Maxine Waters' Town Hall

August 22, 2009--Me and Tinq attended a town hall meeting at Southwestern College in Los Angeles, CA to hear what folks had to say about the hot button topic of Health Care Reform. Congresswoman Maxine Waters was the featured speaker along with a panel of distinguished guests including health care professionals who administer to the greater Los Angeles area. The energy was static and you could feel the urgency of the standing room only crowd in the theater as people lined up for a turn to voice their opinion on the mic. Their intent: to ask congresswoman Waters pointed questions or simply tell their stories of human betrayal by insurance companies and the current archaic system which fails to deliver adequate health care to themselves and their family--often resulting in death, dismemberment or permanent disability due to pre-existing conditions, lack of adequate coverage or sheer neglect. Here's a list of questions we asked the crowd of over 300 people

1. Can you afford health care?
2. How would government universal health care reform help you, your family, your community?
3. Why do you think people oppose health care reform?
4. What did you think about the town hall meeting?
5. Did it help you better understand or clear up issues concerning the reform bill?
6. How will you act from this day forward?
7. What do you think other industrialized countries think about the current U.S. debate?

The Health Care Bill is a document of over 1100 pages. One of Congresswoman's Walters Aides simplified the Bill to large posters displayed on the stage, which made it easily comprehesible to the audience. The town hall meeting was highly informative and brought a regional swath of the country together who are concerned with the lack of adequate and accessible care. Most thought that Health Care should be a right like the 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech. One of the doctors on the panel gave the WHO (World Health Organization) definition of Health which includes mental, physical, social, spiritual and economic well being. A concensus of all who attended when asked about those who oppose Health Care was fear and ignorance. One woman was appalled that no major media outlet covered the town hall meeting, especially because Congresswoman Waters hosted the event. We spoke with a young mother who informed us that Kennedy, her baby daughter, was in danger of not having health care benefits due to state budget cuts. When asked what other countries thought about the current U.S. debate, Raul said that they probably think we are ignorant bullies. He has friends and family members in Mexico and Spain and and other places that have free health care. He commented on the irony of America going around the world engaging in war and telling everyone else how to run their affairs, but sadly...we can't even provide health care for our own.

You Never Miss Your Water...

I went to the Hollywood Bowl in August with Otim, Yusef and family to see Barrington Levy, Beres Hammond and UB40. Of course Beres turned it out with "Who say a big man don't cry? You never miss your water 'til your well run dry." And me and my extended fam were up on our feet jammin' to the cool reggae sounds of none other than the man himself. Otim couldn't figure out why Beres didn't get top billing, but there are some mysteries like Britain's unemployment form that UB40 took it's name from that will never be resolved. It was the first and only concert I attended this summer. I was supposed to see Seun Kuti (one of Fela Kuti's musically gifted sons) but was handling business on the east coast. Now it's back to the grind since the semester started this week. Yusef called last night before teaching his creative writing class at SMC (Santa Monica College) just to check in cuz he hadn't heard from me in a week. I told him I was busy on my grind...thinking, prepping and preparing for the opening week. Critical Race theory and the African Diaspora with a focus on culture and identity politics seems to be the appropriate flavor--what with Michelle and Barack Obama positioned for the upcoming presidency. I had students study Michelle's opening speech and Barack's acceptance. A truly historic moment (Can you feel it? huh, huh, huh?) Most people could and even though I was teaching I had a sense that something was in the air. Regardless of what set you claimin' (Republican, Democrat, Independent) like the Chambers Brothers sang " Time has come today." Or the Ojay's "People get ready, there's a change a comin'...." Both songs inspired folk to rise to the occasion and dare to have "The Audacity of Hope" as Barack proffers. Today I received an email from Michelle speaking about what she saw when he accepted the nomination. She said, "The first time I ever heard Barack speak was at a community meeting on the South Side of Chicago. He won me over with the same message that inspired millions last night. He told people who'd been knocked down that , despite everything, we need to set our sights on a better place around the bend--and that it's up to each one of us to fight for it."  I was moved by both speeches which conicidentally were made on the same day the Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the mall in front of the Lincoln memorial in Washington, D. C. I watched Michelle and Barack speeches after my last class and after hopping on the 5 and heading north to Los Angeles. I was filled with anticipation because I had missed calls from friends who watched it as it was broadcast on CNN. One of the things that makes me get up in the morning and continue to teach despite Swartzenegger's budget cuts to education is when I walk into class and see the faces in the crowd, some familiar and some that I have yet to know...all hungry for knowledge, all eager for the promise of education and what that might mean to them and their family's future. I'm not naive enough to think Barack is the panacea or the super hero that will save us from government mismanagement and the fear and paranoia that's been bred over the last eight years in this country and around the world. But I do believe what he says about a quality education...that everyone deserves one, and that everyone must be able to go to college and become a participant in the long awaited change that only we as a unison, non-partisan society can bring about. We have much work to do and with Barack at the controls, the faith in leadership of this country may very well be restored. It's gangster...and I want to thank him for stepping up to the plate and thinking outside 'the box' with cats like , Cesaire, Chisolm, DuBois, Diop, Einstein, Ghandi, Lumumba, Mandela, Mother Teresa, Nkrumah and Ida B. Wells. Classes were full at City (some were overloaded) and I tried to stay within my cap, but refused to turn students away. I look forward to studying the events of the November election this semester. We are truly living in a historic moment that will ripple throughout time for decades to come.

