- m

ost instinctively believing that you should see m ore, I

rem em

ber feeling ill at ease, like I had borrow ed som

eone else's

heirloom , like I w

as traveling under an assum

9 0

A •N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

nam e. A

ll this tim e you w

ere grow ing into w

ords and feel- ings; m

y beautiful brow n boy, w

ho w ould soon com

e into the know

ledge, w ho w

ould soon com prehend the edicts

o f his galaxy, and all the extinction-level events that re-

garded you w ith a singular and discrim

inating interest. Y

ou w ould be a m

an one day, and I could not save you from

the unbridgeable distance betw een you and your fu-

ture peers and colleagues, w ho m

ight try to convince you that everything I know

, all the things I'm sharing w

ith you here, are an illusion, or a fact o

f a distant past that need not be discussed. A

nd I could not save you from the police,

from their flashlights, their hands, their nightsticks, their

guns. P rince Jones, m

urdered by the m en w

ho should have been his security guards, is alw

ays w ith m

e, and I knew

that soon he w ould be w

ith you. In those days I w

ould com e out o

f the house, turn onto Flatbush A

venue, and m y face w

ould tighten like a M exi-

can w restler's m

ask, m y eyes w

ou ld

dart from corner to

corner, m y arm

s loose, lim ber, and ready. T

his need to be alw

ays on guard w as an um

neasured expenditure o f energy,

the slow siphoning o

f the essence. It contributed to the fast breakdow

n o f our bodies. So I feared not just the violence

o f this w

orld but the rules designed to protect you from it,

the rules that w ould have you contort your body to ad-

dress the block, and contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, and contort again so as not to give the police a reason. A

ll m y life I'd heard people tell their black boys

and black girls to "be tw ice as good;' w

hich is to say "ac-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

cept half as m uch:' T

hese w ords w

ould be spoken w ith a

veneer o f religious

nobility, as though they evidenced

som e unspoken quality, som

e undetected courage, w hen

in fact all they evidenced w as the gun to our head and the

hand in our pocket. T his is how

w e lose our softness. T

his is how

they steal our right to sm ile. N

o one told those little w

hite children, w ith their tricycles, to be tw

ice as good. I im

agined their parents telling them to take tw

ice as m

uch. It seem ed to m

e that our ow n rules redoubled

plunder. It struck m e that perhaps the defining feature o

f being drafted into the black race w

as the inescapable rob- bery o

f tim e, because the m

om ents w

e spent readying the m

ask, or readying ourselves to accept half as m uch, could

not be recovered. T he robbery o

f tim e is not m

easured in lifespans but in m

om ents. It is the last bottle o

f w ine that

you have just uncorked but do not have tim e to drink. It is

the kiss that you do not have tim e to share, before she

w alks out o

f your life. It is the raft o f second chances for

them , and tw

enty-three-hour days for us.

O ne afternoon your m

other and I took you to visit a pre- school. O

u r host took us dow

n to a large gym filled w

ith a bubbling ethnic stew

o f N

ew Y

ork children. T he chil-

dren w ere running,jum

ping, and tum bling. Y

ou took one look at them

, tore aw ay from

us, and ran right into the scrum

. Y ou have never been afraid o

f people, o f rejection,

and I have alw ays adm

ired you for this and alw ays been

9 2

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

afraid for you because o f this. I w

atched you leap and laugh w

ith these children you barely knew , and the w

all rose in m

e and I felt I should grab you by the arm , pull you back

and say, "W e don't know

these folks! B e cool!" I did not do

this. I w as grow

ing, aod if I could not nam e m

y anguish precisely I still knew

that there w as nothing noble in it.

B ut now

I understand the gravity o f w

hat I w as p

ro p

o sin

g -

that a

four-year-old child

be w

atchful, prudent,

and shrew

d, that I curtail your happiness, that you subm it to a

loss o f tim

e. A nd now

w hen I m

easure this fear against the boldness that the m

asters o f the galaxy im

parted to their ow

n children, I am asham

ed.

N ew

Y ork w

as another spectrum unto itself, aod the great

diversity I'd seen at H ow

ard, solely am ong black peo-

ple, now spread across a m

etropolis. S om

ething different aw

aited around every corner. H ere there w

ere A frican

drum m

ers assem bling in U

nion Square. H ere there w

ere dead office tow

ers, brought to life at night by restaurants buried w

ithin that served sm all kegs o

f beer aod K orean

fried chicken. H ere there w

ere black girls w ith w

hite boys, and black boys w

ith C hinese-A

m ericao girls, aod C

hinese- A

m erican girls w

ith D om

inicao boys, and D om

inican boys w

ith Jam aican boys and every other im

aginable com bina-

tion. I w ould w

alk through the W est V

illage, m arveling at

restaurants the size o f living room

s, and I could see that the very sm

allness o f these restaurants aw

arded the patrons

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

a kind o f erudite cool, as though they w

ere laughing at a joke, and it w

ould take the rest o f the w

orld a decade to catch on. S

um m

er w as unreal-w

hole sw aths o

f the city becam

e fashion show s, and the avenues w

ere nothing but runw

ays for the youth. T here w

as a heat unlike anything I'd ever felt, a heat from

the great buildings, com pounded

by the m illions o

f people jam m

ing them selves into subw

ay cars, into bars, into those sam

e tiny eateries aod cares. I had never seen so m

uch life. A nd I had never im

agined that such life could exist in so m

uch variety. It w as everyone's

particular M ecca, packed into one singular city.

B ut w

hen I got off the train and cam e back to m

y hood, to m

y Flatbush A venue, or m

y H arlem

, the fear still held. It w

as the sam e boys, w

ith the sam e bop, the sam

e ice grill, and the sam

e code I'd know n all m

y life. If there w as one

difference in N ew

Y ork it w

as that w e had m

ore high- yellow

cousins here in the P uerto R

icans and D om

inicans. B

ut their rituals w ere so sim

ilar, the w ay they w

alked and gave dap, it w

as all fam iliar to m

e. A nd so I found m

yself, on aoy given day, traveling through several N

ew Y

orks at once-dynam

ic, brutal, m oneyed, som

etim es all o

f those at once.

Perhaps you rem em

ber that tim e w

e w ent to see H

ow l's

M oving C

astle on the U pper W

est Side. Y ou w

ere alm ost

five years old. T he theater w

as crow ded, and w

hen w e

cam e out w

e rode a set o f escalators dow

n to the ground floor. A

s w e cam

e off, you w ere m

oving at the daw dling

speed o f a sm

all child. A w

hite w om

an pushed you aod

9 4

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

said, "C om

e on!" M any things now

happened at once. T

here w as the reaction o

f any parent w hen a stranger lays

a hand on the body o f his or her child. A

nd there w as m

y ow

n .insecurity in m y ability to protect your black body.

A nd m

ore: T here w

as m y sense that this w

om an w

as pull- ing rank. I knew

, for instance, that she w ould not have

pushed a black child out on m y part o

f Flatbush, because she w

ould be afraid there and w ould sense, if not know

, that there w

ould be a penalty for such an action. B ut I w

as not out on m

y part o f Flatbush. A

nd I w as not in W

est B

altim ore. A

nd I w as far from

T he M

ecca. I forgot all o f

that. I w as only aw

are that som eone had invoked their

right over the body o f m

y son. I turned and spoke to this w

om an, and m

y w ords w

ere hot w ith all o

f the m om

ent and. all o

f m y history. She shrunk back, shocked. A

w hite

m an standing nearby spoke up in her defense. I experi-

enced this as his attem pt to rescue the dam

sel from the

beast. H e had m

ade no such attem pt on behalf o

f m y son.

A nd he w

as now supported by other w

hite people in the assem

bling crow d. T

he m an cam

e closer. H e grew

louder. I pushed him

aw ay. H

e said, "I could have you arrested!" I did not care; I told him

this, and the desire to do m uch

m ore w

as hot in m y throat. T

his desire w as only control-

lable because I rem em

bered som eone standing off to the

side there, bearing w itness to m

ore fury than he had ever seen from

m e-y

o u

. I cam

e hom e shook. It w

as a m ix o

f sham e for having

gone back to the law o

f the streets m ixed w

ith rage--"!

- .

- - ··-

- - - - - - - - - - - - ~

- - ··-

- - - ·-

- -

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

could have you arrested!" W hich is to say: "I could take

your body." I have told this story m

any tim es, not out o

f bravado, but out o

f a need for absolution. I have never been a violent person. E

ven w hen I w

as young and adopted the rules o f

the stteet, anyone w ho knew

m e knew

it w as a bad fit. I've

never felt the pride that is supposed to com e w

ith righ- teous self-defense and justified violence. W

henever it w as

m e on

top o f som

eon e, w

hatever m y rage in

the m om

en t,

afterw ard I alw

ays felt sick at having been low ered to the

crudest form o

f com m

unication. M alcolm

m ade sense to

m e not out o

f a love o f violence but because nothing in

m y life prepared m

e to understand tear gas as deliverance, as those B

lack H istory M

onth m artyrs o

f the C ivil R

ights M

ovem ent did. B

ut m ore than any sham

e I feel about m y

ow n

actual violence, m y greatest regret w

as that in seeking to defend you I w

as, in fact, endangering you. "I could have you

arrested," h e said. W

h ich

is to say, "O

n e o

f y6ur son's earliest m em

ories w ill be w

atching the m

en w ho sodom

ized A bner L

ouim a and choked A

nthony B

aez cuff, club, tase, and break you." I had forgotten the rules, an error as dangerous on the U

pper W est Side o

f M

anhattan as on the W estside o

f B altim

ore. O ne m

ust be w

ithout error out here. W alk in single file. W

ork quietly. Pack an extra num

ber 2 pencil. M ake no m

istakes. B

ut you are hum an and you w

ill m ake m

istakes. Y ou

w ill m

isjudge. Y ou w

ill yell. Y ou w

ill drink too m uch.

Y ou w

ill hang out w ith people you shouldn't. N

o t all o

9 6

A -N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

us can alw ays be Jackie R

o b

in so

n -n

o t even Jackie R

o b

- inson w

as alw ays Jackie R

obinson. B ut the price o

f error is higher for you than it is for your countrym

en, and so that A

m erica m

ight justify itself, the story o f a black body's

destruction m ust alw

ays begin w ith his or her error, real or

im ag

in ed

-w ith

E ric G

arner's anger, w ith T

rayvon M ar-

tin's m ythical w

ords ("Y ou are gonna die tonight"), w

ith Sean B

ell's m istake o

f running w ith the w

rong crow d,

w ith m

e standing too close to the sm all-eyed boy pulling

out.

A society, alm

ost necessarily, begins every success story w

ith the chapter that m ost advantages itself, and in A

m er-

ica, these precipitating chapters are alm ost alw

ays rendered as the singular action o

f exceptional individuals. "It only takes on

e person to m ake a change," you are often told.

T his is also a m

yth. Perhaps one person can m ake a change,

but not the kind o f change that w

ould raise your body to equality w

ith your countrym en.

