“Like a galaxy giving birth to stars, that’s what Chicago is to black people” – Cauleen Smith, experimental filmmaker, afrofuturist

Whenever I tell folks from my past that I live in Chicago now, there is almost an immediate reference to the city’s problem with violence. I’m not naive; but I know that I’ve had some of the most healthful encounters and relationships with black people since I’ve been here. I also know that my artistry has grown exponentially in the past several months. So as a black woman exploring herself as an artist in a city with black population often denigrated by the media, Cauleen’s statement was perfectly timed and thoroughly felt.

The piece proved to be evocative on all of these points. Ghansah is in fact a Ghanaian name, one that the author inherited, not through a rites of passage program, but from her father. From the essay, I deduced that her parents probably met in Philadelphia — the city her mother moved to after leaving her childhood home of Alexandria, Louisiana. Here is where I feel limited. I don’t know that I can appropriately capture the excitement I felt when I first saw the name “Alexandria” on my screen.

Just last summer, I took a trip with my mother to Alexandria, Louisiana. It was our first time back in well over two decades. I had no memories of the place and was hoping to create some, and at the same time, hoping the trip would help extract some of my mother’s more positive ones. If she had any, they were buried so far below in that time when she was both new to motherhood and to America. It had been nearly 10 years since she left Ghana for the United States, yet I don’t think the permanence of her move had been realized. Her pregnancy with me was not easy. My energetic sister was nearly two, my father struggled to find work, and I resisted leaving her womb even as we surpassed 37 weeks. Ten months pregnant and filled with frustration, my mother drove herself to her obstetrician one afternoon. Upon her arrival at the hospital (named after the patron saint of immigrants), I conceded. My mother gave birth without my father present (as she did for all of her pregnancies). No matter the marriage certificate nor the wedding ring (that she’d bought herself), she was a single black woman. When I came out not quite right, the nurses questioned my mother about her use of illicit drugs. This was what I knew of Alexandria for most of my life; it was a place where the racism was far from subtle. Even as I planned last summer’s trip, my mother, who insisted that I could not go alone, warned “I heard they buried a black man alive there not too long ago.”

But our story is for another time and space.

After I finished My Mother’s House, I read three other pieces from Ghansah that not only challenged my patience for reading long pieces online, but also taught me a few lessons in storytelling:

Don’t let the green grass fool you: The Roots are one of the most respected hip-hop acts in the world; why can’t they leave the sad stuff alone?
In one night, an 18 year old Ghansah told two lies that may have helped to jumpstart her career in the music industry and as a writer. The first lie, told to her mother, was that the place she was meeting The Roots manager, Richard Nichols at was a performance arts space rather than a bar. Later on, in an attempt to impress Nichols, she claimed that her writing had been published. It’s not clear whether or not her publication claim was necessary but Nichols was indeed impressed that she was a writer. She eventually went on to work with the band.

While Don’t let the green grass fool you… is part personal, the piece, as a whole, is a response to critics who have suggested that The Roots’ latest release, undun, is proof of the group’s creative immobility. The Roots still want to talk about the violence associated with black life in the U.S. but folks aren’t on that anymore. As a white DJ/promoter explained to Ghansah “hip hop is about making people dance… Black people need to dance, that is how to deal with poverty, you gotta uplift yourself.” Now, The Roots have made creative missteps throughout the years and Ghansah acknowledges some of these but ultimately her article asks readers to consider how we’ve reached a point where art that discusses the loss of black life in the U.S. has been rendered passé.

He Shall Overcome: Jay-Z is $450M Beyond the Marcy Projects. Where Does He Go From Here?
I anticipated that this might be some scathing critique of Jay-Z, the capitalist (so I was excited to read it). While Ghansah does present some of the shady realities of Jay-Z’s come up, she doesn’t do so in a harsh manner. Her style (which I also noticed while reading her piece on The Roots) is both direct and subtle; she leads you to the most complete picture of her subject with a clear, confident tone but leaves you without a heavy-handed conclusion.

