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womenofwonder · 4 years ago

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RWBY characters races for AUs set in our world.

How I’m going to do this: three things. The first, the city they live in Remnant. This is the least important because that leaves us with only five…maybe six places compared to our world’s hundreds of countries.

The second will be the original of their names, which they’ll have to keep in the AUs, meaning that they need some culture background for them.

The third will be their fairy tale origins.

So to start, Ruby Rose:

She lives in Vale, which is similar to France (I’ll explain why in another post maybe), but technically grew up in patch, a small island off the coast of Vale. I have no idea about Patch’s culture as we hardly ever see it, so I’m going to skip this one. We also don’t know if either Summer or Taiyang was originally from Vale.

We know Taiyang is Chinese from his name, so I’m going to say she’s half Chinese. I also wrote a western au once and really love the idea of Taiyang being an Asian Redneck…so I think I’m going to say Ruby is very, very southern just because that would be adorable.

But if you don’t want that idea I generally see Taiyang being either Asian-American or Asian-French, or Asian-British if your doing a HP AU. Summer is harder to pin down, but Red Riding Hood was originally an Italian fable, so I’m going to have her be Italian or Italian-American.

Weiss:

Weiss is German, although making her simply white America/British would work. I could see her being Russian too in some AU because Atlas fits well as Russia. For American works, Pennsylvania has quite the German population and coal mines, so that works pretty well for her.

Blake is really complicated. From Remment Australia which is culturally SEA (south East Asian), has an English name but parents with a Hindu-inspired names, but neither looking vaguely Indian. I’m going to assume her family are immigrants (as they are in cannon I think) to Australia, maybe even changed their name to help them fit in. Immigrants from where? Well, India is an option, but I like to think Malaysia. They have a large Indian and Chinese population, and I like to think Blake is a mixture of Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnicities, from Malaysia and immigrated to Australia. And if you think this is crazy or unrealistic, you haven’t seen anything yet. The sheer mix of cultures I’ve seen growing up as an ex-pat is insane. This isn’t too crazy.

For Yang, we already have Taiyang as an Asian red-neck. Or at least I do. Raven and Qrow are going to be a little harder to pin down, but I’m think bandits getting replaced by mafia. Which mafia? I don’t know, take you’re pick. Branwen is Welsh, but I can’t think of a Welsh mafia. Coming from Mistral I would see them as being Triad, not Yakuza because Raven’s gang is famous for being less than coordinated.

If you need a logical reason for Yang having blonde hair, Taiyang could be only half Chinese, half blonde (blonde is race right?).

Either way I see Raven operating in an American city like New York or Detroit.

This would mean Yang is fully Chinese ethnically.

JNPR:

Jaune’s name and inspiration are all French. However his mother does come from Mistral (I think), so I do see him being half Chinese, but nationally French. It’s also funny to imagine him with a French accent.

Pyrrha: she’s Greek or maybe Greek-American with her parents being recent immigrants. Argus seems to Remnent-Greece and her name and fairy tale are greek.

Nora: she should be Scandinavian. I feel like in a MCU AU she’s Thor’s daughter. But she also grew up as a street rat in Mistral, which is hard to fit in our world. Therefore I’m going to have her in America, the great melting pot (and also America seems to be more like Mistral than any other Remnent king with our state system), and she going to ethically Scandinavian but knowing nothing of her culture due to her upbringing.

Ren: obviously Chinese, but I might have him be American-Chinese to fit his story nicely in with Nora’s.

Others:

Coco: we’re all ignoring that she’s based off Coco Channel, so let’s make her a LA girl

Velvet: Australia, because of the accent. Or maybe English because that is her story origin

Fox: he’s difficult, because tribes are pretty rare in modern AUs. But his story could work for various things. He’s one of the few black characters so he could come from practically any African tribe (I’m currently going with Hausa because it’s one of the few I know anything about). His name is based off ‘the fox and the hound’ which is a rare American story, so he could also be from a Native American tribe if you want the AU to be more American-based.

Yatsuhashi: Japanese, this one is thankfully easy.

Sun: Chinese. He comes from a tribe as well, but I can’t think of any nomadic Chinese tribes except the Uyghurs. Making Sun a Uyghur doesn’t make much sense but it will serve to piss off certain people on the internet. And now this is going to be taken down, isn’t it? Oh wait, this is tumbrl. This is anarchy. It won’t. Forgot why I liked this place for a second.

Scarlet: sorry for the rambling there. Anyway, Scarlet is definitely English. “I hope I don’t get sand in my shoes.”

Sage: well, he’s black, but other then that we have nothing to go one. He’s also from Mistral but that doesn’t really work? If Mistral is America as well as China I guess we can make him African American. Or whatever else works best for the AU. He might be Indian too now that I think of it. Or even Maori. Really options are limitless here.

Neptune: Yeah, so probably just American, but does have both a French last name and an Italian first name. So probably ethically American (aka white mutt). Also he lives near a port, I think I’m gonna gone with him being from Tacoma Washington because I am.

Flynt: African American

Neon: Japanese-American because of her meme (it started as part of Japanese pop song on YouTube, the latter of which is America summed up in one invention)

Oscar: Hispanic-American, he just looks it. And I’m guessing he lives in Kansas for obvious reasons. His last name isn’t Hispanic but their could be a lot of reasons for that. Or he could be Native American (Pawnee, Cheyenne, and Osage are all Native American tribes in Kansas).

Penny: well if she’s still a robot she probably stays white, but if you want her human in this AU she might end up being half black as Pietro is, although she also could just be adopted. I guess the later makes more sense, huh? I figure she’s American, with her dad working with a ‘well meaning’ but ultimately corrupt government. Probably living in DC, as that has both the government and the poverty issues.