T h

e fact o f history is

that black people have n o

t- probably no people have ever--liberated them

selves strictly through their ow

n efforts. In every great change in the lives o

f A frican A

m ericans w

e see the hand o f events that

w ere beyond our individual control, events that w

ere not unalloyed goods. Y

ou cannot disconnect our em ancipa-

tion in the N orthern colonies from

the blood spilled in the R

evolutionary W ar, any m

ore than you can disconnect our em

ancipation from slavery in the S

outh from the

charnel houses o f the C

ivil W ar, any m

ore than you can

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

disconnect our em ancipation from

Jim C

row from

the genocides o

f the S econd W

orld W ar. H

istory is not solely in our hands. A

nd still you are called to struggle, not be- cause it assures you

victory but because it assures you an

honorable and sane life. I am asham

ed o f how

I acted that day, asham

ed o f endangering your body. B

ut I am not

asham ed because I am

a bad father, a bad individual or ill m

annered. I am asham

ed that I m ade an error, know

ing that ou

r errors alw ays cost us m

ore. T

his is the im port o

f the history all around us, though very few

people like to think about it. H ad I inform

ed this w

om an that w

hen she pushed m y son, she w

as acting ac- cording to a tradition that held black bodies as lesser, her response w

ould likely have been, "I am not a racist." O

r m

aybe not. B ut m

y experience in this w orld has been that

the people w ho believe them

selves to be w hite are ob-

sessed w ith the politics o

f personal exoneration. A nd the

w ord racist, to them

, conjures, if not a tobacco-spitting oaf, then som

ething just as fan tastic-an

ore, troll, or gorgon. "I'm

n ot a racist," an entertainer on

ce insisted after b ein

g film

ed repeatedly yelling at a heckler: "H e's a nigger! H

e's a nigger!" C

onsidering segregationist senator Strom T

hur- m

ond, R ichard N

ixon concluded, "Strom

is no racist." T

here are n o racists in

A m

erica, or at least n on

e that the people w

ho need to be w hite know

personally. In the era o

f m ass lynching, it w

as so difficult to find w ho, specifi-

cally, served as executioner that such deaths w ere often

reported by,the press as having happened "at the hands o f

9 8

A •N

E H

IS I C

O A

T E

persons unknow n." In 1957, the w

hite residents o f L

evit- tow

n, Pennsylvania, argued for their right to keep their tow

n segregated. "A s m

oral, religious and law -abiding cit-

izens," the group w rote, "

w e feel that w

e are unprejudiced and undiscrim

inating in our w

ish to keep our com m

unity a closed com

m unity." T

his w as the attem

pt to com m

it a sham

eful act w hile escaping all sanction, and I raise it to

show you that there w

as no golden era w hen evildoers did

their business and loudly proclaim ed it as such.

"W e w

ould prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren't any;' w

rites Solzhenitsyn. "T o do evil a

hum an being m

ust first o f all believe that w

hat he's doing is good, or else that it's a w

ell-considered act in conform ity

w ith natural law

:' T his is the foundation o

f the D re

a m

- its adherents m

ust not just believe in it but believe that it is just, believe that their possession o

f the D ream

is the natural result o

f grit, honor, and good w orks. T

here is som

e passing acknow ledgm

ent o f the bad old days, w

hich, by the w

ay, w ere not so bad as to have any ongoing effect

on our present. T he m

ettle that it takes to look aw ay from

the horror o

f our prison system , from

police forces trans- form

ed into arm ies, from

the long w ar against the black

body, is not forged overnight. T his is the practiced habit o

f jabbing out one's eyes and forgetting the w

ork o f one's

hands. T o acknow

ledge these horrors m eans turning aw

ay from

the brightly rendered version o f your country as it

has alw ays declared itself and turning tow

ard som ething

m urkier and unknow

n. It is still too difficult for m ost

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

A m

ericans to do this. B ut that is your w

ork. It m ust be, if

only to preserve the sanctity o f your m

ind.

T he entire narrative o

f this country argues against the truth o

f w ho you are. I think o

f that sum m

er that you m ay

w ell rem

em ber w

hen I loaded you and your cousin C hris-

topher into the back seat o f a rented car and pushed out to

see w hat rem

ained o f Petersburg, Shirley Plantation, and

the W ilderness. I w

as obsessed w ith the C

ivil W ar because

six hundred thousand people had died in it. A nd yet it had

been glossed over in m y education, and in popular culture,

representations o f the w

ar and its reasons seem ed obscured.

A nd yet I knew

that in 1859 w e w

ere enslaved and in 1865 w

e w ere not, and w

hat happened to us in those years struck m

e as having som e am

ount o f im

port. B ut w

hen- ever I visited any o

f the battlefields, I felt like I w as greeted

as if I w ere a nosy accountant conducting an audit and

som eone w

as trying to hide the books. I don't know

if you rem em

ber how the film

w e saw

at the Petersburg B

attlefield ended as though the fall o f the

C onfederacy w

ere the onset o f a tragedy, not jubilee. I

doubt you rem em

ber the m an on our tour dressed in the

gray w ool o

f the C onfederacy; or how

every visitor seem ed

m ost interested in flanking m

aneuvers, hardtack, sm ooth-

bore rifles, grapeshot, and ironclads, but virtually no one w

as interested in w

hat all o f this engineering, invention,

and design had been m arshaled to achieve. Y

ou w ere only

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

101

ten years old. B ut even then I knew

that I m ust trouble

you, and this m eant taking you into room

s w here people

w ould insult your intelligence, w

here thieves w ould try to

enlist you in your ow n robbery and disguise their burning

and looting as C hristian charity. B

ut robbery is w hat this

is, w h

at it alw ays w

as. A

t the onset o f the C

ivil W ar, our stolen bodies w

ere w

orth four billion dollars, m ore than all o

f A m

erican in- dustry, all o

f A m

erican railroads, w orkshops, and factories

com bined, and the prim

e product rendered by our stolen b

o d

ies-co tto

n -w

a s A

m erica's prim

ary export. T h

e rich- est m

en in A m

erica lived in the M ississippi R

iver V alley,

and they m ade their riches off our stolen bodies. O

u r bod-

ies w ere held in bondage by the early presidents. O

u r bod-

ies w ere traded from

the W hite H

ouse by Jam es K

. Polk. O

ur bodies built the C apitol and the N

ational M all. T

he first shot o

f the C ivil W

ar w as fired in S

outh C arolina,

w here our bodies constituted the m

ajority o f hum

an bod- ies in the state. H

ere is the m otive for the great w

ar. It's not a secret. B

ut w e can do better and find the bandit confess-

ing his crim e. "O

u r position is thoroughly identified w

ith the institution o

f slavery;' declared M ississippi as it left the

U nion, "the greatest m

aterial interest o f the w

orld." D

o you rem em

ber standing w ith m

e and your m other,

during one o f our visits to G

ettysburg, outside the hom e

o f A

braham B

rian? W e w

ere w ith a young m

an w ho'd

educated him self on the history o

f black people in G et-

tysburg. H e explained that B

rian F arm

w as the far end o

1 0

T A

-N E

H IS

I C O

A T

E S

the line that w as charged by G

eorge Pickett on the final day o

f G ettysburg. H

e told us that B rian w

as a black m an,

that G ettysburg w

as hom e to a free black com

m unity, that

B rian and his fam

ily fled their hom e for fear oflosing their

bodies to the advancing arm y o

f enslavem ent, led by the

honored and holy C onfederate general R

obert E . L

ee, w

hose arm y w

as then stealing black people from them

- selves and selling them

south. G eorge Pickett and his

troops w ere repulsed by the U

nion A rm

y. Standing there, a century and a half later, I thought o

f one o f Faulkner's

characters fam ously recalling how

this failure tantalized the m

inds o f all "S

outhern" b o

y s-"lt's all in the balance,

it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun .... " A ll o

f Faulkner's S

outhern boys w ere w

hite. B ut I, standing on

the farm o

f a black m an w

ho fled w ith his fam

ily to stay free o

f the South, saw Pickett's soldiers charging through

history; in w ild pursuit o

f their strange b irth

rig h

t-th e

right to beat, rape, rob, and pillage the black body. T hat is

all o f w

hat w as "in the balance," the nostalgic m

om ent's

corrupt and unspeakable core. B

ut A m

erican reunion w as built on a com

fortable nar- rative

that ·m ade

enslavem ent into

benevolence, w hite

knights o f body snatchers, and the m

ass slaughter o f the

w ar into a kind o

f sport in w hich one could conclude that

both sides conducted their affairs w ith courage, honor, and

elan. T his lie o

f the C ivil W

ar is the lie o f innocence, is the

D ream

. H istorians conjured the D

ream . H

ollyw ood forti-

fied the D ream

. T he D

ream w

as gilded by novels and ad-

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

0 3

venture stories. John C arter flees the broken C

onfederacy for M

ars. W e are not supposed to ask w

hat, precisely, he w

as running from . I, like every kid I knew

, loved The D ukes

of H azzard. B

ut I w ould have done w

ell to think m ore

about w hy tw

o outlaw s, driving a car nam

ed the G eneral

L ee, m

ust necessarily b e portrayed as "just som

e good ole

boys, never m eanin' n

o h a

rm "

-a m

antra for the D ream

- ers if there ever w

as one. B u

t w h

at on e "m

eans" is neither im

portant nor relevant. It is not necessary that you believe that the officer w

ho choked E ric G

arner set out that day to destroy a body. A

ll you need to understand is that the officer carries w

ith him the pow

er o f the A

m erican state

and the w eight o

f an A m

erican legacy, and they necessitate that o

f the bodies destroyed every year, som e w

ild and disproportionate num

ber o f them

w ill be black.

H ere is w

hat I w ould like for you to know

: In A m

erica, it is traditional to destroy the black b

o d

y-it is heritage. E

nslavem ent w

as n ot m

erely the antiseptic borrow ing o

f lab

o r-it is not so easy to get a hum

an being to com m

it their body against its ow

n elem ental interest. A

nd so en- slavem

ent m ust be casual w

rath and random m

anglings, the gashing o

f heads and brains blow n out over the river as

the body seeks to escape. It m ust be rape so regular as to

be industrial. T here is no uplifi:ing w

ay to say this. I have no praise anthem

s, nor old N egro spirituals. T

he spirit and soul are the body and brain, w

hich are destructible-that is precisely w

hy they are so precious. A nd the soul did not

escape. T he spirit did not steal aw

ay o n

gospel w ings. T

1 0

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soul w as the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit w

as the blood that w

atered the cotton, and these created the first fruits o

f the A m

erican garden. A nd the fruits w

ere secured through the bashing o

f children w ith stovew

ood, through hot iron peeling skin aw

ay like husk from corn.

It had to be blood. It had to be nails driven through tongue and ears pruned aw

ay. "S om

e disobedience;• w rote

a Southern m istress. "M

uch idleness, sullenness, slovenli- ness .... U

sed the rod:' It had to be the thrashing ofkitchen hands for the crim

e o f churning butter at a leisurely clip. It

had to som e w

om an "chear'd ... w

ith thirty lashes a Satur- day last and as m

any m ore a T

uesday again:' It could only be the em

ploym ent o

f carriage w hips, tongs, iron pokers,

handsaw s, stones, paperw

eights, or w hatever m

ight be handy to break the black body, the black fam

ily, the black com

m unity, the black nation. T

he bodies w ere pulverized

into stock and m arked w

ith insurance. A nd the bodies

w ere an aspiration, lucrative as Indian land, a veranda, a

beautiful w ife, or a sum

m er h

om e in the m

ountains. F or

the m en w

ho needed to believe them selves w

hite, the bodies w

ere the key to a social club, and the right to break the bodies w

as the m ark o

f civilization. "T he tw

o great divisions o

f society are not the rich and poor, but w hite

and black," said the great S outh C

arolina senator John C .

