Habla Ifa, On NonViolence: Avonte Oquendo and Oshun's East River Speak - Part II

*originally posted by Jadele McPherson, a writer, performer and activist whom I'm proud to call my sister. Reposted with permission and slight edits by myself

Part II: Oct.4th Orunmila's Day: Oquendo's Run 

Chills ran through me as I saw the footage, sure lil' Avonte was autistic, but those of us who work at the pulse of education and social justice, those of us who work with young people know that run, especially we of African descent. Ohh-keen-dooo, a young Latino brother, a young black man taking flight. Oquendo is the embodiment of our Latino and Afro-Latino, African-American crossroads in America. Running from dogs, running from the po-lice, running for freedom, running, running, can't stop, running away, can't keep running awayyyyyyy.

We don't have to be there, we don't need the exact details we watch the same story over and over on the news and in our lives. Inside every black and Latino person in America, those conscious Southeast Asian sisters and brothers sometimes "mistaken" for "us" black folks, multi-generation Middle Eastern, and other communities of color that now know y'all ain't gonna have the luck of the Irish or Italians to "assimilate" into whiteness in a generation or two (although you try, real hard), except for some of you (we come back to that when dealing w/ elitism among POCs and our increasing lack of responsibility to one another) --ALL of us awake here in Amerikkka have that meter of historical embodied fright. That brother was running for his LIFE.

October 4th is a high holiday for practitioners of regla ocha, it is the day for recognizing priests of Ifa, our most comprehensive divination system which warns us about national disasters to illnesses. It guides us through life's most treasured and tragic moments. That Oquendo ran to the river, we will never truly know, but we do know Ifa and Oshun's magical pact. It is said these divine energies ward away death and the negativity of the most potent kind. What set Oquendo to move with a quickness could have been anything from sharp words from a tired administrator to a shocking noise. What we do know, is that students are not safe in our schools. Those of us who work daily in our public schools know in our core that 99% of those students are not physically or mentally safe.

To think about non-violence just a week after a student bought a gun to one of the school's I work in affirmed my life's work and dedication to youth, as exhausting as it truly is. I asked my students to ponder Dr. King's non-violence legacy today and was met with "Yeah Miss that ain't possible." Expecting this, since I've been in this game for a minute from the Chi to the South Bronx, we checkered our way through possible actions we could take against the DOE to transform our entire school into one that mirrors the safe space we have been building with one another. One that elevates us for our class period out of the building, with everything from hip-hop to son bearing our backdrops to the street pedagogy we infuse into our lessons. Our classes are always about life and death, not just to catch up in credits and graduation rates but to mirror the reality that my young people confront daily. And they are sad, depressed, drained, lethargic, sick, hopeless and apathetic from existing in a system that hates them and tells them through its disorganization everyday that they are not worthy of a decent education.

It is this institution that infuriates me the most in America, the audacity of a system to so blatantly privilege some over others, after our social justice organizing for integration in the 1950s, this is what we are met with. And some want to reach back the hands of time, but brothers and sisters that is not possible, we never have to despair so much that we idealize legalized segregation enforced by the daily terror against blacks that has always been America. We can dare to dream of a multicultural school system that provides great education AND pays school administrators and teachers more than a lawyer. We can dream in what seems impossible, and not put all of our stock in Andovers and Browns because as my father rose up in Kemper Auditorium at Phillips Andover to say to a fundraising panel in 2009 "We ... were brought here ... in chains". 

King and the Little Rock 9 and all of our peoples them who attended public schools in America give us the right to dream this dream.

We must not feel pressured by the false promise of success. For every dollar we continue giving to multi-million endowments, we drive Avonte Oquendo through the doors of a school that does not want him or any of us there. We drive us into the drowning of the river, where peace and silence comfort our soul in death after the panic.

Because we no longer know who is caring for our children and we live in a nation where most national tragedies involve youth and/or our schools, across race and class (as we are seeing more and more from Virginia Tech to Newtown) it lets us know violence against our youth is no longer just a "black folks problem" due to the "unfortunate" realities of the "inner-city". Todays schools keep attesting to the SICKNESS that is America that we allow to penetrate our crumbling institutions falling under the excuse that there's always evil in the world. It's really simple where we can start to effect change before politics and policies, we must look within.

