where we are (ii)

Nowhere. Trying to write again is so much harder than I remember. Thanks to a few dozen books and journal articles, I’ve adopted quite a few new words into my vocabulary since the last time I found myself putting my thoughts into words. They’ve gotten me so far in understanding the world, and yet, I’m nowhere at all.

Since 2016, I’ve gone through what feels like a marathon series of adjustments in regard to what I believe to be more true—regarding politics, life, belonging, being, death, relation(ship), nature, time and afterlife—and it has unsurprisingly shaken up much of the foundation of my (idea of) existence in/of the world. I can only surmise that this experience is akin to going mad, if not madness itself. What else is it? Who ventures here but the mad? And where else is there to go?

At what point do your stances become open to adjustment or reshaping? 

This question has been on my mind lately. It was originally posed for social media to consider but as I think about my evolutions of thought here, I wonder about my own processes for integrating new information into the perspectives I take myself to have.

I’m keenly aware that there is much that I do not know about my world, the World and everything else outside of it. Given this, I make room for consideration that I may not have a full understanding of anything. I’m open to learning, and perhaps being convinced of alternatives if the new information is sound. But what is sound? 

These days, I find myself frequently questioning reality in more ways than one. I don’t recall having done this a bunch as a child but, if we’re being honest, I don’t remember childhood as very focused on much else outside of fantasy.

The adjustments I mentioned making within the last decade included a change in what I believed about religion at the time and, as a result, an acknowledgment of a long-standing and constant bout of mental conditioning. How do you re-enter the world (were you ever apart? a part?) after withdrawing from a cult(ish) ideology that your entire life, entire identity, entire generations of your bloodline, depend(ed) on? How do you exist alongside those who continue to be solely and fully sustained by questionable doctrine? Better yet, how do they “exist” around you? 

This sentiment may seem morose and perhaps it is. Among other descriptors, the world is a morose place—distinctively so, for those marked black that contend with the notion of slavery as more than just a historic moment that ended with the Emancipation Proclamation or Juneteenth (depending on who you ask)… outside of that which still exists within the prison system, of course.

This particular lens of slavery was not the original instigator of my altered view on religion, though. It was space. Space to think critically and honestly on my own accord about my experiences and the things of which I’ve only ever been told. Space to acknowledge and deconstruct well-established habits and cycles of thought. Space to ask questions, seek answers (but, really, more questions) and to recognize nuance, complexity, contradiction, confusion and hope(lessness). It’s an interrogation that leaves me beside myself. Seemingly unhinged. Mad.

What is madness? 

Mad, as in infuriated with the people/institutions that birthed and nurtured me for building a solid foundation of untruths with which to inject me into “human civilization”. 

Mad, as in irritated with ignorance and obfuscated evidence or lack thereof. 

Mad, as in disturbed by where I don’t find myself and how much it took for me to “arrive” at non-conclusion (and knowing the unlikelihood of having much familiar or lasting company here).

This madness is foisted upon me. An anticipated reaction to the state of affairs from which I find myself and my “kind” excluded, as told by Fanon. I am out of my mind because the fantasies used to weave together the “land of the free” are no longer suitable sutures for the festering wound found hidden in plain sight. And to proclaim out loud to the World that the thread is tainted is to be hysterical. I mean, they laughed at Kanye in 2013—and I suppose there may be a need to spell out that this interview occurred when it did (twenty thirteen), how it did, despite how Ye has shown up in the public eye since then. I urge you to not miss the point.

• • •

The foulness, it seems, seeps into the very fabric of this nation (among others) and the way those who occupy it are conditioned. Conditioned to need it, conditioned to not recognize it, or if all else fails, conditioned to keep quiet about it. Consider this moment and tell me where the madness lies: 

We are on our way to an engagement in the city most recently known as San Francisco in the middle of a chilling, rainy winter evening. We exit the train after an hour-long ride with the mission of tracking down the easiest location at which to grab a ride-share car and escape from the cool air.

We wait impatiently at a busy intersection outside the train station with other passengers, attempting to will the walk signal into making its much-anticipated appearance. Off to the left, a bit further down the sidewalk, there’s what looks to be a likely houseless white woman pacing while having what might best be described as a visible and audible tirade about what only this woman may know. 

She turns and begins to walk in the direction of the small crowd we are a part of awaiting the walk signal. We are the only easily identifiable Black people(?) in the vicinity. Getting to the other side of this massive crosswalk, getting out of the cold and getting the fuck away from the approaching verbal barrage are the only things on your mind as well as mine because we both already know what can’t happen.

Never mind that the odds of this woman being mentally unwell are high, she’s a white woman. And we are not. Any seemingly hostile response to confrontation is going to need to be considered cautiously lest we be castigated (at best)—generally, for confronting the unwell and, more specifically, engaging in this action while black.

As she nears the part of the sidewalk that marks roughly 20 feet from where we await safer passage to the other side of the street, she incorporates a new word into the vocal assault. “Nigger! Something, something…, nigger!” Repeatedly. If no one knew who or what motivated the diatribe before, they definitely knew of a couple inspirations now. 

We linger uncomfortably with heightened awareness a bit longer, pinned between making the decision to defend ourselves if this person gets too close, regardless of repercussions, and the onlookers’ reactions to the woman and by proxy, to us.

The signal finally changes, releasing the group—us from the abuse and the rest of the crowd from bearing witness to it—and we cross. People go on about their day and we make sure that we are not being followed. As we wait for our ride to arrive, we attempt to digest the absurdity that we’ve had to endure for no reason other than occupying(?) space at that particular moment as black. The harsh reality that reparations worthy of all our trouble will never see the light of day steeps… 

Where lies the madness? With the white woman? With the idea that reparations can never be fulfilled? Or with the idea (read: hope) that they can? 

This is a tale of the terrific mundane. Not fiction nor unique. The quotidian nature of it is almost beyond belief; that is, until we stumble upon the scene of us both a few weeks later, standing in a coffee shop parking lot one crisp morning. Except this time, the stranger who provokes happens to be a Black woman. 

Where lies the madness?