C alhoun. "A

nd all the form er, the poor as w

ell as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals." A

nd there it is-th e right to break the black body

as the m eaning o

f their sacred equality. A nd that right has

B E

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0 5

alw ays given them

m eaning, has alw

ays m eant that there

w as som

eone dow n in the valley because a m

ountain is not a m

ountain if there is nothing below :

Y ou and I, m

y son, are that "below ." T

hat w as true in

1776. It is ttue today. T here is no them

w ithout you, and

w ithout the right to

break you they m ust necessarily fall

from the m

ountain, lose their divinity, and tum ble out o

f the D

ream . A

nd then they w ould have to

determ ine how

to build their suburbs on som

ething other than hum an

bones, how to angle their jails tow

ard som ething other

than a hum an stockyard, how

to erect a dem ocracy inde-

pendent o f cannibalism

. B ut because they believe them

- selves to be w

hite, they w ould rather countenance a m

an choked to death on film

under their law s. A

nd they w ould

rather subscribe to the m yth o

f T rayvon M

artin, slight teenager, hands full o

f candy and soft drinks, transform ing

into a m urderous juggernaut. A

nd they w ould rather see

P rince Jones follow

ed by a bad cop through three jurisdic- tions and shot dow

n for acting like a hum an. A

nd they w

ould rather reach out, in all their sanity, and push m y

four-year-old son as though he w ere m

erely an obstacle in the path o

f their too-im portant day.

I w as there, Sam

ori. N o. I w

as back in B altim

ore sur- rounded by them

boys. I w as on m

y parents' living room

floor, staring out at that distant w orld, im

penetrable to m e.

I w as in all the anger o

f m y years. I w

as w here E

ric G arner

.. T

havolia G lym

ph, O ut of the H

ouse of Bondage.

1 0

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m ust have been in his last m

o m

en ts-"T

h is stops today,"

h e said and w

as killed. I felt the cosm ic injustice, even

though I did not fully understand it. I had not yet been to G

ettysburg. I had not read T havolia G

lym ph. A

ll I had w as

the feeling, the w eight. I did not yet know

, and I do not fully know

now . B

ut part o f w

hat I know is that there is

the burden o f living am

ong D ream

ers, and there is the extra burden o

f your country telling you the D ream

is just, noble, and real, and you are crazy for seeing the corruption and sm

elling the sulfur. F or their innocence, they nullify

your anger, your fear, until you are com

in g and going, and

you find

yourself inveighing against

yourself-"B lack

people are the only people w ho ... "-really

inveighing against your ow

n hum anity and raging against the crim

e in your ghetto, because you are pow

erless before the great crim

e o f history that brought the ghettos to be.

It is truly horrible to understand yourself as the essential below

o f your country. It breaks too m

uch o f w

hat w e

w ould like to think about ourselves, our lives, the w

orld w

e m ove through and the people w

ho surround us. T he

struggle to understand is our only advantage over this

m adness. B

y· the tim e I visited those battlefields, I knew

that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this w

as m y only security, because

they could no longer insult m e by lying to m

e. I k n

e w

- and the m

ost im portant thing I knew

w as that, som

ew here

deep w ith them

, they knew too. I like to think that know

- ing m

ight have kept m e from

endangering you, that hav-

B E

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0 7

m g understood and acknow

ledged the anger, I

could control it. I like to think that it could have allow

ed m e to

speak the needed w ords to the w

om an and then w

alk aw ay.

I like to think this, but I can't prom ise it. T

he struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion o

f this w

orld under your control. I am

sorry that I cannot m ake it okay. I am

sorry that I cannot save y

o u

-b u

t not that sorry. Part o f m

e thinks that your very vulnerability brings you closer to the m

eaning oflife,just as for others, the quest to believe oneself w

hite divides them

from it. T

he fact is that despite their dream s,

their lives are also not inviolable. W hen their ow

n vulner- ability becom

es real-w h

en the police decide that tactics

intended for the ghetto should enjoy w ider usage, w

hen their arm

ed society shoots dow n their children, w

hen na- ture sends hurricanes against their cities-th

ey are shocked

in a w ay that those o

f us w ho w

ere born and bred to un- derstand cause and effect can never be. A

nd I w ould not

have you live like them . Y

ou have been cast into a race in w

hich the w ind is alw

ays at your face and the hounds are alw

ays at your heels. A nd to varying degrees this is true o

f all life. T

he difference is that you do not have the privilege o

f living in ignorance o f this essential fact.

I am speaking to you as I alw

ays h av

e-as the sober and serious m

an I have alw ays w

anted you to be, w

h o does n

ot apologize for his hum

an feelings, w ho does not m

ake ex- cuses for his height, his long arm

s, his beautiful sm ile. Y

ou are grow

i~g into consciousness, and m y w

ish for you is

1 0

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that you feel no need to constrict yourself to m ake other

people com fortable. N

one o f that can change the m

ath anyw

ay. I never w anted you to be tw

ice as good as them ,

so m uch as I have alw

ays w anted you to attack every day

o f your brief bright life in struggle. T

he people w ho m

ust believe they are w

hite can never be your m easuring stick.

I w ould not have you descend into your ow

n dream . I

w ould have you be a conscious citizen o

f this terrible and beautiful w

orld.

O ne day, I w

as in C hicago, reporting a story about the his-

tory o f segregation in the urban N

orth and how it w

as engineered by goverm

nent policy. I w as trailing som

e of- ficers o

f the county sheriff as they m ade their rounds. T

hat day I saw

a black m an losing his hom

e. I follow ed the

sheriff's officers inside the house, w here a group o

f them

w ere talking to the m

an's w ife, w

ho was also trying to tend to her tw

o children. She had clearly not been w arned that

the sheriff w ould be com

ing, though som ething in her

husband's dem eanor told m

e he m ust have know

n. H is

w ife's eyes registered, all at on

ce, sh ock

at the circum stance,

anger at the officers, and anger at her husband. T he offi-

cers stood in the m

an's living room , giving h

im orders as

to w

hat w ould now

happen. O utside there w

ere m en

w ho'd been hired to rem

ove the fam ily's possessions. T

he m

an w as hum

iliated, and I im agined that he had probably

for som e tim

e carried, in his head, alone, all that w as

B E

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threatening his fam ily but could not bring him

self to adm it

it to him self or his w

ife. So he now changed all that energy

into anger, directed at the officers. H e cursed. H

e yelled. H

e pointed w ildly. T

his particular sheriff's departm ent

w as m

ore progressive than m ost. T

h ey w

ere concerned about m

ass incarceration. T hey w

ould often bring a social w

orker to an eviction. B ut this had nothing to do w

ith the underlying and relentless logic o

f the w orld this m

an in- habited, a logic built on law

s built on history built on con- tem

pt for this m an and his fam

ily and their fate. T

he m an ranted on. W

hen the officers turned aw ay, he

ranted m ore to the group o

f black m en assem

bled w ho'd

been hired to sit his fam ily out on the street. H

is m anner

w as like all the pow

erless black people I'd ever know n,

exaggerating their bodies to conceal a fundam ental plun-

der that they could not prevent. I had spent the w

eek exploring this city, w alking through

its vacant lots, w atching the aim

less boys, sitting in the pew

s o f the striving churches, reeling before the street m

u- rals to the dead. A

nd I w ould, from

tim e to tim

e, sit in the hum

ble hom es o

f black people in that city w ho w

ere en- tering their tenth decade o

f life. T hese people w

ere pro- found.

T heir hom

es w ere filled w

ith the em blem

s o f

honorable life-citizenship aw ards, portraits o

f husbands and w

ives passed aw ay, several generations o

f children in

cap and gow n. A

nd they had draw n these accolades by

cleaning big houses and living in one-room

A labam

a shacks before m

oving to the city. A nd they had done this

110 T

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despite the city, w hich w

as supposed to be a respite, reveal- ing itself to sim

ply be a m ore intricate specim

en o f plun-

der. T hey had w

orked tw o and three jobs, put children

through high school and college, and becom e pillars o

f their com

m unity. I adm

ired them , but I knew

the w hole

tim e that I w

as m erely encountering the survivors, the

ones w ho'd endured the banks and their stone-faced con-

tem pt, the realtors and their fake sy

m p

ath y

-'T m

sorry, that house just sold yesterday"-the realtors w

ho steered them

back tow ard ghetto blocks, or blocks earm

arked to be ghettos soon, the lenders w

ho found this captive class and tried to strip them

o f everything they had. In those

hom es I saw

the best o f us, but behind each o

f them I

k n

ew that there w

ere so m any m

illions gone. A

nd I knew that there w

ere children born into these sam

e caged neighborhoods on the W estside, these ghettos,

each o f w

hich w as as planned as any subdivision. T

hey are an elegant act o

f racism , killing fields authored by federal

policies, w here w

e are, all again, plundered o f our dignity,

o f our fam

ilies, o f our w

ealth, and o f our lives. A

nd there is no difference betw

een the killing o f P

rince Jones and the m

urders attending these killing fields because both are rooted in the assum

ed inhum anity o

f black people. A leg-

acy o f plunder, a netw

ork oflaw s and traditions, a heritage,

a D ream

, m urdered Prince Jones as sure as it m

urders black people in N

orth L aw

ndale w ith frightening regularity.

"B lack-on-black crim

e" is jargon, violence to language, w

hich vanishes the m en w

ho engineered the covenants,

B E

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111

w ho fixed the loans, w

ho planned the projects, w ho built

the streets and sold red ink by the barrel. A nd this should

not surprise us. T he plunder o

f black life w as drilled into

this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has b

ecom e an heirloom

, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to w

hich, likely to the end o f

our days, w e m

ust invariably return. T

he killing fields o f C

hicago, o f B

altim ore, o

f D etroit,

w ere created by the policy o

f D ream

ers, but their w eight,

their sham e, rests solely upon those w

ho are dying in them

. T here is a great deception in this. T

o yell "black- on-black crim

e" is to shoot a m an and then sham

e him for

bleeding. A nd the prem

ise that allow s for these killing

fields-the reduction o f the black b

o d

y -is no different

than the prem ise that allow

ed for the m urder o

f Prince Jones. T

he D ream

o f acting w

hite, o f talking w

hite, o f

being w hite, m

urdered P rince Jones as sure as it m

urders black people in C

hicago w ith frightening regularity. D

o not accept the lie. D

o not drink from

poison. T he sam

e hands that drew

red lines around the life o f Prince Jones

drew red lines around the ghetto.

I did not w ant to raise you in fear or false m

em ory. I did

not w ant you forced to m

ask your joys and bind your eyes. W

hat I w anted for you w

as to grow into consciousness. I

resolved to hide nothing from you.