We have become too preoccupied with busy work to stop to care for one another, there's no time to give a stranger a hug much less a loved one; we schedule everything to keep in time with the beast and our human sentiment which requires no words to tell when another is hurting is becoming duller and more sterile. Because education issues in "underprivileged communities" are for THOSE people to deal with and are not my worry because they don't have anything to do with MY field/life/reality. Ha. The myth of the individual strikes again.

No matter how conscious, all of us living in America are guilty of the above, we ain't saints and don't need to be, but doing the wrong thing is just too contagious. And I think to focus all on the ills of system and oppressive forces is sometimes misleading in that it becomes just as draining as fighting them, because we despair easily and create theories about how we can react to their wrongdoings. This enables us to continually erase our full power over ourselves and our communities no matter how skewed the fight, we can never lose, the power is always in we, the people. But you can't get there focusing on no we, them, us, they, can't, too powerful, ya dig. 

We's done forgotten how to get back to da' WE. Ya heard?! 2014, {Es}'cuchen bien.

I fear I may have integrated my people into a burning house - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 

Habla Ifa, On NonViolence: Avonte Oquendo and Oshun's East River Speak - Part I

*originally posted by Jadele McPherson, a writer, performer and activist whom I'm proud to call my sister. Reposted with permission and slight edits by myself

Part I: Moyuba. Invocation.

Chills come over me when I hear the news. They are pulling him out of the river, limb by limb. Indeed, it is Avonte Oquendo. Ibae bayen tonu. Despair and grief never rocked my 20 to 30 something peers so much, in the thralls of beginning our own families and burying relatives young in their cause and others whose transitions leave us in awe of their breadth of work. Eyiogbe a divination sign in Ifa/regla ocha (aka Santería) "speaks" of elders and people of great position transitioning to pure spirit; we lived this energy in the year 2011 as well, though this year the sign comes to us with Olokun and Yemaya as the reigning "deities" or orishas of the year. This sign of the year is divined by Ifa priests in Cuba and the U.S. and gives warnings, precautions and advice for initiates and followers of Regla de Ocha to observe throughout the year. 

Olokun Yemaya representing the oceans down into their depths a metaphor for searching for understanding in the mysteries etched into this planet.

This news, of finally finding Avonte Oquendo's fate today 1/21/14, the young 14 year old who went missing from his school on October 4th 2013, whose remains began to surface yesterday after a young photographer saw a left arm bubble to the top of New York's East River waters-- like many other tragedies are difficult for many to understand, and like many times I've written to share a Lukumi lens which helps us to open possibilities that are hard to read upon our eye's first glance. The Earth and God always speak to us through mystery and in life we know we are not here to make sense of everything we experience. From atheism to "mono"theism to indigenous practices we find reasoning, yet as science and intellectual rigor drive our fast paced technological world we are becoming societies no one's God will want to claim.

To receive the news after nationally honoring Martin Luther King's legacy seems no small coincidence to me as we collectively ponder the legacy of non-violence and social movements, many have asked "How far have we come?" "Does non-violence play a role in our lives today?" These questions are there yes, but ones I don't spend much time racking my head with. We are after all living legacies, blood relatives of those who created those changes and by nature's accord represent legacy and progress in our mere existence.

Today we segregate ourselves, by great luxury and privilege granted by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements that empower all people of color, by those who engage in social justice work and those who do not. And I have felt this is silly for much of my 20s when long after graduation fellow classmates of color took paths in finance or law or business or "unrelated fields" to the academic and artistic paths that have become synonymous with activist work. As if. There is a choice now, while no other black generation had a choice, sure how radical or what your politics were were choices, but that things must change not for a few of us, was simply put on the table. How quickly things change.

Just like in college, now most radical commentary and discourse seems to focus on calling out instances of white supremacy and of the establishment oppressing those of African descent and the institutional mess that is America. We focus too much on oppressors today. We give them so much energy it consumes the best of us and we do not study our indigenous incantations or herbal remedies that can refuel an entire village if performed correctly. Those engaged with regla ocha and African religious practices are incredibly segregated and many of us waste our rituals and secrets battling online about ritual protocol and bashing each others reputations. Those actually engaged in social justice work have somehow become a minority in our community, and yet others who work to dismantle institutional "-isms" that negatively affect communities of color are then too tired to throw a tambor and simply don't have enough time to help every person who may have read their book or know who they are. 

