When Trump Moves to Mars

I'm beginning to suspect that the Donald Trump presidency might provide students, educators, entrepreneurs, project managers and really anybody anywhere with the best evidence for the intrinsic value of preparedness.

To be clear, I don't hate Donald Trump, I strongly dislike the rhetoric that, like dead skin, sloughs off of him only to be consumed, punctuates, and regurgitated by an electorate desperate to believe in that dead dreams can be reincarnated.

I also wish that he was curious about things other than how many minutes he was discussed on morning political shows, why certain news programs continue to use unflattering photos of him, and if his classic "winging it" ideology got him to the white house, what else can he achieve. Maybe he's curious about how to gain world domination or how to be even more complimentary towards Vladimir Putin.

It would be helpful if he was curious about history. Maybe if he'd understood the basics about the One China Principle, or even what a blind trust is, or if he was interested in understanding exactly how his campaign helped promote hate, then maybe people all over the world wouldn't be feeling confused, slighted, and increasingly vulnerable because the most powerful man in the world doesn't seem to be aware or interested in any of their individual stories, he is blind to their struggles, yet he gets to decide their futures.

I suspect that in the long run, no one will win in the world Trump intends to create. Hopefully after it has fallen away either with Trump being fired and driven away in a taxi cab like a head hanging down apprentice contestant, or maybe once ignoring global warming has caused the world to heat to a level where that even Carrier's air conditioners can't save us (a deal that oft-confused Sarah Palin was able to see right through), Trump will test his "winging it" paradigm in a new settlement on Mars.

When that day comes, thinking people, the curious, or anyone with eyes to see will realize that having a 30 year career in public service is not something to hide. Maybe then preparedness won't seem like a snotty notion reserved for the coastal elites.

A Failure of Imagination

I feel like I'm going to explode. Thinking of solutions usually helps me. The problem that's currently causing my heart to race is the people who aren't alarmed by Donald Trump. I was just chatting with a friend who told me that Trump's ideas would never happen, that he'd never be able to get those laws to pass.

Halfway through the conversation it dawned on me that my friend didn't understand how a bill becomes a law. I'm beginning to suspect that he doesn't know the difference between the House and the Senate, what a filibuster is and that he lacks even a cursory understanding of Presidential Executive Orders, and my friend is a really good guy. But he's asleep because he can't imagine that anything truly terrifying will actually happen.

Not long before the election I went to the movies to see  The Girl on the Train and fell hard for Edgar Ramirez. After the election I was moping so I sought comfort in my new crush. While in that state of loneliness and self-pity I was making my way through Ramirez's old movies when I heard something really insightful in the trailer for a film called Vantage Point. One of the characters says that, "the beauty of American arrogance is that they cannot imagine a world where they're not a step ahead."

I know these weren't the words of God, but they still struck me as incredibly insightful. Maybe we can't imagine because we don't fully understand the steps required to make the unimaginable a reality. Maybe the basic structure of our society has held for so long that we don't feel compelled to understand it and can't imagine a scenario in which we'd have to defend it.

The bottom line is that I need solutions to keep myself from hiding on the floor of my closet with a bag of tortilla chips and a slew of DVDs featuring the lovely Edgar Ramirez (those eyes...wow! Anyone suffering from the same obsession should check out a movie he made called Carlos, that got me through some cold nights). Anyway, where was I...

Long term solution #1: We need a stronger education system.

No one has to agree with me, but my friend was trying to base his optimism on something he'd heard from a guy at the gym. A fucking guy at the gym. Optimism that completely ignores data should only be relied upon in moments like this.

Thankfully, things aren't that that bleak, yet.

I will now pull myself out of this stupor, say good-bye to my newfound lover (Adios, sweet Edgar) and I'll get to work. I want to begin thinking of ways to improve education across the county (smaller classes sizes, more cash for teachers, innovate solutions that don't require decades of evidence before implementation). Education is critical to ensure that future generations of Americans don't end up knowing more about the Khloe Kardashians of their time than they do about the voting records of their senators.

Am I excited? No. But I'm getting ready. This is the best way to describe my current mood. I may only have 15 minutes to reach a minimum safe distance, but I'm going to use that time to prepare and to fight like hell. I would urge you to do the same.

Donald Trump and the Supreme Court

I just read this on The Daily Beast. Is it possible that president-elect Donald Trump (aka President Putin) doesn't know how the United States Supreme Court works?

Yes, it was settled. However, if the composition of the Supreme Court becomes more conservative then all that's needed for marriage equality laws to be reversed is a test case. The same goes for Roe v. Wade.

Radiolab's A More Perfect Union has an interesting, funny, and frightening story called The Imperfect Plaintiffs about how test cases work. Many of the court battles in the history of our nation that have set precedent, changed laws, and allowed us to create a country that reflected our evolving values do not reach the Supreme Court organically.

