Questions and Answers Under The Sun

A good friend of mine told me one day that everyone is not pure of heart, everyone is not of pure motives, everyone does not have a pure mind.

It struck me that even at my age, I can feel betrayed and disappointed in people that I have encountered who I thought were working for the same thing I was working for.

The sting of it and the cut of it is deep.

One result was me doing what I have often done, examining myself ad nauseum to see where I missed the mark, where I didn't notice the envy or jealousy, the narcissm or greed. When did I just gloss over their reasons for why they should "get paid" or how that out-of-country trip was "for the people" while you were getting paid in a used gift card from a client whose lie of "it is important to me" turned into "well, times are tight."

The well spung up in a week of back-to-back reveals and it made me wonder was my head buried in the sand, did I owe those with fewer resources more because I made a choice that was different? Was my work in education just as important as their protests on the police lines? Was the work of clergy friends as important as their quest to shame the church elders? What about the ones who were also college educated but called older college educated activists, "house negroes" and "sellouts" because we had books in our home or owned our homes. We saw the ones raise money for "safe houses" that turned out to be a farse with the people fabricating being chased down by police when others have driven all over the city to never be stopped.

Was it all smoke and mirrors? Was it really a game and a joke? Was someone pulling puppet strings?

Being an introvert, an amateur historian and one others turned to for wisdom, I decided to apply some of it to myself and my own feelings. What would I advise me if I were on the other side of the table?

We all had a choice, even if we sat in inadequate schools. There have been news reports after report of kids who did study, who did make it, who made the teachers teach them. There were others who decided to go with the crowd and skip class, hang out on the corner, or engage in early premarital sex that mades St. Louis the #1 place for STDs and many out-of-wedlock births. Choices were made.

One set of parents, thirty years ago, made a decision to fill their home with books so their children could always have that thing that many a slave wanted - knowledge. Another set filled their home with designer gym shoes and measured their worth by someone's name on a bag, they had nothing for a rainy day or even to bury their loved ones. Who is wrong in the way their lives ended up in thirty years. One doesn't just end up in a situation, regardless of how many structures are placed around them

As I began to discuss my feelings and observations with peers, as I challenged my own world view, realizing that my parents made some things accessible to me that put my life perspective in a different lens, not everyone wanted to work hard, study hard, or make the hard choice to not indulge.

In church today, pastor talked about the struggle of the flesh and the spirit. He, and scripture backs it up, said that the flesh will always win out if the spirit is not grounded, strong, and the focus. We all have temptations, I like a nice purse just like the next woman, but know that money is better spent on lessons for my daugthers, books for her, and investment in my son's college aspirations. He acted out the war that takes place and the strength of character it takes to actually follow after the spirit, to decide to be different, to endure the slurs of being "bougie" or "uppity" or "house negro" as one puts in their ear plugs to drown out the noise while they study. It takes discipline to be young and put the money in the bank because they understand money makes money, versus running to the nearest weave or blue jean store to create a false image of prosperity.  Choices abound.

The last few days were especially hard as unveiling and unveiling continued. Did I just miss it? Was my willingness to go places I had never been and work with people I had never seen before simply a ruse on their part? On my part? Was it really about community building or simply, "Imma get mines?"

Questions filled my weekend as gloomy clouds and unseasonable cold filled the sky.

Will goodness abound? What about when the money is gone? What about when the attention is turned to other directions? What about the summer when bodies are out and tempers flare from being too close and too broke?

As the weekend comes to a close and we enter the first week of summer break, anwers are far away. Pondering continues, and I still think it was worth it. If for anything, it made us all think and see that what needs to change is nothing new under the sun.

Roots and Thoughts

Last week, I had to sit down and wonder about what had been going on in my city and across the nation.

It was in my silenced response to the actions of some young activists that gave me pause. Was it worth my time and voice to keep speaking up and out when the end goal was a few coins to be spent on the open market? Was the concentrated actions of a few at the expense of the many worth all the time invested over the past ten months?

A lot of my thoughts and questions were responded to by Jamala Rogers in her article on the #cutthecheck action. I let that sit with me and then read a very poignant response by  John Chasnoff of The Police State Project  that I hope will put a pause button on some of the future actions so that strategic minds can create a collective outcome.

Movement work, dismantling racism, confronting sexism, breaking systems, all this requires a collective focus and not an individualized approach.

It was also in wondering that it hit me how none of this is new.

There have been months and months that I told the young activists that they did not invent organizing, protesting, activism. They had the benefit of social  media, but after sitting at the feet of Selma James of the Global Women's Strike, I was certain that this work was not the stuff of instant gratification.