D o

you rem em

ber w hen I first took you to w

ork, w hen

112 T

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you w

ere thirteen? I w as goin

g to see the m other o

f a dead black boy. T

he boy had exchanged hard w ords w

ith a w

hite m an and been killed, because he refused to turn

dow n his m

usic. T he killer, having em

ptied his gun, drove his girlfriend to a hotel. T

hey had drinks. T hey ordered a

pizza. A n

d then the n

ext day, at his leisure, the m an turned

him self in. T

he m an claim

ed to have seen a shotgun. H e

claim ed to have been in fear for his life and to only have

trium phed through righteous violence. "I w

as the victim

and the victor," h e asserted, m

u ch

as generations o f A

m er-

ican plunderers had asserted before. N o

shotgun w as ever

found. T he claim

still influenced the jury, and the killer w

as convicted not o f the boy's m

urder but o f firing repeat-

edly as the boy's friends tried to retreat. D estroying the

black body w as perm

issible---but it w ould be better to do

it efficiently. T

he m other o

f this m urdered black boy w

as then taking her case before journalists and w

riters. W e m

et her in the

lobby o f her T

im es Square hotel. She w

as m edium

height w

ith brow n skin and hair dow

n to her shoulders. It had n

ot even b een

a w eek

since the verdict. B u

t she w as com

- posed and w

holly self-possessed. She did not rage at the killer but w

ondered aloud if the rules she'd im parted had

been enough. She had w anted her son to stand for w

hat he believed and to be respectful. A

nd he had died for believ- ing his friends had a right to play their m

usic loud, to be A

m erican teenagers. Still, she w

as left w ondering. "In m

B E

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113

m ind I keep saying, 'H

ad he not spoke back, spoke up, w

ould he still be here?'" She w

ould not forget the uniqueness o f her son, his

singular life. She w ould not forget that he had a father w

ho loved him

, w ho took him

in w hile she battled cancer. She

w ould not forget that he w

as the life o f the party, that he

alw ays had new

friends for her to shuttle around in her m

inivan. A nd she w

ould have him live on in her w

ork. I told her the verdict angered m

e. I told her that the idea that som

eone on that jury thought it plausible there w as a

gun in the car baftled the m ind. She said that she w

as baffled too, and that I should not m

istake her calm probing

for the absence o f anger. B

ut G od had focused her anger

aw ay from

revenge and tow ard redem

ption, she said. G od

had spoken to her and com m

itted her to a new activism

. T

hen the m other o

f the m urdered boy rose, turned to you,

and said, "Y ou exist. Y

ou m atter. Y

ou have value. Y ou have

every right to w ear your hoodie, to play your m

usic as loud as you w

ant. Y ou have every right to be you. A

nd no one should deter you from

being you. Y ou have to be you.

A nd you can never be afraid to be you." I w

as glad she said this. I have tried to say the sam e to

you, and if I have not said it w ith the sam

e direction and clarity, I confess that is because I am

afraid.A nd I have no

G od to hold m

e up. A nd I believe that w

hen they shatter the body they shatter everything, and I knew

that all o f

us-C hristians, M

uslim s, atheists-lived in this fear o

f tills

114 T

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truth. D isem

bodim ent is a kind o

f terrorism , and the threat

o f it alters the orbit o

f all ou r lives and, like terrorism

, this distortion is intentional. D

isem bodim

ent. T he dragon that

com pelled the boys I knew

, w ay back, into extravagant

theater o f ow

nership. D isem

bodim ent. T

he dem on that

pushed the m iddle-class black survivors into aggressive

passivity, our conversation restrained in public quarters,

our best m anners on display, our hands never out o

f pock- ets, ou

r w h

ole m anner ordered as if to say, "I m

ake n o su

d -

den m oves." D

isem bodim

ent. T he serpent o

f school years, dem

anding I be tw ice as good, though I w

as but a boy. M

urder w as all around us and w

e knew , deep in ourselves,

in som

e silent space, that th e author o

f these m urders w

as beyond us, that it suited som

e other person's ends. W e

w ere right.

H ere is how

I take the m easure o

f m y progress in life: I

im agine m

yself as I w as, back there in W

est B altim

ore, dodging N

orth and Pulaski, ducking M urphy H

om es,

fearful o f the schools and the streets, and I im

agine show -

ing that lost boy a portrait o f m

y present life and asking him

w hat he w

ould m ake o

f it. O nly o

n ce-in

the tw o

years after your birth, in the first tw o rounds o

f the fight o f

m y life-h

av e I believed he w

ould have been disappointed. I w

rite you at the precipice o f m

y fortieth year, having com

e to a point in m y life-n

o t o

f great p ro

m in

en ce-

but far beyond anything that boy could have even im ag-

B E

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115

ined. I did .not m aster the streets, because I could not read

the body language quick enough. I did not m aster the

schools, because I could not see w here any o

f it could pos- sibly lead. B

ut I did not fall. I have m y fam

ily. I have m y

w ork. I no longer feel it necessary to hang m

y head at par- ties and tell people that I am

"trying to be a w riter." A

nd godless though I am

, the fact o f being hum

an, the fact o f

possessing the gift o f study, and thus being rem

arkable am

ong all the m atter floating through the cosm

os, still aw

es m e.

I have spent m uch o

f m y studies searching for the right

question by w hich I m

ight fully understand the breach betw

een the w orld and m

e. I have not spent m y tim

e studying the problem

of" race"

-" race"

itself is just a re- statem

ent and retrenchm ent o

f the problem . Y

ou see this from

tim e to tim

e w hen som

e dullard-usually believing him

self w hite-proposes that the w

ay forw ard is a grand

orgy o f black and w

hite, ending only w hen w

e are all beige and thus the sam

e "race." B u

t a great num ber o

f "black" people already are beige. A

nd the history o f civi-

lization is littered w ith dead "races" (Frankish, Italian, G

er- m

an, Irish) later abandoned because they no longer serve their p

u rp

o se-th

e organization o f people beneath, and

beyond, the um brella o

f rights. If m

y life ended today, I w ould tell you it w

as a happy life-th

at I drew great joy from

the study, from the strug-

gle tow ard w

hich I now urge you. Y

ou have seen in this conversation that the struggle has ruptured and rem

ade m e

116 T

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several tim es o

v er-in

B altim

ore, at T h

e M ecca, in father-

hood, in N ew

Y ork. T

h e changes have aw

arded m e a rap-

ture that com es only w

hen you can no longer be lied to, w

h en

you have rejected the D

ream . B

u t even m

ore, the changes have taught m

e how to best exploit that singular

gift o f study, to question w

hat I see, then to question w hat

I see after that, because the questions m atter as m

uch, per- haps m

ore than, the answ ers.

B ut oh, m

y eyes. W h

en I w

as a boy, no portion o f m

y body suffered m

ore than m y eyes. If I have done w

ell by the m

easures o f childhood, it m

ust be added that those m

easures them selves are ham

pered by how little a boy o

f m

y captive class had seen. T h

e D ream

seem ed to be the

pinnacle, th en

-to grow

rich and live in on e o

f those dis- con

n ected

houses ou t in

the country, in on e o

f those sm all

com m

unities, one o

f those cul-de-sacs w

ith its gently

curving w ays, w

here they staged teen m ovies and children

built treehouses, and in that last lost year before college, teenagers m

ade love in cars parked at the lake. T he D

ream

seem ed to be the end o

f the w orld for m

e, the height o f

A m

erican am bition. W

hat m ore could possibly exist be-

yond the dispatches, beyond the suburbs? Y

our m other knew

. Perhaps it w as

because she w as

raised w ithin the physical borders o

f such a place, because she lived in proxim

ity w ith the D

ream ers. Perhaps it w

as because the people w

ho thought they w ere w

hite told her she w

as sm art and follow

ed this up by telling her she w as

not really black, m eaning it as a com

plim ent. Perhaps it

B E

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117

w as the boys out there, w

ho w ere in fact black, telling her

she w as "pretty for a dark-skin girl." Y

our m other never

felt quite at hom e, and this m

ade the possibility o f som

e other place essential to her, propelling her to T

h e M

ecca, propelling her to N

ew Y

ork and then beyond. O n

her thir- tieth birthday she took a trip to Paris. I am

not sure you rem

em ber. Y

ou w ere only six. W

e spent that w eek eating

fried fish for breakfast and cake for dinner, leaving under- w

ear o n

the counter, and blasting G hostface K

illah. It had never occurred to m

e to leave A m

erica -n

o t even tem

po- rarily. M

y eyes. M

y ftiendJelani, w

ho cam e up the sam

e as m

e, once said that he used to think o f traveling as a point-

less luxury, like blow ing the rent check on a pink suit. A

nd I felt m

uch the sam e, then. I w

as bem used at your m

other's dream

s o f Paris. I could n

o t understand th

e m

-a n

d I did

not think I needed to. S om

e part o f m

e w as still back in

that seventh-grade F rench class, thinking only o

f the im -

m ediate security o

f m y body, regarding F

rance as one

m ight regard Jupiter. B

ut now your m

other had gone and done it, and w hen

she returned her eyes w ere dancing w

ith all the possibili- ties out there, n

o t just for her but for you and for m

e. It is quite ridiculous how

the feeling spread. It w as like falling

in lo v

e-th e things that get you are so sm

all, the things that keep you up at night are so particular to you that w

hen you try to explain, the only rew ard anyone can give

you is a dum b polite nod. Y

our m other had taken m

any pictures, all through Paris, o

f doors, giant d o

o rs-d

eep

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119

blue, ebony, orange, turquoise, and burning red doors. I exam

ined the pictures o f these giant doors in our sm

all H

arlem apartm

ent. I had never seen anything like them . It

had never even occurred to m e that such giant doors could

exist, could be so com m

on in one part o f the w

orld and totally absent in another. A

nd it occurred to m e, listening

to your m other, that France w

as not a thought experim ent

but an actual place filled w ith actual people w

hose tra- ditions w

ere different, w hose lives really w

ere different, w

hose sense o f beauty w

as different. W

hen I look back, I know that I w

as then getting the m

essage from all over. B

y that tim e m

y friends included a great num

ber o f people w

ith ties to different w orlds.