If You're Black...

"Get Back...Get Back...Get Back to where you once belong," sang the Beatles in  '69. For me those lyrics conjure up Sly & the Family Stone's way back in the day utterance that most young folk (unless your like Gracie and studying the deep roots of Hip Hop) have no idea what the lyrics, "Don't call me nigga, whitey," and the call's remix , "Don't call me whitey, nigga" mean. A '69 verbal standoff of racial epitaphs during a time of political and social upchuck in a' merica and, by extension, the world. Music was major and moved minds and derrieres from L.A. to Nigeria to act-- to change individual, community, environmental or politics du jure.  

  Why in the world are y'all black folks so angry? Still? Or to quote the Incredible Hulk before he transmutes into the chartreuse creature who unleashes unbridled anger to the brink of raging fury, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."  But the Hulk, although green, represents whiteness, and if you're white and male (or in Hillary's case female) it's alright--even healthy to express your anger. But for young black men such as my grandson, Shaequawn Nagee, and for the generations of young black men and women that came before him, who were forced to bite their tongues and supress their emotions until the birth of Hip Hop, it's time to speak.

 After the dust settles from the recent presidential nomination of Barack Obama (can you believe it?), take a moment and study history (in the case of black folks), the history of the African Diaspora. Inherent in the literature, lyrics and music--you'll hear and perhaps begin to understand the deep well containing our emotional conundrum or divided soul that WEB Dubois speaks of describing our love/hate relationship with a'merica. Within the deep cool of our wellness a kaleidoscope of faces, (riffing off Derek Bell) exists. Our emotions including anger, love, forgiveness, and humor help us, not only survive in the  diaspora, but, moreover, to transcend it. We play the dozens aka snaps--or verbal sparring, which is our cultural inheritance from Africa, using it in order to contain our anger in the face of American and European terrorism in the form of colonization, Jim Crow laws, debt peonage, racial apartheid, neo-colonialism, rape and lynching for crimes such as "bumping into a white man's horse" or "standing in the way of a cool breeze." But to get to that level of consciousness is to get to the blackness of our human nature. And who wants to do that? It's easier to continue to stereotype us as angry black brutes or hyper-sexed hoes. For whites to fight against their invisible privilege it helps to think of this visual metaphor--walking against a forward moving airport tram. The media pundits, who swerve all over the rainbow forewarn us, including future president Obama to chill...on the anger tip. Better to stay yellow-mellow, like Tiger Woods, who vacillates between his Afro-Asian identity, even when Golf magazine features a noose on the front cover in an article about the golfer after it was suggested by a journalist that the only way for less gifted players to best him was to beat him up in a back alley and lynch Woods. Say What?  White America swore it was just kidding...and that blacks are simply too sensitive. It's important to remember that slave masters once rubbed salt in open wounds after applying up to 200 lashes to black backsides. Some died. Some healed and continued to repress their anger.

