Reflection 1: Why do I choose blackness?

 

"Fuck the man, Uncle Sam, I won't sell your crack, I won't fight your wars, I won't wear your hat I'ma pass your classes, I'ma learn your craft I'ma fuck your daughters, I'ma burn your flag” – “Miss America” by J. Cole

 Image by Daniela Brito 

 

Aligning myself with an identity has grown to be increasingly difficult. I can’t place myself in one framework, as I am eager to embody the multiple forms of existence. I embody the theoretical scholar that can conform and exist within the boxes of western knowledge. I embody the post structuralist that aims to critique these very modes of thinking. At the same time, I seek to be free of all forms of thinking and be guided by my own lived experiences and desires. To be a global citizen. To be a product of New York City multiculturalism. To be so transcultural that I aspire for it to be uniform across the board. I seek this multiplicity of existence because I’ve always internally combatted the looming structures that aimed to minimize me, to see me as a problematic person of color that’s welfare hogging, psychologically unstable, low income and unmotivated. Without my fully being able to understand where these fears came from, or how to contextualize them, I’ve reacted against them. This traction has been my mode of thinking and reacting since my ability to form comprehensible thoughts. It has always been the structures of class differences, racial imaginaries and academic hierarchies that have influenced me to react against the social order, and define myself as the complete opposite of what is expected of me. But where does that leave room to define myself in relation to myself?

How do I imagine myself for myself? This is where my determinate answer is muddled. America tells me I’m Latina, Dominicans call me morena or negra, South Africans tell me I’m colored, the French tell me I’m metisse and black people tell me I’m light skin black. In other words, I’ve only ever adopted the structures of racial categorization from how the other sees me. I know how I do not imagine myself, for I know what I am not. Black, brown, metisse, creole, colored, mixed race; by definition I can claim these all, but to know who I am is difficult. I know what I want to be, what I like and what I emulate. But who am I really, if not fragmentations of other things? A composition of everything I wish to be and not to be. An embodiment of code switching and adapting in order to survive.

Why it is that I have chosen to adopt blackness as my transcultural understanding of the world? This is a long overdue conversation that I’ve needed to have with myself, for even black identifying people have asked me. The answer lies in the fact that my reactions have always been Newton’s third law, equal and opposite to the systems of power. Logically the polar opposite of whiteness is blackness. I have defined and redefined myself always in relation to the contested systems that don’t integrate me despite my being included in them. As the only brown-skinned person in the Columbia University History & Literature program and in my classes at L’ École Normale Supérieure, I often silence myself, hoping to remove my urban lexicon out of the discourse so as to not be seen as predictable. We postulate theories of race, culture and ethnicity, all the while these are all categories that have led me to battle the systems that compartmentalize me. 

Nonetheless, blackness has allowed me to understand myself outside of the confinements of academia. By allowing myself to become familiar with the narratives of black Americans I realized that their form of articulating their contested relationship with the social order resonated with me. It is through black artists, musicians, writers and intellectuals I began to find ways to articulate my disdain, pains and griefs.

Hauled over a desk with a hunched back and askew hair, the literary perspectives I’ve gathered have been some of the primary ways I’ve tried to read the societies that I have lived in. Malcom X, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ta Nehisi Coates, W. E. B. Du Bois, Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks Nella Larsen, and Angela Davis to name some Americans. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Trevor Noah, Ousmane Sembène, Leopold Senghor, and Yambo Ouologuem to name some Africans. Frantz Fanon, Aimé Cesairé, Édouard Glissant, Maryse Condé, Junot Diaz, Elizabeth Acevedo to name some Caribbeans. These have all been some of the intellectuals from whom I came to understand the power structures that shaped our racialized experiences transnationally. My colonial and postcolonial understandings have allowed me to grapple with the constructs of Black Consciousness, Negritude, Black Romanticism and Creolization.