Seasoned women and I have talked about the root causes of the segregation that is at the core of St. Louis, the infamous Delmar divide, the towns and gowns divisions among black people, the well-meaning fragility and control of some white activists, and the system that refuses to bend.  We talked about the municipalities that could not afford to be alive and existed for the very purpose of segregation. Conversations included education and the deplorable learning environment that is the daily life of inner city students in districts like Normandy and St. Louis. Choice came up a lot in the thoughts, from choices we all made to sacrifice for our children to choices some people made to refuse to pick up a book.

After a few cups of coffee and discussion, it started to feel fatalistic, that we would not see movement or change in our lifetime. That the pendulum was not swinging toward fairness, equality, equity, and justice fast enough. Were we wrong for using our gifts and talents to try to better our people who only wanted a few more coins? Would our constant speaking up and out hurt our future consulting and career opportunities. Did any of it matter?

We wrestled as we sipped lattes and wondered what we could do.

The roots of what happened in Ferguson and Baltimore, Staten Island and Salt Lake City, Cleveland and Detroit are a deep as trees outside my balcony. Dismantling it would cause many to tumble, many to face themselves in the mirror and wonder about their role. The teachers who were paid by a system that failed to educate all the students, the municipal court judge who perhaps knew it was unfair to jail someone over a parking ticket but whose daughter needed braces, the "good" cop who turned a blind eye to the brutality of the others on the beat, the neighbors who were scared and called the police at the slightest appearance of someone they felt didn't belong there. The man and woman in the mirror was all of us.

This is going to be a long hot summer, a chance for revitalization and renewal, for the flowers to bloom and the soil to nurture itself for another season. I hope that the fertilization of hope, dialogue, honesty, justice, and fairness are what seeps down to the roots. I hope it is different. I hope for something new under the sun.

Plus One

This is always a favorite week for me and my household.

Aside from the immediate shift from cold to warm in this part of the midwest with the accompanying blowing winds, pollen, and chirping birds, it is birthday week!

My youngest son became a legal adult on Monday.

That threw me for a moment to stop and realize that that much time had elapsed between his improbable beginning. He is doing everything I ever wanted him to do. When I think about this place in his life - almost a college senior as soon as he finishes his last final, following his passion in opera, enjoying being young, and meeting a wonderful young lady - I pause to think about the blessing of being a black mother with a black son who hasn't been a statistic.

My son is almost my birthday twin. We are two days and a whole lot of years apart.

Today is my birthday.

I woke up to my plus one day.

It felt fresh, unpackaged, expectant.

I remember the combination of fear, anxiety, celebration, and happiness I felt as I crossed from one decade to another, sealing myself in the space of middle age. There were so many things I thought about doing and began to utter prayer of more time to read, more time to write, more time to live for my grandson's birth.

The morning dawned on a feeling of excitement and purpose.

Almost a year ago, the world turned upside down and everything I thought I would be doing changed. From the first week of August to now, I focused so much on culture, social justice, human rights, and fairness The endless days, posts, meetings, marches, and tweets began to take a toll on my emotional health as name became hashtag after hashtag after hashtag.

So it was with great jubilee that I greeted today knowing that purpose for me is being sealed, that my enlarged tent has put me on a path I was meant to follow, and that my title of "Mama Tayé" was not only earned, but recognized. It gave me a moment to pause and be humble.

When I dropped the girls off to school and went to have coffee, I sat outside at a bistro table at my favorite local coffee shop. I left my laptop at home, intentionally, and turned my phone off. There was a call in my soul to be present, to feel the morning sun gently warm my face, to be caressed by the wind whisping through my hair, and to be serenaded by the birds chirping their appreciation for that crumb on the concrete.  Moments became minutes as I sipped my beehive Tanzanian coffee and took bites of a handmade yogurt parfait. I allowed myself to acknowledge that not only did I deserve this time, I needed this time.

The morning respite was briefly interrupted by an errand for  my daughter followed by a yearning for more.  I hopped in my car, turned it west, and ended up in a suburb a few miles from home. Taking a chance, I turned into a little strip mall and found myself outside a local French bakery. Being Creole and yearning for the reminded carefree afternoon in New Orleans, I decided this was the place to remain for the afternoon.

I was not disappointed in the perfectly frothed cappachino dusted with cinnamon, the mini fresh french rolls with warm butter, the raspberry vinegrette on my salad, and the light and airy strawberry layered cake that demanded all thoughts of increasing middle age weight be tossed in the pond beside my table. I took my time to be present, wrote a few lines that will eventually be a poem or essay, and smelled the freshness of the flowers, listened to the calm of the water fountains on the patio, and watched the ladies who lunch with hands glistening with jewels earned over a lifetime.

