That Boy

Here we are, holding our breaths while waiting for the arrest of a white man named George Zimmerman, who allegedly shot the late seventeen year old black boy named Trayvon Martin in self-defense .

Allegedly Martin attacked this man in the dark of night, while he was carrying not a gun, but a bag of Skittles and a can of ice tea while wearing a white hoodie – a garment that is a sure sign of clear and present danger.

When I first heard the news about that deadly night that took place in Sanford Florida, the name Emmitt Till came immediately to my mind.  In contrast to the dress code of NOW, Till was a dapper dresser, as folks would say back in the day. Like Trayvon, the fourteen year old Till boy, who was from the Mid West, was a good looking boy. However, Till’s fashion code was a suit, which went well with his beautiful smile and the signature Negro man’s swagger – a kind of deliberate stride that was the sign a of pride for all Negro Man living in urban America (particularly in cities like Chicago and New York), back in the day.

The story goes that Till left Chicago where he lived and had gone down South to Mississippi to visit relatives there.  Prefacing this journey, Till’s mother’s last words to him might have been,  “Sweetie, while  you’re Down South visiting, you aunts and them, baby, please keep your eyes straight. Don’t look at those white women now.  You hear me child?”

I am sure Till ‘s response to her was, “Yes mam.”

I was eleven years old at the time of Emmitt Till’s horrible and unspeakable murder at the hands of the white racist men.  As I recall this story, it was a white woman who had accused Till of looking at her.  In time, the truth would come out that she had lied.

Till was alive when the white Mississippian gang of men captured him, and then drove out to a secluded place in the woods, dropped him in a boiling hot tar pit and then after feathering him – a - typical pathological ritual they routinely performed on blacks  (men, women and children) who didn’t ‘know “their place”, then summarily rendered as their offerings  -- Sacrificial Lambs, as it were, to some unknown God they worshipped.

 Prior to this baptismal bath, these white men or red necks, as we say, had mauled Till’s body beyond his own mother's recognition of him.

At Till’s funeral the coffin where he laid, was purposely left open for all the world to see what had been done to him.  I remember seeing this image in Jet magazine or it might have been Ebony or maybe Sepia – the most read “rags” in the age of the Negro.

The pathology of hatred that crawls in the blood of white men still continues to run rampant in the veins of many of them, as is evidenced by this recent incident that brought the 17 year old Trayvon Martin to his end.

In contrast to Till, Martin’s death was swift. Looking back at 1955, I certainly remember the sullen effect that Till’s death had on our community -- it was like a wet blanket that laid heavy on the Heart. . In retrospect I might have caught the shift glance of my mother’s eyes that read “Worry”? I clearly remember the adults speaking low around me about what had happened in Mississippi to that boy from Chicago.

From the stand point of a child, I watched the held back anger of the men in my family that was caught in their throat like a fish bone. And then there were my mother’s and aunts’ tisk-tisking sounds made through their teeth. There was also the shaking of their heads and the wringing of their hands and lastly their audible groans let out into the living room, over what had happened to that Till Boy.  

“My God” one might had said, as if this mantra would have assuage the meanness of the Times in which we Negroes had lived day after day, back then.

Now we have that Martin Boy…

Moi,

Mahmoudah

A Revolution On A Late Afternoon In September

My First Encounter with Occupation Wall Street was on the 24^th day of The Occupation. It’s now day 55, if my calendar is correct.

It was a warm early fall day when I arrived. Lingering in the air was the faint warmth of August past.

I had taken the subway from Brooklyn and emerged from the Underground at corner of Fulton and Broadway in lower Manhattan. The first thing I heard were the faint rumbles of war. I detected that the sound was coming from the south. I crossed Broadway to get to the other side of the street and headed in that direction. “All Day Every Day Occupy Wall Street” grew louder.

I advertently run right into the march of protestors. Before I knew it, I was marching along with them. I noticed the signs they carried. Some were made out of torn pieces of cardboard. Others were professional looking and graphically designed on art board. One read, “Art by Del La Vega”. On others were inspiring quotes that were made by Albert Einstein , Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther king, Jr.

In stride, I thought about the March on Washington, the protest against the War in Viet Nam, the Women’s Lib Movement, the Black Power Revolution, the Gay Rights Movement, the millions of us who witnessed the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the First African American President of the United States of America and the millions that drew.

Finally, I detangled myself from the march. I stood in front St. Paul’s Chapel, were in 1766 General George Washington had once kneeled and prayed before going into battle.

From there, I zeroed in on a sign carried by one of the protesters that read: “I am hungry. I have no job. No place to live.” I was provoked to rush over to this young man. I shoved what was left of a bag of organic trail mix doused with Omega 3, I just happened to have in my bag. The expression on his face was priceless. Gratitude mixed in with shock.