Emerald: oohh, boy. This is hard. Sustrai is Basque, and Aladdin is a French addition to an Arabian story, she herself is dark skinned with anime features that are super unhelpful for this sorta thing.

I have three ideas. Brazilian, mostly as there’s no South American themed RWBY characters I can think of, and it’s diverse enough that someone looking like Emerald would fit. Secondly, for American centered stories she’s just an orphan with no idea of her ethnicity. Or she could be African, Indian, Pacific Islander, or Hispanic or some mixture between those four. It’s honestly really hard to tell. In my fanfic she’s from Suriname and ethnically 1/4 Indian, 1/2 Creole, and 1/4 Javanese.

Ilia: Sioux (Native American). Ilia means a lot of things in a lot of different languages, and Amitola mean rainbow in Sioux, so I decided to just stick with that.

Mercury: American, white mutt American. I’m guessing New York or Philli for where he grew up, it seems like a place where he’d be comfortable

Neo: the new novel reveals her father lived in vale (btw I haven’t read it, I’m just getting this off the internet) and her mother was a assassin who’s origins aren’t known. She doesn’t really have a fairy tale. So I’m going to go with British or French (thank RWBY thoughts for the first one) although in an American AU she works as just a white American.

Robyn: depends on what Atlas is in this AU, but probably German or American.

Qrow: I already mentioned he’s probably Chinese due to being from Mistral. It’s a bit weird to think of him as Asian, but not as weird as it to think of Raven as white, so I’ll take it. Although I do like the idea of him being American Irish, that’s fun.

Winter: whatever Atlas is in this AU, German or American, although British and Russian would work well too.

Maria: Mexican

Salem: If you want a AU where she’s just a normal person then New England or Italian for her story origin

Watts: British

Tyrian: uh…I have no idea, but he looks white. And he kinda has a British accent? I want him to be southern for the accent tho. Probably just another crazy American

Cinder: her fairy tale is French but her origin is Chinese. Also, Cinderella doesn’t really have an origin, it’s an ancient story with every culture having at least one Cinderella story. So I’m going to say Chinese.

Hazel: American, from the Midwest. He’s darkish so maybe he’s a POC? Part Native American or Hispanic? Idk or really care I can’t stand Hazel

Roman Torchwick: American-Italian, he runs/works for the mafia

Ozpin: American because of the whole wizard-of-Oz-thing or French, because he seems to have come from Vale.

Glynda: American or French for the same reasons Ozpin is

Oobleck: Jewish American (because Dr. Seuss was)

Professor Port: Russian, due to his fairy tale, or English, due to his style

Taiyang: already said he’s a red-neck Asian.

Raven: depending on whether you want her to be white or not, either Chinese or Irish American, like I already said.

Cordovin: Karen

Ironwood: again, depends on Atlas in the AU. Either American or German…maybe Russian

Clover: Irish-American (or German, obviously the ace-ops depend on where Atlas is. I’m just going to do the rest of them assuming Atlas is American because Germany isn’t that diverse)

Harriet: African-American, I guess. It kinda messes with the story because Harriet is supposed to be privileged, which doesn’t really work in this AU, but she’s also obviously black.

Elm: Just normal American, maybe greek-American because of the Aesop fable themes

Vine: Tibetan based on his design

Marrow: either African-American or Pakistani/Indian-American. (I’m personally going for Pakistani)

Klein: english. All butlers are English. It’s a rule.

Pietro: African-American

Johanna: Pakistani or Indian American

Fiona: Jewish-American (kinda random but while she’s obviously white she also needs to be a minority for the Faunus thing to work)

May: normal upper glass American/German

Ghira: Half Malay, Half Indian, from Malaysia but immigrated to Australia later in life

Kali: half Chinese, half Indian, but also from Malaysia

Adam: much like Fiona I’m going to assume he’s Jewish due to him being white but still needing to be a minority. German or American, again, depending on where Atlas is. Or he could be Chinese, even though it doesn’t work with his name, due to the theory that he was trafficked much like Cinder. I’m going with ethically Jewish though

Sienna Khan: Indian

Huh, I actually finished that. I’m pretty sure I was accidentally racist multiple times and apologize in advance,

I’m exhausted and starving and not thinking straight. But anyway, here it is. Your very messy guide to modern RWBY AUs. I swear this was insane to sort out.

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p---leia · 5 years ago

Conversation

Ancient Writer of dreams and nightmares: I am 71 (-one month), and have been writing (making up tales) since I was three. I can still remember my Pawpaw whittling a pencil for me, and Mawmaw tearing a piece of brown grocery bag for me to write on. They weren't 'poor', but writing paper wasn't to be wasted on a 'kid' just for fun. I carefully scripted my first short story.

Of course my 'letters' looked more like ancient Hanguel, so I had to read it to my "captured" audience. I really don't remember the story, but as my grandparents had a yard full of chickens and my dog, Mutt, liked to chase them (because of this we 'both' got into trouble -- because I always joined the chase) I most probably wrote about that.

My Pawpaw was a story-teller. For several years I thought there really was a baby found in the wilds of the African jungle and raised by the great apes. I thought he was the luckiest babe, EVER!

Then I found Pawpaw's books about three years after he died. I was eleven when he died, and felt that my best friend had abandoned me. But when I found those books I realized just where Tarzan actually came from and went to. I read everyone of those books and got the complete picture. THEN..

Well, Pawpaw also told stories of Daniel Boone and Davey Crocket...before I saw them on Disney. Then, of course, I went to school and learned what I already knew. Pawpaw was an excellent story-teller and never mixed up his facts, time-lines, or characters.

Growing up under his influence had a lot to do with how I developed as a story-teller. At family gatherings when I meet cousins I haven't seen in decades, they STILL remember me and the stories that I used to tell them. My children and grandchildren have grown up with me re-telling Pawpaw's old stories, and sharing many that I made up on the spot.

