Humanity's Death

A botched execution seems an oxymoron unless the person being executed survives. Anything else seems the very point of the exercise. In the Oklahoma case, however, the execution has been deemed a failure and subsequent killings halted, despite the death of the intended. The problem, it seems, is not that he died, only that he died in a way contrary to the way we intended. 

I say we because parts of the United States still employ the death penalty. I say we because how I feel about the topic is conflicted and complex.

I know the American judicial system is suspect at best. Langston Hughes said it aptly:

That justice is a blind goddess

to which we black are wise;

her bandages hide to festering sores

that once, perhaps, were eyes.

And so how can I, in good conscious, support state sanctioned murder when I know that people of color are more likely to find themselves there because our system is more likely to see their crimes fitting of the gas chamber or electric chair or whatever other devices of death a state sees fit to use.

One step back, away from the race lens, and I am struck by the ever changing landscape of evidence. The technology that sets innocent people free after years of unwarranted imprisonment or steps away from execution. How can I support a permanent solution when the degree of certainty in crimes seems to be ever decreasing?

 

There is, of course, the most basic of questions. The support of murder as a punishment or deterrent or consequence of some other crime. If we kill because someone else killed does that make us avengers or simply reflect back the deed that was already done? Does it simply compound the grief?

The conundrum calls to mind “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”. The pervading theology of the time is Mercerism and at its core is empathy…so much so that Androids are detectable by their inability to express true empathy. Murder of any living thing is unconscionable with the exception of androids.

“An android,” he said, “doesn’t care what happens to another android. That’s one of the indications we look for.”

“Then,” Miss Luft said, “you must be an android.”

That stopped him; he stared at her.

“Because,” she continued, “your job is to kill them, isn’t it?”

And while it isn’t the same thing, exactly, I wonder if at our core we relinquish a piece of our humanity when we kill – even for presumably good reason. Are there really people so horrible on earth that their mere existence is too much for our fragile world? Does their death make us safer or simply more hypocritical that we brought them to the same fate they brought their victims? 

I’d be lying if I said I’d never felt death might be the only punishment worthy of someone. Ironically, it is seldom murder cases where the victims are already beyond reach or further harm. For me it is sex crimes. Rapists and pedophiles stoke a particular rage in me. Their victims walk among us with anxious glances searching out danger in innocuous places because survivors know that danager lurks there- it lurks everywhere.

The idea of being able to reassure someone that the person who harmed her/him is gone - truly gone- seems a worthy justification for flipping a switch and waiting. 

But then an execution goes horribly wrong, and what should be a “simple” execution begins to blur into something painful or akin to torture, and we didn’t sign on for that. We, as a nation, draw the line there.

I don’t know how I feel about the death penalty. The good liberal in me is supposed to oppose it. Hell, the good human in me should oppose it. And I guess a part of me is good because a part of me does oppose it. I oppose the idea that a person is only a single deed – good or bad- that people are a fixed point, that grace is only relevant to palatable crimes. But…oh but…it still pains me. 

There are other parts of me. Parts that have held the hand of friends and listened to the stories of rape and abuse – and that part of me chafes with each detail, with each survivor of visceral horror. 

Part of me wants retribution while part of me wants us to hold fast to our humanity and see the humanity in others, even when they seem to have forfeited it. I am reminded that hurt people hurt people and killing only adds more hurt into the world. Each day I struggle with my own notions of humanity, what it means, and how I will champion in in the world. Each day I struggle…

Leaning in...

“What do you mean there is no male privilege?”

I was doing my best to keep my voice even, to sound matter of fact – as if I were simply inquiring about the weather or his disinterest in a television show I follow. “Seriously, you don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy?” followed by a raised eyebrow and then a silly quip. 

This wasn’t about television though, this was about privilege.

“What about racism?” I asked. Reynard is a 6ft 2in black man with milk chocolate skin and eyes to match- but if he subscribed to a so-called colorblind world than I knew it was a futile argument. “Of course there is racism” he replied with a hint of “duh” in his voice. 

At least we had some common ground so I waded around in that world for a little bit. We talked about the subtle ways blackness is marked as other or different or inferior. We talk so well, we’re not like others, clutching of purses, assumptions about our rearing. The usual.

Then I took a right turn at religion. 

The religious card is easy enough for me because it isn’t something I’m vested in. One of the reasons I find it difficult to be religious is the seemingly arbitrary rules. 

“What about man as the head of the house?” I asked. “That is inherently placing a man in a superior position.”

“Not really,” he responded vaguely. Then he talked for a while in circles that reiterated that it was ok for the head of a household to be dictated by danglies but also denied that was somehow a privilege of said danglies. 

I was exasperated and, after talking myself in circles, I slunk into my seat and continued our drive in silence. 

I can’t pass judgment on Reynard even if I want to, I fear that right now I am him on trans issues.

I am ignorant. 

