the unbearable heaviness of resilience

                                                          Black Beauty art collage, 2024 

                                                                            Pinterest

Man, I went through it when I came back home from Miami. Coming back to CA from anywhere can be hard, even if you're from here. I had to hustle with little resources and help Pops (again) who was in crisis. Once I got a contract position with the county, I settled into a house-pet sit stay in Marin closer to the old man. 

I rented from a boomer hippie lady, Compost Mary ( she was serious about composting ). The deal was, I look after her house and cat while she was traveling to South America. I still had to pay her a reduced rent for the few months stay.

Compost Mary went to Brazil where she had lived and married at one point in her life. Her two grown sons were gone; one living in Mexico, the other a rambler stage tech for festivals and shows. Semi-retired, all Mary had left was her tenant, a tall boomer dude from Huntington Beach who was a volleyball player in his youth. Huntington Beach is a strange place where everyone is either descended from Vikings or Themyscira.

Lurch, as Mary's son referred to him, was not a well person. Something happened to him; a breakdown or loss along the way. He spoke in a lot pseudo science and conspiratorial terminology; Libertarian-adjacent rhetoric. He decorated appliances in his room in tinfoil to deflect toxic microwaves in the atmosphere. 

Any fucking around with tinfoil person tends to be on an irrational frequency, not a good science one, but that's cool. I'm a kind and adaptable person.

Unfortunately, one week into my stay, Lurch began chatting me up about the 90s when he and his ex-wife would go to ecstatic swinger raves. It took me awhile to catch what was going on because I'm not responsive to a dude's retarded come on. I respond to realness, chile - not affectation or posturing. 

After a few of Lurch's anecdotes of white people high in ecstatic sexual revelry, I had to intercede: 

" Dude, let me stop you right there."  I said, hand up. " I'm not cool with listening to this. I just got back home to deal with my dad and started a new job. And please put your shirt on in the house. It's inappropriate." 

" It's hot!" He claimed. I've spent my whole life decoding the treacherous game of man, particularly those who assume corny 90s game is still viable. I think Lurch was still back there, lamenting the bygone days of Moby and The Chemical Brothers. He may have been attractive once, but that was lost like his center. A person who agonizes over how long it takes a Brita pitcher to drip doesn't have much of a center.

Lurch worked as a handyman at an SRO in Oakland, near Uptown; a notorious place of beat down humanity. To listen to him talk about the SRO, he felt superior to the residents there, not a part of them. He was the hero who fixed busted hotplates, unclogged toilets, and replaced lightbulbs. 

While she was in Brazil, Compost Mary and I would check in through WhatsApp. When I told her about the interaction with Lurch, her first response was, " Well, he hasn't ever been inappropriate towards me." 

She later said to me, jokingly " Maybe if I hadn't rented to the hot mulatta, it wouldn't have been a problem." 

This is the kind of shit we have to endure and hear, to be resilient in the face of, including from the mouths of so-called progressives. There's nothing about me that panders to that stereotype. That was her condescending racist perception. We experience a reverb in our heads - What the fuck did you just say?

I endure such word garbage because I am perceived as attractive, low-income ( the genteel way of saying poor ) and therefore, I have something to negotiate my way out of powerlessness, which in turn garners resentment from the women, including straight feminists. It's a distorted social pathology that is rooted in racism, like most things in America. 

Compost Mary cut her travel short due to the pandemic and returned home. There I was, stuck with the two of them and their odd symbiotic relationship. She asked that I be more civil towards Lurch since we were living in the same house.

" No.' I said. "I don't have to be civil to anyone who's been inappropriate towards me. Period." 

That was me expressing my resilience. I can draw a hard line in the sand with my word sword. 

I heard there was a black lady living in Compost Mary's community, married to a white dude. I never saw her come out of her house or on my walks out to the marsh. Not once. My sense was she kept to herself and husband, hiding out from the women. 

That sense came from the scrutiny I was subjected to. I left the house regularly to go to work because I had to in order to cope. I was a layered outsider: no pre-existing condition, low-risk age group, non-hippie, and brown. They were all about open hand this and open heart that, as long as I followed their kumbaya rules, didn't take up space, or wasn't perceived as a threat ( or someone who could bring the threat closer ). 

At the end of my entrapment, I got into a fight with Compost Mary. She abrasively put the squeeze on me after Lurch, like other souls struggling through the pandemic, was laid off. 

" I let you stay here out of the kindness of my heart!" She yelled." I want $ 250.00 for another week in my account today!" 

" Excuse me? " I said. "You white people are crazy! I paid you rent, watched your house, and cared for your cat with that creep in my face! Not another cent to you, lady! I'm fuckin out!" ( Channelling Big Mama Thornton over here ). 

I'm not playing The Secret Life of Bees or The Help to anyone. 

