Never-ending Battles Require Sustainable Energy

Everyday, the United States gives me plenty of reason to be frustrated, offended, and downright depressed. It sends powerful messages about how little it values me and mine. I live in a country where slavery literally lasted through the 1940s and where today’s prison industrial complex continues to create The New Jim Crow. Nevertheless, the smallest acknowledgment of racial injustice inspires dismissive accusations of “playing the race card.”

I live in a country where 17-year-old Trayvon Martin can be murdered in cold blood, and his killer, George Zimmerman, is treated with leniency. In fact, I live in a country where Zimmerman would not have been arrested if there had not been weeks of protest. What is most painful about the Trayvon Martin tragedy, though, is the fact that his story is so familiar. As Lisa Guerrero and David J. Leonard have noted, violence against black and brown people has long been considered an entertaining pastime.

The United States excuses violence that prevents (certain) teenagers from fulfilling their potential, but when people of color beat the odds, the response can be equally brutal. Black and brown success is often discounted, disrespected, and denied or it becomes the reason for additional violence—what I call know-your-place aggression. In an earlier post, I shared my experience with such aggression and the pain of seeing white mediocrity valued more than black excellence. Responses to that post suggest that my experience is far from unique, as does Dr. Christian Head’s case against UCLA. Still, some of the most egregious know-your-place aggression has become so pervasive that many don’t notice it: now that the president is clearly not 100% white, disrespecting the nation’s highest office has become routine. The vicious nature of Obama-era public discourse has been ably documented by Michael K. Wilson and David J. Leonard, and Huffington Post contributor Andres Jauregui notes that hanging images of President Obama in effigy has become a trend.

Facing these realities, how do you avoid utter despair? How do you keep from giving up by assuming that the country will never make good on its promises? As importantly, how do you resist the temptation to become completely disconnected? Many people of color try to escape by self-medicating with alcohol and drugs... or with religion. I can see why the latter is particularly tempting. This country is always doing us dirty. Why wouldn’t we welcome a holy cleansing?

I have decided to resist these temptations; I will not ignore the world around me, but I refuse to sink into despair, no matter how justified that sometimes seems. Too many people sacrificed to leave me the improved conditions that I enjoy. It is my turn to try to do the same for future generations.

But I am not deceived: surviving and thriving in a society that is set up to destroy, denigrate, and disrespect me requires much more than a strong will.

Exercise has therefore become invaluable! I am much more active now than I was as a teenager, and I don’t see myself slowing down. I cannot afford to—not if I want to make a difference in this world, which I do.

Though I have long understood the value of exercise, making a commitment to do it consistently did not happen over night. It has been a journey, and I have had many sources of encouragement along the way. In 2003, I was welcomed into SisterMentors, an organization that helps women of color finish writing their doctoral dissertations while they mentor school girls. Dr. Shireen Lewis, the founder and director, guides women through the dissertation process, and she takes a very holistic approach. She insists that each woman see herself as a complete human being whose mind, body, and spirit all deserve attention. Dr. Shireen encourages meditation, yoga, and clean eating. I followed much of her advice but never really became consistent.

Once I earned the PhD and relocated to begin my first job, I thought that a healthier lifestyle would be part of the transition. Again, I was not particularly consistent. However, the encouragement to prioritize physical and spiritual health continued to flow into my life. In July 2009, I attended an arts showcase by young women who had completed the Girl/Friends summer program. Girl/Friends is a project of A Long Walk Home that empowers teenagers to do rape prevention educational work in their own schools. The showcase was titled “Fearless,” and it featured the girls’ creative work with photography, dance, and spoken word. As they shared some of the experiences that impacted them the most, I was struck by the program’s emphasis on being physically active and honoring the mind-body-spirit connection.

In short, the program confirmed that doing lasting good in a world that is designed to discount you—anyone who isn’t white and/or male and/or heterosexual and/or middle class—requires valuing yourself enough to prioritize self-care.

Still, it was not until I fell in love with running that I finally found my way of being good to myself on a regular basis. I have now been running since August 2010, because I found positive sources of motivation rather than focusing on losing weight. Basically, I run because I can. I am grateful that I can move, and I show my gratitude by moving.

Gratitude remains my motivation, but in April 2011, I found additional support by becoming an ambassador for Black Girls RUN!, a national organization founded by Toni Carey and Ashley Hicks to promote active lifestyles.

It took me a while to find my primary exercise passion, but I kept looking because I knew that the benefits would be immeasurable. Too many people believe that self-care means being selfish and self-centered, but how can you give the world something of quality if your tank is empty? We assume that everything else is more urgent than nurturing ourselves, but there is no way around it: you can't give what you don’t have, and energy is our most precious resource.

Why Not You? Why Not Now?
I continue to resist the idea that losing weight is a good motivation for exercise. My points of emphasis therefore differ from the sound bites often associated with Black Girls RUN! Nevertheless, I love seeing BGR! inspire women of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds. I am honored to be a part of it. And, we are not alone in this invigorating work.

More and more people understand the importance of getting everyone around them moving. Of course, First Lady Michelle Obama contributes significantly to this endeavor, but there are many such leaders. It is not uncommon to encounter messages like “Strong is the new sexy” and “Health is the new wealth.” And I love the way that Stic of Dead Prez puts it: “Healthy is the New Gangsta…stay G’d up!” Similar sentiments have recently been articulated by the great thinkers of Crunk Feminist Collective and Colorlines. It is an awakening that I am thrilled to see.

