I have a diverse group of friends. Over the years, I’ve had great conversations with my White friends about what my experience is as a Black American. Often in those various conversations, a few statements have recurred:
“I won’t ever know what it’s like to walk in your shoes”
“I don’t see color”
“I don’t know what I can do to help”
Generally speaking, all of these statements were said with good intent. So I’ve come up with a simple but impactful analogy that might help shift one’s thinking from apathy to care.
In my travels and most summers, I love to go to the beach. Growing up in Brooklyn, I never felt that I had a connection or access to picturesque beaches but there is calming quality in listening to the waves crash under the sunshine. I find that the beach is a great place to read a book, listen to music, have few drinks, and/or connect with friends. When I take out my beach bag to leave for the beach there is always something inside the bag that I don’t really need; sunscreen.
Now before you get all preachy on me about the dangers of skin cancer hear me out. First, my doctor tells me every year that I have a vitamin D deficiency. Second, my dark skin can absorb the sun’s rays and I’ve never gotten sunburned in America. Third, my skin looks radiant and I look great with a tan.
So why do I buy sunscreen and remember to take it with me to the beach? I know that when I leave the house for the beach that I will likely be going with other people, of lighter skin (i.e. White folks), who will need sunscreen or else they get sunburned.
Now, I’ve never had a bad sunburn but I have been around plenty of White folks who didn’t apply sunscreen properly and have gotten a bad sunburn. To be frank, it looks awful and extremely painful. Because I’m not apathetic, I’ve asked my White friends to share their sunburn experience with me. What does it feel like? When does it go away? What happens when you touch it? How does it heal? Why did you not apply sunscreen more effectively? You really have to go through this entire sunscreen application process before you layout? Why do you want to get a tan anyway? Yes, I know being darker is sexier but is all this worth it? So I’m thoughtful enough to leverage my Black privilege in this instance to bring sunscreen just in case.
Similarly, when I leave my apartment every day there are things that I have to think about that White folks don’t. I’ve previously written about some of the things that I have to think about when I leave the house. While I can’t speak for the 40+ million Black folks in this country, I can tell you that acknowledging our struggles under the metaphorical sun will go a long way to improving the racial discourse in this country.
You see, Black folks are familiar with the White experience in this country because that experience has remained prominently at the forefront of our culture. In an era where access to information is just a few clicks away, I’ve come to feel that some White folks are simply apathetic to our experience and choose to remain ignorant of the full spectrum of the Black experience. Folks choose to remain uninformed and believe, just as our current administration does, that only negative portrayals of our communities are worth highlighting.
In his usual eloquence, James Baldwin, explains the White apathy towards the Black experience as a segregated wall where there is no desire to peer over the other side of the wall because there is a conscious effort to remain ignorant of the Black experience.
In short, we want our White brothers and sisters to look over that wall, we want you to understand the complex spectrum of our experiences, we want you to be curious about how we live, we want our struggles under the metaphorical sun to be acknowledged, we want you to join in our interconnected fight against racism. We want you to bring sunscreen,even if you don’t need it.
“Most of the White Americans I have ever encountered really, you know, had a negro friend or a negro maid or somebody in high school. But they never, you know, or rarely after school was over or whatever, you know, came to my kitchen. You know, we were segregated from the schoolhouse door. Therefore, he doesn’t know – he really does not know – what it was like for me to leave my house, you know, leave the school and go back to Harlem. He doesn’t know how negroes live.
And it comes as a great surprise to the Kennedy brothers and to everybody else in the country. I’m certain again, you know, that like – again, like most White Americans I have, you know, encountered, they have no – you know, I’m sure they have nothing whatever against negroes. That is not – that’s really not the question. You know, the question is really a kind of apathy and ignorance which is a price we pay for segregation. That’s what segregation means. It – you don’t know what’s happening on the other side of the wall because you don’t want to know.”
He’s neva’ gonna come see you play, he doesn’t love you.
Dribble, spin, hook shot, rebound.
You’re not good enough for him to come see.
I was alone at Monsignor King Hall before practice one morning, working on my footwork.
The neckline of my green t-shirt was soaked in sweat. I was in the gym working my eleven year old love handles off to perfect my patented “drop step to the baseline” spin move.
The sound of the basketball bouncing off the kelly green floor and the squeaking of my sneakers were like music to my ears.
The season before I had fallen in love with basketball as a ball boy for the Monsignor King tournament. I had to be close to the action for the LaSalle high school game to witness one the nation’s top prospects, Ron Artest, play in the championship game.
My first teammates at St. Thomas Aquinas (STA) were a group of special kids: Izzy Bauta, Mike Blake, P.J. Marshall, Joey Romano, Nick Russo, and myself. We were coached by local mailmen, Joe Romano Sr., who was Joey’s dad, and John Browning.
Our team was good. Like, legendarily good. Our first season together we made a splash in Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) with an outstanding record. We’d easily score about 60 points a game. Any given game each of the starting five players could score 12-14 points each. I am still waiting for the local Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, to do a documentary on our successful run. We were unstoppaBULL. Get my drift? It was 1997 and who didn’t wanna be like Michael Jordan? Chicago was on fire that year, and so were we.
That year, people started to talk about how historically dominant we could become if we continued to play together throughout the summer.
And that’s saying somethin’. NBA Hall of Famer, Chris Mullen, used to workout on that floor and rumors have it that he once broke the backboards at Monsignor King Hall while practicing for the Dream Team before the ‘92 Olympics.
Yeah, so you could say that we were almost NBA Hall of Fame, Dream Team level nice, ok?
Anyway, that spring, we had won our first championship on a corner buzzer-beater against St. Rose. We had tasted the sweetness of victory and I wanted to improve my basketball skills over the summer.
But inside our apartment on 2525 Bedford Avenue, my world was crumbling. Dad was never home and the only time I’d hear from him was when he played music on Sunday’s. Sometimes he’d be so into his records that it felt like I was invisible to him.
With the hurt and anger towards my father growing, basketball was a much welcome distraction to muddle the chaos going on in my home and in my young mind. I had asked Mom if I could join karate to blow off steam but my mom felt that I might have been too much of a brute and injure the other kids my age. Not to mention that she just did not have the time to take me to practice with all that was going on in her life.
So when I came home from school energetically rambling about my desire to want to play on the basketball team, my mom initially rejected the idea. But she saw how excited I was and she finally relented with a little persuasion from another parent who offered to take me to weekly practices twice a week.
The turbulence when my dad would come home and the size of our cramped apartment felt like flying through rough air in a small airplane. The uneasiness from the tension created a cagey atmosphere that left me suffocating with resentment from how he had treated my mom and me.
Basketball was an escape to another dimension where I could be free to release the stress of my emotions. The more I poured my energy into the game, the more it gave me the fulfillment I was desperately searching for.
(Silverback’s Note: Read Power of Love Part: I, here. Remember, click on the section hyperlinks to listen to the tunes.)
Inside Monsignor King Hall, her voice rumbles across the court.
“LET’S, GO, GREEN! LET’S, GO, GREEN!”
My mother, sitting in the wooden bleachers, leans back, takes a deeper inhale and continues to bellow. I can hear mom’s voice from the center circle.
Just like her prayer time every morning, that voice got louder, and louder, and louder.
I adjusted my yellow Rec Spec goggles as the referee was giving our team’s final instruction. I can’t even hear him.
“LET’S, GO, GREEN!” “LET’S, GO, GREEN!”
Soon it’s the only voice that everyone can hear in the gym. There’s six minutes on the game clock to begin the first quarter and the scoreboard is buzzing with electric current. Adrenaline is running through my veins. The referee toots his whistle and lobs the ball into the air.
I won the tip-off, and Mom switched to a more provocative cheer.
“YOU. CAN’T. BEAT THE GREEN, YOU CAN’T BEAT THE GREEN!,” she shouts as we got into our positions to run our first play of the game.
Looking back, her volume was a somewhat obnoxious level of support considering that our team was about to dismantle our opponents during the first few minutes of the basketball game.
Monsignor King Hall was the home court to one of the most ferocious boys junior high school basketball teams in the history of Brooklyn CYO sports.
From 1996 to 1998, the STA boys’ basketball team would rack up 149 wins and 1 loss. We didn’t have a team mascot or a nickname so our fans would cheer for us using the color of our green cotton t-shirts. Our loudest super fan was my mom, Madeline Louison. At 330 pounds, she was also our largest and most gangster, cheerleader as well.
I can feel her fierce love and undying support with every echo of her voice that rang through the gymnasium. It’s that same voice that I can still hear in the echoes of my mind, passionately encouraging me to push myself to be better to this day.