The reality is that we are drained and we are too few. Many warriors and thinkers of the previous generations are going home, so sick and tired, but not without hope and their magic they've left to incite us all, while others of us fill our bodies with toxic foods and air, when to think about food justice and exercise just seems like another "task" rather than a practical, holistic approach to life. I, myself, often wonder, 'how in the hell will I have time for myself in such a world, how will I find balance in a system that perpetuates exhaustion in us all?' Running a theater arts collective, writing, producing community projects and developing as a healer and artist take up most of my spare time but nonetheless I often get texts from loved friends letting me know I am selfish or from those seeking spiritual help in regla de ocha frustrated at my rescheduling or others upset because I have missed their shows. It ain't easy being a 2014 professional-daughter-lover-friend-healer-revolutionary-artist-black-woman. Ay Dios amparame.

Time and time again I have had to say Maferefun Eggun, Maferefun Obatalá. Prayer is strong but if it were not for the secrets of our indigenous Yoruba knowledge fostered through this Afro-Cuban system of healing, I would either be brainwashed or so sick and bitter I can't even ponder that path. Then I have the nerve to be an akpon, a ritual singer who's job is to clean others bullcrap with my voice and incantations, such a beautiful path yet met with resistance at every turn. I have handled the adversity with grace by the light of the lives of my ancestors, they are stronger than most living people I encounter, and for that I am very grateful. After all, I've made my choice. Holistic spiritual self is the only armor I can fathom for this life, and while money comes and goes and I don't have a single career path, I forge magical in-between spaces. Ahi na' ma.

But how can we move through the grey together? How do we provide holistic living to our people in such demanding times and how do we keep motivating one another to carry the torch to create a more just society as each previous generation has done whole-heartledly and selflessly? Si se puede.

We need classes in basic spiritual baths free of charge, and organic produce in our schools and work places, we need live music on our lunch breaks and rooftop garden breaks to disrupt 12-14 hour days. We need 6 weeks of vacation minimum per year, and free quality university education, we need free health and exercise clinics alongside rehab and detox ones in the 'hood; we need poetry, dance, song and required racial equality courses at every level of our educational and professional lives - and yoga and reiki for our bodies and spirits, and of course being the Afrodescendants we are, a good tambor on the weekends to lift us in our purpose.

And we need our schools to stop being graveyards and pre-incarceration training grounds.

Part II will be posted Monday at 10 a.m. PST

Hipst(H)er

After seeing Her, I'm really impressed by Spike Jonze's ability to craft a screenplay. By the end of the film the idea of Joaquin Phoenix's Theodore falling in love with his operating system, Samantha (played by Scarlett Johannssen who is phenomenal in this vocal role) doesn't seem too far-fetched. In fact, Jonze's near future seems like the next step in our technological future. What was disturbing about the near future (besides the incredibly high crotch pants that all the men were sporting) was the complete lack of people of color in Spike Jonze's universe. And I wasn't the only one to notice.

Other than one close up on a Black breakdancer, there were virtually no people of color in this universe. Chris Pratt's character dates an Asian woman. She was the only PoC with lines. Everyone else was near invisible. At one point during a child's birthday party scene, there were some children of color running around the lawn but there were no adults of color to go with them. So I guess in Spike Jonze's future, people of color are breeding children for white couples to raise.

I'm sure the screenplay didn't read: "Ext. DAY: Theodore walks down street full of white people." but considering that Jonze also directed the film, I find it curious that a sea of white people in "future" downtown L.A. didn't look a bit off to him. Overall, the film accurately captures, the ups and downs of a relationship. The honeymoon phase, the growing together and the growing apart but if our near future is devoid of color, I think we have a lot more to worry about than falling in love with our computers.

