Hello Family,
How is your summer going?
New York summers generally do too much. LOL! They are hot, yes; but it’s the humidity that makes them miserable. Catastrophic Climate Change is only making it worse. Winter is also brutal here. I much prefer spring and autumn, when the weather is much more tolerable. But roaming around NYC in the summer is its own kind of wonderful. Sometimes, I like to walk. Other times, I like to ride a bus from the first stop to the last stop, gazing out of the window the whole time. There’s so much to take in. From gardens to parks, from museums to street performers, from riverfronts to historic homes, the five boroughs compromise an interesting city with interesting people.
But the city and its denizens can also disappoint. Sadly, I’m often afraid to leave the house these days. Foremost in my mind: Which of my fellow human beings is going to care so little about themselves and me that they put us both in danger? I know I’m harping on this subject, but I was astounded when reading The New York Times article about how New Yorkers are shrugging off the latest wave of COVID: “‘At this point I am not worried,’ said Carla Hernandez, as she and her two children sat on a blanket in the shade of a tree Thursday in a park in the Queens neighborhood of Corona, once the epicenter of the pandemic. ‘We know there’s a pandemic, but we have to keep moving.’” This despite COVID hitting Black and Brown people the hardest.
Many people in the U.S. hold that same perspective. Their need to “get back to normal” trumps safety. The American lack of compassion, empathy, knowledge, and good sense astonishes me every time. It’s frightening that Americans are willing to risk the health of others and themselves: ignoring the possible long-term consequences of contracting the disease, pretending that wearing a mask and observing health standards is oppression, outright disregarding the susceptibility of the immunocompromised, treating 400 deaths a day as the cost of being a “rugged American.” It’s as though the United States isn’t built for community. It seems that most people in this country don’t understand what “community” means unless there is a lynched body to hover around and then raid for souvenirs.
The government is either incompetent or pretending to be and the wealthy class is benefitting from all of the misery. Any way you examine it, this country and many of its people are severely dysfunctional; downright harmful. We need corrective measures and people with the honesty, tenderness, will, and wisdom to enact them. People like Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who speaks truth to power even when media outlets try to silence him; and lawyer and anthropologist Dr. Khiara Bridges, who recently gagged, gathered, gooped, and got-together Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri on the subjects of gender and reproductive rights.
This is why I must vote for truly progressive rather than centrist candidates in local and national elections (even if I have to write them in). Centrists are preoccupied with appeasing rich and poor bigots, and maintaining the status quo rather than leading the society forward in ways that reduce harm. And conservatives? Well, conservatives despise modernity and want to caveman-drag us back to the antebellum period—and they will resort to any ruthlessness to do it (including having their members pretend to be Democrats). More than pessimists, they are nihilists.
Even in a “progressive” state like New York, progressive candidates rarely win elections. Like most Americans, the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers, when they bother to show up, vote for centrists or conservatives—even when those candidates have a demonstrated record of corruption and inaction, and policies and positions that demonstrably hurt the people who vote for them. (Related: Help Georgians make their plans to vote now!)
Why are Americans so scared of progress? Perhaps because what’s necessary to transform a human being into an American is the embracing of the conservative notion that benefits, privileges, resources, and rights can and should only ever be exclusive. Americans can only experience abundance, liberty, life, and love if and when they can deny, oppose, steal, and/or end someone else’s. True progressivism, which is conscience, threatens to demolish the mechanisms that make that heinous American sense of self possible and acceptable.
As it turns out, one cannot be both American and unselfish at the same time.
Extra-Extra
I was thinking a great deal about knowledge and how America endeavors to alienate us from it, and how Americans seem to celebrate and revel in not-knowing during my conversation with Jesse Strauss of KPFA 94.1 FM’s Upfront. We spoke about everything from politics to The Prophets to what I’m working on next. Jesse is a fantastic host; one of the best interviewers I’ve ever spoken with. Please excuse the technical difficulties at a crucial point in the interview; low quality American Wi-Fi infrastructure wouldn’t let me be great. LOL! Luckily, it restored itself at the coup de grâce.
1) Speaking of The Prophets, you might be wondering about that billboard in the opening photo. Well in June, Penguin Random House placed billboards showcasing quotes from the works of LGBTQIA+ authors in red states to push back against book banning (The Prophets is a banned book) and anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation. As BookRiot reported: “While the billboards are no longer up — they were just for Pride Month — you can see these quotes, with Kyle Letendre’s lettering, along with more queer content from Penguin Random House, in their downloadable 2022 Pride Zine.” Buy banned books!
