San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch.
Ajuan Mance
Starbucks, MacArthur Blvd, San Leandro, CA.
***
[Ralph] Ellison’s great conceit was that the black man was someone you couldn’t see; what [Anatole] Broyard understood was that sometimes the problem was that people could see him all too well …
–From “The Passing of Anatole Broyard” in Thirteen Ways of Looking at at Black Man by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Zocaló Cafe, San Leandro, CA.
***
My father could only sign
His name, but he’d look at blueprints
& say how many bricks
Formed each wall. This man,
Who stole roses & hyacinth
For his yard, would stand there
With eyes closed & fists balled,
Laboring over a simple word, almost
Redeemed by what he tried to say.
Outside Egbert Souse, Piedmont, Ave., Oakland, CA.
***
My People
The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.
Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
Perimeter Mall, Atlanta, GA.
We are beautiful people
With African imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants
with African eyes, and noses, and arms
tho we sprawl in gray chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.
Maggiano’s Restaurant, Perimeter area, Atlanta, GA.
XXVI
At the center of Being
Said the blackman,
All is tangential.
Even this laughter, even your tears.
–From “Twenty-Six Ways of Looking at a Black Man” by Raymond Patterson
Panera, South Shore Center, Alameda, CA.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–
I, too, am America.
–“I Too” by Langston Hughes
Ajuan Mance
Starbucks, South Shore Center, Alameda, CA.
I think different cultures have their rules and mores. I’d say the mores of the black community didn’t all come natural to me–I was terrible at basketball, but I had to play because it was the official neighborhood sport. I was an awful dancer, but at a black party there is one person who will be ridiculed more than the guy who can’t dance–the guy who doesn’t dance at all. That last point is key. The thing I came to love about my community was that they didn’t expect you to be a master, but they expected you to try, to fight–sometimes literally. If you saw ten dudes banking your homeboy, you had to help–not because you were Bruce Lee, but because that was your man, and you were expected to take the fall with him. Winning wasn’t the point.
–From “John McWhorter on Black Nerds” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Atlantic Monthly, November 24, 2008)
There are moments when an event or series of events makes it difficult to go about your everyday life in the same way or with the same mindset as before those events transpired. These moments, be they heartbreaking or exhilarating, illuminate aspects of our lives, our settings, and the people around us in new and often transformative ways. The late Audre Lorde described this phenomenon as a shift in the “quality of light” by which we see ourselves and the world around us. The acquittal of George Zimmerman is one such event. So much about the tragic death that led to Zimmerman’s trial revolved around the historic gulf between how so many Americans see Black men and how Black men see themselves. And, although I am African American, the death of Trayvon Martin and the fact that it grew out of one person’s perception, based solely on his appearance, that this teenaged boy represented a threat has caused me to consider my own consumption of films, music, television programs, and other media that reinforce the notion that Black men are dangerous, deviant, and lazy, except in the pursuit of criminal enterprise or sexual conquest.
I do not subscribe to the “positive images” doctrine of Black representation (whose adherents tend to believe that the only acceptable representations of African Americans resemble the characters on The Cosby Show). An emphasis on so-called positive images of Black people imposes its own pernicious form of erasure, of all U.S. Black folks whose comportment, dress, and/or diction falls outside of the realm of what some people have deemed as the “proper” performance of Blackness. Still, I am also aware that, despite the breadth of representations of Black people produced by independent artists, writers, and performers of African descent, these richly diverse portrayals are most often overshadowed by the more easily accessible programming and imagery produced and distributed through major media outlets and corporations.
And so, for the next week or so, beginning with my next post, I am going to going to feature the words of some of my favorite African American male writers, with an emphasis on the ways that they have depicted Black men. After each of the next several posts, I will include a brief quote from an African American writer that captures his own vision of Black men. I’ll try not to repeat writers, although, as an African American literature professor, I certainly have my favorites.
I hope you enjoy this brief tribute to the ways that Black men see themselves and each other.
Ajuan Mance