I had never heard or thought of trans issues (other than as punchlines that are so common on television and in movies) prior to moving to California. I was part of the mainstream and didn’t “have” to learn. But California life happened and several things converged and brought it to my attention.

·         I said something stupid to a friend and she rightly corrected me

·         I became acquainted with a trans man

·         I saw W. Kamau Bell’s set on trans issues

·         I saw Janet Mock on Colbert

Clearly exposure is key.

W. Kamau Bell talked about leaning into difficult conversations – be they racism, sexism, homophobia, or …I’m not even sure what it is to be transphobic…I guess that is the term.

Somewhere along that time Janet Mock came into my sphere of knowing and so I vowed to read her book, Redefining Realness. I want to understand. The very least I can strive for is to not be an asshole and at my best I could be an ally.

And so I’ve been trying to understand. Two-thirds into Redefining Realness I don’t feel myself understanding any better. In fact, I find myself aggravated at what feels like reinforcement of gender norms – girls should be dainty and delicate and sassy and well put together, boys should be butch and like sports and hang out with men. I want to scream…but this isn’t about my issues with gender norms, this is about my quest to understand trans issues without assuming it is a trans person’s responsibility to explain to me. 

I don’t feel substantially further along than I was when I started; I’ve gained no new insight.

I honored self-selected pronouns before reading the book. I respected choice before. 

A co-worker described it as not feeling as if you were born into the right body. And when she is talking to me it makes perfect sense and I nod my head. And then a few hours later I find myself grasping for that understanding. And it is gone. 

It is easy for me not to grasp- for whatever issues I have about how people view my version of womanhood, I feel like I fit in my body, I am cisgendered. If I understand nothing else, I know that is a luxury not everyone has.

I can easily be Reynard. I can be righteously indignant at the Supreme Court for not recognizing race privilege, Reynard for not recognizing gender privildge, and at the same time be blind to my own privildge. Privildge of citizenship, and primary language, and my body reflecting who I feel I am in it. 

In my quest to understand…and it continues…I realize that it doesn’t actually matter if I understand; trans issues don’t cease to exist or cease to be important just because I haven’t managed to grasp them yet. In the meantime, I’ll keep reading.

Silken Road

Bear nuzzled up to my hand, a puppy face although probably an older dog. He’d growled through the gated door, the shade and light conspiring together to prevent me from seeing him- only allowing the sound to take me back to the German Shepard that terrorized me at work for two years...but I digress.

Once bear sniffed me he padded softly beside me, through the house and into the backyard. The late afternoon sun was pushing the house’s shade over the patio so we pulled chairs into the waning swath of sun and waited for Silk to join us.

She sat down, clad exclusively in white with silver cowrie shells dangling from her ears. She smiled warmly and I settled in to my seat unsure of the reason for our visit.

RhythmQuest (RQ) was intent on pulling me out of myself. Insistent that my view of her was expansive and my view of myself shadowed and stunted. It was a random assertion that sprang from a passing comment I'd made in the car.

On the way to Silk’s I'd said, "I'm a good writer, I just have no story to tell." It seemed harmless to me. It felt an honest assessment of both my strengths and my weaknesses. I started off as a journalist - by definition someone who tells other people's stories. It wasn't meant to disparage myself or my talents but RQ was on me immediately.

"What do you mean you don't have stories? The problem is you don't see your own talent - your own worth."

How did we get there?

“It isn’t that I don’t think I’m worthy...” RQ sighed and rolled her eyes as much as is possible while driving without careening us into an oncoming car. I tried again, “It’s just that your personality is expansive,” I faltered for a moment. “Things happen to me but you seem to seek them out...” It still wasn't right. In my head it made sense but on my tongue I could understand her cynicism. Even so, it was such a strange conversation. Such a strange train of thought that was out of context and ill placed after such a wonderful weekend.

She listed off a litany of experiences, my experiences, that were not of chance. “Volutneering for FEMA after Katrina, escaping to Guatemala after Katrina because you were so upset, any of the countries you lived in.” I listened and tried to be open. I could hear where she was coming from but somehow it made sense when she said it but melts away when she is finished. What would I say about FEMA- about Guatemala? Who would read it? Why?

Sitting in Silk’s backyard, a small oasis of raised beds housing kale and tomatoes, and California-climate appropriate succulents, I assumed the matter was dropped. I don’t know Silk and besides, I assumed RhythmQuest - or Silk - had a reason for the visit. 

They fell into conversation; I skimmed its surface, listening in for pieces that I understood or had context for. RQ, began to expanded the short-hand they had been using to invite me into their conversation, swivelling her chair to make eye contact and providing me details that gave me details and understanding..

Suddenly, Silk, soft spoken and deliberate said...

I can't remember what she said. She repeated it no less than four times but by the second I knew that as far as RQ was concerned it was for me. Silk had leaned forward to impart these words of positivity and assurance to RQ. “Repeat that,” RQ said with a smug smile. “Say it again,” she said when Silk complied. This time she placed her hand on my knee and smiled giddily behind her large brown sunglasses. “I don’t need you to repeat it for me, it’s for her,” she laughed as I flipped her the bird.  