But I think what I read in my early years developed my writing style.

I was just turned eight when I read my first Shakespeare, MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. He was my first favorite author. Then I was forced to read Romeo and Juliet. I was disgusted by the fact that TRAGEDY was made famous as a ROMANCE! Even at the innocent (then) age of fourteen, I was disgusted with the idea that it was considered romantic for 'anyone', let alone 'teenagers' to commit suicide over unrequited love.

My sister (now 68) and I recently discussed this play. Because she had a 'forbidden' teenage love, she said that she related to the story (even though she had never read it). GASP! It was required reading in ninth grade!

I remember our dad breaking up my sister and her boyfriend, who was really cool. He was a hard working farm boy who had saved his money to buy a motorcycle. AND his own car. But he wasn't good enough for my sister. smh

I always thought her story would make a great LifeTime movie. But I'm not touching it. She would 'skin me' for sharing with the world her broken heart. And if I added the stuff that sells today, she'd scalp me for lying. Not a win situation at all. So, I will write notes in my "Random Jottings Journal" for future decendants who might grow into writers or story-tellers.

By the way, the title "RANDOM JOTTINGS" came from a sci-fi book that I read as a kid in the fifties. I don't remember the author, although I'm pretty sure it 'might' be from a Heinlein juvenile book. But I've never found a reference to any sci-fi books using that term. SO!!! If anyone recognizes "RANDOM JOTTINGS", which was a note book that a professor/scientist/genius used to keep his 'thoughts', PLEASE share the author's name and the title of the book!!! Thank You.

In the meantime, I referenced Shakespeare. James Oliver Curwood wrote about Kazan, the Wolf Dog, and later Baree, Son of Kazan. From those two books, read when I was eleven, I searched for and found other books about Canada. Later there was Walter Farley, author of the Black Stallion, and the Island Stallion series. I think I met my FIRST friendly alien in the Island Stallion Races.

Of course, Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me much false history about the jungles of Africa, as well as the Moon and Mars. But I loved every 'read-under-the-covers-with a-flashlight' minute! I believe he was a contemporary of Zane Grey, because he wrote a few non-jungle and non-space stories, too. Which led me to Zane Grey.

Having read both of their biographies at a young age, I learned about the hardships of being a writer. I should say 'the hardships of a struggling writer'. I have never had a problem writing. Since I write for 'fun' and not 'profit', the few short stories I've had published were by local press, and a State magazine.

No, my struggles have centered around graduating high school, and completing college, stuggling to satisfy my husband, a 'Mr. Spock in the Flesh' personality, and later raising two children without benefit of parental support or child support. But we survived in the middle of laughter and many tears. And my made up stories about children lost in the woods who were rescued by a great friendly bear, or wolf. Or dog. And sometimes by a great Black Panther - a by product of one of my Pawpaw's 'local historical tales'.

I understand that publishers detest stories that begin with "It was a dark and stormy night.." But let me tell you, some of the BEST bedtime stories occur on stormy nights when the power has gone out, and it's too hot for candles or lanterns. That shadow that stands darkest in the corner and seems to be moving towards the bed is actually grandma come to check on the kids, and stands quiet so not to disturb the kids if they're already asleep. But since they are awake, and they see her 'shadow', she becomes the old crone who lives in the castle dungeon, and has slipped her chains to visit with the 'wee folk'. But there are no fairies out on such a blustery night, so the old crone comes to visit with the 'wee bairn', who fall all over themselves to get out of bed and sit around her to hear her stories of 'long ago' and other 'dark and stormy nights'. Again -- unpublished, because publishers don't like ... LOL

Of course there's always On-Line publishing. But that involves more work than actual writing.

Back to the writrs who influenced my writing:

While I enjoy a good Western, an adventurous space trek, or time travel, I also enjoy the occasional Historical Romance. Georgette Heyer was my first! I still re-read her amazing books. Of course there's Jane Austen.

There are a myriad of modern writers that I have read over the last five decades. Heinlen, Asimov, Norton, Bradley, McCaffrey, Moon, Stirling, Krentz/Castle/Quick, and Moening, just to name a few of the ones whose books I have in my personal library.

Those older authors did affect my writing style to develope as I read their stories. The later authors helped me to move into the late 20th century. But I'm not so sure that I like the 21st century so much. It's all about being politically 'correct'. If you aren't ashamed of your gender, your race, your country, your religion, your culture, your family, your history, then you are prejudiced. That's just too much guilt to have to live with.

I'm still dealing with my mom's death from ten years ago. I was her care-giver for five years. Her doctor had given her nine months. I still worry if I did enough for her in those last years.

And though my children are grown with their own families, I worry that I wasn't a good enough parent. And I worthy as a grandmother? How was I as an older sister? I was responsible as a moral guide when our parents were at work. Was I a good neighbor? A good support in our Church? And Hollywood wants me to feel guilt about something I can't change?!!

I'm an old woman who still likes being a woman and enjoys liking men. I'm not just white. I'm also mixed with a bit of Native American, and even a drop of -- OMG!!! --- Black. snicker.

That's a serious joke, because as a kid I had a recuring nightmare that I was a black man being judged by a group of people in white hoods I was hanged amidst their fiery torches. I always thought those white hoods represented the Catholic Church, because at that young age I didn't know about the Ku Klux Klan. Even though I grew up in the South, my family was not involved with that group of out-lawrey. Thank God!

Still, I'm supposed to feel shame? For something not even my family supported.

I've always believed there's a hint of Fae in my DNA. Because I love dancing in the light of the full moon, and flying with the owls who perch outside my bedroom window and call to invite me to follow the moon's shadow. If I am part Fae, I know it came from my mother's people. They were Irish mixed with Alabama Indians who believed in the Nunnehi aka Immortal, and the Yunwi Tsunsdi, aka Little People.