Finally, I arrived to The Occupation of Wall Street site, in Liberty Plaza.  To my utter surprise the Protestors had settled in lock, stock and barrel. Some were laid out and dead to the world, napping under a canopy of sun-dappled leafy trees.

I noticed the proliferation of mattresses, blue large tarps laid out on the grass, cardboard boxes filled with blankets and quilts, leaning against tree trunks. Mounds   of donated used clothes piled up on the bare ground and gallons of water. A fully supplied pantry where volunteers were pouring dripping ladles filled with thick soup into the waiting cups of the Protesters. I saw a dirty hand plucking an original New York Bagels from a plastic bag. New-Age Hippies holding meditation circles under a tree.

This is America circa 2011.

Moi, Mahmoudah

DO WE SAY HAPPY 9/11?

9/11/11

im listening to npr (national public radio's) special broadcast for this day.
lovely. beautiful music. folks are calling in to share
their thoughts, memories of 9/11

i heard someone say recently that americans don't have rituals.
well they might be wrong. i am so moved by
the music playing in the back ground:
now its an adaggio -- not sure of the title who the composer is
earlier a vocal titiled "hallalujah".

there is hope for this world.
at least today we can be one in our memories
of what happened ten years ago.....

of course there is so much more beyond
this day, this moment, this country.
and the truth of 9/11 remains for many
a conspirator theory, but beyond this,
suffering continues. human made.

im looking forward to a better world.
one day at a time
we're alive and have so much to be thankful for ==
family, friends, strangers we encounter,
we give them a smile, a dime.

like nora the homeless woman who was panhandling
outside the supermarket in my hood.
it was around midnight i stopped to talk to her,
to hear her story, how did she land up on the street?
i put a few dollars in her palm and moved on. she
was so grateful, "you a bad sister", her voice fell behind
me, as i walked home through the soft warm
late summer night.

and then there was the young muslim woman who i
met early one morning ,a few weeks back.
she was picking in the garbage can in the
front of the building next to where i live,
rifling through the glass to retrieve empty bottles.
i said, "asalamu alaikum". she smiled. i said
wait i'll be right back. i want to give you some money.
i crawled up the stairs to my fourth apartment. on my hands and knees
like my friend's two year old boy jj does when he comes
to visit me, i was so overwrought
with pain, sympathy, compassion for this woman.

as i handed her the money, she threw her harm around
my neck. thank you she whispered in my ear.

right now, today, "knock, knock knocking on heaven's door is playing on
the radio. its performed by nirvana.

open up, open up... the music fades

do we say happy 9/11.

hum, i don't think so...


whew!

love.
moi

9/11 A running Commentary: The Frozen Zone

September 26, 2001


"Kim Darling,


Thanks for indulging me in reading all my  emails, hoaxes, forwarding of forwards, and things of a spiritual nature you've received from me since September 11..."


September 9, 2011

A new page of American history began that day when I wrote this email to my friend who was living in Milan Italy. In New York ,we kept  telling  ourselves that things are not what they used to . We'd  say, "When things get back to normal." We've even tagged the enormous and insurmountable tragedy that occurred  9/11. A simple phrase that encompassed the enormity of our grief and incomprehension of  what happened on that bright beautiful blue sky morning in New York City that immediae turned to hell and all its unimaginable darkness in less than five minutes, I think it was.

Three weeks later, I am down at the  Frozen Zone on Greenwich Street in Tri-Beca. Two of my daughters are with me. We immediately became  part of large crowd standing behind a police barricade and staring down six blocks to get a glimmer of the remains of the first tower of the WTC. In the waning light of the day, as the sun began to drop quickly out the sky,  I managed to see a black smoking 'something', sticking up out the ground. It appeared to be not of this world., smouldering way down the street.   It was an  ominous sight. A foreboding one at that, resembling, what I imagined   a meteor (or is it meteorite?)   might look like had it crashed to Earth.

It was a scene out of Hell,  or  a Hollywood movie:  "Blade Runner", came to my mind that evening. All the while no one spoke. We stood there in the fading day light,  stunned. in  silence being in the moment and the next one and the next.

Time, had given us  permission to be witnesses to History.

Moi,
Mahmoudah

9/11: A Running Commentary

9/18: Timing

The days drag on. The warmth of Septmeber contradicts a city that has suddenly turned cold.

In the blur of unreasonable times, grief is the  counter point of the rah, rah, rah of patriotism. Red white and blue is the new black  -- the color scheme of tragedy.  Candles set up in makeship altars burn in every doorway.  Melted wax  covers the sidewalks. Pushcart vendors sell liberty in every form and fashion: tee shirts, baseball caps, umbrellas, scarves, pictures of the former World Trade Center. Enamal replicas of Old glory are worn proudly on  the lapels of  men in suits.Their gaits are more lumbering then strutting as they disppear into office towers, now amped up with more security guards, asking for thier  identification cards, and their mother's maiden name at the gate. Everyone is suspect now.