Collage by: Samantha Pinheiro

(NYU College of Arts & Science)

On Culture

Richly mixed with the influences of culture. Each person carries the history of their nation, let's all find our roots and symbiotically exist with each other. Let us understand the human experience and delight with joy what series of events got us to where we are now-- being alive. Are you living? Follow your soul and splurge in all that which makes you happy. Shout out to the mother land Africa-- humanity has evolved to what it is starting from the upbringing of this magic continent. If it weren't for humanity starting in your wonderful womb, everything that makes the life that exists today would not be the same. And I thank the gruesome wars of France and Spain and the Revolution against the control of Haiti, for if these horrifying events of colonization and exhortation did not occur in my secretly precious island, I would not be here today loving the fruitful ways of life. #DominicanaSoy (gracias a la educación y la historia, en ti me encuentro) 

Notes From Abroad (A Call to Action)

I had often expressed to close friends that the revolution was coming, that narrative unfolded quicker than I could have imagined. I have chosen several times to leave New York for Paris because I felt that French colorblind politics would allow me to breathe, collect my thoughts, and use the time I’m not worrying about race to put into fruition what I would like to manifest in the future. However, every time I leave New York to be in solitude I find that I always miss my connection to my Black American and Afro-Latinx community above anything else. I miss the person I am when I am in spaces where it is applauded to be unapologetically yourself and to relish in your individuality. Where it is collectively understood that we are navigating within a system that was not created to serve us. This was the Black community I found at NYU and it was always the space that I felt affirmed: my intelligence noted, my determination respected, and my art supported. 

Starting university during 2015 meant I was entering a predominantly white space affirmed by my Afro-Dominican identity. The reason for this was because the natural hair movement had spread and so had the mobilization of activists through the Black Lives Matter movement. The unification of Black people allowed me to find my place of acceptance, my place of belonging. However, it is hard to feel fully connected to your chosen family when abroad. I am limited to Instagram posts and FaceTime calls. No longer can I walk through SoHo, Harlem, the Heights and the Bronx with my friends, photographing the beauty of their Black essence because it’s what I wanted others to see. My transient habit that I developed when I scored that full scholarship to NYU allowed me to envision myself outside an oppression / liberation binary. Studying abroad allowed me to see the ways in which my experiences were shaped by  racialized and gendered socialization. This allowed me to imagine myself outside of the context of American racial context. 

At first, the news from overseas seemed to not shake me with the 8 degree magnitude earthquake in the way that it would in New York; the Parisian atmosphere is not putrid of the stench of institutional racism in the way it is in America. One need only to look at the statistics of who populates a college classroom and who populates a prison (though let us not forget France’s colonial history in the Americas, Africa and Asia, nor its current role as a neo-colonial state). 

However the collective pain of the grief of spilled blood in order to uphold a racist patriarchy has eventually burned my soul with the generational and diasporic pain of Black subjugation under the imperial structure. When I feel an emotion my whole body feels it. My back gets tense. My shoulder gets tense. My chest hurt. My heart throbs. My spirit feels wounded and weakened. I cry hysterically. This was how my body reacted all of 2015, yet the pain comes as a surprise every time. Each cramp tighter. Each breath heavier. Every thought more cynical. 

Image by Daniela Brito 

All of quarantine I have been practicing meditation in order to align my spirit, to move with intention. I intend to always uplift the morale of Black people because we must never fold to the order of the capitalist regime. Because writing is my purpose and my source of therapeutic relief, I will be sharing a series titled “Notes From Abroad.” I will share writing concerning the ways in which my experiences are shaped by racialized and gendered socialization. I will also be comparing the works of Black diasporic authors to give nuance to 20th century black liberation efforts. Since IG is a limiting platform for vocalizing sentiments on such a dense subject, I will be sharing my thoughts on my website for my various written works. I hope to facilitate group or individual discourse, it is important to stay educated, mobilized and spiritually at peace.

To my Black women, we all know we are always supporting Black men, but please let us nuance the ways in which we are also impacted by race-sex paradigms. Our narratives are important, our pain is illicit, our voices must be heard. It is not a battle of who suffers more, it is a matter of representing ourselves, getting comfortable in our narratives so that others cannot tell them for us. This work, though laborious, is needed because liberation has always been taught as attainable first for Black men and Black women as secondary. This inherited belief exists even today. Stop police violence. Stop imprisoning non-violent black men. Protect the black male body. But when will the women who have fallen subject of male violence be protected. When will their concerns be voiced?