3 Reasons We Should've Known How the Golden Globes Were Going to Go Down

Despite years of evidence to the contrary, people of color went into this year's Golden Globes with excitement and hopeful hearts. This is the year of Black film after all, with movies like 12 Years A Slave receiving critical accolades and even The Best Man Holiday managed to come in second only to Thor 2 in theaters even with its "race themes". So imagine the collective outrage when we watched stellar performances by Lupita Nyong'o and Chiwetel Ejiofor go unrecognized. Or watching in dismay as Steve McQueen was overlooked for his direction and John Ridley for his writing. It was disheartening but luckily folks did not walk away with heavy hearts and the media has been forced to take note of the lack of diversity in both the films and the Hollywood Foreign Press. Still hindsight is 20/20 and there were signs about how this was going to go down:

1.  The best television nominees: Both Andy Samberg and Taylor Schilling were nominated for Golden Globes for their roles on Brooklyn Nine Nine and Orange is the New Black, respectively. This was a big deal as Brooklyn Nine Nine is a relatively new and unknown show and Orange is a Netflix original so it does not have a major network backing it. Furthermore, both shows feature ethnically diverse casts. So that was our first sign. Despite the fact that both shows have received praise for their largely PoC casts, none of those actors were nominated for supporting actor Golden Globes. Arguably, Orange's most memorable characters are Uzo Aduba's Crazy Eyes and Laverne Cox (a trans woman of color) as Sophia Burset. Yet only Schilling was nominated. Even creator Jenji Kohan has been outspoken about wanting Orange is the New Black to be about the Black and Latina women of the prison but knowing that the show would not sell to the industry without a White lead. 

2. Chiwetel & Idris being nominated: I was elated (elated!) to see that both Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor were both nominated for best actor in the film and television category. Having seen Mandela! and 12 Years A Slave as well as the actors' turns in Luther and Dancing on the Edge, I thought, "Yes! The Hollywood Foreign Press gets it." I figured Chiwetel would win for film and Idris for television because who could deny Idris' morally ambiguous John Luther (the HFPA and Emmys ate it up for years with Hugh Laurie as House) and Chiwetel was a revelation as Solomon Northup. All tied up, easy peasy. But of course they were never going to win. Either their performances would split the vote or they were thrown up there as symbols, either way it was a bone we too easily reached for. 

3. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association: The past year has been marked by some injection of diversity into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so people have been looking to this year's Oscars and the Golden Globes to show those changes in both the selection and the recipients of these awards. But the HFPA is a much smaller pool. It's comprised of about 90 members and although a bit more diverse in its ranks, it's members are still largely from Europe and also male. Unlike American Hustle, there was nothing sexy about 12 Years' sex scene where Michael Fassbender rapes Lupita Nyong'o in a scene that feels never-ending. And there's something truly groundbreaking about Steve McQueen's decision as a director to never turn away from that brutality. 

At the end of the day, no one is saying that Golden Globes or Oscars or any awards should be given to people of color because they are minorities or because of some perverse affirmative action. What we are saying is that it is 2014 and the gatekeepers are still White and male. The oppurtunities go to those who are mainly White and/or male. And as Rowan Pope said this season on Scandal, we still have to work twice as hard to get half of what actors get. I know acting is subjective. I was moved by Michael B. Jordan's portrayal of Oscar Grant and Naomie Harris' Winnie Mandela as well as Adele Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color and none of those actors were even nominated but it's more likely that Adele or Jennifer Lawrence will be at the Golden Globes next year (whether they are nominated or not) because they are what we think of when we think of Hollywood, beautiful, White starlets. And despite an audience that is clamoring for diversity and big numbers for television shows and films that are providing that, at the end of the day the industry is still lagging behind. As Alfre Woodard said, 

You know when we'll know things have changed? You know that brilliant, stunningly beautiful and poised Lupita Nyong'o? 12 Years A Slave is an incredible launch to a career. And this is her first thing. We will see if [as opposed to] another brilliant actress Jennifer Lawrence, we'll see the trajectory of [Lupita's] career path and what she's offered after that. Then we'll know whether things have changed or if Lupita is consigned to playing a second banana ensemble person for the next ten years. 

So far Alfre's words seem like an omen. The ball's in your court Hollywood. 

The Lost Demographic: What My Black Mom is Watching on TV

When I entered the kitchen this morning, my mom was watching a rerun of Family Matters ... I know. Family Matters y'all. While I look on shows like this it's with nostalgia and a bit of wistfulness to my mom this is regular television viewing. 