ALSO, while there's no DNA proof of ancestry, I've always been a 'closet Chinese'.

In the Fifties, when WW2 was still fresh, and we were involved with the 'Korean Conflict', and at odds with China, I would sneak around the radio, turn down the volume, and tune into 'that wierd channel' that sometimes played Opera, or Chinese music. Ahhh. I would close my eyes and wander through the few visuals I'd found in books, or the occasional movie. (before color tv)

A year or two ago I was totally depressed and disgusted with American TV. Hollywood has become so political, so wierd. Their programming is no longer for entertainment, but to 'educate, enlighten, or to inform'. zzzzz

Then I found KDrama!!!!! Korean TV. Japanese Tv. squeal!!! Chinese TV.

The rom/coms are sweet and 'pure'. Okay. I'm realistic. This is not a reflection of real life on any planet. But the innocence of the early 1950s programs is there. Similar to Disney's 'Summer Magic'. I'm happy with those dramas that remind me of thati nnocence. I have found a few dramas that shared more than I cared for, and I do enjoy an occasional 'romp'. But I've always preferred the Lady and Gentleman characters.

And watching these programs have reminded me of those fairy tales and legends from my childhood that had been sprinkled with the Occasional Oriental myth, legend, and children's tale.

Then I remembered my FIRST historical legend. "The White Stag" by Kate Seredy, is the tale of Atilla the Hun!

I recently found a copy of that book and am waiting for a quiet time, when the power is out and there's nothing to do. Then I will use one of the many flashlights I bought for a huge hurricane, and relax on the sofa beneath an open window and read this legend once again. I live in Florida. The odds of this happening increases as the summer progresses. I can't wait to learn if my memory of this tale of Atilla the Hun remained true, or has been distorted in the last half of a century.

Most of the tales that I write involve space adventures, the occasioanl ghost, and encounters with fairies, the evil ones, not the romantic ideal fairy. smh

I've never been very good with romance or comedy. But thanks to the recent influence of the Asian productions, I have re-formatted one of my dark adventures and turned it into a rom/com.

I love a good joke, but very seldom get the point or see the humor. And I can NEVER remember the punch line if I try to share a joke. My family have said they will write on my tombstone --

"I don't remember the punchline ... but it was funny."

But as I write humorous lines or events I find myself laughing. Or crying at sad events. And I am all 'giggly' when I write what is supposed to be innocent romance between a young and shy couple. But I have never felt that my own reactions were a true guide to how the story might come across to a 'reader'.

As it happens, I have two sisters younger than I am. My middle sister is bored easily and immediately redirects our conversation to something about 'her'. Okay. I understand. She is lonely, needy, and maybe a bit selfish? Not judging. She's the 'middle child' and that's her excuse. ROFL..

But the youngest sister is my greatest fan who declares that I am an awesome writer. "I love you, sister, dear."

So she visited me last week and patiently listened as I read the first chapter. She listened quietly, and I wondered if I had 'read her to sleep'. sigh. Boring books are often the best sleeping pill. Then I heard her laugh.

Squeals/Dancing/hooting/flying around the room in ecstasy!!

Okay! At least one person has laughed. And she's not that easily 'tickled'.

So, I will always carry on and write. But now I feel that at least I might be following a path strewn with "Black-Eyed-Susans, honeybees, butterflies, and bunnies".

I don't know if anyone will read this, or will enjoy it. I hope so. While sharing bits of my youth, my worries, and my concern about certain ones of my 'stories', I actually had ideas for developing 'new' stories.

I am always amazed when writers say they are 'blocked'. I have only to open my eyes to see a world around me that no one else can envision. I listen to a song, and I'm in a different world, time, planet. A gift from Pawpaw, and Mother's DNA.

It is my oldest granddaughter's birthday this month, and I don't know what to give her for her birthday. But when she was younger, she always asked me to tell her a story. I think that I will pull out one of my OLD/ANCIENT tales that I wrote when her dad was her age and make it into a book for her.

p---leia aka Mamma KayeLee

7/19/2020

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citylightsbooks · 5 years ago

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5 Questions with Megan Fernandes, Author of Good Boys

Megan Fernandes is a writer and academic living in New York City. She is the author of The Kingdom and After (Tightrope Books 2015) and the new book of poems, Good Boys (published by Tin House). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, Chicago Review, Boston Review, Rattle, Pank, the Common, Guernica, the Academy of American Poets, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, among others. She is a poetry reader for The Rumpus and an Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College. She holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MFA in poetry from Boston University. She reads from her new book Good Boys with special guests at City Lights Bookstore on Tuesday, February 25th.

***

City Lights: If you’ve been to City Lights before, what’s your memory of the visit? If you haven’t been here before, what are you expecting?

Megan Fernandes: Of all the places I’m reading this Spring (and it’s probably not politic to say this), I am most excited to read at City Lights. I’ve never been, but I understood at a very young age that the bookstore symbolized possibility, spontaneity, digression, lostness, community, etc. As a teenager, I read a lot of Beat literature, my favorites being Dharma Bums, In the Night Café, and everything Ginsberg. I was compelled by their portraits of America’s expansiveness. And I also just think as an immigrant kid not born in the USA, the Beats gave me some sense of American geography. I went to Colorado for the first time last year and I had this memory of my first impression of Colorado as a place described in On the Road. When traveling across the country, I often have Ferlinghetti’s feverish, twitchy, carnivalesque poetics in my head. I also think in this indirect way, Beat literature shaped some of my thoughts around feminist thinking as I was conscious of my orientation as outside certain privileges of the “male, womanizing adventurer” often romanticized in Beat lit. I had to interrogate what it meant to feel intimacies with Ginsberg and Duncan who were destabilizing masculinities and cultural logics of hate.