"M ake the race proud," the elders used to say. B

ut by then I knew

that I w asn't so m

uch bound to a biological "race" as to a group o

f people, and these people w ere not black

because o f any uniform

color or any uniform physical fea-

ture. T hey w

ere bound because they suffered under the w

eight o f the D

ream , and they w

ere bound by all the beau- tiful things, all the language and m

annerism s, all the food

and m usic, all the literature and philosophy, all the com

- m

on language that they fashioned like diam onds under

the w eight o

f the D ream

. N o

t long ago I w as standing in

an airport retrieving a bag from a conveyor belt. I bum

ped into a young black m

an and said, "M y bad."W

ithout even looking up he said, "Y

ou straight." A nd in that exchange

there w as so m

uch o f the private rapport that can only

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exist betw een tw

o particular strangers o f tbis tribe that

w e call black. In other w

ords, I w as part o

f a w orld. A

nd looking out, I had friends w

ho too w ere part o

f other w

o rld

s-tb e w

orld o f Jew

s or N ew

Y orkers, the w

orld o f

Southerners or gay m en, o

f im m

igrants, o f C

alifornians, o

f N ative A

m ericans, or a com

bination o f any o

f these, w

orlds stitched into w orlds like tapestry. A

nd though I could never, m

yself, be a native o f any o

f these w orlds, I

knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood betw

een us. I had read too m

uch by then. A nd m

y ey es-m

y beauti-

ful, precious eyes-w ere grow

ing stronger each day. A nd

I saw that w

hat divided m e from

the w orld w

as not any- thing intrinsic to us but the actual i,zjury done by people intent on nam

ing us, intent on believing that w hat they

have nam ed us m

atters m ore tban anything w

e could ever actually do. In A

m erica, the injury is not in being born

w itb darker skin, w

ith fuller lips, w ith a broader nose, but

in everything that happens after. In tbat single exchange w

ith tbat young m an, I w

as speaking the personal language o

f m y people. It w

as the briefest intim acy, but it captured

m uch o

f the beauty o f m

y black w o

rld -tb

e ease betw een

your m other and m

e, the m iracle at T

he M ecca, the w

ay I feel m

yself disappear o n

tbe streets o f H

arlem . T

o call tbat feeling racial is to hand over all those diam

onds, fashioned by our ancestors, to tbe plunderer. W

e m ade tbat feeliug,

tbough it w as forged in the shadow

o f the m

urdered, the raped, the disem

bodied, w e m

ade it all the sam e. T

his is tbe beautiful thing tbat I have seen w

ith m y ow

n eyes, and

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I think I needed this vantage point before I could journey out. I think I needed to know

that I w as from

som ew

here, that m

y hom e w

as as beautiful as any other. Seven years after I saw

the pictures o f tbose doors, I re-

ceived m y first adult passport. I w

ish I had com e to it sooner.

I w ish, w

hen I w as back in that French class, that I had

connected the conjugations, verbs, and gendered nouns to som

ething grander. I w ish som

eone had told m e w

hat that class really w

as-a gate to som e other blue w

orld. I w anted

to see tbat w orld m

yself, to see the doors and everything behind tbem

. T he day o

f m y departure, I sat in a restaurant

w ith your m

other, w ho'd show

n m e so m

uch. I told her, "I am

afraid:' I didn't really speak the language. I did not know

the custom s. I w

ould be alone. She just listened and held m

y hand. A nd tbat night, I boarded a starship. T

he starship punched out into the dark, punched through the sky, punched out past W

est B altim

ore, punched out past T

he M ecca, past N

ew Y

ork, past any language and every spectrum

k n

ow n

to m e.

M y ticket took m

e to G eneva first. E

verything hap- pened very fast. I had to change m

oney. I needed to find a trein from

the eirport into the city and after that find an- other train to Paris. S

om e m

onths earlier, I had begun a halting study o

f the French language. N ow

I w as in a storm

f French, drenched really, and only equipped to catch drops

o f the language-"w

ho," "euros," "you," "to the

right." I w as still very afreid.

I surveyed the railw ay schedule and becam

e aw are that

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I w as on

e w ron

g ticket from V

ienna, M ilan, or som

e A l-

pine village that no one I knew had ever heard of. It hap-

pened right then. T he realization o

f being far gone, the fear, the unknow

able possibilities, all o f it-th

e horror, the

w onder, the jo

y -fu

sed into an erotic thrill. T

he thrill w as

not w holly alien. It w

as close to the w ave that cam

e over m

e in M oorland. It w

as kin to the narcotic shot I'd gotten w

atching the people w ith their w

ineglasses spill out onto W

est B roadw

ay. It w as all that I'd felt looking at those P

a- risian doors. A

nd at that m om

ent I realized that those changes, w

ith all their agony, aw kw

ardness, and confusion, w

ere the defining fact o f m

y life, and for the first tim e I

knew not only that I really w

as alive, that I really w as

studying and observing, but that I had long been aliv e-

even back in B altim

ore. I had alw ays been alive. I w

as al- w

ays translating. I arrived in Paris. I checked in to a hotel in the 6th ar-

rondissem ent. I had no understanding o

f the local history at all. I did not think m

uch about B aldw

in or W right. I had

not read Sartre nor C am

us, and if I w alked past C

afe de Flore or Les D

eux M agots I did not, then, take any par-

ticular note. N one o

f that m attered. It w

as Friday, and w hat

m attered w

ere the streets thronged w ith people in am

az- ing configurations. T

eenagers together in cafi:s. School- children kicking a soccer ball on the street, backpacks to the side. O

lder couples in long coats, billow ing scarves, and

blazers. T w

entysom ethings leaning out o

f any num ber o

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establishm ents looking beautiful and cool. It recalled N

Y ork, but w

ithout the low -grade, ever-present fear. T

he people w

ore no arm or, or none that I recognized. Side

streets and alleys w ere bursting w

ith bars, restaurants, and cares. E

veryone w as w

alking. T hose w

ho w ere not w

alk- ing w

ere em bracing. I w

as feeling m yselfbeyond any natu-

ral right. M y C

aesar w as geom

etric. M y lineup w

as sharp as a sw

ord. I w alked outside and m

elted into the city, like butter in the stew

. In m y m

ind, I heard B ig B

ai sing:

I'm just a playa like that, m

y jeans was sharply creased. I got a .fresh w

hite T-shirt and m y cap is slightly pointed east.

I had dinner w ith a friend. T

he restaurant w as the size

o f tw

o large living room s. T

he tables w ere jam

m ed to-

gether, and to be seated, the w aitress em

ployed a kind o f

m agic, pulling one table out and then w

edging you in, like a child in a high chair. Y

ou had to sum m

on her to use the toilet. W

hen it w as tim

e to order, I flailed at her w ith m

y catastrophic French. She nodded and did not laugh. She gave no false m

anners. W e had an incredible bottle o

f w

ine. I had steak. I had a baguette w ith bone m

arrow . I had

liver. I had an espresso and a dessert that I can't even nam e.

U sing all the French I could m

uster, I tried to tell the w ait-

ress the m eal w

as m agnificent. She cut m

e off in E nglish,

"T he best you've ever had, right?" 1 rose to w

alk, and de- spite having inhaled half the m

enu I felt easy as a feather-

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w eight. T

he next day I got up early and w alked through

the city. I visited the M usee R

odin. I stopped in a bistro, and w

ith all the fear o f a boy approaching a beautiful girl

at a party, I ordered tw o beers and then a burger. I w

alked to Le Jardin du L

uxem bourg. It w

as about four o'clock in the afternoon. I took a seat. T

he garden w as bursting w

ith people, again in all their alien w

ays. A t that m

om ent a

strange loneliness took hold. Perhaps it w as that I had not

spoken a single w ord o

f E nglish that entire day. Perhaps it

w as that I had never sat in a public garden before, had not

even know n it to be som

ething that I'd w ant to do. A

nd all around m

e there w ere people w

ho did this regularly. It occurred to m

e that I really w as in

som eon

e else's country and yet, in som

e necessary w ay, I w

as outside o f

their country. In A m

erica I w as part o

f an equation-even ifit w

asn't a part I relished. I w as the one the police stopped

on T w

enty-third Street in the m iddle o

f a w orkday. I w

as the one driven to T

he M ecca. I w

as not just a father but the father o

f a black boy. I w as not just a spouse but the

husband o f a black w

om an, a freighted sym

bol o f black

love. B ut sitting in that garden, for the first tim

e I w as an

alien, I w as a sailor-landless and disconnected. A

nd I w as

sorry that I had never felt this particular loneliness b efo

re- that I had never felt m

yself so far outside o f som

eone else's dream

. N ow

I felt the deeper w eight o

f m y generational

ch ain

s-m y

body confined, by history and policy, to cer- tain zones. S

om e o

f us m ake it out. B

ut the gam e is played

w ith loaded dice. I w

ished I had know n m

ore, and I w ished

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I had know n it sooner. I rem

em ber, that night, w

atching the teenagers gathering along the pathw

ay near the Seine to do all their teenage things. A

nd I rem em

ber thinking how

m uch I w

ould have loved for that to have been m y

life, how m

uch I w ould have loved to have a past apart

from the fear. I did not have that past in hand or m

em ory.

B ut I had you. W

e cam

e back to Paris that

sum m

er, because your m

other loved the city and because I loved the language, but above all because o

f you. I w

anted you to have your ow n life, apart from

fe a r-

even apart from m

e. I am w

ounded. I am m

arked by old codes, w

hich shielded m e in one w

orld and then chained m

e in the next. I think o f your grandm

other calling m e

and noting how you w

ere grow ing tall and w

ould one day try to "test m

e." A nd I said to her that I w

ould regard that day, should it com

e, as the total failure o f fatherhood be-

cause if all I had over you w ere m

y hands, then I really had nothing at all. B

ut, forgive m e, son, I knew

w hat she m

eant and w

hen you w ere younger I thouglit the sam

e. A nd I

am now

asham ed o

f the thought, asham ed o

f m y fear, o

f the generational chains I tried to clasp onto your w

rists. W

e are entering our last years together, and I w ish I had

been softer w ith you. Y

our m other had to teach m

e how

to love y o

u -h

o w

to kiss you and tell you I love you every night. E

ven now it does not feel a w

holly natural act so m

uch as it feels

like ritual. A nd that is because

I am

w ounded. T

hat is because I am tied to old w

ays, w hich I

1 2

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learned in a hard house. It w

as a loving house even as it w

as besieged by its country, but it w as hard. E

ven in Paris, I could not shake the old w

ays, the instinct to w atch m

y back at every pass, and alw

ays be ready to go. A

few w

eeks into our stay, I m ade a friend w

ho w anted

to im prove his E

nglish as m uch as I w

anted to im prove m

y French. W

e m et one day out in the crow

d in front o f

N otre D

am e. W

e w alked to the L

atin Q uarter. W

e w alked

to a w ine shop. O

utside the w ine shop there w

as seating. W

e sat and drank a bottle o f red. W

e w ere served heaping

piles o f m

eats, bread, and cheese. W as this dinner? D

id people do this? I had not even know

n how to im

agine it. A

nd m ore, w

as this all som e elaborate ritual to get an angle

on m e? M

y friend paid. I thanked him . B

ut w hen w

e left I m

ade sure he w alked out first. H

e w anted to show

m e

one o f those old buildings that seem

to be around every corner in that city. A

nd the entire tim e he w

as leading m e,

I w as sure h

e w as goin

g to m ake a quick turn into an alley,

w here som

e dudes w ould be w

aiting to strip m e o

f ... w

hat, exactly? B ut m

y new friend sim

ply show ed m

e the building, shook m

y hand, gave a fine bonne soiree,

and w

alked off into the w ide open night. A

nd w atching h

w alk aw

ay, I felt that I had m issed part o

f the experience because o

f m y eyes, because m

y eyes w ere m

ade in B alti-

m ore, because m

y eyes w ere blindfolded by fear.