Now this part is for the TV execs, so listen up. I know my mom isn't part of your hallowed 18–49 demographic but somehow CBS is always number one despite the fact that is mainly watched by the 60+ set so maybe it's time to think outside of the box since my contemporaries are running away from traditional television. And when it comes to older women of color like my mother, you've really dropped the ball. If I grew up in the so-called "Golden era" of Black television when shows like Family Matters, Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ruled their airwaves, that was all my mother knew. She knew Good Times and Julia and Sanford and Son and that only got better as the 80s and 90s went on. The late 90s and early 2000s saw a dramatic shift in media representation of people of color and the loss of networks like UPN and the WB which focused largely on Black sitcoms. And my mom and older women of color like her, never went back. Outside of her "stories" or soap operas (which are also being phased out), my mother actively watches reruns of Black television shows. Recently, she's started watching Scandal, though it took me over a year to get her to watch an episode because she initially wrote it off as being another "white people show" despite the fact that it is produced by and stars a Black woman. And I don't blame her initial reaction. 

The truth is over the past 10-15 years, Black people have been relegated to the sidelines of television. We are the sidekicks, the best friends, the diversity hires. No wonder everyone gasps in astonishment when shows like The Game premiere on BET to record breaking numbers or when "race themed" movies like The Best Man Holiday top at the box office. Executives have forgotten how shows like The Cosby Show were once the cornerstone of network television but people like my mom haven't forgotten and they'd rather watch reruns than take in media that doesn't represent them. Recently, things have started to shift slowly back. We are seeing people of color heading up casts and their characters being treated like actual human beings rather than props for the white characters to emote around. But will we ever get back to a place where an all-Black family on television isn't seen as just a show for Black people? Will we get back to a place where my mother sees herself reflected on television and others can see the universal humanity in a Black family? 

Karma

Today on my way to work, I saw a blonde haired, blue-eyed woman standing legs parted, hands behind her back and bag strewn on the ground as she was being arrested by three police officers. And I walked by, I smiled. 

Now, I completely own that my reaction was sick. No one should get joy from watching as someone is arrested. The way police officers demean and make of spectacle of arresting someone makes a pit rise in my throat. But I also can't act like seeing this moment didn't make me a little happy. And that's a real problem. 

I would say around once a month, I see black young men subjected to the same acts of degradation. Young black and brown men, sitting handcuffed along walls as cops lean over them menacingly. Every day as I walk to work I pass by numerous homeless people, the majority of whom are people of color, and watch as the Twitter techies, businessmen and yes, even I sidestep them on our way to our offices after getting our locally brewed coffees. So when I saw that girl being arrested, I smiled because I was happy that it wasn't one of us. It was one of them for once.

And to be honest, that's not justice. Having just as many White people in our corrupt penal system as there are Blacks or Latinos is not justice. It just means more people are being stripped of their basic human rights. Having just as many White people in our overcrowded, underfunded public schools wouldn't be justice either. I don't wish ills on people in order to make the ills of society seem equal. But I did smile. I had a moment of feeling like some sense of karma was being doled out by the universe and I admit it wasn't right. We can't always help how we feel in a particular moment and no matter how many White, blonde haired, blue-eyed girls are arrested, that won't change the fundamentals of our society. Real change like that might actually bring some real joy to my smile. 

The Plight of the First Generation Eldest Sibling*

*A/N: That title sounded bleaker than I meant it to but ...

Shout-out to all the firsts. 

The first to go to college, 

the first to get a job, 

the first to move out, 

the first to really succeed. 

The translators,

the navigators, 

the form filler out-ters. 

The ad-hoc financial aid counselors,

the conciliators, 

and conflict mediators. 

The big brothers and big sisters who are expected to come back

Who want to come back

Who can't come back

The ones to whom family is another full-time job

The ones who are raising kids they never birthed

But bathed

We were the first to leave and we're the first to return

We feel the weight of success 

And bear the burden of not having done enough

While trying to do the most

Shout out to the oldest (not the wisest) 

Shout out to the middle kids for whom this is true

And shout out to the only-ies, cause it's lonely

Shout out for the first but not the last