An Elegy (of sorts) for Solomon Northup

I just finished reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Near the very end of the book there is a mention of the movie 12 Years a Slave and when I saw that film title flash upon the page, a forgotten and repressed memory came rushing back into my consciousness full force like a rogue, uncontrolled, steamrolling avalanche.

I need to set this up just a little bit. Please bear with me.

I have many black “facebook friends.” The vast and overwhelming majority of my black facebook friends don’t often “like” anything I post there. They never really have although this is more pronounced now more than ever. Years ago this bothered me. It doesn’t any longer. I do know precisely what kinds of things to post that would likely get many “likes” from a relatively large number of my black “facebook friends.” Thankfully, it is far more important for me to post things that represent how I really in fact think and feel, hold and process the world around me rather than simply posting things to garner the fleeting approval of any specific identity groups, including the black demographic that looms ever so large in facebooklandia, although apparently, from what I understand, not nearly as large as it does on Twitter. However, I’m not on Twitter.

OK, that’s the end of the needed set-up.

About a year and a half ago I was living as a homeless person in Oakland, CA, often with nary $3 to my name at any given moment. I am still living in poverty today but at least I am now, at least currently—housed. Thank you to all the forces in the universe that have made this possible.

Several years before I was a person with 1.5 jobs earning more than $100,000 a year, with great medical coverage, a 401K, two motorcycles, one being a brand spanking new Harley, and being a person who meticulously planned and scheduled vacations to Europe complete with the plane tickets purchased three months in advance. You may be wondering what in God’s name happened to me. Well, I don’t have any active nor past addictions. I don’t drink alcohol now nor for the last 7 years. I stopped drinking alcohol, which was always merely an infrequent social affectation, when I literally woke up in Belgium one very early and frosty January morning after a spiritual awakening experience of sorts the day before, realizing that as a spiritual teacher and healer rapidly approaching age 50, I needed to eliminate anything from my life that could clearly impede my ability to do either with the highest possible degree of sharp clarity. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since that moment of insight. I don’t smoke pot. I don’t do any “hard” drugs whatsoever—never have. I don’t gamble. I have no criminal history. I’m not in recovery of any kind, nor “should” I be. My life simply hasn’t unfolded in ways that would make that an option. I don’t suffer from any chronic mental health issues whatsoever including though not limited to bipolar disorder nor schizophrenia. I mention most of this only because these are often the presumptions people make around why a nice well-educated, smart, open-hearted, and relatively grounded person such as myself might somehow find himself homeless. No, none of that even remotely applies to me. My personal answer and story is far more nuanced and off the beaten path.

So about twenty months ago, while homeless, I met an older Jamaican/black American gentleman in Oakland, CA. His name was/is Freddy. We met at McDonald’s on Telegraph Ave. At that point in time I would go there every day or so to use the free internet provided. Freddy also came there every day or so to get his regular morning cup of Joe and his beloved Sausage McMuffin. We talked almost every day for several months. We would have long and wide topic ranging conversations that were very enjoyable for both of us, I believe. I found Freddy to be a sweet, wise, funny, interesting, and very engaging person.

At one point in our budding friendship Freddy strongly suggested that I see the film, 12 Years a Slave. He didn’t tell me why he thought I should see this film. However, he was extremely emphatic. Nonetheless, I knew why he thought I should see this film. He thought I should see this film because I believe he had created a story in his mind that I was one of those bougie (look this word up in the Urban Dictionary if it is unfamiliar to you) blacks. I believe Freddy thought my seeing this film would somehow give me a much needed education he presumed I knew nothing of, and that seeing the film would also hopefully and magically transform me into a “real” black person as a result. I posted all of this on my facebook page minus, of course, the part about how I believe Freddy saw me and about my thoughts around why I believed he wanted me to see this particular film.

The facebook status I posted, in which I reported that Freddy wanted me to see 12 Years a Slave garnered several dozen “likes,” the vast majority coming from black “facebook friends” who had either never met me personally or who had in fact met me in the flesh though who had known me less than a year and quite superficially at that. I was shocked at the high number of likes the post received. I am fairly certain this facebook status, after my being on facebook for more than seven years at that time, received the most likes I had ever gotten for a post, from black folks. And then very soon afterward, my heart sort of sank. My heart sort of sank because I realized many of those likes were probably there because some percentage of those black folks had created the exact same story about me that Freddy had. They too must’ve thought that my seeing 12 Years a Slave would also necessarily turn me into a real black person.