And so what I learned from City Lights and Beat lit is really something about the relationship between myth-making and counter-culture communities. I’m understanding the truly expansive network of the movement in so much more detail right now while reading an advanced copy of a fabulous new book called The Beats: A Literary History by Steven Belletto.

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading a book called Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem, co-written by Dapper Dan himself and my good friend, Mikael Awake. It’s a history of Dapper Dan’s iconic work in fashion, of course, while being really intimate. And it’s just as much a history of his family’s internal dynamics and, through his family, New York City at large. In particular, 1970’s NYC is so vividly, brilliantly wrought in this book.

There’s this one section where Dap is at Iona College at a lecture on protohistory and the professor, a Czech immigrant, tells the class that “In order for man to have survived during those ancient times… he must have had powers that he doesn’t have now. The only people that could possibly still have these powers today are the black and brown people on the planet” and when Dap hears this, he is transfixed. He says: “This is one of the most esteemed scholars at Iona College telling a packed lecture hall that black and brown people were the only ones on the planet who still had spiritual powers. How come this was my first time hearing about that? I looked around. I was the only black student in the class. I wasn’t tired anymore. He had my full attention… I said to myself, This is what I need to know. This is how I need to formulate myself.” I’m loving how the book captures these intense moments of transformation. I love that word choice: formulate. What poetic agency is modeled in that word? I needed that word the moment I read it.

Recently, I’ve also read Samiya Bashir’s Field Theories and Edgar Kunz’s Tap Out. Samiya wrote this legitimately weird and imaginative book that feels like it’s made out of the time-space continuum. Some cosmic materiality is really showing up in that book. I remember this line: “A body. A zoo. A lovely savannah. Walls of clear, clean glass” and I’m just on a ride with the musicality of her shifting assonance. Plus, I know that writers like June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara are operating influences/specters of the book and you can feel that energy. Edgar’s book is more narrative and quieter, but so devastating. I sort of get what makes his speakers tenderize if that makes sense. I think it’s the same phenomena that tenderizes me, too.

Some of my favorite novels of recent years includes A Questionable Shape by Bennett Sims, The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch, Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi, and very recently, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.

What book or writer do you always find yourself recommending?

I think Jean Toomer’s Cane is the most beautiful book of the 20th century. I remember just being blown away by its call and response, the repeating imagery of sun and smoke and pines. That book is so stunning. Other astounding work that I always recommend includes Mebvh McGuckian’s Captain Lavender, Anne Carson’s The Autobiography of Red, Evie Shockley’s The New Black, Franz Wright’s Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, Eleni Sikelianos’ Body Clock, Jorie Graham’s The Errancy, Bhanu Kapil’s The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, and Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann’s translations of Rilke. Those are my hard-hitters. Those books are why I became a poet.

What writers/artists/people do you find the most influential to the writing of this book and/or your writing in general?

You know, I collected poems while I was writing and editing this book. And I think those specific poems created a kind of constellation around me, almost protective, that kept me writing. Some of those poems include “The Long Recovery” by Ellen Bass, “A Matter of Balance,” by Evie Shockley, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “I am Not Seaworthy” by Toni Morrison, “Becoming Regardless” by Jack Spicer, “A New Bride Almost Visible in Latin” by Jack Gilbert, “To the Young Who Want to Die” by Gwendolyn Brooks and many, many others. Definitely O’Hara as well. He never leaves me. The most important poem of that little self-curated archive is Frank Bidart’s “Visions at 74” where he writes: “To love existence / is to love what is indifferent to you.” I remember reading that line and just losing it. I have been guided by so much of Bidart. And maybe my book is a little bit about how to sustain rage in the face of that which is indifferent to you, what cannot love you (both personally and abstractly). How do you sustain rage so as to not fall into despair?

I also listened to a variety of music while writing and editing. A mix between contemporary sad kid hip-hop, old school jazz and blues, gospel, 80’s bands, pop culture queens, 1970’s hypnotic modal vamp, classical Spanish guitar, electronic pop, really pretty varied. A few names that come to mind: KOTA the Friend, NoName, Vince Staples, Travis Scott, Miles Davis Quintet, Bessie Smith, Sam Cooke, The Knocks, Solange, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Big Mama Thornton, Miriam Makeba, Kamasi Washington, Thompson Twins, Misfits, Bowie, Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, Cher, Whitney Houston, Portishead, Goldfrapp, Memphis Slim, Dinah Washington, Alberto Iglesias, Gustavo Santaolalla, Holychild, Blood Orange, etc.

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

My grandpa played violin on a ship that sailed between Tanga, Tanzania and Goa, India. I never had the chance to meet him. He died when my dad was sixteen, but I always thought about what that journey might have looked and felt like, its many hardships, but also the wonder of gazing out at the sea playing strings. For that reason, I’d love to open a bookstore that focused specifically on Indian Ocean diaspora and sold books exclusively by authors working, uncovering, or investigating the literature of that oceanic rim. I think there is something rich in thinking about books not necessarily focused on nation-statehood but thinking more about a kind of social-imaginary with a literature that is messy in its conceptualization and crosses, migrates, misses, and mythologizes across many cultures over generations. You could have sections on food, underwater exploration, piracy, long-distance intimacy, trade routes, empire, transnational feminism. I like the idea of a bookstore that is anti-genre and instead, organized by associative thinking and imagination. It would be a logistical nightmare. You would never find what you were looking for, but you might find something you didn’t know existed.