I had secured a spot back in Berkeley and moved in a few days early. I slept on the floor a few nights before I bought a foam mattress and frame from a graduating Cal student. It wasn't ideal, but my landlady was good people. At least I was back in the East Bay, away from Compost Mary's Stepford boomer community of pre-fab mobile homes and dream catchers. 

I saw Compost Mary a few years ago, coming out of the North Berkeley Bart station as I stopped at an intersection. I knew it was her - her stature similar to Nancy Reagan - big head and a small frame, descendant of midwest pioneers. She saw me, but I turned and drove on. She had shown me her true nature, her disdain, and for that she was dangerous to me. I wasn't a person, but an image of something that reflected her values - as long as I was asexual and complaint towards her. 

Without consideration, she added me to the 2020 census when it came to her house. I reported her to the Census Bureau that this was done without my consent. Compost Mary never took responsibility for her racist antics. A week after leaving scary ass Marin, I got a passive-aggressive text. 

" It's unfortunate things ended the way they did. I hope we can communicate again in the future." 

This is me being resilient into the future: Delete. Blockity block block! 

I did what I had to do to keep it together during that time, dealing with Pops' hardheadedness, working 10 hour days with a cohort of people committed to democracy, and content writing on the side. That was my life at the time - keeping myself calm, solitary, mapping a strategic plan to find a store that had toilet paper in stock. 

Marin was a bad trip. I ventured out to Petaluma, which was also a bad trip. People were in such a panic. I gathered a lot of intel on the American who has no control over what is happening and can't buy their way out of hard times. We already know that score through history. 

"Ma'am, stay back!" 

" I heard they're going to declare martial law." 

" Did that dude just take all the bottled water? Motherfucker!" 

All of that chaos, paranoia, and derision came down to one man - The Goon - the fascistic, incompetent president at the time. Those days were rough, but I believe in my own resolve. I go through whatever the experience is because it's inevitable that it will end or become something else. 

I've never been particularly fond of that word, resilient. I often hear it in relation to black women, as though we have it on lock, tethered to our being. We've been resilient for generations. It implies to me that we're doomed to go through the unbearable and yet somehow, bounce back. What if we don't? The resilient in our loneliness and despair. 

The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil." The base of resilire is salire, a verb meaning "to leap" that also pops up in the etymologies of such sprightly words as sally and somersault.

- Miriam-Webster

I was curious what other sisters thought, what they posted, or wrote me in reply. I transcribed what they shared: 

A compliment with a smirk

Preface: when I say ‘they’, ‘we’, ‘them’, I’m referring to the dominate, white, conservative, patriarchal, MALE society we live in now.

Resilience is a phrase used by a lot of people which means “wow, despite all the bullshit the world (we) throw at you, you keep overcoming the obstacles. What should have destroyed you or kept you quiet, but did not. Wow”! 

 Instead of saying “what else can we do to shut you up and keep you in line”? They’re so perplexed because we’re not suppose to be bright or resilient. Definitely not more strategic than them. So….they call it resilience. A compliment with a smirk.

It’s the same as calling Black women STRONG. It's truly exhausting. Unfortunately, the only option we have as Black women is to keep fighting, getting back up, being strong snd fucken resilient. If we’re not strong and resilient whose going to save/help, assist us? No one. Black women can’t depend on white women…the only women in our society that have any systemic power, even if that little power they hold is a sliver. A tiny sliver.    - Dimitria

Think for ourselves

In its most simple form, the ability to "bounce back". I see resiliency like a spring. Suppression only creates more power to come out later.

I've never thought about the over use of the word....but it is applied to us because we are constantly suppressed and constantly bouncing back. Think for ourselves, based on our own research, our own scholars, and teach our own children.   - Darnisha

Trying to be love

Trying to heal, while trying to grieve, while trying to live, while trying to dream, while trying to smile, while trying to give love, while trying to be love. - Chantal

Rest. Ask for help

Resilience is the ability to rise again and try again. We're always resilient because of the strong black woman trope. We need to rest, ask for help, say no, try to be prepared so we can reduce the amount of resilience we need to have.  - Tiffany 

Protect yourself

I don't really trust white people, I never have. They want what they want and they'll throw us under the bus to get it. Just pay attention and protect yourself.  - Miss Anita.   

Miss Anita's statement wasn't a condemnation of all white people, but of whiteness itself. She told me that after I shared my wacky Marinian story. Since then, having my own domain is a form of refuge and self-protection. Miss Anita reminded me of the importance of that. 

Miss Anita is an old school G, unafraid when intervention is called for. Pop is notorious for attracting trash people. I've rescued him a few times from junkie squatters to a shady IHSS aide grafting his SSDI money. I came home to smite one shady grafter, Diego. The most recent one was Terry.