My plus one day filled me with hope and opportunity.

Time is a precious gift.

It is not to be frivilously squandered, irreplaceable.

Today, for my plus one, I gave myself the moments of me.

Screams of an Angry Black Woman!

This morning, after dropping my daugthers off to school, folding a load of towels, starting another load, and putting on the water for my first cup of coffee, I opened the email that precipated this post.

Originally shared on my facebook page and developed more in depth, I found myself defending the "angry black woman" in this climate of racialized murder, genderized legislation, and economic apartheid wrecking havoc in many of our cities.

Polite conversation would tell me that someone of my caliber of education, experience, and even status (husband's?) should not have had such a public display of emotion.

I almost didn't post it.

One of the things that has been a hallmark of my brand has been my authentcity, vulnerability, transparency, and determination to keep going.

Why change that because I could be worried about what the invisible "others" would think of me.

So, on this day after my youngest son's 21st birthday and the eve before my not-21st-birthday, I ranted.

Angry is  being over 40, well educated, black, female, and in a racial apartheid that won't hire you because you are black and female and more educated than the young white female half your age with barely 3  years of experience who is telling you that you need to add more things to your 25+years of Management experience résumé. Angry is being an adjunct professor teaching white students with barely a high school diploma who then run to the department chair because they don't want to write a paper in a junior college level class. Angry is no longer being an adjunct professor as one quietly took the correction from the white female department chair who had some made-up DMgt instead of a real PhD or EdD. Angry is wearing the full suit and white female intimidated because one is dressed while they look like they rolled out of bed. Angry is being told one's naturally coiffed hair is too ethnic. Angry is having one's ideas stolen and seeing them on the store shelf. Angry is being laid off while the less-than-educated white female counterpart who botched the product line still works because their parent was once with the company. Angry is applying for a local job to see a foreign white woman get it and then proceed to haze the children on that job. Angry is watching gatekeepers with your same skincolor not only close the doors behind them but lock them tight so their white masters can see them as the good negro. Angry is giving up over 12 years to nurse back-to-life a child with five incurable chronic illnesses all while one's home is sold for less than it is worth after the corruption of the realtor and banker, moving to a God-forsaken city that is worse than apartheid, and getting a bill for almost $92,000 in students loans than one does not have the hope of paying in one's lifetime. Angry is realizing one will die with that debt and that the system will try to extract it from one's living children who are trying to make their way. Angry is applying and applying for years to be told one is too educated or not educated enough, one is too black, not the right black, or just not white, even though they use other terms like fit. Angry is knowing all this and still fighting for black lives so that ones' children don't have to be in the same position. #worthmorethanyourless

On The Way to Myself

It was no surprise to my friends and family that the pace of the past nine months was beginning to take a toll on me.

Sleep became a luxury that one could scarcely afford to take. The former every-twenty-eight-hours had reduced to almost one every-eight-hours. The trauma of one began to fall like bricks, the stack building a wall around me that was becoming impenetrable.

While I have not personally had the unspeakable horror of my son or daughter lying facedown in the hot sun, or slaughtered on their sofa, or eating a late-night-snack, or disoriented after an accident, or shopping for a toy, or simply opening the door, the shock to my soul felt like I could not breathe again.

My friends and I would talk about what was going on, always with our cell phones nearby for that familiar alert that another had been lynched. No, this is not 1945 or 1965, it is 2015 and the death toll has reached genocidal proportions.

Two Saturday's ago, just when I was hitting the wall, waking up to the news of one more death of another unarmed black man, another came across my newsfeed before the moon filled the night sky

I escaped to the park, sat in my car, and gazed out at the lake.

My faith was shaken.

Even as I could count the names of men and women who I worked alongside in the quest for human rights for the sunkissed people, even as my personal circle has expanded and my cadre of children has more than doubled. Planning meetings and organizations developed and quests continued, my faith was shaken.

How could there be that much hate in the soul of the winter ones?

My questions seemed to fall on death ears, flittering in the afternoon breeze, answers far away.

But sitting at that lake, looking out at the suburban families totally obvlious to the rage and pain coursing through the veins of the lady in her car, I came to myself.

This is not news.

It is not even new.

We have been here before.

But we do not have to stay here.

I put my car in gear, backed out of the parking space, drove home, greeted my family, showered, and went to bed.

The next day, I woke up to a fresh day, a page waiting for me to write the story.

And I breathed.

Where there is life, there is opportunity

And I breathed.

Again.

The work continues.