She’s still cheering me on and is the driving force behind my competitive passion. She’s still in my corner encouraging me to strive for more through the power of her love.
You see, Madi has always been the personification of the Bible. She embodies the ruthless ferocity described in the battles of the Christian Old Testament combined with the warm loving narrative of the redemption story told in the Christian New Testament. That’s how I described her to my therapist, anyway.
“You know I am an atheist, right?” Dr. Brown says to me in one of our early sessions.
“Yeah, that’s cool,” I respond as I am sitting across from him at a wooden table inside his apartment office.
“Tell me about your mother but with less Biblical references so I can understand,” he says with a slight grin that accentuates the shine in his brown skin.
I had just completed unpacking my father’s story of origin to my therapist and it was time to discuss my mother. I found myself in the therapist chair because I was experiencing an emotional block in 2014.
The woundedness of my father’s absence during my childhood and the effects of two colossally failed romantic relationships as a young adult had left me broken and searching for healing. I was struggling with emotionally connecting with humans – I felt unable to love.
“My mom and I have a really close bond,” I respond. “We’ve had to be there a lot for each other through the years…”
My goggles were foggy from the perspiration. It was scorching outside and I could feel the heat rising off the gravel courts in the Coney Island public housing complex.
Our Dream Team was playing in our first summer tournament. We had made it to the championship of the 2nd Annual Stephon Marbury Basketball Classic.
Our team had not played hard enough in the first half to be competitive. It was halftime and Coach Romano was red in the face.
“Get your heads outta’ your asses and focus!” Coach Romano growled at halftime. He usually didn’t cuss at us but when he did his Brooklyn-Italian accent really came out.
Izzy and I plop our dense 180-pound frames into the lawn chairs. We both stood about 5’8 and our knees were protruding off the edge of the nylon seats. I cross my arms in frustration.
The PA announcer had been talking nonstop during the first half and it was good to finally hear some music blaring from the speakers set up near the courts. Jay-Z’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt, was playing during a break in the action.
Our team was not accustomed with losing and we began allowing the unfamiliar territory to disrupt our flow.
One of the parents passed around a bag of frozen orange slices to cool us down.
“Put those orange slices down and focus, Andy!” my teammate P.J. shouted. “You’re not boxing out!”
Focus, I thought.
How could I focus when all I wanted was for my Pops to come watch me play ball? I had so much heaviness on my heart. All of my teammates’ dads were there to watch them play. Even the ones that didn’t get much playing time.
Why doesn’t he want to hang out with me? I got game.
It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate my mom being there. It was just that she didn’t know much about sports and I just wanted my dad’s guidance like all the other boys. Some of my teammates wondered if I even had a dad at home.
Basketball apparently was a “waste of time,” according to him but the game I loved had already given me more than he ever had.
“Pick your head up!” my mother commands. “Get your head in the game. You’re letting those little guys get the rebound over you!”
We were playing in a rough neighborhood against a gritty team of all Black players from Coney Island. I was the only Black kid on our team and you could tell that my White teammates or their parents had never played in such a lively environment. Matter fact, they were the only White people participating in the tournament, the only White people on the basketball courts, and most likely the only White people for a few blocks.
Far away from our home court and in strange surroundings we were down by 15 points. We had been down before but not by this large of a margin. The pressure of the deficit and the exuberance of the crowd was becoming increasingly stressful.
Maybe we weren’t as good as we thought?
The horn sounded to start the second half. I looked on as all of my teammates’ fathers assured their sons and provided final instruction.
At that moment, something switched inside of me. The separation from my own father felt more pronounced. I felt so alone, so unprotected, so wounded. In order to protect the vulnerability of my feelings, a menacing ball of anger ignited inside me.
Enough.
We inbound the ball and I beeline to my spot on the post and call for the ball with gusto. I wanted to get a bucket.
The shot went up and I found a body to crash into as the ball was in the air. I boxed out, snatched the offensive rebound out of the air and scored on the put back layup.
“Oh he’s a beast on the inside!” the color commentator says to start the second half commentary.
Damn right I am a beast! I’ll ball out without my Pops.
The sound of male validation sparked such a self-confident feeling inside of me that I began to chase it by playing harder.
“Great rebound, Andy!” shouted one of the White dads.
Keep rebounding, they can’t stop you.
We score on a few back to back possessions and cut into the lead going into the final quarter.
Every time I glanced over to the stands and remembered that my father was not there I felt my blood boil hotter and hotter. I wanted every damn rebound. I wanted every freakin’ loose ball. I wanted to squeeze every pebble on the basketball’s leather skin.
Who needs a Pops anyway?
I was on a roll and our opponents didn’t seem to have anyone on their bench to match my ferocity in the paint.
I began mouthing off at the referee after he called a loose ball foul on me. I was being too aggressive positioning for the rebound, he said.
“I didn’t even touch him!” I lashed out.
Okay… so I elbowed the kid. But I had no capacity to care even if I was playing on their turf.
“Callate la boca,” my mom shouts. I am chewing on my jersey to keep from erupting and I softly whisper into my jersey, “That’s such a bullshit foul call.”
Well, at least I thought I whispered it, as the referee whistles me for a technical foul.
Coach Romano is besides himself and Coach Browning has to hold him back from yanking me off the court by the strap of my goggles.
He decided he can’t take me out of the game, we had the momentum and we needed a big body in the paint for rebounds.
Coach Romano found his composure and Joey huddled up our players at the center circle.
“Keep your head in the game big guy,” my teammate Joey said, slapping me on the head. “We need you in the game to win this.”
With Joey’s pep talk, I regained my composure and got back to dominating in the paint.
The game was back and forth as we entered into the final minute of the championship. We had clawed back to take the lead by one point with 42 seconds remaining on the game clock.
Just then, out of nowhere, a rainstorm soaked the court. Everyone scattered for shelter ending the game with mere seconds left.
When we all returned the following week to play, we had found our winning confidence. With NBA rookie sensation, Stephon Marbury, watching court side, we walloped their asses for the remaining 42 seconds left in the contest.
Marbury, A Kid From Coney Island housing projects, had just completed his rookie season for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves as a member of the now iconic 1996 NBA rookie draft class that featured future all-time greats Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant.
It was an odd way to end such a hard-fought game but we were going to meet an NBA player and take home a giant trophy. I couldn’t contain my excitement. I didn’t care much for Marbury at the time, other than that I could brag to my friends that I was somehow closer to Michael Jordan.
I can still hear mom as we victoriously left the basketball court that day.
“YOU. CAN’T. BEAT THE GREEN, YOU CAN’T BEAT THE GREEN!”
My mom and I were in a joyous mood on that drive home in the minivan. Boy, did we need that victory to lift our spirits. Winning gave us something to celebrate. I still wanted my dad to be there, but it was great to look up from the passenger seat and not see her tears.
Mom switched on the ignition of the minivan to pull off. The choir picks up mid track where the song had left off earlier in the day. This time the choir sounds so angelic, so sweet.
“Jehovah Rapha” the choir croons.
“You’re my healer…” mom and I triumphantly join in unison as we try to hit the high notes of the songs crescendo. We both sound terrible.
It was in Coney Island that I began to understand what the lyrics of that gospel song really meant.
Basketball had provided a space to set my pent up emotions free. Jehovah Jireh.
The game had supplied me with the confidence and male validation that I was craving in my father’s absence. Jehovah Shamma.
All undergirded by the support and the healing love that my little heart so needed. Jehovah Rapha.
In addition to my teammates, Mom and I have always been a team. I consoled her through the sting of her tears and she soothed the intensity of my rage. Our wounds shared a common source but the power of our love was more than enough to bring us through any challenge we faced together.
When I reflect on that era of our lives together, one of the tracks on my favorite album by Jay-Z comes to mind. The lyrics on Blueprint (Mama Loves Me) remind me of the things I asked God for in my nightly prayers as a child.
“Mama loved me, Pop left me…” Jay begins. “Mama raised me; Pop I miss you. God, help me forgive him; I got some issues…”
Thanks for always being more than enough for me, Mom. You’ve always been the answer to my prayers.
I can hear mom’s voice battling with God in prayer. It’s the first thing I can hear even before I can open my eyes to start the day.
My bedroom is underneath my parents’ bedroom in the basement of the house.
Some mornings the murmurings of her voice cajoles me out of my sleep. Some mornings it jolts me out of my sleep. Some mornings her syncopation consoles me back into sleep.
She prays like someone having an argument on the telephone.
You know when you can’t hear the person on the other side of the phone call but you know that the side you can hear is winning because the passion in their tone is increasing?