Terry was a boomer white lady who reminded me of the 1970s CA bourgeoise; the women Charlie was marketed to, who adored Big Sur, Burt Reynolds, and Tom Selleck. Terry worked with me at elections during the 2020 primary. I knew something was off with her immediately. She had a learned affectation, trying to cloak her background. After a series of outbursts towards colleagues and voters, she was escorted out. She and Pop were residents at Hamilton, an independent senior living complex in Novato, which had been remolded from old army barracks. Two years after the election, Terry conned her way onto Pops case as an IHSS aide. IHSS doesn't really vet people as long as one has an ID and a social security number.

By 2022, Pop was on another paranoia loop with Hamilton and moved to a complex in San Rafael. He's always been on the move, even into old age, running from himself. Miss Anita was Pops primary caregiver and split a few days with Terry. By the summer of 2020, I was working in operations for a Berkeley institution - a 24/7 proposition. Miss Anita kept tabs on things and said Terry wasn't doing much. She would arrive and laundry would be piled up, dishes unwashed, his bathroom in bad shape. 

' Things keep comin' up missing. " Miss Anita said. "Something's not right with her."  

Terry also concocted the set-up seed in Pops head that he should transition to VA housing in Fresno, where he would be isolated and far from any immediate family. That was a clue right there - Terry's people were likely in Fresno. The grafter, the con, generally operates on the assumption that they're smarter than their target, but also those near to the target. 

I contacted Pop's caseworker and asked for Terry's contact information. The caseworker relayed back to me that she refused. Refused? Clearly she had lost her damn mind. 

I got up early in a King Kong Ain't Got Shit on Me! state of mind. I don't play with the morally corrupt that would exploit a poor, elderly black man who is family to me, even if we have a complex, busted relationship. 

" Miss Anita, I'm rolling out to Hamilton to shut Terry down." 

" I heard that. Can I come with you? " 

"You want to come? Sure." I said. "Regulators! Saddle up!" 

Always have a black woman on your side. I can access a decidedly hood-adjacent blackness that will scare the shit out of the nefarious. It's tempered, but serious, much like my grandmother. That's probably where I get it from. It comes from embedded pain,  defiance, and survival. Only zombies who intend to harm encounter that bitch. 

A part of the game I play with the old man is manipulation in order to protect him. Given his age and mental state, he lacks coherent objectivity. If a person is nice or listens to his nonsense, he believes that person to be a friend  who is "on his side." 

" Pop, I need you to call IHSS and get Terry off your case." I said. 

" She's bad news. If you don't, Miss Anita and I will walk right out the door and you're on your own. Do you understand what I'm telling you?" 

" Okay....and another thing, she had my debit card and $ 20.00 for some goodies." 

I'm used to it by now - the shit he gets himself into with shit people. In his reality this is actual living. I've tried to translate reality many times over the years. All I get is, "I said no! I'm not doing it! Stop giving me a hard time!" I should make a t-shirt with that poetic statement and wear it to his funeral. His message to God. 

I bowed my head, " Damn...alright, alright. Listen, call Terry and tell her we're on our way to get your card and money." 

We drove over to Hamilton, just off 101. Miss Anita told me to stay in the car, that she would deal with Terry. She had a good sense at the time, knowing that I would not be pleasant. After about 15 minutes, Miss Anita returned to the car. 

" Terry's scared. " She said. " She left Mr. H's things at the front desk. They wouldn't let me go up to her place." 

"Hmmm mmm." I nodded. " Because she knows I figured her shit out. Shady ass hag. Thank you for helping me with this mess." 

" Any time, darlin'." She said. " Poor Mr. H. You can count on me." 

I started the car. " What day is it, Miss Anita? " I asked, looking toward her. " It's The Negruhs are Comin Day!" 

Miss Anita howled with laughter, clapping her hands. Maybe there can be moments of joy found in resilience, heavy as it is. 

The Great Migration

Diaspora Destinations

Dedicated with love and gratitude to my grandmother, Mary Catherine Grayson, who made her migration from Alabama with my two year old father, Howard Earl, to Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1939.

© The Great Migration Series -  Jacob Lawrence, African-American  (1917 - 2000) 

Exodus 

We all have family stories that point to periods in African-American history. Consider if you’re from the Western US, you likely had ancestors who migrated west from Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, or Texas during the Great Depression or Great Migration.  The former occurred in two waves from the early to mid-20th century.  Historians debate the time frame for each since this was not formally recorded, although statistical data can be found to corroborate the increase of black populations in various Northern and Western cities between 1910 - 1970.  Stories were also shared through oral history and family artifacts.  

The First Great Migration began between 1910 - 1930 and the Second Migration at the onset of World War II, 1940 - 1970.  Until 1910 about 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the South.  The First Great Migration had 1.6 million people migrate to mostly industrial cities in the North.  