2) While we’re on the topic of LGBTQIA+ rights: As the U.S. slides backwards with “don’t say gay” legislation, anti-trans laws, threats of making same-sex marriage illegal, and harassing LGBTQIA+ politicians out of office, the Caribbean twin-nation of Antigua and Barbuda took a big leap forward, with its Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court declaring that the British anti-sodomy law that many Caribbean nations live under is unconstitutional. The court ruled that “the selection of an intimate partner is a private and a personal choice.”
Antigua and Barbuda follow Botswana in striking down European colonial laws that discriminate against LGBTQIA+ people. These laws are also being challenged in Barbados, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Once European rule/apartheid ended on paper, South Africa became the first nation in the entire world to protect the rights of LGBTQIA+ people in its constitution.
3) That Sesame Place video was difficult to watch and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on those little girls’ faces. The video made me feel strongly that as Black people, we should spend less time and energy attempting to be affirmed and validated in non-Black spaces, and more time and energy economically boycotting all entities that demean us. I don’t think they give as shit about us marching in the streets. And it costs them absolutely nothing to fake-apologize and repeat the same tired public-relations lines about “doing better next time.” Doing what better next time is the real question. I believe that the only thing that would shock them from their smug complacency is an attack on their wallets.
4) I recently learned that the suicide rate for Black men is rising faster than any other demographic in the U.S. I can’t help but think that this has much to do with the treatment of Black men as, and the expectations placed on Black men to be, something other than human. Black men are forced, even by their loved ones, to be sentinels, not people; and then others are oddly surprised by the heartbreaking outcomes. How do we get a country like this one, and people like Americans, to acknowledge the full humanity of Black men?
5) The ongoing saga of Kim Burrell’s abusiveness. This time, she was in the pulpit spewing classism and patriarchy, while also suggesting that parishioners not wear masks, not socially distance, and not get vaccinated because “faith in God” is the way to avoid the ravages of the COVID. I’m sure that’s a predatory-Christian set-up to convince the people who contract COVID that it was because their “faith wasn’t strong enough” or they “didn’t tithe enough.” I’m wondering how someone with such a beautiful voice can consistently use it to perpetuate harm. And like all abusers, she’s expert at throwing the rock, then hiding her hand.
6) You can’t shame the shameless. So many of the folks in this country are obsessed with embryos. But actual children? They couldn’t give two shits about them. Discretion advised, but did you see the atrocious police performance during the Uvalde massacre? And now the utter heartlessness of Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. What a disgrace this country is and how craven most of its people are.
7) Kansas shocked the shit out of me. Voters rejected a ballot measure that would have banned abortion in the state. So. It seems folks in red states can have sense and decency when they want to, huh? Let’s see if they can extend that beyond themselves and toward other marginalized groups, or if they continue to elect conservative politicians who mean them and everyone else harm. And let’s see if Democrats, who are prone to dropping the ball (sometimes on purpose), utilize or squander this opportunity.
8) A trinity: Mary Alice was one of the greatest actors the world has ever known. I first saw her in Sparkle when I was a child. She will be terribly missed. Nichelle Nichols was a pioneer. Black girls became astronauts because of her. Now, she’s with the stars. NBA player/coach Bill Russell somehow endured the relentless, ongoing, and infamous anti-Blackness of Boston to become one of the greatest to ever do it. His rest is well earned.
9) On August 2, Ancestor James Baldwin would have been 98 years old had he lived. Happy belated anniversary of your birth, Godfather. On August 5, it will be three years since Ancestor Toni Morrison passed. A tremendous loss and I still feel it to this day.
Thinking about these Elders-Now-Ancestors: I’m extremely bothered by the peculiar expectations certain people have of Black people’s responses to the racism we experience. They demand that we be cool and graceful, take it on the chin, bear it for posterity, swallow it whole, keep it moving, and pray for strength and resilience. “The Virtuous Negro” archetype is lethal. John Henry is not inspirational story; it’s a cautionary tale. It always astounds me that the world doesn’t realize how truly lucky it is, given the way it continues to torment Black people, that there aren’t more Christopher Dorners. “Quit while you’re ahead” has never been a more imperative warning than it is right now. Aṣẹ.