I must direct you to read Audre Lorde's (former poet laureate of NY) "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" (published in 1984). Lorde interrogates the notion of black anger, discussing its progressive use along with  a critique of inherited privileges bestowed by a racialized culture upon white women (particularly in the university arena) and white folks in general. This information is necessary intellectual ammo and is also helpful before your emotional barometer accelerates past O.C.   

On the real yo...we're not nearly angry enough, seduced by crumbs like the so-called "economic stimulus check" I received in the mail yesterday (this is not reparations yo), which is one reason why we aren't raising our voices about soaring gas prices

reported by AAA today @ a nationwide average of $4.04 per gallon, while speculative oil companies such as Exxon made over 40 billion thus far in 2008. And the 5.5% unemployment rate--the highest in twenty years, and the continual deployment of young people in Bush's falsified war aka Iraq in order to establish an ongoing military presence in the middle east to keep oil prices inflated (it costs $2 a barrel to produce yet it's hovering at $134 a barrel on the NYSE) tricking our over-amped minds into red-orange-yellow alerts so we believe the current government is protecting us from terrorism.  

How you livin'? 

If you're white, you're right

If you're yellow, you're mellow

If you're brown, stick around

If you're black, get back

get back, 

get back to where you once belonged....

Fyah on the Mountain...

It's me standing in front of Haycock mountain in the field where I used to play. In the field where I'll build my house one day. I picked this spot intentionally so I could look east, give thanks to the ancestors and meditate on the mountain in the morning as I'm writing. Can't wait to get back home so I can camp out at the old house, just behind the hedgerow, watch deer, rabbits, turtles and geese gaggling by the stream that flows into Tohee, finally overflowing into Lake Nockamixon. Can't wait, because I feel like my head's going to explode and I just might hurt somebody. It's been a long semester yo. Carole and I stood in this same field in the pouring rain this past winter, gathering brush and multiple rose that Dave (our brother) cut on the weekend when he wasn't working his regular j.o.b. We're a crew, Chapman C. Johnson & Sons & Daughters...working together to maintain and continue the legacy left to us by our parents. And oh yes, we have our differences and certainly don't always agree or get along, like most normal families, but when it comes time to handle business...we simply do. Perhaps it's because we are stake holders and know what's at stake--our land, our freedom our future for future generations to come. 

Can't wait to see Gracie. She's taken to calling her Nan every day to plan her 13th birthday party, check on my sanity and make sure I come home soon so she can wrap her arms around me. . Don't know if I've accomplished anything this semester as far as teaching is concerned. Tuesday, for instance, I stood in the quad outside my office listening to a group of students argue about their group presentation. They wanted my advice and what I didn't tell them was that at this point in the semester I barely can focus, let alone have any words of wisdom to bestow. But I listened to them speaking about their group process, which was trying everyone's patience and last nerve. The argument escalated and became quite heated. At one point it seemed as though they were going to throw blows. They talked over, under and around each other, refusing to listen... to each other or to me. I had to remind them that although Europeans hate each other, they manage to squash their differences long enough to let's say...enslave and colonize Africa. And now we, the descendants of this madness, kill and maim each other--on the continent and the diaspora over petty differences, like colors and territory we don't even own or he said/she said sour grapes. Greed Breeds Evil Deeds. There's too much to live for, too much work to do. Conflicts can be resolved if we stop, look and listen. Read history in order to avoid repeating it is also useful.  It' just too easy to be the proverbial happy darky, sassy sapphire or xenophobic zip coon.  So please yo, stop the coonin' and recognize, "there's fyah on the mountain and nobody seems to be on the run." One day when the river overflows we'll wish we had....

 

Mama May Have...