Instead, throughout our nation there are well-funded attorneys who select laws they'd like to challenge and then search for cases they can use to challenge those laws.

As a matter of fact, the minute Trump was elected, many of those attorneys probably began searching for the cases they'd present to the court once its back up to nine judges...the final judge being selected by Donald Trump.

Damsels Not In Distress

"It's all in you head."  "You're making too big a deal of it."  "Don't make a mountain out of a molehill." "Just stop worrying about these things."

Have you been on the receiving end of these types of statements?  When you express concern or point out a potential problem, are you often treated as though you're overreacting or thinking about things that you shouldn't be thinking about?

Then you're probably a woman.

One of the primary ways women are held back in today's business world is by making them question themselves.  We're trained to question our instincts.  We're told that when we notice a potential problem, that the real problem is the fact that we noticed anything at all.

I've had this experience and it is daunting.  It's not daunting when it happens once, but it's when these types of statements become the anthem of your work life that they begin to weigh you down.

I think of myself as someone who is self-reflective.  So, when a colleague I respect tells me that my concerns are all in my head, I want to listen.  I want to step aside and think about it.  However, when the same colleague has concerns that he expresses to me, I am quick to take responsibility and to apologize.  I've noticed that this same level of respect and responsiveness is not given to me.  Instead, it's as if my colleague believes his job is to console me.

There are two stereotypes at play here men are fixers and women are worrying, damsels in distress.

My colleague isn't a bad guy, he's just unaware of his own unconscious bias.  Are you aware of yours?

Rachel Dolezal: Is This Really a Mental Health Issue?

Many of us refer to the work performed by the United States Postal Service as "snail mail," because it's so much slower than email or even texting.  Though we may laugh at how long it takes for a letter to move through their system, the system itself is somewhat efficient.

Rachel Dolezal has claimed over the years that she's been on the receiving end of various hate-related intimidation tactics.  From finding a noose outside her front door to receiving threatening mail in her PO Box.  In the end it was discovered that the noose belonged to a hunter who used it to cure meat.   And the letter?  After an extensive investigation, the Post Office determined that the letter never went through their system and the only way it would have ended up in the NAACP box was if someone who had a key placed it there.

And there is so much more.  For a timeline of Dolezal's hate crime claims look here.

Not a single one of these claims has lead to an arrest.  The investigations have always ended with inconclusive results.  When I first heard about this story - a woman who misled others about her own heritage in order to adopt another - I wondered what was missing in her life to make her long so desperately to be someone else.  Then, as pieces began to unfold, I realized there was something else there, hidden behind the jokes about her hair, her birth parents claiming she's really white, and the ensuing circus.

In the dark shadows of this story is a woman either so hungry for attention or so unbalanced that she may have fabricated (or even created) incidents of hate and intimidation.  Did she think it was exciting?  Fun?

Over the years I've read several stories and watched videos of the victims of hate crimes coming forward to share their stories.  None of them have acted as though they'd just gotten off of a thrill ride at an amusement park.  Something fundamental may be broken in Dolezal's mind, something completely unrelated to the color of her skin.

Project Implicit

I'm in the middle of something and I don't know exactly what it is.  In the past, I've used this blog not so much as a megaphone for any one perspective, but really as a place to work myself out.  So, here goes.

A few years ago, around the time a black boy named Trayvon Martin was killed for walking down the street, I wrote a blog post called, "Please Don't Kill My Sons."  I didn't post it initially because I'm a chicken.  Eventually I posted it, but it was still buried on my site because I posted it chronologically, so it was never the first page on my blog.

I did this, in part, because I was still in the fog and I couldn't yet see the sun.

Anyway, I've been freaked out about this whole thing, but still determined to believe in the good of the average police officer, etc, etc., but I still had a lot of feelings about the way things are.  Some of these stories don't lie.  There's no way around what happened to Tamir Rice.  He looks so much like my son and reacted the way my son would and the same way that a lot of other 12 year-olds would.

A car was suddenly careening towards him on the grass.  Someone was yelling.  And (most likely) before he could even process what was happening, he received a deadly wound.  For what?  A few weeks ago over breakfast a friend of mind said that Rice raised his gun.  Then this friend asked why Rice's gun didn't have a red tag on it.

After watching that video I honestly don't know if that cop even had time to notice whether or not the gun had a red tag.  But Rice was 12.  12 year-olds should not be sentenced to death because their toy gun is mising a tag or because they move their arm the wrong way while standing in a park watching a car that's racing towards them.  There is no way to train a child to handle that.  Do I instead just tell my boys to never leave the house?  Do I tell them to never trust the police?

I knew that couldn't be right.  I researched more, searched deeper, and deeper, looking more closely at unconscious bias.  It's really the only thing that gives me hope.