Above all, to all my Black artists, please keep creating. We are the generation that will set the foundation for this century's evolution of Black consciousness and expression. This is not a light task. Be careful with yourselves. Self preservation is the greatest form of resistance. 

Fear in achievement (circa 2012)

From the latest reblog on tumblr
Your world gets wired on; delusions, fantasies, hopes and dreams
Inspired to conquer the world
To dream big
to make a change
To be unique

From your latest English, humanities, philosophy or history class
Your world gets wired on; delusions, fantasies, hopes and dreams
inspired to conquer the world
To dream big
To make a change
To be unique

There is reconciliation in simplicity and serenity.
The pressure to not only be, but to make a profound change impacts us
Weighing on us like a ton of bricks
Expectations rising like skyscrapers
All it implements is fear;
Fear of failure
But most importantly fear of success
am I ready for that responsibility?
Its fear of losing everything you achieved

How many stories exist about a tragic hero already.
coming to the conclusion that u cannot reconcile with your inner self because you're worried about your wired world makes you demean yourself.
The delusions, fantasies, hopes and dreams have elevated to another means...
they've become reality
A reality where people delight in the ideology of setting you up to fail

You've become responsible for;
conquering the world,
Dreaming above the deviated norms,
Making a profound change that is fundamental at all corners of the globe,
and being unique as a prosperous person with ambitions that exceed any others
That's scary

Being young, not much matters but the sole expectations of you for when you're older

The Air

Something in the air isn’t right

Its suffocating me

Wrapping itself around my throat

And i cant breathe

I cant think straight

I cant see right

I can’t be me …

The sun is blocked off by the clouds

The atmosphere is white

The people are white

My white socks have holes in them

My white shoes are dirt filled, too small for my feet

My house in the bronx has no ceiling

Large roaches fly everywhere

Mahogany floor boards are lifted...

The way my soul has been lifted

  And my mahogany colored skin lingers in the streets

It lingers like an empty vessel

Soulness

Lacking inspiration, motivation

Lacking purpose

The atmosphere is white

The people in the east village are white

My roommate is white

My mother is white

I’m brown

Brown like the soil

Brown like worn out bricks

“Brown like the perception of who’s on welfare”

My school is for white folks

The education is for white folks

And i’ve been patted into the soil

Like a worm

And i feel as though a crow will soon come down to pick me up

Swallow me up

A black crow, so violent

A white dove, so gentle

I walk through the east village, my mind has been shaped by third avenue

Clean room, no roaches, no rats

An east village fantasy

I say fantasy because

in the Bronx my section 8 housing is falling apart

I wont visit my mother because I’m ashamed of where i’ve come out

Another empty vessel that has shaped me

Like a matryoshka doll

A mentality that is bricks,

Artificially forced to fit concretely

But my mentality yonders everywhere

The way these bricks will when the world comes crashing down

Climate change

We will be our own demise

Women Contributing to Black History: Syd Tha Kyd

Have you ever seen the embodiment a low frequency wave, powdered in cacao, with a smile that shoots out sunrays, and a laugh that reminds you of a carefree child running through the park? If you ever need an example of what that embodiment is, look no further than Syd Tha Kyd from The Internet.

Understanding your Privilege at a PWI when you are nonwhite

Behind my privilege of what is truly the white experience, I got too comfortable. Being removed from America for the last 2.5 months has only aided to the false perception of the good life, that of a little Latina from Dyckman can make it, that it's all alright. 

I never forgot my roots, that I'm legit so far below the poverty line and that affirmative action at one of the top schools did more than save me. That I am so far below the poverty line I sold cupcakes for two years at school. This is that New York City state of mind hustle. 

But I genuinely allowed myself to believe that the rest of America was like New York City. That in my privilege bubble of a private education at a PWI I was safe, that that was enough of a clap back against spiteful critics. 

My love for travel, my goal to travel the entirety of our country has been given a reality check; I will not be treated fairly because of the color of my skin or my Spanish last name. I can encounter someone willing to bring me to my death. 