Women farmers have been holding it down, making groceries as it were, since goddess knows when...Got tired of all that foraging and moving about from from place to place. These days most of us don't even know how food gets on the table and depend on supermarkets and huge warehouses to get our grub on. I come from a long line of women farmers and in summer 07 passed this knowledge on to the young girls in my family. Me, my grandaughter Imani, her friend Rachel and Niara my grandniece pictured here clearing brush as we reclaim some of our land that's been overgrown by Cedars and Multiple Rose. I wrote about our experience--a short story titled "Makin' Groceries" which will be published in the Hunger and Thirst anthology ( forthcoming 2008 City Works Press). The tale I wove is layered...stories within stories-The Ant and the Grasshopper rmxd which my daddy, Chapman Custine Johnson, used to tell us all the time when he had us out in the field pickin' rocks and preparing the ground before planting. It also contains an Anansi story, which is a remix of Anansi and Grandfather Thunder. The moral of the story (there's always a moral) is about the consequenses of greed. In the end Anansi is shamed and runs away. The old ones say that he's been seen where the bush ghosts hakilele on the famished road. I saw some of the harvest, but had to leave as it piqued and return to Cali and teaching. Carole took over distributing food...we had so much after giving it to family and friends in the surrounding area she took veggies to the food bank and her church in Philly. The harvest kept coming and coming until finally the first frost hit the pumpkins and peppers, tomatoes and zucchini. In the story "Nan" who is a
matriarchal character based on none other than yours truly tells the girls that zucchini are magical cuz when you pick em the next day there's a giant one hanging on the vine. Billie Holiday (Strange Fruit) sings, "Mama may have, Papa may have...but God Bless the Child Who has his own." True dat, 'specially in these days and times when we seem to have forgotten the lessons that help us survive in a world focused on greed and consumption rather than preparing for prosperity. There is enough for everyone... there is no need for war. We can tap the sun's energy, change our lifestyles, recycle--if only we remember the cycle of planting and the ensuing harvest that will surely come. Here's a pumpkin for Niara!

A Woman's Gotta Write...

Me and my sister Carole were cleaning stalls on this chilly January morning. It was so cold that she had to hammer the ice in the trough so the cows could drink. There is something about shoveling shit...for me its a glutinous metaphor, representing life in the Diaspora. Tonight after African American Art class, Selina walked me to my office and told me she was @%$*@%# disgusted--couldn't believe the foolishness of Fat Tuesday, not in the Mardi Gras sense but in the sense that black women voted for Hillary because she was a woman. What can I say about platforms--shoes or stages where we don masks for all the world to see? I have issues with a woman who doesn't know what's going on in her own backyard, trying to run a country, yet breaking down in public; or at least seemingly breaking down when its convenient and on various occasions to garner the symp vote. But symp rhymes with pimp and somehow I feel like we been played. I could be wrong, but I come from a long line of African female farmers, teachers, thinkers, doers who can't really afford to shed tears at the drop of a chignon. Like Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, when Dr. Norcom stalks her, Mrs. Norcom turns her head the other way or blames the victim-- young slave women whose children were fathered by her husband, the good doctor. At one point in the slave narrative, Jacob's writes that Mrs. Norcom sold some of the babies fathered by her husband because she wanted new furniture. How easily we forget the relationship between ourselves and white women who find it convenient to stand with Daughters of Africa only when it suits them. Mama uses to say, "It's terrible when it suits." And to quote Public Enemy, "Can't Trus' It" when it comes to old girls tears. 

My sister Carole, our family matriarch, has tremendous weight on her shoulders. When I'm back home I share the weight cleaning stalls,

 burning brush, chopping cedars, recycling, mowing grass, planting the garden during the day and writing at night, which she scolds me for like mama, who warned me about burning the candle at both ends. But a woman's gotta write what a woman's gotta write when a woman's gotta write it.  

Selina wrote a brilliant journal about double consciousness and masking,  which she read in class tonight. The question is... what lies behind the mask? Paul Laurence Dunbar referred to the double consciousness of African people in the Diaspora and the mask "...that grins and lies/that hides our cheeks and shades our eyes/ this debt we pay to human guile/with torn and bleeding hearts we smile/ and mouth with myriad subtlties/ we wear the mask"...still.  And Gwendolyn Brooks writes, I've stayed in the front yard all my life/ I want a peek at the back/Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows. A girl gets sick of a rose.  Take off your mask, pay attention to your own back yard...then holla back.