This was the voice that woke me up. Every. Single. Weekday. At 6 am.
“LORD GOD, I’M COMING TO YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS…”
I bet you her fists are balled right now, I think.
“YOU SAID IN YOUR WORD, OH GOD…”
Yep, she is definitely wagging her index finger in the air right now.
“HEAR THE CRY OF MY HEART, OH GOD…”
Ah, she’s slapping her chest again.
“BRING BACK MY HUSBAND, LORD! HEAL MY MARRIAGE! RESTORE THE YEARS THE LOCUSTS HAVE EATEN…”
Welp, that shit’s neva’ gonna happen.
“Time to get up for basketball practice,” I think to myself as I get out of bed.
I could hear that she was crying again. But unlike at night when she would wail herself to sleep, I could hear the fight in her voice in the morning. I could hear her grappling for her marriage, for her sanity, and for her survival at dawn.
I mean, how else can you manage raising four children playing sports, a full time job as a NYC public school teacher, studying for your Master’s Degree in English in the evenings, and emotionally reconcile with the implications of a wayward husband in the late 90s without seeking daily divine intervention?
(Silverback’s Note: Welcome back y’all! There’s so much to say about the global public health crisis that has most of us currently confined to our homes. Until we are safe to roam free, I am reminded that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and if Madiba could endure, then so can we. Blessings to you and your loved ones.
My last piece, “Music Is Life” triggered healing conversations and reflections for a lot of folks. I am so grateful for your feedback, thank you. The piece also unlocked my ability to share stories about what fueled my drive and focus on the basketball court.
If my father’s absence was the antagonist in my life story, then my mother’s presence was the protagonist. I am excited to share my love for my mother, the game of basketball, and most importantly, the love for a lifelong journey I have embraced through therapy. Please enjoy reading this very special 3-part series. For the first time ever, we present Power of Love.
P.S. – Click on the section hyperlinks to listen to the tunes.)
It was around 1996 when we learned of my father’s infidelity. This news was a devastating blow to our home. I was unable to fully contextualize the damage but I knew that my dad was with another woman. Their explosive arguments were burning hotter by the week.
Raising four young children, effectively as a single parent, was taking its toll on mom and she had ballooned to 330 pounds.
I learned one morning that her nightly tears often continued well into her twenty-five minute drive into work. She was a public school English teacher and on the days that I had off from Catholic school, I would witness how she began most mornings in the car.
The northbound drive from East Flatbush to Bedford Stuyvesant in the late 90s was not pleasant.
I wanted to listen to this new rapper named Jay-Z on the radio but Mom always wanted to listen to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. She loved this one particular album on cassette, God Is Working. Oh man, did she love this one song called “More Than Enough.”
She couldn’t sing worth a lick but she would rewind that song over and over. She used to say that one day she was going to audition for the church’s Grammy-award winning choir.
Fat chance.
Sometimes her singing would be so off putting that I’d just tune out her words. Until, about five minutes into the drive, I’d begin to hear sniffles.
The drive would take us past the cross street where my dad’s other woman and their two young children lived. The sight of the block was too much to bear for my mother. The tears would fall.
Then she’d turn up the volume, as the rumble of the piano keys welcomed us to her favorite song, the sound of the keystrokes pierced through the silence in the minivan.
“Jehovah Jireh” the soloist would sing. “My provider…”
On one of our rides, I remember approaching the intersection where Ebbets Field formerly stood. There was a painted mural of my idol, Jackie Robinson, to commemorate his becoming MLB’s first Black baseball player.
“Look!” I pointed. “Did you know that Jackie broke the color barrier in 1947 playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers?” I ask, attempting to distract her from her sadness.
Ignoring my attempts at a diversion, mom would continue to sing along with the choir with more vigor, “Jehovah Shamma,” she continued through her tears. “You supply all my needs…”
By this time on our drive, we were stopped at a red light and her eyes were closed. Suddenly, a knock came to the window. Startled, we realized it was a panhandler from the men’s homeless shelter looking to squeegee our front windshield in exchange for small change.
“You know I really wanna get better at basketball,” I continue blabbering, ignoring the strange man at the window. “I am excited for my teams tournament this weekend. You think Dad will come?”
She kept singing her heart out without responding. She was in her own world.
Those drives were tough for me to experience from the passenger seat but even more painful for her to experience as the driver but we both were looking for inspiration to get us through the day.
As our old minivan puttered and squealed to a halt in front of the burgundy clay colored doors of Primary School 308, Madi would begin to transform out of her sadness.
“Come on Madi, you gotta focus now,” she’d say to herself in the sun visor mirror.
“Lord, you are more than enough…”
She turned off the ignition.
“You are more than enough for me.”
I too was struggling with feeling that I wasn’t enough. Mom had discovered her resolve in the mountains of Puerto Rico. A resolve that I was lacking.
Where did she develop such resolve? I wondered.
Instead of telling you, I’ll step aside and let Mama Soulful share her own journey with you.
Mama, tell us about those dreams you had about “La Isla del Encanto.”
OYE COMO VA.
I open my eyes wondering if I’m in my Tío Felito’s house in Puerto Rico. As I look around the room, I remember, Oh, I’m in my dorm at Stony Brook.
Why do I keep having those dreams?
In my dream, my Tío Felito, the quintessential Catholic, keeps warning me to go to church.
Why? What does he mean?
Somehow I knew in my gut that God was calling me to serve Him, but I kept pushing that thought to the recesses of my mind.
I knew that I could not serve God and date Jordache — my unbelieving boyfriend — at the same time. In my mind it was either God or Jordache. Of course, I chose the love of my life, Jordache. That one decision led me to speed through my blossoming girly college days into unanticipated womanhood.
During the course of one week in May of 1984, my life changed dramatically: I graduated from Stony Brook University on Sunday, May 20th. Three days later, I turned 22, and three days after that, this emotionally immature woman had become a wife.
It would take a few more dreams and many, many more explosive arguments with my husband that would lead me to the altar of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in March of 1986.
I was so disheartened. It was at that altar that two young women approached me, as tears of pain were streaming down my face. They sympathetically asked me if I wanted to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior and say a prayer of confession with them.
I said, “Yes.”
Of course, I had no idea what I was doing and the tremendous lifelong impact that one decision would have on me and my little two month baby, Neville Andrés (Andy). A decision that I can honestly say transformed me from a weak, emotionally immature woman to a mighty warrior for Jesus Christ. My heart is saturated with profound gratitude as I recognize that I am still evolving, still growing and still seeking God’s truth to define who I am. As I reflect upon my metamorphose into womanhood, I know that this journey of faith began long before my college years. It began when I was just a little girl.
“Ouch,” I whispered in pain as my mom pinched me.
She did this sneakily under her crossed arms as the church choir sang, “Hear, O Lord the sound of my call.”
She was always nudging me to pay attention as the priest gave the liturgy. I can remember from the time I was a little girl how Mami adamantly taught me and my two older sisters to fear and love God. She insisted we pray before a meal; reminded us to always say, “if God wills it” when we made plans; or urged us to kneel by our bedside to recite The Lord’s Prayer. She made sure we received all the sacraments and attended church every Sunday despite the cold temperatures or our grumpy adolescent attitudes that only desired to sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Despite my religious conversion to a nondenominational Christian Church at the age of 23, I am extremely grateful for my Catholic upbringing. This orthodox foundation was the cornerstone upon which my faith has thrived on for decades.
In 1950 my beautiful mother, Isidra Natal, prematurely left her home in the country at the tender age of 18. She arrived after two days of weary travels from Puerto Rico then to Florida and finally to her final destination, New York, a strange city she had never encountered.
While living in a two bedroom apartment with her three cousins near Albee Square Mall in Brooklyn, she is acquainted with a young, handsome brown skinned man with soft straight black hair from the island of Cape Verde, located on the West Coast of Africa.
Shortly after my parents met, they got married and eventually had three daughters: Antonia, Leda, and Madeline. I am a proud, native Brooklynite born in the early 1960s when it was very popular for Cape Verdeans to marry Puerto Ricans for a green card.
During my early years, I can vividly remember the instability of my home. Growing up, my dad would always argue with my mom for many different reasons. It was either the house was not cleaned well enough or we had company visiting without his approval or simply lies that my dad’s family spewed out to enrage my father against my mother. Most of these arguments would always end in some sort of abuse. The arguments were constant and fervent while living in Brooklyn and continued even more when my parents bought a house and moved the family to Hazlet, New Jersey.
As one of fifteen siblings, my mom is the matriarch of our family. Over the course of their marriage she endured emotional and physical abuse as well as infidelity until she could no longer tolerate it. She tried to keep the family intact as best as she could, but the abuse was more than she could handle. In spite of the chaos in our home, Mami shielded us by keeping us girls as close to her as possible.