So yes, I’d vote for a little homegrown network of bookstores in India, East Africa, and actually, maybe one of them in Lisbon which is a city that has a long (and problematic) history with the Indian Ocean. I’ve spent a lot of time in Lisbon the past eight years of my life, spending time visiting family and researching the history of the Portuguese empire especially as it relates to my family history (my folks are third generation East African Portuguese colonized Indians). I have a lot of conflicting homelands which is a way of saying that there are times when I feel like I have nothing but a rootless present. That’s something I investigate in my work, that weird (a)temporality. And I’m drawn to the particular light of Lisbon which is quite unusual. I’d call the bookstore “Malaika” which means “Angel” in Swahili and is the favorite folk song of my parents who grew up in Tanzania. I like the idea of a bookstore in Lisbon with the name in Swahili run by a Goan-Canadian-American woman. That’s the world I grew up in… one of multiplicities.

#Megan Fernandas #City Lights Bookstore #Tin House Books #Good Boys

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nowitsdarkfic · 5 years ago

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a quiet place // a joey one shot

Now, here’s a one shot for you guys. I’m also putting this on AO3 because he needs more love there 💜

Totally fiction but loosely inspired by things that actually happened to me with an old classmate of mine... as well as the Seinfeld episode “The Tape.”

February, 1985.

“Every piece of art you see here is from me.”

It was such a stepping stone for me to have my own art show here in New York City. Me, the little art student who stood on the outside looking in with her peers and the vagabond, now twenty-four and talking to people from the New York Times about her craft: I never would have guessed I made it this far in my career.

It was only two years ago when I had woken up feeling like my life was over. That old job drained me dry even if it brought home the bacon to myself and my parents. Art was in my soul, and it ached to flood right out of me, ever since I was a toddler.

My parents and I relocated out here to the East Coast from the southeastern side of Los Angeles because my mom’s job was transferred to the city of Rochester. They decided on Oswego to live at given the commute was a quick seventy-five minutes, and thus I called the region home. But there have been many times where I was asked why no accent and my response of “California baby, New York kid” never flew too well with everyone. It was particularly isolating at school when I watched the kids on the playground and I was relegated to the swing set or bunking myself up in the library with a book to read or a picture to draw.

It wasn’t until I met Joe in the beginning of the second grade when I began to feel more at ease with my peers.

I still remember sitting down at the table in the library, right across from him. He wore a bright red hockey jersey under a big black windbreaker and he didn’t look very comfortable there: he had this stern, serious expression plastered on his face, too serious for a little boy so I knew right away he was bit of an outcast himself. I asked him if I could sit with him and he raised these big brown eyes up at me from the book he was reading, and nodded.

I remember examining the nappy black hair all around his head and how it dangled down onto his shoulders, almost like a stuffed animal. His skin was light brown and smooth, and with his brown eyes, I realized I was sitting with a little Indian boy. He kind of resembled me because I had the same complexion and type of hair: I thought our eyes looked similar. At one point, he squirmed in his seat and whispered, “could you not stare at me, please?”

“Oh my goodness, I’m sorry,” I whispered back to him, shaking my head and directing my attention to the drawing in the sketchbook resting on my lap. Every so often, I took a glimpse up at him to see if he was still there. He never left until the bell rang and we all returned to class for the rest of the day.

I often saw him walking the halls of the school with his dark hair covering part of his face and his little body wrapped up in heavy sweaters and baggy clothes. He never talked to anyone, even when we shared music class together at one point during the year. I was in the choir section while he tucked himself behind the tiny drum kit in the corner.

It was the middle of November when I caught him on the walk home after school. Both my parents worked so I had to walk with the other latchkey kids, but I never saw him with the group. The afternoon felt cold and crisp with incoming lake effect snow and our leader told us to hustle: I watched him catch up with us for a moment before he hung back on the curb near a vast grassy area lined with tall spruce trees. I watched him stand there for a moment before he crossed the street. I was curious about him and I wanted him to join us.

Once all eyes were off of us and fixed on the street ahead of them I followed him across the street to the park. I reached the sidewalk on the other side once the latchkey group had turned the corner. I returned to him right as he began to walk faster. I trotted after him; once I came closer to him, he peered over his shoulder at me before breaking into a run. Up ahead stood a tall chain link fence around a low bright blue wall surrounded by thick evergreen bushes. To our right was more grass, a side street, and then, beyond another tree line loomed a sliver of Lake Ontario.

I picked up the pace to catch up with him.

“Leave me alone—“ he pleaded to me.

“But why?” I blurted out.

“Leave me alone, please!” He ran away towards the bushes near the hockey rink, but I followed him. He was a fast runner, his legs pumping so much harder than mine. But I lurked back a bit to watch him duck behind the biggest one near the door of the rink. Panting, I spotted his nappy hair from behind the top side of the pine needles. I rounded the edge of the bush closest to me to find he had taken a seat against the bare branches; right before him, and right next to me stood the bright blue wall of the rink.

He bowed his head into his arms, which he folded over his knees, like he was trying to hide from me.

“Hey—are you okay?” I choked out, slipping in between the bush and the wall.

“Don’t look at me,” he begged from his folded arms. I took a knee next to him.

“Hey—Hey, it’s okay,” I assured him, kneeling closer to him.

“No, it’s not,” he snapped back. I pushed a branch out of the way to come closer to him.

“What happened?” I asked, setting a hand on the base of the branch behind me.

“Nothing.”

“I think something happened,” I pointed out. He sniffled, and then he lifted his head to look at me with those big brown eyes.

“Do you promise not to tell?”

“Pinky promise.” I stuck out my right pinky finger for him. He swallowed before hooking his right pinky around it.

“Okay,” he finally said, letting go of my finger, “I’m ugly.”

I was stunned.

“You’re ugly? Who said that?”

“Everyone. When you’re half Injun, people will look at you and you wonder why and ask yourself if you can do anything.”

“Half what?”

“Injun,” he repeated, sniffling again. He paused for a second. “That’s a word my grandma taught me when I was little. She said that’s a word white people like to use to put Indians down.”