I can see so many exampels of inequality - related to race, class, gender, religion, sexuality, and so much more - and it hurts my heart.  I don't want to believe that we live in a world like this.  My white, Christian, heterosexual friends have the same emotion but it leads them to believe that race is no longer an issue and that the real problem is that we keep talking about it.  Just like me, they don't want to believe that we live in a world where so many people are trying to hold others down because of their race, their gender, their weight, their sexuality.  My friends want to believe it's a coincidence.

But when I look into the bright, brown faces that greet me each morning, I realize that denial is one luxury that has not been afforded to me.

In the years since writing that first post in response to Martin's death, I've learned about how complicated the human brain is - much more complicated than I'd ever imagined.  I realized that the mind puts objects and memories in categories, sometimes those categories come in the form of stereotypes.  Bias, preferring one group over another in ways that defy the values we profess to hold, is part of the human experience.  It doesn't mean we're evil, it means we're human.

The other day I was listening to the radio and someone (possibly one of the many Republican presidential candidates) was asked to comment on the "conversation" that many black parents feel the need to have with their black sons.  He responded that he was aware of those conversations but that he could not relate.  For a moment I thought he was going to validate an experience that he hasn't had to live, I thought he would find a way to empathize.  Instead, he explained that he couldn't relate because he teaches his children to respect everyone, not just police officers.  Ouch.

But he doesn't get it.  He doesn't realize that he's looking at the issue from a place of privilege.  As a man and a white person, he holds a place in line that others don't.  From his vantage point, a certain level of hard work equals results.  If everyone worked even half has hard as he did in life, then there would be no need for entitlements, right?  Wrong.  He's wrong, but not evil.

When I was in school the teachers would say that racism and bigotry were about ignorance.  I could never figure out if they meant that people who lynch and burn crosses on lawns needed a basic course in human genetics or if my teachers were trying to tell me that these individuals just needed more friends of color.

30 years later I agree and completely disagree.  I do think it's about ignorance.  But it's not about cultural competency and simply learning about how we're all different.  The fact that we're different is not something that needs to be taught.  We all know that.  Studying the cultures and histories of every type of people group imaginable would overload the mind.  And really, isn't that just a call to be politically correct.

We are ignorant.  Not about each other, but about ourselves.  What we don't know is how our hidden minds - in what always seems to me as a beautiful show of efficiency, executed at the speed of light -  can intuitively and quite innocently put people into categories that then inform even the smallest interactions we have with them.

Basically, in our nation there are systems at play, systems that every single one of us either helps to make and/or maintain, that privilege some while holding back others.  Not because we're bad, but because we're human.  While certain groups most certainly experience bias differently than others, we're all guilty.

There is no Skynet and the only Matrix at play here has nothing to do with Keanu Reeves.  The real matrix that keeps us so far apart from one another is the one that lives in each of our unconscious minds.
  
I have bias and so do you.  You don't need to memorize the challengs of every religious, racial, cultutal, or gender group you might come into contact with.  How will you also remember how to do your job?  No one wants a world in which we're all walking around on egg shells.

We need to know which group or groups is most likely to make us act in ways that don't align with our vaues.  The best way I know how to find that out is by taking the Implicit Bias Test.

It worked for me.

Police and Blacks: What's Wrong and How We Can Go Forward

I love this piece from Democracy Now.  

Watch it today!  It says it's 55 minutes, but it's really much shorter.  What I LOVE about this piece is that it addresses what's wrong between police and people of color and specifically it deals with HOW IT FEELS to be a person of color in the current climate.

I should say that I hate the title because I've worked with police officers who are trying to figure out how to connect with their communities.  The people from the department I've worked with and trained are some of the kindest, most open-minded people I've encountered.  So, the idea that police are out there trying to figure out how to get away with murder is irresponsible.

However, what I appreciate about this piece is that it's thorough, but even more so I am grateful because it suggests solutions.

So, once again....WATCH IT!

REPAST on NPR

Listening right now to Debbie Elliott's story about REPAST (the oratorio about my grandfather)!  I have been working on this story since I first learning about it in the summer of 2007 and it never ceasing to amaze me how moved people are by my grandfather's words.

It breaks my heart to think of what he went through and that so many people who knew him (white and black) didn't really KNOW him, because they didn't perceive how painful it was for him to be humiliated every single day simply because he was black...

Even worse?  While being humiliated he had to smile.

I have loved learning about his life, sharing it in the documentary Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story, writing about it in my upcoming book, Searching for Booker Wright, but more than anything I love speaking about it.

I've been able to take his story and the ideas that still resonate today to colleges, corporations, and community groups around the nation.

Though he died the year before I was born, my love for Booker Wright continues to nourish me.