In 1975, she decided to move to Puerto Rico with my sister, Leda, and me in order to file for divorce. Despite the many years of loneliness and neglect, my mom was and is strong and resilient. She made sure we did well in school, attended every parent teacher conference, put food on the table, exposed us to the world of travel, and even made sure we maintained very close family ties. She taught us that family relationships are fundamental, and the importance of supporting each other and staying connected. My mom is a woman of character, as my grandmother would say. She instilled the will, drive, determination, and the gift of civic pride that women during her era were not sufficiently accredited for. Her fortitude of character can be easily traced back to my grandmother, Petrona Adorno Natal.
“Madelina, olvidate de esa gente que familia tienes demás aquí,” my grandmother would lovingly remind me to forget about my father’s side of the family because my maternal side of the family was more than enough.
She’d tell me this every time I’d pour out my anger, pain, and frustration of how my father’s family treated my mom, my sisters, and me. She assured me that their rejection meant nothing because of the enormous family in Puerto Rico that loved us deeply.
The rejection and my father’s violent temper led me to reject my Cape Verdean roots. I wanted nothing to do with any of them. They shunned us, and I buried the memory of this abusive family into the deepest part of my recollection.
That is why the move to Puerto Rico was critical to my identity. Who was I? Where did I self-identify? It was there in the mountains of Puerto Rico that I found true familial love.
It was there that I found a part of my identity as a New Yorican as I embraced the vibrant education, the Spanish language, the rich culture, and the delicious food.
Every morning abuela brewed a steamy pot of fragrant coffee. She’d always make sure my tacita de café was on the table ready for me to drink before going to school. This was the beginning of my lifetime love of having una tacita de cafè every morning except now they are not tacitas they are large mugs of coffee.
The caffeine fueled me, late into the night, to study books that were written in a language that was very unfamiliar to me until I slowly and arduously adopted it as my second language. The pay off of those long exhausting nights of studying finally came the day I graduated from 9th grade as the valedictorian of the graduating class. A distinction I embraced because many kids in the class did not like that a New Yorican, who had arrived two years prior, snatched up this prestigious title.
Life there was rich, peaceful, and filled with wonderful, new experiences that I didn’t always appreciate at that moment, but learned to treasure them as an adult.
In the summer of 1977 Leda and I arrived in Brooklyn before my mom. We stayed between my father’s house in New Jersey and my paternal grandmother’s house in Brooklyn. In preparation for my mother’s arrival to New York, I took on the responsibility of trying to find a place for us to live because after all my parents were divorced, and I did not want to go back to living in the house in New Jersey where so much suffering had taken place. So at 15, I was able to find an apartment for Mami to look into upon her return.
When she arrived she secured our three-bedroom apartment in Flatbush. I was registered in the 10th grade at Erasmus Hall High School, and Leda was enrolled at Brooklyn College. Antonia had graduated from William Paterson University and was living in New Jersey in her own apartment. Mami then found a secretarial job at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. My father continued living in the house my parents had purchased in Jersey and would visit us regularly. Despite the divorce, he always stayed connected to the family.
I was reacclimating myself to my native Brooklyn roots and like most teenagers at the time, I was consumed by school, friends, disco music, and my first part time job.
Working at Tasty Twin, a small sandwich hero shop, taught me a different level of responsibility that I had never experienced. The owners, Juan and Manuel, were two elderly gentlemen from Spain who simply adored and trusted me, but they worked me like a dog for a mere $2.50 an hour. In their absence, I managed this modest sandwich shop where the Off Track Betting gamblers and commercial workers on Flatbush Ave would sit, socialize and build community relationships. As the cashier, I made sure all monies were counted and secured while Willy, the sandwich maker, cleaned up the shop before closing. My meager earnings allowed me to purchase things I knew my mom couldn’t afford to buy.
The late 70’s were the years of Elvis Presely’s passing, Jimmy Carter’s 39th inauguration as president, and watching and mimicking Soul Train dance lines. Disco music was blazing everywhere from the radio to people walking down the block with boom boxes on their shoulders blasting their music. When Saturday Night Fever came out in the movie theater, it was a hit of monumental proportions that also contributed to the disco fever of the day.
Next door to Tasty Twin was a movie theater where Leda worked the concession stand. The manager there favored Leda and I, and she always gave me free passes to see Saturday Night Fever at least half a dozen times. My goodness, I spent so much time trying to learn John Trovolta’s dance moves. Simultaneously, roller disco was also en vogue and everyone was trying flashy moves on their skates.
Every Friday night, Antonia, and I would hang out at the Empire Roller Skating Rink across from Ebbets Field. The DJ would blast the music and the skaters would skilfully roll to some of the sweetest, most soulful music of that era. Skating was so much fun, in spite of my ungraceful moves. Antonia was a talented skater, and I was just trying to copy her graceful moves as any little sister would do.
While at Erasmus, I was the president of Arista, the national honor society. I was also the vice president of student government. These roles allowed me to develop leadership skills that I did not possess.
Academically, the years in Puerto Rico had revealed that I in fact had some gaps in my education in comparison with other students. However, out of a class of 723 seniors, I graduated number 23. This sweet accomplishment was a reflection of my deliberate determination and effort to excel in my education.
Erasmus Hall blessed me with my life-long friends: Judy, Annmarie, Magally, and Janine. They were all high academic achievers that challenged me to be the best version of myself and to always stay on task and overachieve. As the years passed, my relationship with these very successful ladies has grown very deep roots that have gone beyond friendship. We are family!
Sadly, Janine passed away four years ago of pancreatic cancer. I was so broken-hearted to the point of almost missing her funeral because I was not prepared to face her death. I would have missed out on the biggest surprise of my life had my husband and my son, David, not continued to coax me to fly down to Georgia to say my final goodbyes.
Prior to Janine’s passing, she had arranged her entire funeral service. Unbeknownst to me, she had planned for me to offer words of comfort during the service. I was shocked, honored, and extremely grateful that I was present to fulfill her last wish.
Sleep well until we meet again at the pearly gates, my friend.
In 1980, I started a new chapter of my life at Stony Brook University on Long Island. My parents were very hesitant about allowing me to attend because they wanted me to live at home, but they finally relented with a little coercing from my college counselor.
I guess they feared I would go wild and not come home; however, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I went to all my classes, got involved in the Hispanic club, and pretty much stuck to the books all the time. Every weekend I went home to see my family and to work a part-time job at my local Key Food supermarket.
All was pretty much quiet, until April of 1981 when Mr. Cool and Confident danced into my life at Annmarie’s birthday party. After that first dance with Jordache, I was smitten.
The bell inside the front door of apartment A1 at 2525 Bedford Avenue would ring loudly when the door was slammed shut.
I know this because — in a very Pavlovian way — I can still hear that bell ringing in my darkest moments.
I’ll never forget the days when I was 6 years old. It was 1992 and there I stood on that dark red carpet in front of the front door. My mom, dad, brother, and I lived in a roach-infested, two-bedroom apartment in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
My father had just sprayed cologne on his neck to leave the apartment. The way he carried himself, he had so much swagger and confidence.
“Dad, can I go with you, please?”
Often my mom would chime in to advocate on my behalf, “Jordache just take him with you for a little while, while I take care of Jeremy.”
“No, Madi. I’m just going up the road to come back,” he replied.
“Just let the record play and then switch off the power, when the record is finished,” he continued.
The heavy metal door would then slam shut behind him, causing the bell inside the door to ring loudly for a few seconds. Although he was leaving, the sound of the reggae music that was still pouring out from the industrial-size speakers in our living room was not leaving with him.
I remember going to my room to be alone and deal with my sadness. This pattern went on for many more years and the continued rejection gradually became too much to bear. The sound of him leaving had happened so often that I no longer heard the bell. Instead, a question ringing in my mind.
Neville Louison Sr. is a quiet man; his movements however, are loud.
He steps around the apartment so quietly that I am always startled by the sound of his deep voice, but his impact on my life has and will continue to reverberate well into the remaining years of my life.
It has taken me three decades to heal from the emotional abandonment of him leaving me again and again. It has taken me just as much time to fully grasp the impact of the greatest gift that he has ever given me.
My father has this cool confidence. Cool like a pleasant breeze on a summer night. It’s this cool confidence that gave him the courage to leave his small island of Grand Roy, Grenada, one of the least populated islands in the Western hemisphere. In the 1970s, millions of people had immigrated from the Caribbean islands to NYC. My father was one of them, and like many, he made a home for himself in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
It wasn’t long after that that my dad met my mom: a beautiful olive-skinned Puerto Rican woman named, Madeline Silva. It’s A classic Brooklyn love story — like something you might see in a Spike Lee film.