In the same way that she reached out to Greg Tate to explore some of her thinking around black masculinity and homicide for her piece on The Roots, He Shall Overcome… includes a conversation with the late historian Dr. Manning Marable. After being asked to reflect on Jay-Z’s self-described complex social and economic beliefs (he was once called out for wearing a diamond chain atop a shirt emblazoned with an image of Ché Guevara), Marable responds with what Ghansah summarizes as the failure of “black capitalism”:

The more successful you are, you will ultimately get bought out by larger white-owned companies.  And that has historically always been the case. The wealthiest black capitalists in the United States would be Robert and Shelia Johnson [founders of BET], but they don’t even own their own company anymore. They got bought out. Even for them, their strategy has resulted in a loss of black ownership. And that is the irony of it.

So a scathing critique of Jay-Z may not exactly be a punch up (at least not all the way up).

The Art of Fiction No. 210, Samuel R. Delany
This was my introduction to Samuel Delany, a black writer who has published several novels, most of which are in the speculative fiction genre. Delany is brilliant in his responses during the interview. I’m convinced that some of his work, especially as he describes the creation of Atlantis Model: 1924, may be difficult to read. In Ghansah’s interview with Delany, she asks him to name some of his ill-read books.  The question is in response to an idea Delany has described elsewhere, that the works we find challenging to read rather than the ones we “read thoroughly…and with our full attention” are the ones that influence our creativity; these are the “ill-read.” He responds to her question by listing a few books that have occupied that space for him and elaborates on the relationship between the “ill-read” and our creativity:

When such books influence you, if that’s the proper word for what I’m ­describing, it’s what you imagine they do that they don’t do that you yourself then try to effect in your own work—that, to me, is what’s important. What these books actually accomplish is very important, of course! But the whole set of things they might have accomplished expands your own palette of aesthetic possibilities in the ways that, should you undertake them, will be your offering on the altar of originality.

Now off to try that Kendrick piece again.

(More of Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s work can be found here. And an interview with Ghansah on Radio Dispatch can be listened to here.)

Jonah (trailer above) premiered at Sundance 2013. A synopsis of the film from its creators follows:

Mbwana and his best friend Juma are two young men with big dreams. These dreams become reality when they photograph a gigantic fish leaping out of the sea and their small town blossoms into a tourist hot-spot as a result. But for Mbwana, the reality isn’t what he dreamed – and when he meets the fish again, both of them forgotten, ruined and old, he decides only one of them can survive. Jonah is a big fish story about the old and the new, and the links and the distances between them. A visual feast, shot though with humour and warmth, it tells an old story in a completely new way.

The visuals alone captured my attention, but reading up on the director, Kibwe Tavares, got me excited. On the TED Blog, Tavares discusses the relationship between his training as an architect and the science fiction aesthetic of his films:

As an architect, you’re always thinking about the future, too. You build in narratives that are in the future, because you’re always thinking, “When I design a building, I’m designing it for what happens 10, 15 years into the future.” And when you start looking at the future, it’s hard not to have that kind of science-fiction element.

Tavares’ commentary took me back to my initial impression of the film trailer. Afrofuturistic.

Hopefully you haven’t grown too tired of the word’s (mis)use because I think it’s really important here, especially after I’ve read Keguro Macharia’s Imagine in Black. In the blog post, Macharia offers a parallel between our everyday lives and those in dystopia:

In dystopic fiction, oppressive forces attempt to control dreams, acknowledging the danger of an imagination that can contemplate a different kind of world: dream management is a major function of all oppressive systems, which use their bureaucratic apparatus to render dreaming impossible. Thus, one is offered a narrow range of ways to imagine one’s future: I’m thinking here of the forms I received in high school that offered a range of about 20 careers and encouraged me to choose my life’s path, as though I knew what I was doing at 17!