Such irony that despite her repetition I can't recall exactly what she said. Specificity of words aside, it left me with the sentiment that I am meant to unfurl myself to the world-meant to declare myself without reservation.

And then the afternoon shifted and suddenly the spotlight- and not just the sun- was shining on my world.

Silk asked for my story, in her soft and inviting voice. Before I could answer, RQ jumped in and filled in the big spaces the way I usually do with her. She rattled off a close proximity of the list she’d just enumerated in the car. I fought back an urge to cry although I have no idea why.

Silk gently asked me questions about what I do now and my travels and my writing. She shared her ideas about healing people and through that healing of individuals, healing groups. Healing us- black people- with our generations of scars and suffering.

And then she quietly wove in her own story, the journey she is on to manifest her own greatness and the long journey she is still on to get there.

I was caught up. Caught up in her calm and sincerity. Caught up in the credibility a stranger strangely possesses that loved ones cannot.

In some ways Silk is still tainted by love. She loves RQ and and RQ loves me and so who wants to sit in the energy of a friend and tell them the person they love is ordinary. But something about Silk fights against my cynicscm about the biases of love. Something about the quite yet powerful way she seems to inhabit the space around her left me slightly lit – a pilot light of possiblity in charting my own story in less ordinary ways.

Now it is necessary to ride Silk’s wave of certainty about my potential to do something...to do something. To do and not just say that I will do...one day.

I sat down this evening and wrote for more than an hour. It is a step. Not the only step by far but a step none the less.

Not an African love letter

The boy who gave me my first kiss emerged from a seven-year absence mandated by his fiancé. Like any satisfyingly formulaic romantic comedy, he found my parents’ phone number (after his divorce) at the bottom of his dresser drawer in his childhood room at his parents’ house. Following a series of improbable coincidences and quirks of fate, he contacted me. More extraordinary and movie-like, he flew 2000 miles west for a visit.

His visit was a splendid suspension of reality, a novel romp through nostalgia dusted memories. I knew we were looking fondly at an aged and staged photograph with the bad- maybe not bad, simply the reality bits that intrude on fairy tales- cropped out. He didn’t seem to realize that. His conversations held tightly to “us” as fated. 

He spoke of an “us” that at its best was 10 years old and at its worst, 15. He spoke of a togetherness and marriage and babies. He spoke of second chances without ever wondering, let alone asking, what-if any- chances I wanted. 

“I don’t want babies,” I countered his assumption of our hypothetical life together. He seemed not to hear me. Truth was inconvenient to his daydreams of me at home with two or three kids. It was less about me and more about a narrative he was intent on playing out. He wouldn’t hear me. And although I trusted that he wanted to love me...he made it painfully obvious that he didn’t see me; wouldn’t learn me. How can you love what you don’t know?

In his world I was forever my 12-year-old self. Unchanged and uncomplicated.

Africa is loved in a similar way. People love Africa as a blank slate to project hopes and dreams- and sometimes nightmares- on.

 

People beatify the entire continent, paint it in benevolent victim-hood, fly Kente cloth flags, beat random rhythms on djembes and call it love. Africa – vast and diverse as it is- becomes faultless perfection. It is the 12-year-old girl frightened of her first kiss. It is teenage affection with no brokenhearted baggage. Africa is forced into a one-dimensional depiction of itself because anything more is complicated. 

At conferences and festivals targeting the American section of the African diaspora, people pour out libations to an ancestral abstraction or “ashe” every statement of the appointed elder of the group, and I feel a protective hostility. Maybe it is unfair but a small rage blazes in me and I sit mute to music, call and response and the other curated depictions of the “Africa experience”. 

It is shallow love. It is love at first sight before reality knocks and conversations about religion and money and careers and chores and snoring and every nit-picky thing that tests love every day.

This love of an “African ideal” is a summer fling, passionate and urgent with no time (or inclination) to love deeply-to learn. 

but you say i'm foolish
of course you love me
but being loved of course
is not the same as being loved because
or being loved despite
or being loved

-Nikki Giovanni

I have a complicated relationship with Africa- at least with the 16 countries I’ve lived in or visited and a handful of others that are significant to me for one reason or another. The complexity of the continent and my experiences with/in/on prevent me from feeling comfortable with sweeping statements about my affection – or lack of it. Prevents me from “loving the culture (without an “s” on the end)”, deifying the people, “they are so noble and kind”.

Some people, some things, suck. Africa is not exempt.

To love is not to feign perfection, it is to understand that imperfections are a part of the deal.

I won’t write a love letter to Africa. Africa is too vast, too varied, too complex, to contradictory. Africa is both changed and constantly changing. To gloss over the crannies and nooks, to pretend there are only brave survivors and no crooks, is as limiting and simplistic as seeing only corruption and famine. Africa – continent, not country, may contradict itself; it is large, it contains multitudes.