Happy Hollow Daze

Flew into Philadelphia International last night to visit family for the hollow daze. The reason for the synonymous spelling is to focus attention on the hyper-commercialization of big business, backed by slave/colonial fortunes and invested in marketing and advertising in order to slip thier subliminal hand deep in our pockets to satisy the artificial needs/wants of loved ones, of our selves. And we open wide, allowing them to suck after hypnotizing us into zombie like participation by consuming whatever it is they have in stock, on the warehouse shelves....I saw it first hand tonight, visiting my nephew Will's family in Bethlehem, PA. The artificial Christmas tree was lit--dressed with bulbs, garland and tinsel. An agel rested on the treetop, beneath which lay a mountain of presents that had been opened earlier that afternoon. His little girl, Coral, was coloring in front of the tree, but soon decided that she wanted to play with several cans of playdough. Her mama suggested that she wait until tomorrow because it was getting late and playdough can be quiite messy. Coral became angry, told her mama "no" and commenced to pout and then to cry. Then to my surprise, started kicking the rest of the presents and throwing them about until her mama threatened to "get the hot sauce," which seemed to calm her down.

Things have gotten out of hand. No matter what we get, whether we deserve it or not, we want more and more...and more. Gone are the daze of apples and oranges and home made cookies in stockings hanging from a makeshift brick carboard chimney; brand new socks and drawers, coloring books and crayons. Tonight I looked out of the backdoor of our farmhouse remembering how the snow fell across fallow fields. There is a full moon tonight and as I looked up at the mountain draped in the last rays of twilight, I remember the nights of laughter and love in this house; remember mamma coming home from work from the stocking factory or her day job cleaning and cooking Christmas dinner; remember the effort my sisters Pat, Carole and Peg put into making butterscotch and peppermint candy wreaths to hang from the doors; remember days of walking the stream and hunting crows feet to make the wreaths look authentic; remember digging sassafrass roots in the woods to make tonic that we'd need to cleanse our bodies come spring. When we couldn't afford a tree, daddy would come home after work at the brick yard, go to the woods down by the old house and chop down a cedar. And although the branches were oftentimes sparse, we'd make up for it by popping corn and stringing it as garland or making colored paper chains, or handmade ornaments from salted cookie dough. In Stations Audre Lord warns about this never ending hunger, warns about our fear that can never be satisfied. More than likely there are complex reasons for Coral's temper tantrum, but I believe it's a metaphor for a larger conundrum we face in American society. We need to be still on this Chilly Christmas evening, take time and reflect upon the true meaning of this time whatever our beliefs might be. It's time for family. Time for love. Time for small acts of kindness that accumulate, balance, and harmonize what has become the hollow daze of our increasingly complicated lives.

Her Hands in My Hair...

Florence W. Williams crossed over to the ancestral zone on Wednesday, December 12, 2007. Born November 8, 1911 in the Elmwood section of Philadelphia, PA. she was 96 years old. My dear lovely auntie, who used to straighten the thick of my hair on Saturday mornings in my mama's kitchen. I will miss her hands in my hair, miss her stern look when I was actin' a fool, her beautiful smile, the twinkle in her eye when she shared secrets with me that shaped me into the woman I am today. Later, I'd grow locks and she never quite adjusted to the style to say the least.

She promised me one night while I was sleeping, to sneak into my room with scissors sharpened and cut off one by one my twisted locks. Her guilded instrument, seal and deliver the Cyclops. My crown lopped and falling beneath shoulders, bare ropes tangled. My strength cascaded round my head as one eye opens--splay the wounded mane, a trophy in the darknes. Steal the lambs lost, dare the dead. What did she know of summer shadows draped on bedroom walls? Of cracks that sing soprano under floorboards. Splintered rough and calloused claws of sparrows, small breasted summoner of twilight vigils beneath towers crumbling covenants with God? Still I loved her irons that curled the blackness. The sizzle of blue unguents and green pomades that tamed wild roots. Ordered them lie down, preserved in smoky parlors, shoot by shoot on steamy Saturdays. "Be still" and enter Shirley's temple, refined with offerings of singed rags and burnt sacrifice of earlobes elegant on protracted afternoons of beauty. A list of stylized possibilities that were never mine.

Come out, come out wherever you are...