My mother had spent most of her formative years in Brooklyn and then a few more years on the island of Puerto Rico until my grandparents divorced when she was a teen.
By the early 1980s, my mother had made her way back to Brooklyn where she was attending Stony Brook University on Long Island.
His quiet confident cool draws my mothers gaze from across the room. Reggae music sizzles out of the stereo in a way that makes your hips sway, gyrate, and dip.
My mother leaned towards her best friend, Judy.
“Who is that cute guy with the black corduroy pants, moving his hips so nice in the corner by himself?”
“I call him Jordache because I always see him around the neighborhood wearing the Jordache Jeans brand,” Judy laughed. “Don’t worry Mads,” Judy continued. “I’ll introduce you to him if you behave yourself.”
Taking a swig of his beer, he asks her to dance.
Maybe it was the way his dark skin shone, the fluidity of his hips, the attraction of their African blood, or the rhythm of the music, but it was at that moment that their love story began.
After 3 years of dating, my father proposed to my mother in my grandmother’s living room.
He didn’t drop to one knee or make a grandiose proposal or anything like that. He just simply stated, “Madi, we must get married.”
My mother did not hesitate to commit to the guy she had gushed to Judy about all those years prior.
“Ok, Jordache.”
Every time they tell me that story, I can hear Beres Hammond begin to croon, “what one dance can do…” – that is one of their favorite reggae tunes.
If you have ever lived with or in the vicinity of my father, you’ve likely been jolted out of your sleep by the buzzing of the amplifier being switched on.
By the mid-90s, our family had expanded to four children: Andy, Jeremy, David, and Sarah. My parents and their four children lived on the first floor above the building’s garbage room. As a result of the trash below us, our apartment was terribly roach-infested, but the cheap rent enabled my parents to save money for a house. We were poor but we were rich in love.
Our block felt like the Carribean United Nations. There were folks from each of the thirteen sovereign island nations and twelve dependent territories. Each island having their own unique sound, flavor, and style.
My mom was the Puerto Rican ambassador. Since she was the only Borinqueña on the block, folks would call my mom, “the Puerto Rican lady with the four kids.” She kept us close to her at all times. We were inextricably bound together.
There was a strong sense of community on our block. Everyone called my father the mayor. Mainly because he was the unofficial disc jockey. DJ South as he is known locally built his own sound system in my bedroom — the one I shared with my two other brothers.
One closet had his DJ booth which included black turntables, grey amplifiers, black headphones, and a red extension cord. Everything connected to the two large speakers in the living room. Somehow he still found a way to neatly organize all of his clothes and belongings.
This was the stereo that woke my Black ass up. Every. Single. Weekend. At 7 am.
“Early to bed and early to rise, does make a Black man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” my father would say. My brothers and I would roll around, grumbling in our bunk bed. I’d be rubbing crust out my eyes, scorn stitched into my brow, while my dad fired up the speakers. It was surreal every time because I usually wouldn’t see him for the entire week. And yet, all of a sudden, there he appeared before us. Crouched down, calmly strumming through his records.
When did he even get home?
“I go play that record,” he’d say when he finally found the record. He was always rummaging for the same record anyway: Bob Marley & The Wailers’ 1979 record, Survival.
As the needle dropped on the record in the closet, the record begins to scratch as the sound blasts from the living room. The raspy soulfulness of Robert Nester Marley’s voice welcomes you to the album.
“Little more drums,” Bob says.
DJ South’s set usually began with the Bunny Wailers “one drop” drumbeat blaring from our living room windows.
Bob’s voice returned to the track to lament, “So much trouble in the world…”
“Remember son, life is about survival,” Dad chimed in as he increased the volume to an even more obscene level.
“Survival,” he said. “Survival.”
Boy, did I want him to shut up. But no matter how much I tried to drown out the sound, he just kept on doing his thing. Eventually, I just lay there silent and angry, staring at the ceiling.
As a thirtieth birthday gift to myself in 2015, I decided that it was time to learn more about my Grenadian roots. It was a season of healing for me and the island was calling me, so I booked my flight.
When I landed on Grenadian soil for the first time, it had been four decades since my grandfather’s untimely death and my father’s escape to survive.
Grandpa, as I would have called him, didn’t live long enough for me to meet him. Lewis Pierre was murdered at the age of 44 in St. George Grenada in September 1977. The body was never recovered.
My father was working on a cruise ship on the nearby island of Trinidad & Tobago on that day. He was nineteen.
He was selling oranges for five cents in Grenada and that hustle was no longer sufficiently providing for the family. As the eldest of his mother’s children, he had left his home two years prior in search for work.
My grandmother and grandfather were effectively neighbors in the late 1950s. He was a Fishermen and in his 44 years of life, he fathered at least six children. Four of them with his wife and the other two children with my grandmother. My father and his brother, Joseph Cadore.
My grandmother’s family was growing and she would move to the nearby village of Grand Roy, where she raised her children, a stone’s throw away from the sea. My grandmother and her three children lived in a small two-room abode.
My uncle Joseph, who we call Uncle Wayne, is one of my favorite human beings. Since I was a child, he would always drop by to infuse his fun, rebel energy into our apartment. The moments with him were short but we loved to roughhouse with our strapping uncle. What I love about him most is that he chose to be around.
Uncle Wayne is different from my father. He is broad-shouldered, gregarious, talkative, and bald. Despite their noticeable differences, I’ve always admired their close bond.
Always up for an adventure, Uncle Wayne had accepted my invite to accompany me to Grenada. He was beaming with pride to show me around his hometown.
Uncle Wayne picked me up in a beat-up grey 4×4 vehicle with a barely functioning CD-player. That was our mode of transportation for the week.
With a joint hanging from his lip, Uncle Wayne drove us to every corner of the island. A man of the people, he stops to talk to everyone, either greeting them with a boisterous “Hello/Hey/Something” or by the double toot of his horn. I am convinced he knows most of the 100,000 people that live on the island — if not all of them.
During one tour of the island, we stopped at the home that my grandfather, Lewis Pierre, had lived. The yellow two-story home that he built with his own two hands was still standing on the mountain roadside.
My aunt Jenny, who I had never met previously, was living in the home. As I was inquiring about the family history, Aunt Jenny brought out her father’s documentation in a blue tin cookie canister.
I slowly opened the blue canister of his life and pull out the contents.
I gave the documents a quick glance to begin to put together a timeline of his life.
I read the words, “Lewis Pierre born March 18, 1932, to Camilla and Joseph Pierre,” on his birth certificate.
My great-grandparents have names, I thought to myself.
My senses were alive. I was looking at my grandfather’s face for the first time in my life.
“Wow, I look just like him!”
The questions in my mind begin to swirl like water beneath a geyser. However, I remain focused on listening to Aunt Jenny’s every word.
After sitting with the documents for a time and asking a few more poignant questions, I returned the tin canister to Aunt Jenny. I almost don’t want to let the canister go. It held so much information about my life that I may never learn more about.
We said our goodbyes and I began walking back to the car with my mind continuing to swirl with questions.
As we pulled away from my grandfather’s home, Uncle Wayne turned up the volume on the music in the car. The questions in my mind are now rumbling even more loudly as Love African Style by The Mighty Sparrow plays in the background.
“I love to see when Black people make love,” Sparrow sings.
We slowly make our descent down the curvy mountain road. With the sun beating down on the gravel road beneath our tires.
“Now I’ll take you to where me and your father lived,” Uncle Wayne says.
“Wait, you didn’t live there with your father?” I asked. “I thought you guys were neighbors?”
“No. We’d have to walk for hours to get a piece of small change from him, every now and again.”
The geyser of questions in my mind have now erupted and are shooting into the sky. I can only imagine the jagged rocks pressing into their bare feet, the sun beating down on their little heads, and the sweat soaking into their clothing. I wondered what they were talking about. I wondered how they were feeling on their long journey to their father’s house.
Why didn’t he want to hang out with me?
Suddenly, I was transported back to 1992, grappling with my own brokenness behind slammed doors. Except now it feels as if there are two little boys on that dark red carpet. Me and my dad grappling together. I can hear that bell ringing again. I wanted to reach out to my inner child. He needed an explanation.
“Neville,” I said. “He didn’t know how to be a Dad and hang out with you because he never had a Dad himself to hang out with him.”
I was then reminded of this unfortunate truth: broken men tend to produce broken men in the absence of healing.