And I fear for my cousins who are half Indian, because maybe some backwards person will treat them unfairly because of their last name, that when they are older they would be demonized to be "terrorists" because an Indian name to uneducated people might as well be a Muslim last name, and "by default" a terrorist. 

I fear the well being of all of my friends, as to be honest, none of them are exclusively a white American. 

I have been brain washed with a fat 72k scholarship and an acceptance to travel abroad to think that I actually mattered to the rest of the country. 

I was naive to think I had to speak up for the whites that aren't a "threat" because the ones I've known have been somewhat kind and understanding. That they too may experience sexism and poverty. However, no matter how many kind a white person will be to me, they will never be worst off than me. 

I can't believe there are people out here that are more about dollars than about chance. They won't feel my pain. 

Gyptian's song "Nobody no cry when poor people die," is true to it's most extreme extent.

I solemnly declare to stand up for all of my marginalized people. We will not be alone. We will be the eyes and ears and protectors of each other. 

Black lives matter. 

Native lives matter. 

Muslim rights matter. 

Trans rights matter. 

LGBTQ rights matter. 

Immigrant lives matter. 

First generation lives matter. 

Homeless lives matter. 

Latino rights matter. 

Women lives matters. 

Marginalized lives matter. 

Trump is not my president. 

gangs?

my whole life i heard "soo-woo" out my window

it was something i didn’t know

but it was frequent, like the crow calls

from birds perched outside my home

men pitched it high and low

so i started calling too

out my humble dyckman abode

something "birds" surely do

didn’t know what a gang was, 

but i sure knew what they do

scare, murk and kill niggas

even for a two by two

but no one taught me the difference

between family and a gang

so in my notebooks i scrachted in “ABT”

said it’s cause that’s my sister’s dad

not affiliated with ANY gangs. I'm reflecting on how i would hear soowoo so often, every man's call distinct. it began to sound like a song, something birds do on perched trees as they call after each other. i mention crows because i heard them a lot outside my window when i lived in Ellwood st.

i moved out of dyckman when i was 13, i never learned that soowoo was affiliated with a gang until much later.

"abt"= all about thayer. i didnt know it was a "gang", i just thought it was a trendy graffiti thing, so i grafittied my own notebooks because my sister's dad is from thayer, just a few blocks away from me.


if you google "abt graffiti thayer" portraits  of Abbott Handerson Thayer come up , lolololol 
google searches are so eurocentric, gtfoooo

How to Succeed in Poverty Without Really Trying (published in CONTRARIWISE)

Why would anyone choose to work and pay for an apartment, especially in larger cities like New York. You can lead a middle-class lifestyle just as easily if you’re dirt poor. You know, the kind of poor where your mattress is a bench on Central Park and your salad consists of the fallen leaves from the trees with their own special salad dressing: dog pee and dirt in place of poppy seeds, vinegar and oil.

Why do poor people struggle so much when they literally get things handed to them? Granted, they are handed to them not on a silver platter, but rather on a tray of pity and reluctance (or compassion). Poor people have the world in their hands! No, literally, they have the planet Earth in their hands as they desperately grab onto the grass.

In this piece I offer you a concise, to-the-point explanation of how to succeed in poverty without really trying, a sequel to Broadway’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. (Mind you, that reference eludes me, as I don’t even know what the musical is about, but the title is relevant, so let’s just be one of those people, you know, the ones who use stark references to seem like they know what they’re talking about).

hunting season

I close myself off when I need help the most. I close myself off from the ones who love and believe in me the most. I close myself off because I believe that I deserve nothing but the bare minimum. I close myself off because I do not know how to accept and receive that love, help and support. I close myself off because I've learned how to self-care and self- preserve otherwise. 

My struggles do not exist in a vacuum, but rather, are part of a larger narrative and collection of experiences. 

Being a person of color often feels similar to that voyeuristic element and participation that occurs in museums; the sense of always being on display. Of having to perform. An open field to be looked at, critiqued picked and pulled apart. Hunting season for the white gaze. 

We self- edit and self-regulate ourselves. 

Emotionally gut wrenching and visceral.