Flicks
I saw Jordan Peele’s Nope. I found it engaging and inventive. I thought Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, and especially newcomer Jacob Kim gave outstanding performances. I really liked the film’s commentary on the dangers of spectacle, the highly toxic relationship humans have with non-human animals, and the-more-subtle-but-no-less-frightening messages about how Black people are often regarded as non-human animals. I was also genuinely surprised by the twist. I found the sitcom/chimpanzee thread the most interesting and terrifying. I deeply admire what Peele is doing in the genre.
I also saw the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer. Y’all. I got real goosebumps; cried real tears—particularly after the Diva Herself/One Dr. Angela Bassett’s most Angela Bassett of soliloquies. The whole time, I couldn’t help but remember Chadwick Boseman. Thinking of him always brings me great joy and great sadness. The trailer was the most emotional and mind-blowing thing I’ve experienced in a while.
But I have a love/hate relationship with superhero films in general. Beneath all the pageantry, amazing special effects, grandeur, gadgetry, laughs, spectacle, heroics, and cheering, I find that most of them, if not all of them, have a deeply conservative, imperial core. I very much feel that what James Baldwin said about “Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that Indians were you!” entirely applies here. This may chafe, but in the Wakanda Forever trailer, what I see upon repeated viewings is Black people at war with one another and a Black nation (possibly in league with white nations) battling a nation of Brown people. Whether or not this is canonical and lifted from source material is either irrelevant or indicative of how embedded the pathology is. Whether this film is made by Black people or not is also irrelevant given Hollywood’s history.
Does this mean that I simply can’t enjoy any media at all? No, I don’t believe so. It just means that for me, thinking critically about the media I consume—especially when it’s produced by corporations (that the U.S. Supreme Court thinks are people) in a nation that loathes me—has to be part of the enjoyment. I know Americans are a very much an either/or type, but I embrace the possibility of both/and.
In a future edition of Witness, I’m thinking of diving deeper into my feelings about the comic book industry. But before then, I do want to say congratulations to the wonderful Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez, winners of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (the Oscars of comic books) for their phenomenal work on Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons!
Lit
Reading and writing are two ways I deal with and heal from the injuries our society inflicts. And Family, I had the distinct honor and privilege of reading an advanced copy of the upcoming novel, Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks. It’s one of the best novels I have ever read and is already one of my favorite of all time. Here’s my blurb for it:
“I was awestruck by its beauty, rapt by its originality, and astounded by its depth. But what astonished me most was learning that this is a debut. The craftwork is extraordinary. Was this book dreamed into existence? Did the Ancestors themselves place this story in the writer’s mind? From page one, I knew this work would transform me. It expanded the way I imagine what is possible in the art form. More than interesting, it is integral. More than important, it is inspiring. Read this book. Cherish it. Protect it. You must. Right out of the gate, Jamila Minnicks’s Moonrise Over New Jessup is a masterpiece.”
Jamila Minnicks’s Moonrise Over New Jessup will be in stores on January 10, 2023 but I recommend pre-ordering it as soon as possible from your favorite local bookseller. Pre-ordering really helps authors by giving publishers a good sense of reader demand. Buying from local booksellers helps maintain our own communities as sites of knowledge.
Another incredible book that I read and blurbed was Dr. Steven W. Thrasher’s timely and necessary (especially given how queer communities are being villainized because of Monkeypox) The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. Here’s what I had to say about it:
"I fully expected to encounter rigorous research and a full accounting of the relevant history in Dr. Steven W. Thrasher's The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. But what excited me and kept me rapt the entire time was the astonishing level of craft and depth of compassion with which the book was written. More than just sets of facts, Dr. Thrasher illuminates truths, all of which implore us to live by the grandest, most liberating of all principles: love. The Viral Underclass is journalism and journey, science and sermon, astute articulation of grievance and pathway to healing. It is vital reading."
I had the pleasure of attending the first stop on his tour at the Strand Bookstore as an honored guest. I didn’t realize book events could be a spiritual experience until this one. The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher is on sale now at your favorite local bookshop.
Riddim
And lastly: Now y’all know I couldn’t end this newsletter without mentioning the one, the only, the legend, the icon: Janet Jackson! Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty recently performed at the Essence Music Festival, where her show broke records for ticket sales. Wasn’t no way I was going to a concert in the middle of a whole pandemic, not even for Empress Janet. But have no fear! The good folks at #JanetsLegacyMatters have uploaded the show on YouTube. She performed one of my favorite songs from her Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation: 1814 album, “The Knowledge.” Get your entire life! I got mine. :)
Wishing you joy, safety, healing, and love. Tomorrow and tomorrow, take good care.
Peace be yours,
Robert