Rules for Writers

1. When you're writing at Starbucks and someone says, "You're still working on your book."  Remind them that crafting a provocative, powerful, yet delicately beautiful narrative, that also sticks to the absolute truth of humanity is not as simple as drafting an email.
2. When you meet someone who says, "I'm a doctor now, but I'm going to write books when I retire."  Cock your head to the side and say, "I'm a writer now, but I'm going to perform a few cardiothoracic surgeries when I retire."  
3. When people say, "These days you can write almost anything, it's the editors who put it all together and do all the work."  Hit them on the noggin, turn, and run really fast in the other direction.
4. When someone says, "Yeah, I'm going to write a book one of these days," but then can't name a single book they've ever finished reading, you should do the following.  Tilt your head back and laugh out loud for at least a full minute.  
5. When some random person takes the time to not only read your work, but to tell you how it moved them, remember that moment for the rest of your life. A writer creates a structure made out of words that are reluctantly pulled together, slowly, one at a time.  If you manage to complete your word structure and then find that it has inspired the soul of a complete stranger, then something miraculous has just occurred. The ability to do that is a gift, one that only God can grant.
6. Every day work as if you have the aforementioned gift.  Hope against hope that you are one of the precious few who can bring life to death, set hope alight, and remove the blinders that keep us from seeing our true selves. That's what it is to be a writer.  The only two requirements are that you nurture your own capacity to dream and that you never, ever give up.  Even when it feels as if people have run out of their ability to believe in you, you must never give up.  

Ray Rice: Are Some People Beyond Hope?

Never in a million years did I ever think I'd link to something on TMZ.  For the record, they've lead the way in robbing celebrities (who are people, too) of their privacy by paying kids with cameras (okay 20 somethings, but still) to stalk famous people and take pictures of them picking their noses, eating fast food, or simply walking.

But, never say never.

Years ago there was an Oprah Winfrey show that left me with a question.  It was a show about domestic violence.  If I remember correctly, most of the guests were survivors or family members of women who'd been killed by their partners.  One guest was a woman who appeared with her husband. (I think it was her husband) He had tried to kill her.  They were reconciled.  He was working on his anger.

Before this woman and her husband appeared, the message was clear that a woman in a relationship with a physically abusive man needs to get the hell out. (Yes, there are lots of other forms of abuse, but that's for another day).  Then, the woman who'd chosen to stay came on as one of the last guests.  She sat there and explained how her husband, who was sitting right next to her, had strangled her and screamed at her.  She believed in that moment that he would kill her.

I sensed an awkwardness just hanging in the air as this woman explained how she feared him, but loved him, and understood his demons.  She was willing to stand by him.

A the time I was struck with a question.  Is it realistic to say that all men who beat women should be left behind, ran from, and denied the hope of sexual intimacy?  In this scenario, a man who hits a woman would have to remain celibate for life.  If we as a society have a no return policy on perpetrators of domestic violence, then we're encouraging men to lie and to deny that they've struggled with this.

Imagine that a man tells a woman that he hit his former partner, sought counseling, and has worked through those demons.  But she is an "emotionally healthy," self-possessed woman who will not allow herself to ever be with a man who would hit a woman.  Where does this man go?  Does he lie to her and pretend his past never happened?  Does he seek out desperate, "emotionally unhealthy" women, who are willing to date a reformed abuser?

We live in strange times.  Part of me thinks that we have to make room for people to change and to reinvent themselves.  How can we breathe if there's no hope for change?

Then I saw this and was horrified.  I was horrified.  After he punched her, after he lifted her limp body and dropped her face down on the ground, he kicked her calves as if irritated that she was in the way of the elevator doors.  At first when I watched it I thought that maybe Ray Rice believed his then fiancee was overreacting or pretending.

But even when it became clear that she'd passed out, he didn't help her.  She slowly came to and it appears she was crying.  He stood a part from her, several feet away watching.  Maybe they told him to stay away from her.  I don't know.

What I do know is that Janay went on to marry him.

Recently, she expressed her views on social media.  She's mad at us for sticking our nose into other people's business.  She's mad at us for caring.  For being appalled.  Mad that he lost his dream job.  Sure, some of this is about politics.  But what is it that can make a man treat any human being with such utter disregard.  And what is it in her that keeps her from being able to hold him accountable?

And what is it in me that wants to believe in everyone even the abusers?  It's one thing to watch a talk show and tell myself that there's hope for everyone.

But watching Ray Rice beat up and toss around the love his life made a little bit of my hope for humanity slip away.

Anthony Bourdain - Parts Unknown

I found out a little late that Booker's story, or at least part of it, was going to be included in one of Anthony Bourdain's food shows.  Parts Unknown is the name of the show.  I'm hoping to be able to get my hands on  the episode to see it for myself, but I did hear that they aired Booker's monologue.

I'm thrilled, beyond thrilled really, because more people are learning about his story. No one in my family even knew my grandfather made those statements until about seven years ago.  He protected his daughters and my whole family from his thoughts and feelings about his work at Lusco's.  When we finally found the footage it brought both joy and heartache.  Joy because we could see him, moving and speaking and laughing.  Heartache because of how much shame he endured every night just to make a living.