“Why are you using it then?” I asked, shifting my weight to better feel comfortable against the branches.

“She said if we use it, it loses its venom.”

“You think I could use it?” I suggested.

“Are you Indian?”

“Yeah. My grandpa is Blackfoot.”

“My mom, and my grandma and grandpa are all Iroquois. I don’t know about your tribe but you know, I do—I do feel better talking about it, though. I don’t feel so all alone.” He cleared his throat and hunched his shoulders to keep the warmth in his little body.

“I’m also Italian from my dad’s side,” he added, shivering.

“I’m German, Norwegian, and African,” I told him. “So don’t worry about feeling ugly. I’m a mess.”

I nestled even closer to him, so close in fact I put my arm around him. I could feel the wind picking up from behind the bushes and over the top of my head.

“I’m Hannah,” I told him. “What’s your name?”

“Joe. But everyone calls me Joey.”

He glanced around the nook in the bushes, the tops of which protected us from the outside world. It was quiet here with just the two of us.

“Let’s make this our safe spot,” he told me. “We can come here when we both feel alone.”

“It’s a quiet place here,” I added.

We often came back to that little spot, all throughout the second grade and the rest of elementary school. He told me he missed me after a good snow because we couldn’t meet up there, but always did during the spring and summer. The two of us walked home after school together and then strode across the grass, and hung out there for a while until we had to get our butts back home because of homework. We talked about our day, like something that happened at recess or at lunch or during class. He always made me laugh with his little off-the-cuff quips and his spicy sense of humor; I often made him laugh when I learned sarcasm and my humor grew sharper. Nothing fancy, just two kids hanging out together.

We returned to it as we grew older and Joey found interest in hockey and then music. Every single time we took the exact same seating with our backs to the grass and our feet pointed to the outside wall. I always put my arm around him whenever he felt too cold; sometimes he did the same with me, too. At school, I almost never saw him because our classes were down the hall from each other, and so seeing him was the best part of the school day.

Meanwhile, I watched his hair grow longer and thicker and darker to where it was solid black. We listened to our voices change, his squeaky little boy voice breaking and falling lower, and mine growing more womanly.

We even watched our hips grow fuller—it was more so the case with me, but his developed a gentle curve, all while he grew lankier: he gained all of his weight in the form of slender but strong muscles. The first time I knew he was going to be a tall man was in the middle of sixth grade, and one of the last times I saw him. When he stretched out his legs towards the wall, his jeans legs receded back up enough to reveal the very tops of his black Chuck Taylors.

The last time we saw each other was the last day of the summer before seventh grade, and I had received a letter in the mail telling me I had been accepted into a brand new art school over in Rochester, which meant my parents and I would have to move over there.

“It’s the seventh through the ninth grades only, though,” I assured him. “So I could come back by the time regular high school starts up.”

“But that’s three years without you, though,” he remarked. “Who am I going to hang out with until then?” I could never answer that question.

And before we returned home, and we stood to our feet, and strode over to the curb and stopped before crossing. I put my arms around him to feel him one last time: even though he had grown slim and toned with time, he had this nice soft feeling to him. He held me in his slender arms against his deepening chest and I never wanted to let go of him, not just from the fact I was saying goodbye to my best friend but from the fact I always wanted to stay with his softness and his gentleness.

He never saw me grow heavier with everything ballooning: indeed, by the time I started ninth grade and my technical freshman year of high school, I was five foot seven and a hundred sixty pounds. Another fifteen on me and I’d be considered fat. My parents worked long days so I often spent my time alone.

The blessing, however, was art: I managed to make art so well that I was at the top of my class by the end of the ninth grade. The other blessing was having found a tape recorder to record my thoughts. Since I was alone, I could speak my thoughts aloud and I felt better doing it like that instead of putting them in writing.

But I wasn’t returning to Oswego upon graduation. I kept going in the arts all through my high school years, and yet not one time did I hear a word from Joey. I hoped he could find me as I started losing weight and looking forward to being a part of something greater than myself. It didn’t help matters I was surrounded by fears of an economic downturn, even though by my eighteenth birthday in the middle of April I landed a factory job: it couldn’t come at a better time as my dad was laid off from his job and my mom worried about being the sole breadwinner. I stayed there for a year and a half until the place closed down. I was forced into a job at Xerox, which I liked at first because I was bringing home money to help my parents as much as myself.

But over time I hated it there. The hours were ridiculous so I couldn’t see my parents that often, or make art so much. There came a point before my twentieth birthday I had gone so far to writing a suicide note and a plan on how to kill myself, including finding a way back to Joey so I could tell him goodbye for the last time. I would then drive into Oswego and scout out a drug dealer and overdose on heroin right there at home.

But it was the thought of him, that belief that he and I would reunite in the future, that saved me from my own demise. I finally said enough with the job, but I had faith in my art.

It took me a full year before I made my first commission and it was modest. I worried about my parents and I being evicted and thus I poured my all, all of my yearning to return to the quiet place and to Joey, into every single piece. We were given two days to leave our condo when I had one of my drawings posted in a gallery in the heart of the city and I was invited to share more with them.

The commissions I made saved my parents’ condo and even though I was a ways off, I began scouting out for a place of my own. I started gaining weight again but I knew it was for the best.

Over the next two years I had more and more art shows with galleries in Rochester and then that past autumn in 1983, I received a letter from that gallery that saved us, telling me they wanted to sponsor me in my own show in New York City. My own art show! In the city!

I had my parents put in first class with me as we rode the rails from Rochester to the outskirts of the Big Apple in Yonkers, right near the Hudson River. This place was exactly how I would imagine an art gallery in New York would look like with its shiny wooden floors so clean I could eat off of them and all of my art treated like they were worth millions.