Why don’t you join us? Why not now? The nation is not getting any less racist, sexist, heterosexist, and classist or any less brutal toward people who are differently abled or whose gender expression resists rigidity. When you realize that, you understand that Audre Lorde said it best: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Running may not be the answer, but please find your source of sustainable energy.

Plays about Lynching in 2010: Recognizing History’s Presence

This year’s New York International Fringe Festival received applications from 800 theatre groups.  Approximately 200 shows were accepted and would be staged in August 2010.  Within the wide array of offerings, one presentation proved especially compelling:  Kym Gomes’s By Hands Unknown, which consists of seven one-act plays about lynching, many of which I examine in my forthcoming book.  Having studied these plays for many years, I was eager to see them staged for the first time, but I was also nervous.  How would these scripts fit together to make a coherent show?  They were all written in the 1920s and 1930s, when dramatic conventions were different from today’s.  Would they seem melodramatic and unrealistic?  Would they even be recognized as “good” plays?  As importantly, would the content feel relevant in 2010?

All of these questions could be answered with a resounding yes because the directors were so creative and resourceful, and the actors executed so well.  My more detailed performance review should appear in the May 2011 issue of Theatre Journal (Johns Hopkins University Press), but I want to share a few thoughts here.  The power of the presentation can be understood with a focus on its opening and closing moments.

The show began with a single light shining on Safiya Fredericks as she recited “Strange Fruit” from memory.  Though a musician accompanied her on guitar, she shared it as a poem, not a song.  However, most people know the lines because Billie Holiday made them famous with her 1939 recording, so the audience could instantly feel a sense of familiarity.  Beginning this way drew audience members in; we were reassured that we knew something about the subject matter.  There is always comfort in feeling like one has a way in, like one is not on the outside of an experience. 

This powerfully rendered poem gave way to Georgia Douglass Johnson’s one-act play A Sunday Morning in the South, in which a 19-year-old who aspires to be a lawyer is falsely accused of rape.  The action begins with Tom’s grandmother and younger brother teasing him about having fallen asleep at 8 o’clock the night before.  They laugh, recalling that he was snoring so loudly that they thought he might choke.  Soon, officers barge into the house, demanding to know where Tom had been at 10 o’clock the previous night.  The play dramatizes the moment when his testimony, and that of his family members, is disregarded.  The officers insist that they already have the case “figured out.”   

Gomes’s choice to begin with a piece that emphasizes African Americans’ exclusion from basic citizenship rights, such as due process, proved especially poignant as the show approached its end.  One by one, the actors emerged from the shadows to recite a portion of Resolution 39, the 2005 measure in which the U.S. Senate apologized for having never passed anti-lynching legislation.  By the time that all 18 members of the ensemble cast had stepped forward, the entire resolution had been shared, and they covered the stage from left to right, directly facing the audience.  Black and white, different ages and backgrounds, each actor took responsibility for recognizing that this is a history that we all share, encouraging audience members to do the same.

Knowing that the black rapist myth emerged only after slavery ended and black men had finally won the right to vote, I was especially struck by the challenge issued by the actors’ stance.  By labeling black men “rapists,” mobs insisted that they were simply protecting white women.  The charge overshadowed the real purpose of mob violence: to ensure that blacks remained terrified—and too preoccupied with basic survival—to claim full citizenship rights.  This white supremacist strategy has remained popular and effective.  Relentlessly labeling black and brown people “criminals” has always been a way of insisting that they are not entitled to civic inclusion.  Given this history, and the many ways that it shapes the present, we must understand that serious political realities are reflected in the way that Americans feel comfortable talking about people. 

It matters that many of us speak with disgust in our voices about “immigrants” who are black and brown—when all Americans are actually immigrants.  It also matters that the word “criminal” has a hard time clinging to white offenders, even though crimes against the environment and crimes that have cheated thousands out of their life savings are widely publicized.  The nation consistently demonizes black and brown citizens, but the stakes are becoming even higher with the growth of the prison industrial complex.  As legal scholar Michelle Alexander has shown in The New Jim Crow, the privatized prison system offers incentives for creating “felons” with laws that essentially target those who are black, brown, and/or poor.  However, laws addressing crimes mostly committed by whites, especially moneyed whites, ensure that they receive mild punishment and relatively little stigma.  Meanwhile, the “felons” become an underclass that cannot vote and is otherwise ostracized and excluded. 

The reactionary, sometimes violent politics that now coalesce around labels like “immigrant,” “criminal,” and “terrorist” resemble those justified by the earlier “black rapist” myth—especially because, when actual immigrants, criminals, and terrorists are white, they are somehow not known by those labels.  Though not equivalent, the situation was similar at the last turn of the century:  hysteria regarding the mythic black rapist made the documented rape of black women by white men a non-issue in mainstream discourse and public policy.   

Because By Hands Unknown begins and ends its engagement with lynching by raising questions about basic rights, it urges us to think seriously about who comes to mind when we say “citizen” today.

More about By Hands Unknown:

A Brava Company/Chelsea Rep LAB Production

Conceived by Kym Gomes
Directed by Harvey Huddleston, Kym Gomes
Associate Directors: Carmen Balentine, Ravin Patterson
Music Director: Bruce Baumer
Costumes by Jennifer Anderson

Ensemble Cast: Carmen Balentine, Michael Bunin, Valerie Elizabeth  Donaldson, Safiya Fredericks, Kym Gomes, Matt Hammond, Phil John, Nancy Keegan, Jamil Moore, Brett Pack, Alison Parks, Ravin Patterson, Jihan Ponti, Rick Schneider, Stefania Diana Schramm, Vonetta Steward, Temesgen Tocruray, Nathan Yates