Flowers shamelessly wilt on the street corners like tired whores.  Photographs of missing persons, letters and notes, are posted on every conceivable surface:  Buidlings, fences, trees, lampposts and meeting my eyes, every step of the way as I walk through the mournful surrealism of the New York. 

At home, white candles sitting on my mantle offer a  flicker of hope.  I study the globe and imagine where my family and I might go to live. The Caribbean? My neighbor  suggests New Zealand as such a place. This is surreal. My minds spins back to WTC which I've seen more of in recent months since Adger and I have become an item. His studio in Tri-beca is  not far from there.  Like many, I  have never admired the architectural design of those buildings. Recently  I walked by them and  said to myself,  "God they should tear those things down!" The power of words.

Where are ubiquitous disembodied "They' we speak of  who we think  can solve our problems, when we are actually the ones we are looking for (say the Hopi Elders).


It was about six months ago. I was at the WTC to attended a black and white tie event  at Windows On The World. I wore a black dress. Bag. Shoes.  The affair was in honor of  famous people who were born in the Bronx. Malik couldn't  make it due to  having to film "New York Undercover." I went to represent him. I was seated between two sons of the  borough: Regis and Bronx Borough President Freddy Ferrer, whose a mayoral contender now. Regis chidded  me for being too young to have a son so old. Funny guy. Ferrer was politically polite.

On Tuesday 9/11 at 9 AM , Malik and  were scheduled to be at the WTC. The women we were to meet  with was busy, and rescheduled our meeting for the next day.

Timing.

Running Commentary

The People

Friday

Four days ago the world was what it was. Its changed. How did it come to this?

Demarcation lines in Manhattan have been drawn further uptown. Can't drive south pass 42 Street. Tunnels and most bridges are closed. People can't go home. I can't go into the city to shop in SoHo. I hate the fashions this season. Can't find a thing to wear. Searching for  simple pair of shoes I like, is as challenging as climbing Mt. Everest.

I need something for climbing and running and hiding and thinking and wondering and worrying.

We we are the huddled masses coming to our own shores of redemption and forgiveness. We pray, we chant. Missives of encouragement from friends near and far, fly over the Internet. All circuits are busy. Phone calls to family and friends when you are lucky to get through are priceless.

We are at war. Whose the enemy? Will we win?

We have depended on the Government Men to take care of us for so long, now they have abandoned us like sometime fathers do.  

We are, all of us, The People now.

9/11 A Running Commentary

Day Four: At War

It was a night of  thunder, lighting tossing, turning and pulling on more blankets to stay warm.

The rain is still falling. Hard. Relentless. Crying.

My first thought: We are at war. The world is not the same. I am not the same.

"We should have a plan of action. We just can't sit here and wait to see what will happen next." I told my daughter yesterday.

I tare at my brain, attempting to come up with a solution to the situation. We have three cars among us. There is a house up in Vermont we can go to and stay for a while -- just until this "thing" blows over. We can take a laptop,  money and food. Leave here for a while.. "Buy more water" she said.

We have more water than we need. The work at Ground Zero will be difficult . Dust  turned to sod -- a watery grave of twisted steel, bodies burnt beyond recognition, rendered in hundreds and thousands tons of sorrow and grief.

I want to wake up from this nightmare. 

Four days have gone by. I count and loose count of the hours. Who knows the actual count of the missing and dead? Who will ever know? Where will they take the remains after they have been sifted and sorted and investigated?  Questions? Too many that can't be answered.

I watch the news. Thought I'd see my boy friend Adger with his camera in the crowd taking pictures.   He lives near the towers. He called after the first tower was hit.  He'd  ridden his bike all the way uptown. Stayed over at a friends. Was leaving there to go back home. Why?" I asked. Had to brush his teeth he said.

We spoke again on Thursday. He had managed to slip behind the police barricades and got into his studio. He said that it really smelled bad downtown. That he had to tape his windows shut. The smell -- that's what we can't see on television.

Today, we the people -- the terrorist and the terrified, hold this self-evident truth that is so looming and frightening. My thoughts plummet my mind/heart like the rain that won't stop.

They said it would last for hours -- the rain. We are at war, I keep telling myself. My memories trample over each other and pour out onto the terrain of the day. I remember when I was very young,   my mother would tell me things that had  happened before I was a thought, as she'd say,  or too young to recall. She often spoke about World War Two. The sound of her voice comes forward from the deepest recesses of my mind, "You were a War Baby, you know."  In my innocence, I thought this made me special.