I read Anthony's blog post about the Delta.  Yes, it is an amazing place.  It's virtually impossible to measure all the things we have as Americans that originated there.  But like an Achilles heel, the history of slavery and the legacy of segregation will always be a part of the South's rich inheritance.  The story of man's subjugation to man is written all over the Delta.  It's painted on people's faces, it's in the space that often still separates whites and blacks, it's in their laws, their customs, and is an integral fiber in the every day lives of today's Mississippians.

If you find yourself interested in the Mississippi Delta's rich, tragic past try not to gawk as though observing a car wreck or even a horrifyingly beautiful work of art.

Howard Zinn, one of the nation's most beloved historians, said the South is a mirror.  When we look at her, we're seeing a concentrated version of the rest of the nation.  The Mississippi Delta is not some random, scandal-ridden anomaly, a stain on our nation, and the excuse for why the state ranks last in almost every barometer that measures quality of life.

The Delta is none of those things.

What is it?  It's us.  It's all that we're capable of - good and bad.  It's what is beautiful and tragic about the human spirit.

It's really not all that different down there after all.

Public Speaking Do's and Don'ts Number #1 When In Wisconsin in February

When in Wisconsin in February:

DO realize that it might be colder outside than in a deep freezer.

DO bring winter boots with you.  They can even be adorable (picture to be posted soon).

DON'T act surprised when you go for a pleasant mid-day stroll and get frostbite on your ears.  Okay, according to the Mayo Clinic, what I had was probably Frost Nip, but saying I had Frost Bite sounds way more dramatic.

DO retell your Wisconsin stories using dramatic overstatements like "Frost Bite" as opposed to "Frost Nip," because 1) you will sound like an adventurer, even if you were just trying to find a Starbucks and 2) future venues will know that you're willing to die for the cause.

DO tell all of the lovely people you meet (most of whom will be hard to see because they'll be covered in layer upon layer of fabrics created in a lab to withstand the coldest temperatures) that you'd be happy to return to Wisconsin to share the story with more people, as long as it's in July.

DO realize that many of Wisconsin's towns are connected by land and nothing else.  I just completed six talks in four days in four cities and there isn't a greyhound or train that travels between them.  At first I thought I could rent a car, then realized that if it was snowing and I rented a car - well, I am from California, so basically it wasn't going to happen.

DO Remember to thank the amazing people who made it all worthwhile.  Most of the venues were kind enough to drive me all over the state (note the use of dramatic overstatement) in order to make it to my events.  THANK YOU Melanie, William, Marvette, Dorothea, Josephine, and the sweet ladies (whose names I don't even know) who drove me back to my hotel tonight.  All of these wonderful people endured  my presence in their warm vehicles for hours on end so that I could share my grandfather's story.

Even though you were colder than Alaska in February (and I know because I was in Alaska last February) I LOVE YOU, Wisconsin.  Remember, "Ya Gotta Keep That Smile"!!!

Kanye West and the Race Problem

The other day I saw a news story about something called Bound 3, a spoof on Kanye West's Bound 2 music video.  Bound 3 features James Franco and Seth Rogen acting out the parts of Kanye and his girlfriend, Kim Kardashian.  The video had me in stitches.  What cracked me up most, what was seriously hilarious, were the lyrics coming out of Franco's mouth.

He talks about how he is tired and the girl in the song must be tired as well because apparently they've been hurt in love, etc.  At one point Franco sings: "I'm tired, you're tired...Jesus wept."  And then puts his arms out to the sides as if he is on a cross.  I laughed so hard that I almost peed my pants.

I decided to check out West's original video to see which parts Franco and Rogen had grossly exaggerated. To my complete and utter shock, the answer was: none.  Every body movement was the same and the lyrics were the same.  I started Googling  "lyrics Bound 2" because I was sure that something must be wrong with my computer.  Maybe Kanye's video was up but Franco's singing was in the background?

No, those were the real lyrics.  At one point, West actually says, "I want to f--- you on the sink and then give you something to drink."  Also, for no apparent reason other than maybe needing a rhyme, he says, while rubbing his head "Got a fresh cut straight out the salon b----." If you don't believe me, Google the lyrics for yourself.  Also....Here's a side-by-side version of the two videos.

I honestly, sincerely could not believe how Kanye West could take himself seriously.  Then, I theorized that maybe reporters act captivated when he talks and so he believes that he is some sort of genius, a prophet, Shakespeare no less.  In case you don't want to follow those links, all of these are things he's said about himself.  Then, I thought that maybe he is surrounded by assistants and handlers who are impressed with his money and good looks and he reads that as them being in awe of his "theories."

That's the conclusion I came to.  Ultimately, I didn't care, I had some really good laughs that night.  He won't be the first or the last person to be polluted by celebrity.  I didn't think anymore about it, until I read "In Defense of Kanye West," an article by Rawiya Kameir.