And this dream management extends beyond the individual; Macharia describes how this type of thinking has limited NGO work and “certain political imaginings.” He goes on to discuss how science fiction may offer a response to this and finishes the post with more questions (and some helpful links):

How might something called “afro-futurism,” in all its various manifestations—in sound, in vision, in narrative, in film, in poetry—provide the grounds for a different kind of imagining in black, beyond, besides, and around the reach and pull of the statistical imagination? And, given the very biased sample with which I started, three black gay men, how might something called afro-futurism be a peculiarly and particularly queer project, a way that queerness can re-frame the black imagination?

I have no answers: but I’m excited by work being done by Kara Keeling, Tavia Nyong’o, Jayna Brown and others that will extend the labor of the black imagination, framing it in new ways, opening up new possibilities, teaching us to imagine more, imagine better, imagine in black.

In the weeks since I’ve read Macharia’s piece, I’ve been thinking about all the areas of my personal life that I’d like to imagine anew. If nothing else, I should be able to create a home with a partner who doesn’t seek to reinforce ideologies based on oppression but thinks as radically as I do about our various identities, right? And when thinking about larger, collective goals, I’ve been trying to take on a more optimistic mindset. Every time I’ve started to feel hopeless because of Kimani Gray, Steubenville, or just my everyday existence as a black woman, I’ve reminded myself: another world is possible. It’s more of a mantra than anything but I think being open to seeking answers is much more productive than my previous attachment to cynicism.

So as I’m experiencing Tavares’ work I think about how his profession is one that is not easily categorized (not something chosen from a narrowed list in the way Macharia describes), and how science fiction isn’t completely escapist, because even as an aesthetic, it can serve as inspiration for the radical imagination.

Another short film by Kibwe Tavares, Robots of Brixton:

Kweku Sai is dead. A renowned surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku’s death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before… What is revealed in their coming together is the story of how they came apart: the hearts broken, the lies told, the crimes committed in the name of love.

I don’t know…something about it starting off with a death in Ghana didn’t sit right with me; but a lot of folks were cosigning the book, so I went ahead and added it to my to-reads list. My hesitance, then, resurfaced once I saw all of the press the novel was receiving from mainstream media. (I mean could I really trust them to recommend me a book set in Africa?) Still I placed a hold on the book at my local library. I got the email that it was ready for pick up several days ago but waited until yesterday to check it out. I started to read it while still in the library. Within a few pages, my concern that the book was over-hyped quickly faded. I mean if someone else’s writing gets me to put pen to paper, it’s got to be something special, right?

Well, I had an interesting encounter at the library and Taiye Selasi’s writing encouraged me to write a flash piece about it. Check it out:

Page 17: Kweku Sai had begun to choke on his own tears, watching as his newborn daughter struggled to live. His eldest son, Olu, was there to calm him.

An elbow planted firmly on the edge of the book, knuckle at my temple, I leaned into the carrel, not wanting to miss any of the story. I, too, was fully invested in the survival of Baby Sai; but I, alone, was in charge of my composure. The heels of my feet — which, if still, would hover over the floor — channelled momentum into my toes. They had already been in motion, a soothing habit of mine; but as the story moved forward, they moved wildly, in anticipation. They must have been what caught her attention.

With authority, a woman’s voice pulled me away from the story, “Excuse me.”

Now a jumble of emotions from the plot and the interruption, I turned to face the woman. A sense of nervousness crept through me. It was the library’s security guard. I’d seen her wield her power before, chastising the nearly full library about a missing bathroom key. She was going to tell me that I couldn’t charge my phone in the library. ”Yes?”

“How old are you?” She sounded less forward now.

I smiled at her, still nervous and now confused, “Can I ask why?”

I’m sure the depth of my voice was a point of hesitation on her part, nevertheless she had a mission to complete. “Well this is the adult section…we have a separate area for children.”

I chuckled, ” Oh, I’m an adult.”

“Just making sure…from behind I couldn’t tell…” She started to walk away, then turned back, maybe because of embarrassment, “you just look so young. I couldn’t tell,” she repeated herself.

I laughed, genuinely, “It’s okay.”

If it weren’t for Baby Sai, I would have told her that this happens often. I readjusted myself to the story, my feet, back in motion.

Baby Sai survived.