W hat I w

anted w as to put as m

uch distance betw een

you and that blinding fear as possible. I w anted you to see

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different people living by different rules. I w anted you to

see the couples sitting n ext to each other in the cafes,

turned out to w atch the street; the w

om en pedaling their

old bikes up the streets, w ithout helm

ets, in long w hite

dresses; the w om

en w hizzing past in D

aisy D ukes and pink

roller skates. I w anted you to see the m

en in salm on-

colored pants and w hite linen and bright sw

eaters tied around their necks, the m

en w ho disappeared around cor-

ners and circled back in luxury cars, w ith the top dow

n, loving their lives. A

ll o f them

sm oking. A

ll o f them

know -

ing that either grisly death o r an orgy aw

aited them just

around the corner. D o

you rem em

ber how your eyes lit up

like candles w h

en w

e stood ou t on

Saint-G erm

ain-des- Pres? T

hat look w as all that I lived for.

A nd even then, I w

anted you to b

e conscious, to under- stand that to be distanced, if only for a m

om ent, from

fear is not a passport out o

f the struggle. W e w

ill alw ays be

black, you and I, even if it m eans different things in differ-

ent places. F rance is built on

its ow n

dream , on

its collec- tion o

f bodies, and recall that your very nam e is draw

n from

a m an w

ho opposed France and its national project o

f theft by colonization. It is true that our color w as not

our distinguishing feature there, so m u

ch as the A

m erican-

ness represented in our p oor handle on

F rench. A

nd it is true that there is

som ething particular about how

the A

m ericans w

ho think they are w hite regard u

s-so m

eth in

sexual and obscene. W e w

ere n ot enslaved in

F rance. W

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are n ot their particular "problem

," nor their national guilt. W

e are not their niggers. If there is any com fort in this, it

is not the kind that I w ould encourage you to indulge.

R em

em ber your nam

e. R em

em ber that you and I are

brothers, are the children o f trans-A

tlantic rape. R em

em -

ber the broader consciousness that com es w

ith that. R e-

m em

b er that this consciousness can never ultim

ately b e

racial; it m ust b

e cosm ic. R

em em

b er the R

om a you

saw

begging w ith their children in the street, and the venom

ith w hich they w

ere addressed. R em

em ber the A

lgerian cab driver, speaking openly o

f his hatred o f Paris, then

looking at your m other and m

e and insisting that w e w

ere all united under A

frica. R em

em ber the rum

bling w e all

felt under the beauty o f Paris, as though the city had been

built in abeyance o f Pom

peii. R em

em ber the feeling that

the great public gardens, the long lunches, m ight all be

undone by a physics, cousin to our rules and the reckoning o

f our ow n country, that w

e do not fully com prehend.

It w as good to have your uncle B

en and your aunt Janai there-som

eone else w ho had to balance the aw

e o f w

hat these people had built and the fact o

f w hom

they built so m

u ch

o f it upon; som

eon e else w

h o'd

learned to travel in

adulthood; people w ho'd been black in A

m erica and w

ere m

ostly concerned w ith the safety o

f their bodies. A nd w

e w

ere all aw are that the forces that held back our bodies

back at hom e w

ere not unrelated to those that had given France its w

ealth. W e w

ere aw are that m

uch o f w

hat they had done w

as built on the plunder o f H

aitian bodies, on

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the plunder o f W

olof bodies, on the destruction o f the

T oucouleur, on the taking ofB

issandugu. T

hat w as.the sam

e sum m

er that the killer ofT rayvon

M artin w

as acquitted, the sum m

er I realized that I ac- cepted that there is no velocity o

f escape. H om

e w ould

find us in any language. R em

em ber w

hen w e took the

train up to Place de la N ation to celebrate your birthday

w ith Janai and B

en and the kids? R em

em ber the young

m an standing outside the subw

ay in protest? D o you re-

m em

ber his sign? V IV

E LE

C O

M B

A T

D E

S JE U

N E

S C O

N T

R E

C R

IM E

S R A

C IST

E S!

U SA

: T R

A Y

V O

M A

R T

IN , 1

7 A

N S

A SSA

SSIN E

C A

R N

O IR

E T

L E

R A

C IST

E A

C Q

U IT

£.

I did not die in m y aim

less youth. I did not perish in the agony o

f not know ing. I w

as not jailed. I had proven to m

yself th~t there w as another w

ay beyond the schools and the streets. I felt m

yself to be am ong the survivors o

f som e

great natural

disaster, som e plague, som

e avalanche or

earthquake. A nd now

, living in the w ake o

f a decim ation

and having arrived at a land that I once considered m ythi-

cal, everything seem ed cast in a h

alo -th

e pastel Parisian scarves burned brighter, the m

orning odor w afting out o

f the boulangeries w

as hypnotic, and the language all around m

e struck m e n

ot so m u

ch as language b

u t as dance.

Y our route w

ill be different. It m ust be. Y

ou knew things

at eleven that I did not know w

hen I w as tw

enty-five. W

hen I w as eleven m

y highest priority w as the sim

ple

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security o f m

y body. M y life w

as the im m

ediate negotia- tion o

f violen ce-w

ith in

m y house and w

ithout. B u

t al- ready you have expectations, I see that in you. Survival and safety are not enough. Y

our h o

p es-y

o u

r dream s, if you

w ill-leave m

e w ith an array o

f w arring em

otions. I am so

very proud o f y

o u

-y o

u r openness, your am

bition, your aggression, your intelligence. M

y job, in the little tim e w

e have left together, is to m

atch that intelligence w ith w

is- dom

. Part o f that w

isdom is understanding w

hat you w ere

given---a city w here gay bars are unrem

arkable, a soccer team

on w hich half the players speak som

e other language. W

hat I am saying is that it does not all belong to you, that

the beauty in you is not strictly yours and is largely the result o

f eajoying an abnorm al am

ount o f security in your

black body. Perhaps that is w

hy, w hen you discovered that the killer

o f M

ike B row

n w ould go unpunished, you told m

e you had to go. Perhaps that is w

hy you w ere crying, because in

that m om

ent you understood that even your relatively privileged security can never m

atch a sustained assault launched in the nam

e o f the D

ream . O

u r current politics

tell you that should you fall victim to such an assault and

lose your body, it som ehow

m ust be your fault. T

rayvon M

artin's hoodie got him killed. Jordan D

avis's loud m usic

did the sam e. John C

raw ford should never have touched

the rifle on display. K ajiem

e Pow ell should have know

n not to be crazy. A

nd all o f them

should have had fath ers-

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even the ones w ho had fathers, even you. W

ithout its ow n

justifications, the D ream

w ould collapse upon itself. Y

ou first learned this from

M ichael B

row n. I first learned it

from P

rince Jones. M

ichael B row

n did not die as so m any o

f his defenders supposed. A

nd still the questions behind the questions are never asked. Should assaulting an officer o

f the state be a capital offense, rendered w

ithout trial, w ith the officer as

judge and executioner? Is that w hat w

e w ish civilization to

be? A nd all the tim

e the D ream

ers are pillaging Ferguson for m

unicipal governance. A nd they are torturing M

us- lim

s, and their drones are bom bing w

edding parties (by accident!), and the D

ream ers are quoting M

artin L uther

K ing and e;ulting nonviolence for the w

eak and the big- gest guns for the strong. E

ach tim e a police officer engages

us, death, injury, m aim

ing is possible. It is n ot enough to

say that this is true o f anyone or m

ore true o f crim

inals. T

he m om

ent the officers began their pursuit o f P

rince Jones, his life w

as in danger. T he D

ream ers accept this as

the cost o f doing business, accept our bodies as currency,

because it is their tradition. A s slaves w

e w ere this cou

n -

try's first w indfall, the dow

n paym ent on its freedom

. A fter

the ruin and liberation o f the C

ivil W ar cam

e R edem

ption for the unrepentant S

outh and R eunion, and our bodies

becam e this country's second m

ortgage. In the N ew

D eal

w e w

ere their guestroom , their finished basem

ent. A nd

today, w ith a spraw

ling prison system , w

hich has turned

132 T

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the w arehousing o

f black bodies into a jobs program for

D ream

ers and a lucrative investm ent for D

ream ers; today,

w hen 8 percent o

f the w orld's prisoners are black m

en, our bodies have refinanced the D

ream o

f being w hite. B

lack life is cheap, but in A

m erica black bodies are a natural re-

source o f incom

parable value.

III. A n

d have brought hum

anity to the edge of

oblivion: because they think they are w hite.

JA M

E S B

A L

D W

In the years after P rince Jones died, I thought often o

f those w

ho w ere left to m

ake their lives in the shadow o

f his death. I thought o

f his fiancee and w ondered w

hat it m

eant to see the future upended w ith no explanation. I

w ondered w

hat she w ould tell his daughter, and I w

on- dered how

his daughter w ould im

agine her father, w hen

she w ould m

iss him , how

she w ould detail the loss. B

ut m

ostly I w ondered about Prince's m

other, and the ques- tion I m

ostly asked m yself w

as alw ays the sam

e: H ow

did she live? I searched for her phone num

ber online. I em ailed

her. She responded. T hen I called and m

ade an appoint- m

ent to visit. A nd living she w

as,just outside o f Philadel-

phia in a sm all gated com

m unity o

f aflluent hom es. It w

as a rainy T

uesday w hen I arrived. I had taken the train in

from N

ew Y

ork and then picked up a rental car. I w as

thinking o f P

rince a lot in those m onths before. Y

ou, your

136 T

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m other, and I had gone to H

om ecom

ing at T he M

ecca, and so m

any o f m

y friends w ere there, and P

rince w as not.

D r. Jones greeted m

e at the door. She w as lovely, polite,

brow n. S

he appeared to be som ew

here in that range be- tw

een forty and seventy years, w hen it becom

es difficult to precisely ascertain a black person's precise age. She w

as w

ell com posed, given the subject o

f ou r conversation, and

for m ost o

f the visit I struggled to separate how she actu-

ally felt from w

hat I felt she m ust be feeling. W

hat I felt, right then, w

as that she w as sm

iling through pained eyes, that the reason for m

y visit had spread sadness like a dark quilt over the w

hole house. I seem to recall m

usic-jazz or gospel-playing in the back, but conflicting w

ith that I also rem

em ber a deep quiet overcom

ing everything. I thought that perhaps she had been crying. I could not tell for sure. She led

m e in

to her large living room . T

here w as

no one else in the house. It w as early January. H

er C hrist-

m as tree w

as still standing at the end o f the room

, and there w

ere stockings bearing the nam e o

f her daughter and her lost son, and there w

as a fram ed picture o

f him _:__

P rince Jo

n es-o

n a display table. She brought m

e w ater in

a heavy glass. S he drank tea. She told m

e that she w as born

and raised outside o f O

pelousas, L ouisiana, that her ances-

tors had been enslaved in that sam e region, and that as a

consequence o f that

enslavem ent, a fear

echoed dow n

through the ages. "It first becam e clear w

hen I w as four,"

she told m e.

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137

M y m

other and I w ere going into the city. W

e got on the G

reyhound bus. I w as behind m

y m other. She

w asn't holding m

y hand at the tim e and I plopped

dow n in the first seat I found. A

few m

inutes later m y

m other w

as looking for m e and she took

m e to the

back of the bus and explained w hy I couldn't sit there.

