Nia

Nia: To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness

Our traditional
greatness never diminished.
We survive, despite.

Ujamaa

Ujamaa: To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together

I don't have rambling thoughts to share today (I do have rambling thoughts...on the differences between supporting individual Black-owned businesses and building community-owned businesses in the Black community. Maybe one day I will organize my thoughts enough to share them, but today--

I just wanted to share this about a community banding together to build food and economic security in their own neighbor:

More details included in this article.

Ujima

Ujima: To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together
The Ujima celebration hosted by Nsoroma Institute at the Charles H Wright museum was powerful. From the call of the drums to the libations (with kola nut, water, spirits, and smoke--because Queen Mother believes in doing things real) to words from the youth and the elders, I was fed.

I wish I had been taking notes during Minister Dawud Muhammad's talk. He said so much that really spoke to me and that I needed to hear. He noted that "there's no picking and choosing in 'collective'" and likened "throwing up crescents, crosses, and ankhs" to divide to gang divisions. And Baba Malik Yakini shared a little of the history of Nsoroma and outlined plans to think about how to move forward the educating the youth since the closure of Nsoroma as a charter school.

Also, on today's theme, there's an editorial that suggests making a New Year's Resolution to not call the police. I've thought about this a lot recently. Of course the question becomes what do to instead. Rather than "handing off" the problem to police, committing to not calling them means that we take collective ownership of the problem and attempt to solve it. In the remote past, I called police twice: once after a really unsuccessful mugging (he got nothing; I got a strong dislike of people behind me unexpectedly touching my neck) and once for a very loud domestic dispute in an apartment above me. I've mostly convinced myself that I could just let random property crimes go (the main challenge there being that if I ever needed a police report for an insurance claim, there would be a problem), but I don't have any strategy for safety concerns. INCITE! seems to have developed the beginning of a toolkit on the "community accountability," though I haven't explored the listed resources yet. 

Kujichagulia

Kujichagulia: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves

Self-determination is perhaps the principle I personally hold the closest. It starts on an individual level, where I revel in my power to define who and what I am, but expands so far beyond that. I've been thinking about this one off and on for the past week:

• A Facebook friend shared a status from someone, who was so steeped in his own privilege, that he felt comfortable implying that Black people--daring to assert that Black lives matter enough that public officials should be held accountable for killing us--were somehow being distracted from the real goal. I cannot actually tell you what his real goal was, as a flash of incandescent rage promptly erased it from my consciousness. I think, however, that it had something to do with electoral politics. Kujichagulia means that we decide what our priorities are and fight for them in our own ways. 
• While Detroit is the Blackest city in the U.S., 50% of the Black population in Michigan is living under state, rather than local, control. While the emergency manager has left, the city's finances are now subject to oversight by a financial review commission. For most of the last two decades, the Detroit public school system has been run by state appointed emergency mangers and has been shrunken. There is also the EAA, a state-run district that now includes the "lowest-performing schools"--a district whose chancellor earns a $325,000 salary, where standard operations include 100 kindergarteners in a classroom, and where inexperienced teachers depend on problematic software to teach. Weep for our children, Detroit. Note that attempts to expand the EAA beyond Detroit to the rest of the state failed in the state legislature. And as we strive to live the principle of kujichagulia, recall that "Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children." Particularly since the state is upfront about rejecting any obligation to provide them a "quality" or "equitable" education, merely a "free" one.
• There are many paths forward. Part of self-determination has to be recognizing the right of everyone to find and live their own path. As Baba Malik wrote, "All resistance to oppression is healthy for the oppressed."

My disjointed thoughts...

Reflections on Umoja

Habari gani?

Two things happened to make me go deep as I reflect on the principle of the day:

1. So. Yesterday I got a text from someone I haven't heard from in a year and nine months--despite several calls, emails, and texts from me. And the last interaction came about as an extremely delayed response to an email I had sent four years prior. My immediate reaction to the text was: "What the frick-frack? Is that how they're celebrating Christmas now, with amnesty for those who decide resurface after long absences?"

I recognize that I am good at Walking Away. Gold star good. Gold medal good. Double platinum good. I am quick to say (or think) "I don't need you." And, pretty much, it's true. Grandma has a story of coming over to find toddler me climbing up on the kitchen cabinets to reach the cereal. I had a problem and I was taking care of it myself.

2. My child asked me today why I don't talk to our neighbor. I really don't talk to her. I do not so much as acknowledge her presence and I see her so infrequently these days that I'm pretty sure that she has learned that talking to me is not an option.