The Second Great Migration saw a surge up to 5 million people, which by then expanded west to California, Oregon, and other Western states. 

The Economy of Jim Crow 

There were several factors which precipitated the migration from the South; beginning with economics and extreme poverty.  Many black folks at the time worked under a sharecropping system where they in effect paid rent to landowners for the crops they cultivated and harvested.  This practice often kept farmers in continuous debt.  If they needed a mule, livestock, or equipment to cultivate, the landowner would purchase it and the sharecropper would go further in debt against what crops he/she could yield.  It was a cycle of exploitation and black folks had no rights under the law and severely restricted access to loans making the purchase of land for themselves nearly impossible. 

Positions in factories and industrial sectors of the cities also meant very low pay, far below that of white workers, and conditions were often dangerous.  Black women during this period worked primarily as domestics and cooks in white homes. 

Another factor which spurred migration was living under the Jim Crow Laws of the South at the time. These state and local laws enforced racial segregation, which were established by white Democratic-dominated ( Dixiecrat ) state legislatures in the 19th century after the Reconstruction period. These laws permeated all facets of public and private life - hospitals, schools, civic institutions, transportation,  and businesses were segregated throughout the South.  African-Americans had no rights or protections under Jim Crow.  Under this oppressive system, people lived under constant stress from the threat of violence, lynching, abuse, and exploitation. They had to become self-sufficient and created their own markets, trades, and local businesses. Even then, a black business could be burned out or dismantled ‘ legally’  if considered a threat to its white business owners. The irony of this is that black customers were often banned from supporting their own people so that white businesses could flourish, even if their product or service was substandard.  Although Northern cities were also segregated, there were still better opportunities and wages to be found in addition to more adequate housing.  At the beginning of the 20th century, the South largely remained an agriculture-based economy.  The North experienced an industrial boom and found a labor shortage. Businesses and manufacturers looked to the labor class of the South. 

 ‘ By 1920 post-war economic growth and a large migration of Southerners to the industrialized North had nearly doubled the city’s population to 993,678, an overall increase of 113% from 1910. Most startling, at least for white Detroiters, was the growth of the city’s black population to 40,838, with most of that growth occurring between 1915 and 1920. By the end of World War I over 8,000 black workers were employed in the city’s auto industry, with 1,675 working at Ford Motor Company. ‘ - The HenryFord.org, Collections and Research

© The Shoemaker (1945)  - Romare Bearden 

I pick up my life

And take it with me

And I put it down in

Chicago, Detroit,

Buffalo, Scranton…

I pick up my life

And take it on the train

To Los Angeles, Bakersfield

Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake,

Any place that is

North and West ---

                                                              

                                                             And not South.

                                        One-Way Ticket by Langston Hughes

The African Face of the North 

The First and Second Great Migrations had a profound impact on the culture and demographics of northern American cities. Until this point, these was primarily European settlements and immigration which had characterized cities such as Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Southern black migrants established communities in Detroit, the Roxbury section of Boston, Harlem in New York, the South sides of Chicago and Philadelphia, and West Oakland in the Bay Area. Southern cuisine and church life became interwoven into these communities, following the Baptist and Methodist traditions brought from the South. West Oakland had its largest black population during the Second Great Migration when the shipyards of the Bay Area had an employment boom during World War II. Black folks settled into what became a thriving area of the city with jazz clubs, restaurants, and local businesses. Although limited to those banks who would serve black applicants, folks were able to apply for home loans and purchase property. Although most US cities implemented a red-lining system, where blacks were restricted to certain neighborhoods, the San Francisco Bay Area was no exception. Red-lining kept black communities contained to protect white property value and affluence.

Still despite civic and financial restrictions of where black folks could live, they still had the opportunity to chart their own path, however difficult the endeavor. For many of their generation, a new life in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, or Seattle still represented freedom from the horrendous oppression they had escaped from. As a result of the Great Migration, Detroit became a major African-American city with a population of 82.7% as of the 2010 census.

The Harlem Renaissance became the cultural and artistic center of black life in New York City between 1918 to the mid-1930s. It was here that painters, writers, musicians, and scholars found community; many coming from the First Great Migration. The largest population of Southern blacks settled in this section of Upper Manhattan.

What is extraordinary about the Great Migration is that it is the story of us and our American experience. Each one of us can chart an ancestor from a point in Africa to the New World, to a slave, to a Southern migrant, and ending in the place where you come from. We are the living embodiment of our shared history; from family photos, stories of struggle and adaptation, long treks by car, bus or rail, in the pursuit of freedom within our own country. The context of our narrative always remains the same - we move through and on, we reinvent ourselves, and in the process we became a people. 

        

 © The Great Migration Series - Jacob Lawrence, African-American (1917 - 2000)

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly 

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise. 

© Blackbird 

Lennon /McCartney