W e w

ere very poor, and m ost o

f the black people around us, w

h o I knew

w ere poor also, and the im

ages I had o

f w hite A

m erica w

ere from going into the city

and seeing w h

o w as behind the counter in

the stores and seeing w

h o m

y m other w

orked for. It becam e

clear there w as a distance.

T his chasm

m akes itself know

n to us in all kinds o f

w ays. A

little girl w anders hom

e, at age seven, after being teased in

sch ool and asks her parents, "A

re w e niggers and

w hat does this m

ean?" Som etim

es it is su b

tle-th e sim

ple observation o

f w ho lives w

here and w orks w

hat jobs and w

h o does n

ot. Som etim

es it's all o f it at on

ce. I have never asked how

you becam e personally aw

are o f the distance.

W as it M

ike B row

n? I don't think I w ant to know

. B ut I

know that it has happened to you already, that you have

deduced that you are privileged and yet still different from

other privileged children, because you are the bearer o f a

body m ore fragile tl1an any other in this country. W

hat I w

ant you to k

n ow

is that this is n ot your fault, even

if it is ultim

ately your responsibility. It is your responsibility be-

1 3

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cause you are surrounded by the D ream

ers. It has nothing to do w

ith how you w

ear your pants or how you style

your hair. T he breach is as intentional as policy, as inten-

tional as the forgetting that follow s. T

he breach allow s for

the efficient sorting o f the plundered from

the plunderers, the enslaved from

the enslavers, sharecroppers from land-

holders, cannibals from food.

D r. Jones w

as reserved. She w as w

hat people once re- ferred to as "a lady," and in that sense rem

inded m e o

f m y

grandm other, w

ho w as a single m

other in the projects but alw

ays spoke as though she had nice things. A nd w

hen D r.

Jones described her m otive for escaping the dearth that

m arked the sharecropper life o

f her father and all the oth- ers around her, w

h en

she rem em

bered herself saying, "I'm

not going to live like this," I saw the iron in her eyes, and

I rem em

bered the iron in m y grandm

other's eyes. Y ou

m ust barely rem

em ber her by n

o w

-y o

u w

ere six w hen

she died. I rem em

ber her, o f course, but by the tim

e I knew

her, her exploits-how , for instance, she scrubbed

w hite people's floors during the day and w

ent to school at n

ig h

t-w ere legend. B

ut I still could feel the pow er and

rectitude that propelled her out o f the projects and into

hom eow

nership.

It w as the sam

e pow er I felt in the presence o

f D r.Jones.

W hen she w

as in second grade, she and another girl m ade

a pact that they w ould both becom

e doctors, and she held up her end o

f the bargain. B ut first she integrated the high

school in her tow n. A

t the beginning she fought the w hite

B E

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3 9

children w ho insulted her. A

t the end they voted her class president. She ran track. It w

as "a great entree," she told m

e, but it only brought her so far into their w orld. A

t football gam

es the other students w ould cheer the star

black running back, and then w hen a black player on the

other team got the ball, they'd yell, "K

ill that nigger! K ill

that nigger!" T hey w

ould yell this sitting right next to her, as though she really w

ere not there. She gave B ible recita-

tions as a child and told m e the story o

f her recruitm ent

into this business. H er m

other took her to audition for the junior choir. A

fterw ard the choir director said, "H

oney, I think you should talk:' She w

as laughing lightly now , not

uproariously, still in control o f her body. I felt that she w

as w

arm ing up. A

s she talked o f the church, I thought o

f your grandfather, the one you know

, and how his first in-

tellectual adventures w ere found in the recitation o

f B ible

passages. I thought o f your m

other, w ho did the sam

e. A nd

I thought o f m

y ow n distance from

an institution that has, so often, been the only support for our people. I often w

on d

er if in that distance I've m

issed som eth

in g, som

e n o

- tions o

f cosm ic hope, som

e w isdom

beyond m y m

ean physical perception o

f the w orld, som

ething beyond the body, that I m

ight have transm itted to you. I w

ondered this, at that particular m

om ent, because som

ething beyond anything I have ever understood drove M

able Jones to an exceptional life.

She w ent to college on full scholarship. She w

ent to m

ed school at L ouisiana State U

niversity. She served in the

1 4

T A

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N avy. She took up radiology. S

he did not then know any

other black radiologists. I assum ed that this w

ould have been hard on her, but she w

as insulted by the assum ption.

S he could not acknow

ledge any discom fort, and she did

not speak o f herself as rem

arkable, because it conceded too m

uch, because it sanctified tribal expectations w h

en the

only expectation that m attered should be rooted in an as-

sessm ent o

f M able Jones. A

nd by those lights, there w as

n oth

in g surprising in

her success, because M able Jones w

as alw

ays pedal to the floor, not over or around, but through, and if she w

as going to do it, it m ust be done to death. H

er disposition tow

ard life w as that o

f an elite athlete w ho

know s the opponent is dirty and the refs are o

n the take,

but also know s the cham

pionship is one gam e aw

ay. S

he called her so n

-P rin

ce Jo n

es-"R o

ck y

" in honor o

f her grandfather, w ho w

ent by "R ock." I asked about his

childhood, because the fact is that I had not know n P

rince all that w

ell. H e w

as am ong the people I w

ould be happy to see at a party, w

h om

I w ou

ld describe to a friend as "a

good brother," though I could not really account for his com

ings and goings. So she sketched him for m

e so that I m

ight better understand. She said that he once ham m

ered a nail into an electrical socket and shorted out the entire house. S

he said that he once dressed him self in a suit and

tie, got d ow

n on

on e knee, and sang "T

hree T iines a L

ady" to her. S

he said that he'd gone to private schools his entire life-schools filled w

ith D ream

ers-b u

t he m ade friends

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141

w herever h

e w ent, in L

ouisiana and later in T exas. I asked

her how his friends' parents treated her. "B

y then I w as the

chief o f radiology at the local hospital," she said. "A

nd so they treated m

e w ith respect." S

he said this w ith no love in

her eye, coldly, as though she w ere explaining a m

athem at-

ical function. L

ike his m other, P

rince w as sm

art. In high school he w

as adm itted to a T

exas m agnet school for m

ath and sci- ence, w

here students acquire college credit. D espite the

school draw ing from

a state w ith roughly the population

o f A

ngola, A ustralia, or A

fghanistan, P rince w

as the only black child. I asked D

r.Jones if she had w anted him

to go to H

ow ard. S

he sm iled and said, "N

o." T h

en she added,

"It's so nice to be able to talk about this." T his relaxed m

e a little, because I could think o

f m yself as som

ething m ore

than an intrusion. I asked w here she had w

anted him to go

for college. S he said, "H

arvard. A nd if not H

arvard, P rince-

ton. A nd if not P

rinceton, Y ale. A

nd if not Y ale, C

olum -

bia. A nd if not C

olum bia, Stanford. H

e w as that caliber o

f student." B

ut like at least one third o f all the students w

ho cam

e to H ow

ard, P rince w

as tired o f having to represent

to other people. T hese H

ow ard students w

ere not like m

e. T hey w

ere the children o f the Jackie R

obinson elite, w

hose parents rose up out o f the ghettos, and the share-

cropping fields, w ent out into the suburbs, only to find

that they carried the m ark w

ith them and could not es-

cape. E ven w

hen they succeeded, as so m any o

f them did,

1 4

T A

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they w ere singled out, m

ade exam ples of, transfigured into

parables o f diversity.

T hey w

ere sym bols and m

arkers, never children or young adults. A

nd so they com

e to H

ow ard to b

e n orm

al-an d

even m ore, to see h

ow broad

the black norm al really is.

Prince did not apply to H arvard, nor Princeton, nor

Y ale, nor C

olum bia, nor Stanford. H

e only w anted T

he M

ecca. I asked D r. Jones if she regretted Prince choosing

H ow

ard. She gasped. It w as as though I had pushed too

hard on a bruise. "N

o," she said. "I regret that he is dead." She said this w

ith great com posure and greater pain.

She said this w ith all o

f the odd poise and direction that the great A

m erican injury dem

ands o f you. H

ave you ever

taken a hard look at those pictures from the sit-ins in the

'60s, a hard, serious look? H ave you ever looked at the

faces? T h

e faces are neither angry, nor sad, nor joyous.

T hey betray alm

ost no em otion. T

hey look out past their torm

entors, past us, and focus on som ething w

ay beyond anything know

n to m e. I think they are fastened to their

god, a god w hom

I cannot know and in w

hom I do not

believe. B ut, god

or not, the arm or is all over them

, and it is real. O

r perhaps it is not arm or at all. Perhaps it is life

extension, a kind ofloan allow ing you to take the assaults

heaped upon you now and pay dow

n the debt later. W hat-

ever it is, that sam e look

I see in those pictures, noble and vacuous, w

as the look I saw in M

able Jones. It w as in her

sharp brow n eyes, w

hich w elled but did not break. She

B E

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4 3

held so m uch under her control, and I w

as sure the days since her R

ock y w

as plundered, since her lineage w as

robbed, had dem anded nothing less.

A nd she could not lean on her country for help. W

hen it cam

e to her son, D r. Jones's country did w

hat it does b

est-it forgot him . T

he forgetting is habit, is yet another necessary com

ponent o f the D

ream . T

hey have forgotten the scale o

f theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror

that allow ed them

, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them

their suburbs. T hey

have forgotten, because to rem em

ber w ould tum

ble them

out o f the beautiful D

ream and force them

to live dow n

here w ith

us, d ow

n here in

the. w orld. I am

convinced that the D

ream ers, at least the D

ream ers o

f today, w ould rather

live w hite than live free. In the D

ream they are B

uck R

ogers, P rince A

ragorn, an entire race o f Skyw

alkers. T o

aw aken them

is to reveal that they are an em pire o

f hu- m

ans and, like all em pires o

f hum ans, are built on the de-

struction o f the body. It is to stain their nobility, to m

ake them

vulnerable, fallible, breakable hum ans.

D r.Jones w

as asleep w hen the phone rang. It w

as 5 A .M

and on the phone w as a detective telling her she should

drive to W ashington. R

ocky w as in the hospital. R

ocky had been shot. She drove w

ith her daughter. She w as sure

he w as still alive. She paused several tim

es as she explained this. She w

ent directly to the IC U

. R ocky w

as not there. A

group o f m

en w ith authority-doctors, law

yers, detec-

1 4

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tives, p erh

ap s-to

o k

her into a room and told her he w

as gone. She paused again. She did not cry. C

om posure w

as too im

portant now .

"It w as unlike anything I had felt before," she told m

e. "It w

as extrem

ely physically painful. So m

uch so that

w henever a thought o

f him w

ould com e to m

ind, all I could do w

as pray and ask for m ercy. I thought I w

as going to lose m

y m ind and go crazy. I felt sick. I felt like I w

as dying."