I see those two Black boys, my Dad and me, much differently now. I’m deeply overcome with sadness to understand we both have experienced this deep pain at the neglect of our fathers.
Immediately one of my Dad’s favorite records by Jimmy Cliff comes to mind, and the words begin to make more sense to me. It’s like I’m hearing them for the first time.
Many rivers to cross…
I felt more connected to my Dad and found my brokenness in his brokenness.
Many rivers to cross
And it’s only my will that keeps me alive
I’ve been licked, washed up for years
And I merely survive because of my pride
“No wonder he played this record so much,” I thought to myself.
The details of my grandfathers final moments in Grenada are limited to his official documents and hearsay accounts.
The death certificate issued ten months later in July 1978 mysteriously states, “Lewis Pierre came to his death by drowning in the parish of St. George and that no person or persons are liable for prosecution.” The hearsay version is that Lewis was thrown off a cliff by a man who was defending his step-daughter from him. Both the official documents and the hearsay accounts leave me with enough hesitation to no longer pursue any additional details of the life and times of Lewis Pierre.
In 1986, less than a decade after “no person or persons” were held to account for my grandfather’s murder, my father would have his first child.
Like many men of his time, my Dad was not overly engaged in my mom’s pregnancy. But he did request that his first-born son carry on his name, Neville. On a Wednesday morning in late January at 5:29 am, I was born — the first-generation American male of my ancestors lineage.
There were many rivers to cross in those early years for my mom and me. Dad didn’t know how to be a father, a husband, or an American – three roles that he had zero experience with. I guess we were all trying to find our way in those days.
Most nights after mom and I did homework together, I would wake up to her sniffles. She was crying. At some point, mom and I had learned that my father had fathered two children with another woman. He lived with his other family just a few blocks away. This tore my mother apart as she was dealing with her own responsibilities. While my dad was an outstanding financial provider, Mom was raising four children without help from her husband. She was a full-time NYC public school teacher and getting her Masters degree in English at Brooklyn College.
When my father did come around, they would argue constantly. I wished for years that he would leave for good so that I could no longer see my mom suffer through their relationship.
I now feel as if I suffered the consequences of my grandfather’s decisions. Neville was emulating Lewis’ behavior, leaving yet another Black boy yearning for time with a Dad who didn’t have the tools to deliver.
As I went through puberty and I grew into my adult years, my anger for my father also matured. I falsely believed that this anger had fueled my success, but in actuality, it was widening the gaping hole in me that my father’s absence had left behind.
The brokenness that had been birthed on that dark red carpet had hardened. I was no longer a boy. Instead, I was the “strong,” “resilient” man that had found his way in America without his father. I made a vow to myself when I was thirteen that this generational cycle of fatherlessness would end with me.
In my father’s absence, I developed my own criteria on what I believe it means to be a man. I would lose myself in books, magazines, mentors, coaches, and closely observed the good men my mom had placed in my life to help guide me. None of those books or people could replace my Dad’s quiet calm cool but they helped provide me with a solid foundation to build on.
At the age of 28, the same age that my father had me, we began to reconcile our relationship. On a quiet Sunday at my parents’ home, we both found ourselves at the dining table eating corn porridge. Mom had just left for church and there was no music playing yet. We both found ourselves quietly eating at the same time that morning. The table was silent except for the sound of our spoons clanging against the bowls. After years of silence on the topic, I muster up the courage.
“How are your sons?” I asked.
Not understating my question, he asked if I was asking about my siblings.
“No, your other two sons,” I sheepishly retorted back.
After taking a moment to gather himself, he stood up to take a walk to his liquor cabinet, and came back to crack open a bottle.
We sat at that dining room table for hours. Just two broken men named Neville exposing their hearts, wounds, and lack of understanding to the other. It was Sunday filled with words that had been previously unspoken and that I’ll cherish forever.
Later on that evening, my Dad asked me to help him fix a doorknob that was in slight disrepair. As he took a knee to unscrew the doorknob, he looked up at me with the glossy eyes of an aging man who had a few drinks.
“Son,” he said. “After today’s conversation… your daddy can now die a happy man.”
These were the words I thought I’d never hear as a little boy. Through his slurred speech, I could hear the sound of a Dad’s tender love for his son.
It’s a moment not many men get the opportunity to have with their fathers.
When I reflect on that moment, one of my Dad’s favorite records Tender Love by Beres Hammond comes to mind.
“First let me welcome you to my little world that was so torn apart. In case you don’t know, I’ve gotta tell you this. That all along I thought this world had no heart…” Beres sings softly.
The two little Nevilles together at last. This is our song now, in a musical language we both can understand.
You’ve been guiding me through the music all along, Dad.
This is the iconic question that The Joker, played by the legendary Jack Nicholson, posed to his victims in Tim Burton’s 1989 film, Batman. You see, what The Joker is asking Bruce is if he’s ever wrestled with fate. Moreover, did that tangle with fate deliver grief and sorrow to his life experience.
I sure have danced with that devil in the pale moonlight.
Late in the summer of 2011, I ventured out with my roommate to Queens (NY) on a school night in an attempt to lift his spirits as he was dealing with a breakup. I offered to be the designated driver for the night so he could take his mind off the emotions of the breakup and have a good time.
Coming out of the club that morning, as fate would have it, my roommate began to say that there were Angels all around us and that he could see them. I affirmed his vision to appease him and wondered to myself how much he had to drink. Seconds later each of us had the barrels of loaded guns pressed against our torsos. Our initial response was to push the guns away, to which our assailants threatened that they would shoot us. They stole our jewelry and then ran off into the night.
We quickly moved to the car and drove off towards flashing police lights in the distance. Thinking that we were trying to chase them, one of the robbers opened fire on our car eight times at close range. Similar to the photo above, I’ll never forget ducking down and looking back to see flames coming out of the muzzle of the gun. As I turned my gaze forward, the back windshield of the car in front of us shattered. Luckily the car was empty and we sped off towards the police lights. Thankfully, he was a terrible shooter and not one bullet struck our vehicle. The Angels that my roommate saw that evening and the availing prayers of my Mother had truly prevented us from being yet another fatality in America’s gun violence epidemic.
Hearing the gunfire, the NYPD acted quickly and ultimately apprehended the young men with our jewelry in their possession. We were a little shaken but the Officers asked that we return to the precinct to identify the shooters later that day.
The Officers had investigated the crime scene and determined that whoever was in the passenger seat would have been struck between the head and chest area – I was in the passenger seat.
With that in mind, the Officers then crammed six young black men into a small room and asked that I select the men who robbed us. Looking through a one-way mirror where they could not see me, I looked at these young men in the eyes and was overcome with strong feelings of empathy and sadness.
What could have transpired in the lives of these young men to bring them to this room? Was it low wages and poverty that brought them to this room? Was it the poor public education system that brought them to this room? Was it the American government backed distribution of crack cocaine to black neighborhoods that brought them to this room? Was it mass incarceration and the fatherless homes that those policies left in its wake that brought them to this room?
Having an understanding of the pitfalls in the area in which I grew up in Brooklyn, I had a surreal feeling knowing that there was a pane of glass separating me from an alternate life that I could have lived. In fact, I would later find out that one of the young men who robbed us lived in the neighborhood I grew up in. Here I was, a young black man working for American Express, living on my own, but wondering what I could do to prevent other young men from being in this room. In a way, I felt and feel a sense of survivors guilt. I walked away from that room muttering to myself, “there but for the grace of God go I.”
I know those young men went to jail and I think about them from time to time. I wish blessings on their lives and I hope that they can overcome the mistakes of their youth and the unrelenting punishment of the American prison system.
It has taken me a few months to complete this series on American gun violence and share my own personal experience with guns. Sadly, as time passed, I knew that before I completed this series that there would be another mass shooting. As I write this piece, I received yet another Notification of Death that ten people have been gunned down in a Texas High School.
Why do we need gun reform in America? Quite simply, too many Americans are having to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight… it needs to stop.
This article was originally published on 22 May 2017.
When a person buys a home, they more than likely become the newest member of their community’s homeowners association. That association has rules and guidelines for residents… rules and guidelines that new residents have little to no say about.
HOA’s use extreme measures to enforce their rules and often stand by the notion its to “preserve the community for the liking of all residents.”
Humm…
If only that mindset could be applied to neighborhoods that are majority Black and Brown.
Nope, Black and Brown people are subject to gentrification instead of preservation. Gentrification… a process I’ll refer to as the grandchild of urban “White flight” post World War II, is possibly the simplest and most forward example of racial division in the United States.
White flight was when droves of White people moved from within the city limits of most major cities to get away from their Black neighbors.