I think one of the people who commented put it best when they said that calling every criticism of a black male "racist" dilutes the term.  I am a black woman who makes a living writing and speaking about issues of race, class, and privilege.  This is my wheelhouse and Kameir, you got it wrong.  Your heart is in the right place, but with this article you are hurting the movement, hindering progress, giving people an excuse to keep the phrase "playing the race card" in our vernacular.

Being racially sensitive is not about giving blacks a pass to act idiotically.  The bar of logic, sanity, art, genius, or anything else doesn't get lowered for us because our ancestors were slaves.  Being able to take criticism and respond to it point-by-point is what it means to be grown up.  It's what it means to be in the arena, to be a businessman, to be equal.  That's what we wanted, right, equality?

It's okay if some people think West is a genius.  They can love his music.  They can even believe that he is a radical, a visionary.  Historically, when someone has gone way outside of the box there have always been those, and will always be those, who laugh at them, ridicule them, call them crazy.  So, if you believe that Kanye West is some sort of musical messiah, go for it, but don't call me a racist for thinking he is nothing more than comic relief.

Kameir, if you need a Kanye-related soap box to stand on, why don't you theorize about the reasons why Bound 2 uses the phrase "b----" four times.  As a woman, that is something I do have a problem with.

Facing My Fears

Only a few people in the United States (I think the number might be 2) hold a degree in library science AND have a genealogy certificate.  I spent my morning with one of these experts today.

There are details about my grandfather's life that I need to confirm.  One of the possibilities is mind-boggling and amazing, but unlikely.  One of the others is downright scary.  It's kind of the 11th hour.  I've known that I need to nail down these pieces for some time now.  I have to finish this book, ideally by the end of the year, so I'm running out of time.  I won't to go to print without diligently completing my research.

People have memories.  I've relied on those memories to construct a story, a story that's been painful to bear at times, but that has redefined my entire life.  But I'm making a public statement in the form of a book and I can't do that without knowing for sure that every stone has been turned over.  But I feel so afraid.

A few summers ago I was in Mississippi and I was learning things about my grandfather.  Even though he'd been dead for 38 years he was still a volatile figure.  People (both black and white) still loved or hated him.

How can you hate someone whose been dead for 38 years?  There were people who couldn't wait to come out of the woodwork to share their stories about what a horrible man he was.  I was devastated.  Looking back I don't know why.  Nobody is perfect.  But somehow I had let myself believe that his excellence would rub off on me, that he would shine bright from the beyond and that I'd be able to feel his rays warming me when I needed him most.

When people shared those negative things about him two years ago I was shattered.  I remember being in Greenwood and having to remind  myself to walk, to exhale, because all I wanted to do was curl up in a dusty cotton field and waste away.  My tongue felt heavy on the rough of my mouth, my palms were sweaty, lips shaking.  I'd worked so hard to construct a hero and he was being torn down, in part, because of my own research.

I'm kind of in that place again, only in some ways it's worse.  Now I'm not just up against people's memories, but facts.  It's a good thing.  I have an incredibly talented and generous woman helping me.  But I'm still afraid.

A Delta Discussion

I've been working hard to bring Greenwood to life on the page, and it's working.  I have an amazing research assistant who tirelessly scours digital archives and reaches out to professors in an effort to get the most accurate data we can.  The more that I learn about Greenwood in the 1960s, the more amazed I am.  There's so much about what happened in that small town that sheds light on how regular, everyday people could seemingly ignore systematic, sustained societal racism.

When the documentary about my grandfather premiered in New York City in April, 2012, someone from the audience asked how I would respond to black Christians who hate homosexuals.  He seemed to feel that it was hypocritical for blacks to talk about the oppression of yesterday if they were actively engaged in oppressing homosexuals today.  I agreed with him, but then I explained that every group has their jihad.  Every group has that subset of extremists.  Just because a person is a member of a group, doesn't mean that they represent all of the other members of that group, or that they agree with every idea that comes from that group.

In towns like Greenwood, there were men and women who made it their mission to maintain a segregated state.  What blows me away is the lengths that they went to in order to achieve their goals.  Very, very, very few books talk about this, but there was a newsletter called "A Delta Discussion" that was distributed door to door.  The newsletter was filled with dire predictions about what would happen if the schools were integrated.  They included stories from far off communities that had tried to integrate and then had incidents of violence.  These newsletters also included the names of white store owners who were enforcing the Civil Rights Act, by allowing blacks to patronize their establishments.  Whites were encouraged to stop going to these stores all together.