I asked if she expected that the police officer w ho had

shot Prince w ould be charged. She said, "Yes:' H

er voice w

as a cocktail o f em

otions. She spoke like an A m

erican, w

ith the sam

e expectations o f fairness, even fairness b

e- lated and begrudged, that she took into m

edical school all those years ago. A

nd she spoke like a black w om

an, w ith

all the pain that undercuts those exact feelings. I now

w ondered about her daughter, w

ho'd been re- cently m

arried. T here w

as a picture on display o f this

daughter and her new husband. D

r.Jones w as not optim

is- tic. She w

as intensely w orried about her daughter bring-

in g a son into A

m erica, because she could n

ot save him ,

she could not secure his body from the ritual violence that

had claim ed her son. She com

pared A m

erica to R om

e. She said she thought the glory days o

f this country had long ago passed, and even those glory days w

ere sullied: T

hey had been built on the bodies o f others. "A

nd w e

can't get the m essage;' she said. "W

e don't understand that w

e are em bracing our deaths."

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I asked D r. Jones if her m

other w as still alive. She told

m e her m

other passed aw ay in 2002, at the age o

f eighty- nine. I asked D

r. Jones how her m

other had taken Prince's death, and her voice retreated into an alm

ost-w hisper, and

D r.Jones said, "I don't know

that she did." She alluded to 12 Years a Slave. "T

here he w as," she said,

speaking o f S

olom on N

orthup. "H e had m

eans. H e had a

fam ily. H

e· w as living like a hum

an being. A nd one racist

act took him back. A

nd the sam e is true o

f m e. I spent

years developing a career, acquiring assets, engaging re- sponsibilities. A

nd one racist act. It's all it takes." A nd then

she talked again o f all that she had, through great industry,

through unceasing labor, acquired in the long journey from

grinding poverty. She spoke o f how

her children had been raised in the lap o

f luxury-annual ski trips, jaunts off to E

urope. She said that w hen her daughter w

as study- ing Shakespeare in high school, she took her to E

ngland. A

nd W hen her daughter got her license at sixteen, a M

azda 626 w

as w aiting in front. I sensed som

e con n

ection to this

desire to give and the raw poverty o

f her youth. I sensed that it w

as all as m uch for her as it w

as for her children. She said that P

rince had never taken to m aterial things. H

e loved to read. H

e loved to travel. B ut w

hen he turned tw

enty-three, she bought him a jeep. She had a huge pur-

ple bow put on it. She told m

e that she could still see him

there, looking at the jeep and sim ply saying, Thank you,

M om

. W ithout interruption she added, "A

nd that w as the

jeep he w as killed in."

1 4

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A fter I left, I sat in the car, idle for a few

m inutes. I

thought o f all that Prince's m

other had invested in him ,

and all that w as lost. I thought o

f the loneliness that sent him

to T he M

ecca, and how T

he M ecca, how

w e, could

n ot save him

, h ow

w e ultim

ately cannot save ourselves. I thought back on the sit-ins, the protestors w

ith their stoic faces, the ones I'd once scorned for hurling their bodies at the w

orst things in life. Perhaps they had know n som

e- thing terrible about the w

orld. Perhaps they so w illingly

parted w ith the security and sanctity o

f the black body because neither security nor sanctity existed in

the first place. A

nd all those old photographs from the 1960s, all

those film s I beheld o

f black people prostrate before clubs and dogs, w

ere not sim ply sham

eful, indeed w ere not

sham eful at a

ll-th ey

w ere just true.

W e are

captured, brother, surrounded by the m

ajoritarian bandits o f A

m er-

ica. A nd this has happened here, in our only hom

e, and the terrible truth is that w

e cannot w ill ourselves to an escape

on our ow n. Perhaps that w

as, is, the hope o f the m

ove- m

ent: to aw aken the D

ream ers, to rouse them

to the facts o

f w hat their need to be w

hite, to talk like they are w hite,

to think that they are w hite, w

hich is to think that they are beyond the design flaw

s o

f hum anity, has

done to the

w orld. B

ut you cannot arrange your life around them and the

sm all chance o

f the D ream

ers com ing into consciousness.

O u

r m om

en t is too brief. O

u r bodies are too precious.

A nd you are here now

, and you m ust live-an

d there is so

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m uch ou

t there to live for, n ot just in som

eon e else's cou

n -

try, but in your ow n hom

e. T he w

arm th o

f dark energies that drew

m e to T

he M ecca, that drew

out Prince Jones, the w

arm th o

f our particular w orld, is beautiful, no m

atter how

brief and breakable. I think back to our trip to H

om ecom

ing. I think back to the w

arm blasts rolling over us. W

e w ere at the football

gam e. W

e w ere sitting in the bleachers w

ith old friends and their children, caring for neither fum

bles nor first dow ns. I

rem em

ber looking tow ard the goalposts and w

atching a pack o

f alum ni cheerleaders so enam

ored w ith

H ow

ard U

niversity that they donned their old colors and took out their old uniform

s just a little so they'd fit. I rem em

ber them

dancing. T hey'd shake, freeze, shake again, and w

hen the crow

d yelled " D

o it! D o

it! D o

o o

it!" a black w

om an

tw o row

s in front o

f m e,in

her tightestjeans,stood and shook as though she w

as not som ebody's m

om m

a and the past tw

enty years had barely been a w eek. I rem

em ber

w alking dow

n to the tailgate party w ithout you. I could

not bring you, but I have no problem telling you w

hat I sa

w -th

e entire diaspora around m e-h

u stlers, law

yers, K

appas, busters, doctors, barbers, D eltas, drunkards, geeks,

and nerds. T he D

J hollered into the m ic. T

he young folks pushed tow

ard him . A

young m an pulled out a bottle o

f cognac and tw

isted the cap. A girl w

ith him sm

iled, tilted her head back, im

bibed, laughed. A nd I felt m

yself disap- pearing into all o

f their bodies. T he birthm

ark o f danm

a- tion faded, and I could feel the w

eight o f m

y arm s and

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hear the heave in m y breath and I w

as not talking then, because there w

as n o point.

T hat w

as a m

om en

t, a joyous m om

en t, beyond the

D rea

m -a

m om

en t in1bued b

y a pow er m

ore gorgeous than any voting rights bill. T

his pow er, this black pow

er, originates in a view

o f the A

m erican galaxy taken from

a dark and essential planet. B

lack pow er is the dungeon-side

view o

f M onticello-w

hich is to say, the view taken in

struggle. A nd black pow

er births a kind o f understanding

that illum inates all the galaxies in their truest colors. E

ven the D

ream ers-lost in their great reverie-feel it, for it is

B illie they reach for in sadness, and M

obb D eep is w

hat they holler in boldness, and Isley they hum

in love, and D

re they yell in revelry, and A retha is the last sound they

hear before dying. W e have m

ade som ething dow

n here. W

e have taken the one-drop rules o f D

ream ers and flipped

them . T

hey m ade us into a race. W

e m ade ourselves into

a people. H ere at T

he M ecca, under pain o

f selection, w e

have m ade a hom

e. A s do black people on sum

m er blocks

m arked w

ith needles, vials, and hopscotch squares. A s do

black people dancing it out at rent parties, as do black people at their fam

ily reunions w here w

e are regarded like the survivors o

f catastrophe. A s do black people toasting

their cognac and G erm

an beers, passing their blunts and debating M

C s. A

s do all o f us w

ho have voyaged through death, to· life upon these shores.

T hat w

as the love pow er that drew

Prince Jones. T he

. !

1 5

T A

·N E

H IS

I C O

A T

E S

pow er is not divinity but a deep know

ledge o f how

fragile everything-even the D

ream , especially the D

ream -really

is. Sitting in that car I thought ofD r.Jones's predictions o

f national doom

. I had heard such predictions all m y life

from M

alcolm and all his posthum

ous follow ers w

ho hol- lered that the D

ream ers m

ust reap w hat they sow

. I saw

the sam e prediction in the w

ords o f M

arcus G arvey w

ho prom

ised to return in a w

hirlw ind o

f vengeful ancestors, an arm

y o f M

iddle Passage undead. N o. I left T

he M ecca

know ing that this w

as all too pat, know ing that should the

D ream

ers reap w hat they had sow

n, w e w

ould reap it right w

ith them . P

lunder has m atured into habit and addiction;

the people w ho could author the m

echanized death o f our

ghettos, the m ass rape

o f private prisons, then engineer

their ow n forgetting, m

ust inevitably plunder m uch m

ore. T

his is not a belief in prophecy but in the seductiveness o f

cheap gasoline. O

nce, the D ream

's param eters w

ere caged by technol- ogy and by the lim

its o f horsepow

er and w ind. B

ut the D

ream ers have im

proved them selves, and the dam

m ing o

f seas for voltage, the extraction o

f coal, the transm uting o

f oil into Iood, have enabled an expansion in plunder w

ith no know

n precedent. A nd this revolution has freed the

D ream

ers to plunder not just the bodies o f hum

ans but the body o

f the E arth itself T

he E arth is not our creation. It

has n o respect for us. It has n

o use for us. A n

d its ven

- geance is not the fire in the cities but the fire in the sky.

B E

T W

E E

N T

H E

W O

R L

D A

N D

M E

151

Som ething m

ore fierce than M arcus G

arvey is riding on

the w hirlw

ind. Som ething m

ore aw ful than all our A

frican ancestors is rising w

ith the seas. T h

e tw o phenom

ena are know

n to each other. It w as the cotton that passed through

our chained hands that inaugurated this age. It is the flight from

us that sent them

spraw ling into the subdivided

w oods. A

nd the m ethods o

f transport through these new

subdivisions, across the spraw l, is the autom

obile, the n oose

around the neck o f the earth, and ultim

ately, the D ream

ers them

selves. I drove aw

ay from the house o

f M able Jones thinking o

f all o

f this. I drove aw ay, as alw

ays, thinking o f you. I do not

believe that w e can stop them

, Sam ori, because they m

ust ultim

ately stop them selves. A

nd still I urge you to struggle. Struggle for the m

em ory o

f your ancestors. Struggle for w

isdom . Struggle for the w

arm th o

f T he M

ecca. Struggle for your grandm

other and grandfather, for your nam e.

B ut do not struggle for the D

ream ers. H

ope for them .

Pray for them , if you are so m

oved. B ut do not pin your

struggle on their conversion. T

h e D

ream ers w

ill have to learn to struggle them

selves, to understand that the field for their D

ream , the stage w

here they have painted them -

selves w hite, is the deathbed o

f us all. T he D

ream is the

sam e habit that endangers the planet, the sam

e habit that sees our bodies stow

ed aw ay in prisons and ghettos. I saw

these ghettos driving back from

D r. Jones's hom

e. T hey

w ere the sam

e ghettos I had seen in C hicago all those years

1 5

T A

-N E

H IS

I C O

A T

E S

ago, the sam e ghettos w

here m y m

other w as raised, w

here m

y father w as raised. T

hrough the w indshield I saw

the m

ark o f these g

h etto

s-th e abundance o

f beauty shops, churches, liquor stores, and crum

bling h o

u sin

g -an

d I felt

the old fear. T hrough the w

indshield I saw the rain com

- ing dow

n in sheets.

A B

O U

T T

H E

A U

T H

O R

TA -N

EH ISI

C O

A T

E S

is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and the author o

f the m em

oir The Beau- tiful Struggle. C

oates has received the N ational M

aga- zine A

w ard, the H

illm an Prize for

O pinion and

A nalysis Journalism

, and the G eorge Polk A

w ard for

his A tlantic cover story "T

he C ase for R

eparations." H

e lives in N ew

Y ork w

ith his w ife and son.