Black folks can be very interesting. Many of us talk an extremely good game about how incredibly diverse we are as a people—the black diaspora. Often however, it’s a lie. Many of us blacks, at least many of us in America, still desperately hold onto retrograde, limited, and cartoonish ideas about how we are basically all the same or how there is some “gold standard” of blackness.

This however, is what I want to any black folks who liked that facebook status because you were so hoping that my seeing 12 Years a Slave would magically transport me into real blackdom, especially those of you who are at least half my age. I need some healing around this and saying the following will help that journey along:

Many of you young black people who “liked” that status were not even born yet when I was pulled over by a white female police officer in rural Ohio many years ago. This woman handcuffed me to the steering wheel of my vehicle. Once I was forcibly removed from the vehicle by her, she violently and recklessly pulled her gun on me, without any provocation I might add. She also intentionally spat on me while she threateningly interrogated me about why I was “in this part of the state anyway.” She also (and thankfully as it turns out) called for back-up. Those who eventually responded included law enforcement personnel from three different area jurisdictions as well as a Sherriff’s deputy and including a K-9 unit which, when it arrived, proceeded to tear the insides of my vehicle apart looking for “the drugs” that were, of course, not there. All but one of these personnel eventually pulled off with all my belongings still strewn on the side of the road. The lone exception was the kindhearted Sherriff’s deputy—a young very clean-cut looking white male who looked to be in his early to mid-30s who remained to help me gather my things up, including the seats to my vehicle that were left on the side of the road. This same Sheriff’s deputy had earlier in this nightmarish event had taken me aside and strongly suggested that I file an official complaint against this female police officer, which I later did.

For all her mentally unstable, illegal, over-the-top, dangerous, life-threatening, macho, jerkish behavior, all she was able to come up with for her performance was a citation for a malfunctioning brake light.

Many of you young black people who “liked” that post weren’t even born when I was living in Chicago, soon after I had left the monastery, and tried to get my first real apartment there. I called one place and asked if there were any openings and was assured that there were many (because, as I later discovered, I sounded “white” to the building manager, over the phone). When I arrived in person, suddenly and mysteriously there were “no current openings and there haven’t been any openings here for months.” Hmmm. I knew something was up. I went back several hours later with my white friend in tow, hid in the hallway while he asked if there were any openings, and eavesdropped while he was told, “Oh yes Sir, we have plenty of openings. Would you like to see a 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom or 3 bedroom unit?” Busted!

All of you black people who liked that post were alive during some of the many, many times I’ve been in a gay bar in San Francisco though also in too many cities to list here, and had a (usually) drunk white gay man tell me some version of this to my face, no less, and not even know there was anything wrong with this presentation: “I’ve never actually dated a black man before. I would love to have sex with one though. Oh man, I just loved that movie, “Mandingo.” Oooooh. I could never date you though, you know. That wouldn’t be right. Wanna go home with me tonight?” (Me: deep sigh accompanied by extreme side-eye while very quickly moving away, as if my very life depended on it).

And most of these examples, except the first one, are not even close to being the scariest, most humiliating experiences I have had as a black man in America—with private college, master’s degree, “articulate, white sounding” speech patterns, and a so called above average IQ in the bag to boot and in tow.

So you see, I don’t need to see a movie to know that I can be a black man in America during any of the more than four hundred plus years black people have officially been here, and where I have indeed also achieved some measure of what might be assessed as financial success, freedom, and fleeting privilege and additionally where I can understand, and viscerally understand it too, that it all can be snatched away in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile I can also find myself on the side of a road in bum f#ck, Ohio staring down the barrel of a gun being held by a crazed lady who believes she needs to act like a jerk in order to prove that she can be a heavy duty cop just like any other jerk man can. Or I can be homeless. Or I can be multi-millionaire black man in America. No matter what I can still be enslaved in this country in one or more of the numerous ways a black man can continue to be enslaved in America.

And no, I still haven’t seen 12 Years a Slave and don’t need to either. Although I might see it anyway.