It's important to remember that Greenwood was a small town, surrounded by plantations.  Most whites in Greenwood had known the other whites in Greenwood for all of their lives.  These relationships had been establishments generations before the civil rights movement came along.  Most whites had grown up with a distorted view of blacks.  They were too close to it to question it.  Then people from the outside (from the Northern states) began to question how Southern blacks were being treated.  Those questions were challenged, not by strangers, but by the neighbors.  Whites who were racist in Greenwood had an enormous amount of influence over other whites because of the familiarity between the two groups.  

Imagine having someone come into your town for a visit and tell you that your wife is unhappy in your marriage.  Your friends tell you not to listen to this stranger.  They can all but prove to you that your wife is happy  Your wife is silent.  Most blacks over the age of 25 were relatively silent on civil rights until the tide started to turn.  Pretending that things weren't as bad for blacks as Northern whites were describing was pretty simple to do.

The efforts to maintain segregation became a complex, intricate, and expertly executed campaign.  The campaign struck people where they would feel it the most.  The average Greenwood citizen was made to believe that if they let integration occur that they would lose their children.  Their children would marry blacks who, according to the campaign were beast-like illiterates.  Many believed that blacks were more sexual than whites.  Why did they believe these things?  Do you believe the earth is round?  How do you know?  Have you personally conducted science experiments to prove it or do you just know because that's what someone in authority told you?

Obviously, I don't support or condone racism or people who ignore racism.  But if I seek only to distance myself from the "white Southerner" and lump then all in with Byron De La Beckwith, then I'm missing an opportunity to learn an important lesson about human nature.  I've forced myself to really ponder whether or not I would have the eyes to see past the rhetoric and see the oppression of the people around me if I was a white middle class person living in Greenwood in the 1960s.

What I know is that Booker Wright provided that opportunity for many Greenwood whites.  He did something that removed their blinders.  And for that, I am thankful.

Family Silence

A few weeks ago I was in Alaska and someone in the audience asked a question that comes up a lot.  "How has this experience impacted your family...are they proud..has it brought them joy....?"  I tried to briefly explain how every step we take to honor Booker Wright comes with the a deepening knowledge of what was lost. So, it's been painful.  The audience was satisfied.

If they only knew.

Sometimes the tiniest details can bring out the strongest reactions in my family. Person A will say that Person B did XYZ.  Person B's cousin will wonder why Person B never mentioned doing XYZ to them.  The cousin feels hurt, left out, and they question why Person B kept this from them.  Even if XYZ is a small detail, it makes the cousin question other things about Person B.  The cousin doesn't know how to feel about the relationship they once had.  Was it all a lie?  They can't get to the bottom of it because Person B is dead.  An unanswerable question has been planted in the cousin's mind and the only way to get rid of it is to forget.

The cousin becomes a lot less talkative.  They stop returning my calls and may even discourage others in the family from talking to me.  Person A will start to feel guilty about stirring up pain and will also pull away from me or, at a minimum, show extreme caution the next time .

Every time I get on the phone with someone in my family they act like anything they say might appear in my book.  The fact is, they're right.  I'm collecting all of these stories for a reason.  So, part of me understands their discomfort.  Part of me has a hard time with it, though.  I'm trying to get as close to the truth as possible.  There are so many things about Booker that I will never know.  But I want to get the details that I can correct.  I don't want to be wrong.

Multiple this by 20 details, one hundred conversations, countless moments and lots of dead ancestors with skeletons in their closets.

One of the topics that comes up again and again when I talk to audiences about my grandfather's story is the idea of family silence within communities of color.  So many adults simply don't know their family stories, oftentimes because those stories are ones of humiliation and pain.  Aside from details here and there, a knowledge of a place of birth, a marriage, a death, so many of us don't know the ins and out, the stuff that glistens from the nooks and crannies.  We don't know and we don't think to ask.  We live with each other day in and day out unconcerned about what came before us.  Until someone comes knocking and unearths it all.

People change their stories.  Loved ones hide from me.  I don't always know why.

I do know that losing someone you love is indescribably painful.  Finding out later that they weren't who you thought they were is something else altogether.

"Finishing the Hat"

Sometimes I just want to write.  Not rewrite.  Not edit.  Or revise.  Years of research and thousands of hours of writing have produced 85,000 words of text that make up the work of my life.  I’ve never worked this hard on any single endeavor.  Ever. 

I tell myself that once I reach a milestone like finish an outline for my agent, research this aspect of the Mississippi River, refine my perspective on the effects of integration, tighten the syntax on that chapter, get the entire book to a readable place so that others can start reading for me, and on and on…once I reach this milestone I’ll blog, do my laundry, clean my house, call my dad, organize the millions of papers my kids have brought home from school…but there is always another book-related milestone rising up in front of me before the current one is done. 

It seems over-simplified to say that I am exhausted.  Sometimes it takes all of the discipline, power of the human spirit, carpe diem, and all that jazz that I can muster to even open up my laptop and start again.  I haven’t taken a day off in months.  I write and I write and I write and when I look up I realize that there is still so much more writing to be done. 