*this flash piece is cross-posted on gisforgrace. More than likely I will check back in with a final review of the novel here or on GoodReads.

And if you’ve enjoyed the music like I did*:
Turn Your Lights On by Emanative

For Love by Goapele

Chameleon (Applejac’s Sounds Of Mecca remix) by Dezaray Dawn

Because by Ra-Re Valverde

*There was another song Who Flew and Beyond by P. Purey that I could not find

Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, was 10 years old when her family left the Dominican Republic in 1960. Her father had been involved in underground political activities which sought to oust Rafael Trujillo (who at that point had been in power for 3 decades). Her father’s underground activities were led, in part, by 3 sisters: Patria Mercedes Mirabal, Minerva Mirabal, and Maria Teresa Mirabal. The 3 sisters were murdered months after Alvarez and her family fled to safety in the United States; because of the stark contrast of these similarly timed events, Alvarez says the story of the Mirabal sisters haunted her.

“A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.” – Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies (Postscript)

In the Time of the Butterflies tells the story of the four Mirabal sisters and their family during the Trujillo regime. Patria, the eldest, was very religious; she got involved with resistance efforts after she witnessed a massacre of revolutionaries while she was on a spiritual retreat. Dedé, the second-born, never became directly involved in the political activities of her sisters but to this day she is the one who keeps her family’s story alive. Minerva, the boldest of all the sisters, was the first to become involved in politics; even in her early political activities, she attracted the attention of Trujillo. While the first 3 daughters were born in succeeding years, Maria Teresa, the youngest was born 9 years after Minerva. She became political after seeing Minerva’s efforts and of the three politically active sisters, Minerva and Maria Teresa were the only to be imprisoned.

The book starts in 1994; Dedé is being interviewed by a “gringa dominicana” who wants to know more about the 3 sisters. Dedé begins the story in 1943 and over 12 chapters (in 3 sections), each sister takes her turn, continuing the story until November, 1960. Though Alvarez’s writing style (in this novel) may border on melodramatic for some, I never mind being emotionally pulled into stories (especially those with historical significance). Furthermore, I was impressed by Alvarez’s storytelling; she took actual events from the Mirabal sisters’ lives and used her imagination to weave together a story of how they came to be assassinated on November 25, 1960.

Like other historical fiction I have read, In the Time of the Butterflies encouraged me to explore more of the political history of the Dominican Republic. Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones introduced me to the 1937 massacre of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic; however I don’t remember to what extent I considered Trujillo’s policies or Dominican lives under his reign when I read it. According to the internet, the massacre was a response to the Haitian government’s support of anti-Trujillistas, the Haitian government’s ordered killing of Trujillo spies operating in Haiti, or a result of Trujillo’s blanquismo campaign. It’s certainly plausible that Trujillo used all of these to reason the massacre, but his blanquismo policies are of particular interest to me. I’ve experienced many conversations about race in the Dominican Republic which have highlighted anti-African sentiments within their nation (and diasporic community). For me, Alvarez’s novel has helped me reflect on those oversimplified conversations by introducing me to some of the politics that privileged this type of thinking.

As an engaging way to learn some history of the Dominican Republic, I’d absolutely recommend this book. If you don’t have time in your reading schedule, there is a cinematic version of the book that was released in 2000 and plenty of online resources available by searching ‘Mirabal Sisters’.

*also posted on Books: Passports to World Challenge group on GoodReads*

EATEN BY THE HEART (Interview excerpts) by ZINA SARO-WIWA from Zina Saro-Wiwa on Vimeo.

The interview excerpts are from an installation piece that Zina Saro-Wiwa has in the exhibit, ‘The Progress of Love‘ which is currently at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts (St. Louis) and the Centre for Contemporary Arts (Lagos) and will open at the Menil (Houston) on December 2nd.