Umoja: To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race

Maybe my lesson for this year will be how to build unity when we, and others, are imperfect. I will learn balance: loving people and giving them space to work out their own issues, while also taking care of myself and avoiding toxic situations. I will consciously work on building unity where it is difficult, recognizing that that is where it matters most.

My sincerest apologies on not providing vicarious adventures

Dear Married Friend:

I'm sorry to be such a disappointment. I know, I know. I'm single, I'm gay, I'm young(ish)--you were really hoping for a bit of vicarious excitement. Again, I'm sorry. I have no lascivious lesbian debauchery to share. In fact, instead, I'd like to vicariously live through you. Please, do indulge me.

Tell me about how it is when you want to get in a workout, maybe a yoga class or spinning and you just do. With absolutely no cajoling, someone else is just there to keep the kids for you--without even the need for you to be hovering on the edge of a cliff first.

Tell me about thinking about moving and being able to have a partner to consider with--to plan, to dream, to budget, to worry, to soothe.

Tell me about there constantly being a warm body in the bed when the temperatures drop.

Tell me about having someone whose job is it is to have your back--who signed up for that and means it.

Again, I'm sorry I can't fulfill your desire for titillation and adventures at the club. I understand there is porn that might help you with that.

Much love and respect,
Your Single Friend

p.s. If you ever want me wax poetic about freedom, answering to no one, doing it my way, paying the cost to be the boss,… I got you.

Laverne Cox is amazing

Katie Couric was interviewing both Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox. In the first segment she had the audacity to ask Carrera about her "private parts"--after having been graciously deflected with slightly more subtle versions of that question. Then when Laverne Cox came on stage, Couric asked again about transition and got taken to school:

"The preoccupation with transition and with surgery objectifies trans people and then we don't get to really deal with lived experiences. The reality of trans people's lives is that so often we're targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionately to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average and if you're a trans person of color, it's four times the national average. The homicide rate in the LGBT community is highest among trans women.

And when we focus on transition, we don't actually get to talk about those things."

Video available here:
http://katiecouric.com/videos/orange-is-the-new-black-laverne-cox/

Rambling about Naming

I've got a name kink. For real. I like names. I like stories about names. People who say my name the way I say it get bonus points. I really like names and I'm always interested in the whys of choosing names. Names are intensely personal and yet very public. They're one of the first gifts parents give their children, and one of the most lasting.

My name is "They Came Together And United." That might suggest to you that "James" and "Joseph" are not names I considered when looking at baby names. I named my kid "Let Us Be Glad." Though English is my first language and the only one I have ever been fluent in, I've never wanted to give anyone an English name. Instead, I chose a name that contained all the love and hope that I had for my newborn and three years later, we both like it. It may not do much good on a resume, but I've never seen it as my duty to make myself palatable to the mainstream, nor is that a value I would hope to pass on.

One thing I've always wondered is what it's like to grow up with a name that is full of meaning that is automatically understood by everyone in your community…how that shapes how you grow. What if, rather than a dismissive "that's different" or a blank "that's pretty," telling people your name is just straightforward. So if your name is "In the Night" or "In the Hand" or "My Hope" and everybody just calls you that without thinking AND knows exactly what it means, does that lift you up? Make you rooted?

I know someone who chose her children's names to sound like "senator's names." An Illinois senator named Barack notwithstanding, looking at the names of current senators suggests she was right to choose solid English names. A research study confirms what everyone assumed was true anyway--"African American sounding" names get fewer callbacks on equivalent resumes. Which has caused some people to remove race markers from their resumes--organizations, experiences, and even their names. I find this a little heartbreaking.

Outside of considering giving someone a namesake, it never occurred to give anyone an English name. The only two that ever really impressed me were "Excel" and "Sincere." Not sure why, but those speak to me.

Anyway, I've been rambling about this because the first baby born in 2014 in some Texas hospital was named "So'Unique Miracle." That apparently is enough to spark internet vitriol directed at the parents. Which is a bit *odd* to me. Maybe it's because, to me, the name suggests her parents value her. Maybe it's because I'm sure there are many who'd have plenty to say about my naming choices, if I cared to listen. Maybe it's because we're just coming off Kwanzaa. Maybe it's because I remember a baby Miracle from years ago whose name caught me off-guard, but eventually seemed perfect. Maybe it's because being on Team Parent makes me wanna scream "we're doing the best we can, back up off!!!" half the time.

Regardless, I hope all our children take the gifts of the names we give them and benefit from them and rename themselves, if and when they need to.