There are things about my book that are like a mad, hot love affair. Paragraphs that so capture exactly what I want to say, that when I read them my heart sings.  For every paragraph like that there are hundreds of others that look at me with weary eyes like half dressed, hungry children wondering when I will find a solution for them.  In the words of Booker Wright, “I’m on my way.”

I like to do endurance events.  I work out a lot because I can justify putting off my writing to take care of my body.  I ran a half marathon and completed a metric century, but those things are a cakewalk when compared to the persistent effort required to complete a book.  Too much time being unfocused and I can lose it.

The truth of each moment that needs to occur in my book come together to make up a pile of wordless feelings.  My job is to put all of those moments down in a compelling order, described in a way that illuminates them – all this while sticking like a magnet to the truth of history.  Every detail, every moment must be fact-checked and double checked.  If I work too slowly, I can lose the essence of the story that’s in my soul, too quickly and I can do it a disservice, failing to properly translate it into words. 

The intangible science of writing is tormentingly fascinating.  I watch myself with awe.  Sometimes I wonder what will happen to me if I finish this book and no one reads it.  The world is full of artists like me – people who did the work, put in the time, let their very lives slip away so that they could finish the hat.  I know that this work is creating in me character.  I know that at the end of every writing session, just like with weight training, I am that much stronger, I am that much better as a writer.  Sometimes I watch the elite athletes who win marathons.  Some of them cross the finish line looking frail, spent, and exhausted, falling into the arms of complete strangers who congratulate and catch them at the same time.  I get it.  

Oh, and if one more person says, "You haven't finished your book yet," I might burst into flames.  

A Meeting in Meridian

He wouldn't come out of his cell.  I traveled all the way there, stayed in a hotel, had a friend take off work to go with me, and he wouldn't come out of his cell.

This was the one variable that I had not prepared myself for.  The paperwork was processed.  We went through the crazy security process, where the guards were sure to subtly remind us over and over again that they could curtail our visit.  In the end, just when I knew we'd jumped through all the hoops, word came down from his floor that he would not see me, he would not come out of his cell.

I don't know if it's a game or fear or maybe something else.  I felt stupid.  I put myself in a position with him where he had the power.  I gave him that and he used it.  Maybe he was afraid.  He hasn't had a visitor in years.  I want to have sympathy for him and to assume the best, but I'm not there yet.  I'm angry and sad.  I promised myself that no matter how things went that day, that I would let go of this piece of the puzzle, I would stop looking so closely at the murder.  I said that when I thought I would see him.

I'm still on the fence about next steps.  I'm focusing on other things...working on other chapters...pulling my book together without the answers I was hoping for.

I want to write to him to ask what happened.  But I wonder why he hasn't written to me to tell me.  I don't want to be in relationship with a mad man, with the man who shattered my family with a blast of pellets.  I feel like I started something that I want to stop, but can't.  I feel like a fool.

Silence

I’ve been silent because I know that I need to write about what happened when I went to see Cork.  I can’t write about that, yet.  That’s it.  I’ve written down the details, but nothing else.  They’re waiting on my laptop for me to revisit them and bring them to life with more details and a description of my emotions.  I just can’t to it, yet.  That’s the story. 

Guilt

I keep writing about this meeting that I’m going to have on Sunday because I feel numb every time I think about it and in my mind, feeling numb means covering something up.  I think, or I hope, that in these writings I am getting closer to the core of what’s eating at me.

Last night I was sitting on a friend’s couch trying to find the words to describe my apprehension.  Whenever I express concern about going, people usually remind me that there will be guards, etc.  But I’m not afraid that Cork will harm me.  Deep, deep down I feel a certainty that when I sit across from him I will be assaulted, not by him, but by a suffocating sadness. 

Cork started getting arrested when he was 14.  The first time was because he’d stolen pots from a department store and was caught trying to sell them.  He was extremely poor.  I often wonder what he was going to buy with that money.  Drugs weren’t prevalent in Greenwood back then.  I keep thinking that maybe he was just hungry.  Maybe he needed money for food.  Maybe he needed help instead of punishment.

By the time he was 22 he’d been arrested 18 times, and then he killed Booker Wright.  He went to jail, then prison, and has been incarcerated for the last 39 years.  What kind of a life is that?  What bothers me about our visit is that I don’t really care about him, and I don’t think that anyone else does either.  I'm meeting with because I want to take something from him, his memories. 

I will walk in there with my Nordstrom jeans on, and sit across for him for as long as it pleases me to do so, then I will leave and never look back.  I will step into this life of loss and tragedy for my own gain.  What will it be like to sit across from someone who hasn’t been able to spend their time how they want to, or hop in a car and go for a drive on a whim?  It’s like realizing all of a sudden that I am coated with a putrid, nose-burning, un-concealable stench of privilege.  I wonder if this is what white guilt feels like.