Using a sometimes-exhausting first person present point-of-view, Wainaina takes us along as he goes from a shy, imaginative boy raised in Kenya to a writer travelling the world.  But it’s not some romanticized journey of triumph.  Though interconnected with post-Independence East African politics and his own family life, Wainaina’s journey is largely about internal struggle.  When he moves to South Africa for university (because education is no longer being susbisdized by the Kenyan government), he shifts into a deep solitude and a depressive state: he rarely leaves his room which is littered with cigarettes, candy wrappers, and dirty dishes; his sister, who is also in S.A. for university, helps him out by sliding money under his door; and he spends most of his time and money on books.  (This all may sound familiar to some of you writers…)

Aside from his strange, wonderful creativity (from a young age he invents words to describe experiences he cannot label in the languages he knows), his experiences in S.A. are what endeared him to me the most.  I checked this book out from the library a couple of months ago and I keep renewing it, not because I’m re-reading it but because it provides a sense of comfort for me.  I keep it in my writing space (which also serves as my sister’s couch and my bed) as a reminder of what this writing life is sometimes about.

Even if you’re not a writer seeking consolation for the life we sometimes live, I’d still recommend this book based on the Wainaina’s style, knowledge and incredible stories.

You can purchase One Day I Will Write About This Place at:
IndieBound
Powell’s Books
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

A few events in NYC I’d be at if I still lived there…
New York Film Festival
09/28 – 10/14
Punk in Africa would be on my agenda if I were in town. Check out the full schedule here.

Congo in Harlem 2
10/8 – 10/23
Two weeks of Congo-related films and events.  Check out the details here.

Change the Mood: Africans Are Real Release Party
10/13
!!! Binyavanga Wainaina is DJing at this party!!!  Apparently the incredibly talented writer also has some DJ skills or he’s going to completely wing it; either way I have a feeling it’s going to be good and I’m really annoyed I can’t be in NYC for this. Check out details here.

Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series
10/13-10/14
Byron Hurt’s Soul Food Junkies is the feature film and Sam Pollard is teaching a workshop.  Check out full details and schedule here.

I hope all you New Yorkers enjoy these (and the million other art events going on this month)!  Thankfully the Chicago art scene ain’t too bad. Here are a few things I’m planning to check out

Chicago Artist Month
THE WHOLE MONTH!!!
I just discovered this last night so I haven’t completely checked out the calendar but 20 Neighborhoods, a woman-centered exhibition with workshops looks interesting. All details here.

Chicago International Film Festival
10/11 – 10/25
A FEW of the films that are on my agenda:
Alaskaland
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
La Playa DC
43000 feet
You can check out the full festival schedule here.

In other Chicago film news, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere opens on the 19th at AMC River East and the Steve McQueen retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago opens (to the public) on the 21st (Shame & Hunger are screening on the 19th).

And on the music tip, there are a couple of Felabrations in the middle of the month and Nneka is performing on the 25th at Lincoln Hall!

Suffice it to say, I’m excited about October in the CHI! How about you; What’s going on in your city?

We’re only 3 episodes in, so it is possible that the show will turn around and as a fan, I’m giving ABG the space to develop the season (i.e., I’m not leaving angry comments on YouTube like some of the other disappointed fans).  In the meantime, I’ve been watching out for some of Issa Rae’s other projects including a collaboration with Black & Sexy TV that just premiered last week entitled RoomieLoverFriends and RATCHETPIECE Theater, which is already in its 4th installment.

RoomieLoverFriends seems to be on par with other Black & Sexy productions as an exploration of (good-looking) black people in some sort of hetero relationship.  RATCHETPIECE Theater, a solo project of Issa Rae, is a “vlog that highlights some of [her] favorite ratchet songs from past to present.”  Thus far she’s covered Rasheedah of Love & Hip Hop fame, Tyga of Young Money, rapper Trina and Juicy J of Three Six Mafia.  As expected, Issa Rae doesn’t hesitate at all with her sarcasm; in her analysis of Juicy J’s Bands A Make Her Dance she begins by saying: “this week’s musical masterpiece begs the question, Why did I go to college?”  I make it to the 3 minute mark when I remember why I haven’t watched this vlog since its first installment. The series is supposed to be funny because this is black ignorance dissected from the perspective of black excellence bouge.  This is not for me.  I’ll pass.