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On the brilliance of Black joy and the haunting terror of whiteness

Dear friends and fam,

“Whiteness is always there, ever-present, determining who gets a chance and who is denied opportunity. But recently I have been starting to visualize it like a horror-film ghoul: it’s looming in the shadows, it’s threatening, but we can really activate, energize it by saying its name three times in the mirror.”

- Emma Dabiri p5

Dear friends and fam,

Last week, I got to do what few childless-by-choice adults get to do: I got to drop off a kid at college.  The day began with me playing Tetris with all of my student's belongings as she, her mother, and her little sister brought load after load down from their apartment. As I jam-packed my car with every single pair of shoes my student-owned, as well as at least a two, possibly three, a year supply of hair products. Her mother rolled her eyes and groaned, and her 12-year-old sister pointed out that she would never be like that and have so. much. stuff I couldn't help but laugh.

I had this exact same conversation with my mother when I went off to college, similarly in a car packed to the gills with mostly clothes, shoes, and CDs (yes, I am old).

While waiting on another load, a construction worker blocking off the street that I was now double parked in front of, couldn't help but ask if I was driving someone to college. I replied, "yes! She's a former student, I used to be her high school teacher, and I said I'd do whatever she needed to make sure she got off to college and then off to law school one day, and today that looks like driving her to college!" I laugh as I say this, nervously.

"Damn, you're her high school teacher? Imagine that. A high school teacher driving her student to college. Never thought I'd see the day!"

I immediately feel awkward, as if perhaps I crossed a boundary between students and teachers. "Well, I'm not her teacher anymore, the school wouldn't hire me until I took more certification sources, and then, well the pandemic happened...But yeah, so I didn't get to go back, but I promised I'd help them with college."

I trail off. Reminding myself that I didn't need to give the man my entire life story. He must have sensed how awkward I felt because he mercifully intervened:

"No, that's great. That's how it should be. Teachers should care. I wish I had had a teacher like you. That’s really something. Look at your student now, going away to college. Good for her."

It made me mad that he had never had a teacher who he felt had his best interests in mind. It made me mad that for the majority of urban school students today, not much has changed. Then a gaggle of girls burst through the doors of the apartment building with more shoes and stuffed animals, giggling and yelling. I heard a woman pushing a grocery cart across the street yell, "Look at you go! College girl! Study hard now!" My student was absolutely beaming. I felt honored to be included in her victory lap. 

In the car ride up and then back down from the Bronx to Albany, I got to talk to my former student's mother. Her mother arrived in the U.S. from Burkina Faso a decade ago, with a husband and a 6 year old in tow. She spoke no English, but already spoke several languages.  At some point along the way, she had another baby and ditched the husband. Then, she went to community college for an associates degree, and then, exactly four years later from when she began, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science. So, this woman got her college bachelor's in the exact same time it takes most full-time undergraduates to do, if not a touch shorter. It took her about six months to land a coding job, where she now works. All while being a single mother (the dad does help, for whatever it’s worth, but STILL). If that's not impressive, I don't know what is. If that’s not the goddamn American dream, I don’t know what is. 

So when this woman asked me, "Why do you think urban education is so bad? Do people not know?" on the drive back that night, I had so many answers. We had already talked about several of them as we faced one setback after another in terms of paperwork, logistics, and directions. Just the fact we were in the car driving represented a tactical victory that I’d tell you about if it weren’t so mundane and tedious. As I ran through possible answers, I decided to keep it simple. Because really, it is a one-word answer.

 "Racism."

I heard her sigh at this, and say quietly, "yes, I think so too. That's the only thing that makes sense."

What White People Can Do Next: 

Emma Dabiri’s description of whiteness at the beginning of this newsletter is precisely how I’ve been envisioning it thanks to my deep love of horror. 

Take, for example, Little Marvin and Lena Waithe's Them (2021) on Amazon, is horror at its best. Which is to say, it's one of the most terrifying and sickening things I've seen on TV. And those are just the historically documented events they portray. Somewhere between a mediation on mental illness caused by trauma and constant duress and historical fact of the history of Compton Los Angeles that show points out an uncomfortable reality: the villains, with absolute power and no humanity, are the white people.

As someone with deep southern roots, the only way I can describe the process of looking back at my own family history up through the present tense, is horrific. Perhaps that's why I'm so drawn to the genre, but it nonetheless gave me the vocabulary I needed to process distinguishing myself and my individual actions with those of my slave-owning ancestors. There's no easy separation, nor should there be. Somethings need to remain horrific for you, if only to remind you of your own humanity.

Reparation Opportunity for the Melanin-Deficient: 

This week’s homework assignment is less about inward self-reflection as it was last week. Instead, let’s look at the historical weight of white supremacy, and how its current neoliberal iteration isn’t working for any of us. Last week, I bought too many books. At the top of them was Zone Book’s new Wendy Brown book Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Here’s a good review of the book that I found helpful for situating the way in which white supremacy has screwed all of us over.  

Next week, I’ll be talking about sci-fi and Afro-Futurism as we continue the discussion around What White People Can Do Next? By Emma Dabiri

Until next week,

A

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