I returned to teaching this fall. Didn't realize how much time it takes, especially away from the research. I feel like I've enlisted in the "darkness visible." The hypergraph in me is excited for the semester to end. Love teaching, just like I imagine LDB loved spreading the word, healing the spirit. Got multiple writing projects--irons smoking in the ink & fire and it's time to come out and play. . One thing that I was able to accomplish during the semester was launching Blacksong, the digital archive of my matrilineal family history. I worked with Otim Oloya--one of the best as far as graphic designers go; an all around creative genius doing dirty deeds on the Left coast. We worked together on weekends and in mid-November launched Blacksong which can be accessed at www.djamsay.net. It's a work in progress, like the genealogical study of the Blackson Clan. During the hollow daze the plan is to complete the first phase of the archive. Big Ups Oteezy. I couldn't have done it without you baby.

Tu Madre

Happy Mamma's Day to All My Girls. The holiday's spiritual history dates back to ancient Kemet (aka Egypt). The celebration of the African Goddess Isis as the original mother of mothers of the pharonic line transforms and translates to others as well. Popular culture attributes the holiday's origin to the Greeks celebrating Rhea and the Roman Cybele as the first observed holiday. Most images on cards, web sites and magazines picture a European-type woman with suckling child, which is a striking resemblance to Isis cradling her infant son Horus. Why the sublimal erasure of history venerating women of color? "Bom-chika-wom-wom"-- the "Dozens" is a trope, figure of speech, or game of verbal sparring. It also refers to slaves who were auctioned by the dozen because they were elders or were mentally compromised. Rooted in west African traditions, during slavery playing the Dozens becomes a highly developed language arts skill, especially when it came to "Yo Mama" or "Tu Madre." Making a verbal come back when someone insults "yo mama" is a sign of wisdom, social grace and advanced mental wit, necessary for survival in a society where mothers, aunts, grandmothers and sisters could be beaten, raped or sold on a whim. As previously noted in his sketch, LDB mentions his mother Hannah's father (Palice Abrutas Darram) and his two children who were stolen from Africa and sold into slavery. He doesn't mention his grndfather Darram's wife nor her fate. Was she killed during a village raid? Raped on the slave ship that brought her to the Caribbean? Did she commit suicide or die from one of the infectious diseases in the ship's hull? Whatever her fate, Mama Darram, I celebrate your ancestral presence and all other women who work endlessly to protect thier family and extended family today.

Africans Resist

African rulers were coerced into selling thier own people or neighboring tribes into a very different slavery than what was practiced on the continent (Equiano). The choice: either raid villages, kidnapping your neighbors' wives, children and elders and sell them to European traders whose ships lay anchored off the coast, or to be sold themselves. This was not the case for all rulers, most notably Nzinga an Angolan warrior queen who resisted the Portugese in the early 17th century. She met with the governor, representing her brother the "ngola" (king). Here's another case of name switching or misinterpertation of names by Europeans who dubbed the entire country "Angola." Nzinga arrives at Luanda decked out in royal finery. She peeps game, realizing that the only seat in the room belongs to the governor. She calls over one of her girls who falls on her hands and knees and Nzinga takes her place on a human seat in the history of African resistance. She could not be moved, even though the governor tries to dehumanize...tries to debase her royal status and thow her off center. The governor's plan backfires, and the meeting results in a treaty on equal terms. Leaders like Nzinga are inspirational and like her predecessor Joan of Arc, who struggled against British oppression, her fight against the Portugese should be included in a curriculum marking African people as human agents of social change.