This continued even until the mid-90s… then a reverse Uno card was placed down on major cities across the country and White people started moving back into major cities.
However, they didn’t move back to major cities with the original residents nor the conditions in which Black and Brown people had to endure. Since the 90s, many White people have been incentivized to move into newly developed and transformed neighborhoods for their pleasure and liking.
Their homeowners association, the American racism foundation, long neglected the cries of Black and Brown residents. Everyone from real estate developers to elected officials ignored the cry for better recreational centers, places of commerce, and healthy eating options.
Whole communities from Harlem to Houston have been gutted and transformed with a tag of $2,100 a month rent.
First residents from Cabrini Green of Chicago to downtown Brooklyn were either relocated because of their federal housing status or simply priced out due to higher rents.
Then came the tearing down of aging and dilapidated homes and apartments, followed by swanky new townhomes and condos, then finished off with a new Chipotle, Starbucks, and of course… bike lanes and a pet grooming store.
Black and Brown neighborhoods aren’t even offered fresh food options, yet White residents are given brand new communities before signing their Wells Fargo home loan.
Guess a “hood” owners association should be founded to keep the soul, cost, and originality of communities intact. But we need to act fast! Kroger and CVS are coming soon!
You know that scene from Back to the Future? The one where Marty McFly, the main character, delivers a thrilling rendition of the song “Johnny B. Goode” on that red guitar?
It’s one of my favorites.
During that scene, Marty is on stage with a band called “Marvin Berry and the Starlighters.” As Marty continues to rip on the strings, Marvin can’t believe his ears. He runs to call his cousin, Chuck Berry, the famous musician who actually sang the original song in real life:
“Chuck, Chuck! It’s Marvin,” he said. “You know that new sound you were looking for? Well, listen to THIS!”
Listen to this….
In 2015, I received a similar phone call from my friend Ian who’s like family to me. At the time, he was working for an American multinational corporation while on rotation in Lagos, Nigeria.
Ian was so excited. He was telling me all about this new sound he’d encountered one night in Lagos. He described the sound as a combination of Jamaican Dancehall and American Pop music.
Now I knew I could trust Ian’s musical taste. Ever since I met the guy twenty-five years ago, we’ve spent countless nights dancing to Reggae music well into the early hours of the morning. While I tend to rumble around like a fool, Ian is actually a good dancer. He smoothly glides around the floor and he never seems to get tired. The guy can also pick up just about any dance move within seconds.
So when he sent me a few Afrobeat songs, I wasn’t surprised that I got hooked and couldn’t get enough of this new delightful rhythm.
Ian, who had been stationed in Nigeria for four months, quickly fell head over heels in love. I’ll never forget when he came back because he couldn’t stop talking about his life there. The people, the food, the accents, the clothing. He was gushing. So I promised him I would visit Lagos one day.
Then I met his friend, Chukwudubem (or “Dubem” for short). The instant you meet Dubem you just get a good vibe from him. He’s a salt of the earth kind of guy. A cool, laid-back, soft-spoken gentleman who quietly makes his presence known in whatever room he’s in. I met Dubem in 2016 when I was partying with Ian near his new rotation in Dubai. Dubem was born and raised in Nigeria and the more I talked to him, the more curious I got about Lagos.
Over the course of my stay in Dubai, we talked for what felt like for hours and when I returned home we continued to message one another on WhatsApp. I’d ask him questions like: What did he think of Black Lives Matter? Who’s better: Patoranking or Gyptian? What did he think of Black Panther?
Sometimes I wanted to get his perspective on a certain topic. And other times (I have to admit) I wanted him to validate a point that I had been debating with my American friends on the African diaspora.
With every exchange, my curiosity continued to grow. Then one day he mentioned he was getting married to a beautiful Nigerian woman whom he had met in Dubai. He shared that he may not be able to extend an official wedding invite but that I was welcome to tag along with Ian. If the stars aligned I may even be able to attend the after party.
“So you’re saying I can crash your wedding?!” I replied.
He said “yes”! Soon after that, I bought a ticket to Lagos. I’d take off in December.
A few months before we left, I had received an email from 23andMe informing me that they had been able to drill deeper to clarify my ancestry results. Previously, my results showed that I was generally 58% African, 33% European, and 6% Native American. I opened the app on my phone and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the highest percentage of my African ancestry is from—you guessed it—Nigeria!
I am typically never one to get excited about trips abroad until a few days before I leave. However, I had been excited about this trip for months. Between constantly listening to Afrobeat music, to meeting Dubem, and the recent discovery of my Nigerian ancestry, the anticipation for this trip had surpassed any feeling that I had ever had stepping onto an airplane.
But beneath the excitement there was a bit of unease. Here I was onboard a midnight ten-hour direct flight across the Atlantic Ocean to return to a continent that I had never physically been. My mind was racing with questions like:
What if the Nigerians weren’t friendly towards me?
I never go anywhere for eleven days … What if I get bored while I am there for so long?
What if being an American Afro-Latino kid from Brooklyn is not welcome by the people I encounter?
What the hell am I going to wear to this wedding?
Do I know enough dance moves to keep up with Ian?
What if my ancestors were never stolen off the continent to begin with?
When I arrived in Nigeria, I was quickly taken aback by all of the commotion. Apparently, Christmas time in Nigeria is the busiest season of the year. Many Nigerians return from abroad to visit family for the holidays so the streets are jammed with traffic. The humid air is filled with the melodic percussions of Afrobeat music pouring out of every car and bar. Sometimes even today I hear that symphony in my head — the ruckus of the cars, the horns and irresistible beat of “Able God” — and I can’t help but break out my finest Shaku Shaku dance.
All of the top Nigerian musicians are in town. Their concert billboards were plastered everywhere. For me, it’s like a Who’s Who of all the artists I had come to love over the years. I can only imagine that this is what Detroit must have been like during the Motown era in the 60s or the Bronx during the birth of hip-hop in the early 80s.
The club scene is electric. Filled wall to wall with joyous dancing Black bodies. It’s a beautiful sight to behold.
One night, I was doing my usual rumble on the dancefloor when Ian taps me on the shoulder to leave. But I was feeling the vibe and it was only 1 a.m. I wanted more.
“Why are we leaving?” I asked. “The music is so good here!”
A sly smile creeped across Ian’s face, “The music is good everywhere in Lagos!” he replied.
Ian wasn’t exaggerating. Every club we went to had amazing music. Every now and then the DJ would play two or three American songs but that’s it.
After a week of clubbing every night I had taken on the moniker, “Chike from BK.” A nod to my roots but still a label of my difference. We had debated if I might be of the Hausa or Igbo tribe. And ultimately settled on Igbo because of my stature and regal demeanor (kidding).
But alas we were nearing the end of our voyage. The day had arrived for the first of two wedding ceremonies. First, the traditional wedding which was a beautiful tribal ceremony that joined the two families as one and felt more “African.” Then two days later, the “White” wedding which was a more Western style ceremony with a lavish reception. I was ready to immerse myself into these rich cultural experiences.
I’ve been a groomsmen in an inordinate amount of weddings back home. Just off the top of my head I can count about ten, so I understand the jitters of a wedding day. Regardless of my involvement, I always try my best to stay in the periphery and be as helpful as I can to keep the day flowing smoothly. Sometimes I throw in a joke or two to keep the mood light.
Dubem had reached out to get my clothing measurements before I arrived in Lagos so I wouldn’t feel left out. To my surprise, on the morning of the traditional wedding ceremony, I learned that I would be dressed exactly like the groomsmen. I felt a strong sense of belonging as I put on my brown hat, white top, and what can only be described as a pink wrap skirt.
I was ready to attend this meaningful cultural ceremony but still wanted to add a little Brooklyn flavor to my outfit so I slightly tilted my hat to the side.
Before the ceremony, the wedding party began to take pictures and I watched observantly on the sidelines. Then suddenly, Dubem invited me to join them as if I were a member of his family. Stunned, I initially declined as I felt out of place. Most of the members of the wedding party were lifelong friends of the bride and groom.
I don’t know about you, but my parents and I have gone through their wedding photos many times over years and I have asked about every single person represented in those photographs. I was honored that this Afro-Latino kid from Brooklyn by way of Grenada, Puerto Rico, and Cape Verde would forever be documented in Dubem and Ore’s wedding photos.
Maybe one day when their children point to me in their wedding photos they can tell my story.
Maybe they can tell their children about our collective story as we across the African diaspora continue to reconnect with our roots.
Maybe they can share with their children that love — the love of music, the love amongst friends, and the romantic love between partners — has always brought us together.
