Once White in America |
Nation of Change
2015-02-16
Jane Lazarre provides a very intimate post-Ferguson view of what it means to her to raise her two black sons in the “afterlife of such a world.” Are we living in a world of American barbarism?
For Adam and Khary
Black bodies
swingin’ in
the summer
breeze
strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees
It was 1969 and 1973, both times in early fall, when I first saw your small bodies, rose and tan, and fell in love for the second and third time with a black body, as it is named, for my first love was for your father. Always a word lover, I loved his words, trustworthy, often not expansive, sometimes even sparse, but always reliable and clear. How I — a first-generation Russian-Jewish girl — loved clarity! Reliable words — true words, measured words, filled with fascinating new life stories, drawing me down and in. The second and third times I fell in love with black bodies I became a black body, not Black, but black in a way I’d say without shame and some humor, for mine is dark tan called white. But I am the carrier, I am the body who carried them, released on a river of blood.
Am I black in a cop’s hands when he is pushing, pressing hard for dope or a gun or a rope or a knife or a fist? I am not a black body, yet my body is somehow, somewhere, theirs — Trayvon’s, Emmett’s, thousands more at the end of a rope’s tight murderous swing, black as a night stick splits my head, shatters my chest, black as a boy not yet a man walking toward a man with a gun, suddenly shot dead, a just-become man walking down the stairs toward a gun, black as a tall man, a big man, looking strong but pleading for his breath, killed by choking arms and bodies piled on top of his head.
Walking the sidewalks of my city in the morning, I dodge white dads’ bikes daily, their little toddlers strapped into a back seat, and I don’t mind as riding in the street or wide, traffic-filled avenues does seem a dangerous way to get to nursery school. Later in the morning, when I am still walking, the white fathers or mothers bike by me again, now with the back seats empty. I look around for police, wondering if there will be a ticketing for riding on the sidewalk, since no child’s safety is at stake. No cops in sight. My great-nephew, young and black and not fully grown, was stopped and handcuffed by police a month ago for riding his bike on the sidewalk, his often glazed eyes glazing more deeply now…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: Jane Lazarre, Nation of Change