The African Diaspora

Throughout this blog I refer to the African Diaspora, which for the most part is understudied in educational institutions. It puts students at a considerable disadvantage unless they pro-actively delve into the history of slavery and colonization. The Portugese were one of the first European nations to engage in the slave "trade," which is a serious misomer, since those who were sold reaped no economic benefit. Ibn Battuta (in his Rhila or journey, 1325-1354 A.C.E.) writes about the splendor of Kilwa, a city which dominated east African coastal trade. Reaching the city in the mid-15th century and armed with superior weaponry, the Portugese massacred the people and sacked the city, planting thier flag while their priest looked on. Red arrows on the map indicate a huge population dispersal of various ethnic groups (estimates are anywhere from 10 to 60 million) to the Caribbean (a central distribution point) and Brazil which was a Portugese stronghold in "the new world." This map helps the viewer imagine where people from the continent were scattered. Although it was outlawed in the early 19th century, Africans were still imported illegally to north America. This scattering or broadcast of DNA (genetic seeds) across land masses and oceans causes us to recombine in ways which forever altered the future of who we have become. Although the soil was rife with adversity, we took root and "flowered," as Bob Marley sings in Redemption Song, in the coming generations. The dispersal is one reason, coupled with the inhumane system of slavery, for the mental fragmentation that keeps us in a state of psychological darkness or melancholy (the blues). Changing our ancestors' names from African to European ones also caused the mental dislocation of our identity. Most Africans in the Diaspora can only trace their heritage back to the mid to late 19th century using slave census records or maumission documents. Considered inhuman or "chattel" we weren't included in the U.S. census until the mid 19th century. What is significant here is the forced disruption and recombination of a human gene pool. Implications include physical, mental and spiritual ripples, which reach through time...both present and future unless we recover our past, arm ourselves with knowledge and think critically, like "strangers in a strange land," about who and what it is we have become.

Herbert Blackson & DNA

He sports a magnificant smile. Passed through his genes? Add him to me and the picture glimmers. Many paper trails lead to a “brick wall,” the term genealogists use to describe dead end leads or cold paper trails. The metaphor compounds around the beginning of the 16th century when Africans are scattered throughout the Americas, Caribbean, Europe and Asia (Diaspora). Brick walls are initially constructed via name switching, primarily by the clergy who sanction the business of slavery with blatant disregard for African naming practices. During the colonial era the practice evolves on the continent, with Africans adopting European first names while leaving their surname intact. The information in Lorenzo Dow Blackson's autobiographical sketch is crucial yielding more than most researchers discover in the beginning stages of the journey. What's in a name? Palice Abrutas Darram. Was it changed to Blackson? The science of DNA testing is ever evolving. I read arguments--both pro and con. Consider migration patterns and a relatively small database of samples from both Africa and its Diaspora for the evidence to be conclusive. Surnames and DNA are two ends that must be twisted together especially if your ancestors are African. I visit cousin Herbert "Herbie" Blackson, the family reunion chaplin. He tells me family stories and I dunk his cheek swabs into preservative. His DNA is submitted to a lab for chromosomal analysis of both Y and mtDNA (mitochondrial). I try not to be excited by the prospects of knowing our country (s) of origin. It takes several weeks for the results to come back, which reveal our lineage is rooted possibly in both Cameroon and Kenya. The results also show we have distant cousins in Antigua. Smile.

Palice Abrutas Darram

In LDB's "Sketch of the Author," he writes of his mother Susan's father whose name was Palice Abrutas Darram. He was sold into slavery with his son Mounch and his daughter Yambo. I will never know thier faces save in my imagination. I chose this mask as a visual representation of my ancestors who, according to DNA analysis and the MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) were from the west African country of Cameroon. This mask from Gabon is fitting and resonates W.E.B. Dubois' concept of African diaspora thought also known as double consciousness. Africans conditioned themselves to think and act one way within dominant European society (the slavocracy). Among ourselves, we demask relaxing our emotionally gaurded neo-nature, allowing our true self to emerge. Over the past five centuries (16th-21st) this type of psychological shifting caused the ambiguity observed in African populations throughout the diaspora today--in some cases they neither feel allegience to Africa, America, themselves or each other.

Lorenzo Dow Blackson

My interest in Blackson genealogy began in 1997. My cousin Joyce Jenkins, our family historian, was conducting fieldwork, searching through books and records in Delaware and Pennsylvania for seeds of our family’s history. Growing up, I hadn’t heard much about my mom’s side of the family, partly because the Blackson clan resided in Philadelphia and partly because my mom was guarded when it came to the subject of the past. One thing that's important to know about researching family history is that whatever you uncover may not be pleasant. This is especially true for Africans in the Diaspora, whose families were separated, whose traditions were lost or fragmented and the very way in which we precieve our identity has been forever altered. Fortunately one of our ancestors, Lorenzo Dow Blackson, published a novel in 1867 titled "The Rise and Progress of the Kingdoms of Light and Darkness." You can access the book online by clicking the Wright American Fiction link.