As I stood there with the sound of cameras flashing, I began to reflect on my ancestors. Their son was back home for the first time. They’d be happy to know this son of theirs was welcomed back by one of his best friends Ian, embraced by his new friend Chukwudubem, and moved to dance by Afrobeats into the wee morning hours. As I envision our ancestor’s benediction upon us, I see our reunion bringing a smile to their faces.
…That’s the new sound I was looking for. The sound of belonging.
Filled with plastic trays and your typical school lunch fare, we all sat like Black Vikings at these elongated brown tables. While the top five floors of St. Edmund Preparatory High School were for a formal education of the mind, the basement lunchroom tables were for informal debate. In those days, watching the basketball team play on cold Friday nights in Brooklyn was the must-see event of the week. Naturally being a starter on the basketball team, I earned my seat with the jocks, upperclassmen, and the “cool kids.” It was 2002 and our junior varsity basketball team had just won the city championship the previous year and I had lost weight to prepare myself to play on the varsity level. Socially, I was dating my first girlfriend, I had lots of gelled curly hair, and admittedly was feeling myself. Our coach mostly played upperclassman and I struggled to find minutes on the court that season, but otherwise, life was good.
A bit of a bookworm and a basketball junkie, I couldn’t wait for my issue of Sports Illustrated to arrive every week. I’ll never forget that week in February of 2002 that I received my issue with a kid that kinda looked like me on the cover along with the words “The Chosen One” emblazoned in white letters. As a deeply religious teenager, you can image how incendiary I felt that cover was, but it only inflamed my curiosity even more: Who was this kid? And why was the iconic Sports Illustrated magazine saying he could play in the NBA as a high school junior? I was a high school junior and was struggling for minutes at St. Edmund and you’re telling me this kid can play with Shaquille O’Neal (my favorite player at the time) in the NBA?! Where is Akron, Ohio anyway? Why does his school name have two hyphenated saints? Who is this kid?!
Because my family invested in the luxury of books and magazines, we were probably one of the last families to order cable television. So when LeBron James made his television debut in December of 2002, I did not get to watch ESPN broadcast the first nationally televised high school game featuring LeBron’s high school team, St. Vincent-St. Mary. Trust me when I say that I actually asked my mom if I could go watch a high school kid play basketball at a friend’s house. I have Caribbean parents so you can imagine how that conversation went with my mother: “Are you crazy? No, you’re not going to no Wesley’s house to watch no game ah esta hora a la manana! Are you crazy?” Obviously, I wanted to be prepared for the following days’ lunchroom debate to give my reaction of the kid they were calling “King James.” Alas, I was relegated to reading about him in the paper the next day. He dropped 31 points? Who is this kid?
The following year I was voted as one of the captains of the varsity basketball team. Although I was our team’s grossly undersized center, we hoisted our second New York City championship before losing in the state tournament. But I had earned the respect of my basketball peers and was voted All-City along with two of my teammates by all of the head coaches in our league. Meanwhile in Ohio, LeBron also won a city championship, but he then went on to win a third state championship and second Mr. Basketball award for the state of Ohio. He went on a few months later to be drafted the overall number one pick by his home state team, Cleveland Cavaliers. By his NBA debut in October 2003, Nike had already signed him to a record $90 million dollar endorsement deal and the pressure was mounting for LeBron to deliver that night. Although we still didn’t have cable, my mamma couldn’t tell me nothing now that I was in college, so I went to a friend’s house to watch his debut versus the Sacramento Kings. This time I didn’t have to read about it in the paper: he had 25 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals. Who is this kid?
I graduated college in three years with a 3.6 G.P.A, and in those three years, I had three internships and three jobs. You do the math. My hard work paid off and in 2007 I was proudly hired by the iconic American company, American Express. “Is this what it felt like to be drafted,” I wondered at the time. A designer that I knew from college reached out to invite me to LeBron’s Nike sneaker release party in lower Manhattan one night. I partied a lot in those days and as I was playing NBA 2K at the event a voice asks from behind me, “Who’s winning?” I turn around and it’s Lebron James in a cream mink vest. I keep my cool and simply respond, “You.” He laughs and we dap each other and he walks away. Later that summer, LeBron was taking his grossly inexperienced and relatively untalented team to the NBA Finals for the first time in Cavs franchise history – and in only his fourth year in the league! Who is this kid?
I was having a great year at work and was on my way to receiving the company’s highest rating for elite performers. In the spring of 2012, I was selected from thousands of employees to be a member of the highly selective, Global Rotation Program, which afforded me the opportunity to live in Sydney, Australia. About to embark on what would be the professional and personal journey of a lifetime, I watched from my work computer at the Amex Tower in Sydney, as LeBron won his first NBA championship as a member of the Miami Heat. He was winning on South Beach and I was winning on Bondi Beach. Who is this kid?
In 2016, I signed the largest deal of my sales career to date and Lebron had returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers to win their first championship in franchise history – the state of Ohio’s first professional championship since 1964 – his third ring overall. Since then, as I write this piece, I am at a moment of transition in my career and LeBron recently announced that he was leaving Cleveland, transitioning to the legendary Los Angeles Lakers. Who is this man?
Over the last 16 years, the world has come to intimately know Lebron Raymone James and his family. And in a sense, he and I have grown up together. From the evolution of our sense of style to our ever-receding hairlines, I’ve grown up with King James as a reflection of my generation. And in my own small way, possibly even a reflection of myself. As a double entendre, he is the celebrity look-alike that I get most often.
The Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James debate will fervently continue to go on and that is a piece for another day. Yet, there is something LeBron did this week that continues to set him apart from not only all the other sports greats before him but as one of the great philanthropists of our time. In addition to lending his voice to social issues and spending $41 million dollars in 2015 to sponsor 1,100 college educations, this week he opened a public school in Akron whose mission is to aid students and parents of underprivileged families in Akron. Certainly, other athletes (like Dikembe Mutombo, who built a state-of-the-art hospital in his native Democratic Republic of Congo) have given back to their communities in major ways. Though what LeBron is doing is slightly different given the scale of the impact that he is achieving through educating children and college kids. This is a shining moment in a darkened backdrop of Black Americans deeply complicated relationship with the American Education system. Perhaps, his legacy through education will even shine brighter than his legacy as a basketball prodigy.
In Grant Wahl’s now iconic Sports Illustrated article from 2002, he famously described the meeting between “His Airness and King James,” as akin to when a teenage Bill Clinton met JFK. But maybe the photo above is actually the more appropriate comparison.
That’s who that man is… I hope to follow in his footsteps.
When everyone is rooting for you, and you still find a way to lose? His name is Adrien Broner.
“They want some rice and chicken,”is a perfectly adequate response when asked what do the children want for dinner, not in reference to a group of people… that’s called RACISM.
“I beat him like I was using what they used to beat Martin Luther King,” is never ok to say, like ever… countless people, including Martin Luther King Jr., died for Civil Rights. To joke about it is IGNORANT on so many levels, especially if you’re one of the people they died for.
It’s hard to fabricate such insensitive comments… And that’s why it’s hard to root for a man who has no problem saying them… utter disrespect for his opponent and their culture, and even worse, not understanding the sacrifices others made for him to do what he does today, is unacceptable.
Adrien Broner deserved to lose this past weekend on Showtime Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Instead, some will argue he earned the draw-decision by winning the second half of the fight against Jessie Vargas. If you’re a boxing fan, you know boxing judges seldom get it right. And despite one judge giving Broner the nod (115-113), the biggest shock of the night came after the fight when Broner decided to spew all kinds of racism, ignorance, and homophobia towards his Mexican opponent, Jesse Vargas. When you think about it, maybe it’s not a shock considering Broner’s past antics in press conferences before and after his fights. But if Broner ever had a line to cross, he crossed it this past weekend.
The comments above are just some of the disparaging things he said immediately following the fight. In his remarks, he inferred that the Barclays Center was full of Mexicans. Mexicans, Blacks, Whites, whatever the demographic makeup that night, it was clearly a pro-Broner crowd. The crowd erupted whenever he landed a big shot, and their silence when Vargas did the same, made it pretty clear who they were rooting for. Ironically, the only person who didn’t realize it was Broner himself.
His last few fights were disappointing. But this is America and people love a comeback. With that being said, many considered this his last shot to revitalize his career and get back on track. His lackluster performance in the ring might’ve sealed his fate, and if it didn’t, his comments after the fight surely did.
As I said earlier… It’s hard to root for a man who doesn’t respect his opponent and their culture, and even worse, doesn’t understand the sacrifices others made for him to do what he does today. Broner, do better… despite you not deserving it, something tells me you’ll get another shot.