I was so eager about the whole thing that I made an auditory diary in the back room right before showtime. That little recording became my sole moment alone for hours on end as I answered interview questions, made even more commissions, and even sold a few drawings. I was on top of the world for once, caught up in a state of euphoria.

By eleven thirty at night, the owner announced five minutes before closing time, but I still had a couple of stragglers from the New York Times in conversation with me for at least another ten minutes. Once they node me good night, I breathed a sigh of both relief and elation.

Day one was done: time to grab my things and head back to my hotel room next door to my parents’ room. I scooped up my purse and my tape recorder before heading out to my rental car. Once I sank into the driver’s seat, I rewound the tape to a clean strip.

Nothing. It was full. Strange, it couldn’t have been, as I had plenty of space left.

I played the spot where I had left off before to make sure it wasn’t a mistake.

I gasped.

At the end of the tape, I brought a hand to my mouth in shock. I blushed, but I didn’t know if I wanted to puke or scream.

There was a lot of people in there, and they were all getting to know me, so I don’t know who would know me that well enough to leave an absolutely filthy message on my verbal diary. I stuck the recorder in the panel on the inside of the door as I drove back to the hotel a couple of blocks away.

I let out a long low whistle once I found a spot near the door and killed the engine. I decided to take the tape recorder into my room with me because I could probably figure who was the creep who left that message. But at the same time a part of me felt flattered that a guy went out of his way to do this for me and on something I kept with me on my person whenever I needed it.

I entered the lobby of the hotel and I spotted the tall, slender man at the ice machine on the side of the room. I recognized his jet black kinky hair, now quite the mess on top and grown halfway down his back in the most flyaway fashion, and most of all, that lovely curvature to his hips and thighs.

“Joey?” I called to him once I came within earshot. He turned to face me: he never lost that solemn expression and his eyes were as rich brown as ever, but in spite of his thin body his face was rounder, such that his cheekbones filled out with a sweet little smile at me.

“Hey, I know you,” he greeted me. My heart skipped several beats as I approached him with my arms wide open. As soft as ever.

“Oh my God—“ I almost choked up holding him and then peering right up into his face.

“Long time no see, right?”

“Right?” I let go of him to stick the recorder in my purse, out of sight, out of mind. “Oh my God. What are you doing here?”

“I’m in a band now. We’re recording a new album. We met with our producers today and they said it should be out in October just in time for my birthday. And our manager scrounged to get me and our guitarist both a room here because we’re both from outside the city. I was literally right down the street at a bar and I was just getting ready to go to bed.”

“And then I showed up.”

“Right. But shit, Hannah, how’ve you been, though? You look fantastic. I always thought you’d look good with a little weight.”

“Oh, you should’ve seen me after I moved out to Rochester. I was like... almost fat. But I’m an artist now. I just had my own show down the block.”

“I was wondering what was going on down there at that little gallery. The bar I was at was right across the street and I kept seeing all these people walking around, and I kept thinking ‘what’s going on?’ But I’m pretty beat, though.”

“Oh, I hear you. It’s been a big, long day for me. But... you wanna talk more over breakfast?”

“I’d love to. Here, I assume?”

“Of course. Hey, free breakfast is free breakfast.”

“True. Gimme another hug—“ He put his arms around me and I lay my head against his chest, and I closed my eyes. Even if it was for a minute, it felt sweet to be with Joey again. He let go of me and one final stroke of my back before returning back down the corridor to his room with his bucket of ice. I watched him slip inside before I returned to own room down the hall to my right.

I set my purse down on the table to take the tape recorder out and give that voice another listen. The second time around felt a little better. Maybe this guy was just trying to mess with me, or maybe he did want me from all the desires he expressed to me. They all felt so pure and from a different place. Maybe he just wanted attention. But I needed to find him, especially after my breakfast with Joey.

*****************************

“So tell me more about your band.”

It was a blustery day near the heart of New York City, and neither of us felt to be in the mood to go out anywhere no matter what happened. Joey had put on a baggy black button up shirt and fitted black jeans, and those black Chucks I remember from when we hung out at the quiet place.

“I love this ghoulish look on you,” I remarked to him when he sat down across from me with a paper cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin.

“Pretty rock n’ roll, isn’t it?” he replied, giving me a playful little smile.

“Definitely.” I eyed the muffin, which just appeared to be larger than his own hand. “Ever since we were little,” I noted, gesturing at the top.

“Hey, sometimes that’s all you need, especially when you’re a little boy and it’s all you can find for yourself. So anyway, my band—well, that’s not really correct. It’s not technically my band, they just brought me in because I can sing. They’re called Anthrax after... some kind of disease.”

“That sounds attractive,” I said, nonplussed.

“Well, we’re heavy metal and our other guitarist Scott was the guy who came up with the name after reading about it in a biology textbook. He said the name just sounded sinister, like perfect for a heavy metal band. But yeah, it’s me on vocals, Scott and a guy named Dan on guitars, and uncle and nephew Charlie and Frankie on drums and bass respectively.”

“Uncle and nephew?”

“Yeah, it threw me, too, because they’re like three years apart, but yeah—they’re uncle and nephew.” He took a sip from his cup before speaking again.

“And like I said last night, Dan and I are kind of the odd ones, more so me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Scott’s from Queens, Frankie and Charlie are from right down the block in the Bronx. Dan’s from Rockland, almost in Jersey.”

“But they’re all from the city, though,” I pointed out.

“Right.”

“How’d they find you, though?”

He chewed on his bottom lip before replying to that.

“I have my ways.”

“You have your ways?” That beckoned a chuckle from me.

“Of course. After you left, I kinda learned how to risk things and go forth by my own whims. Well, and it was the pressure of growing up, too. Growing up a half-breed Injun boy in upstate New York is quite the experience.”

He took a bite from his muffin and another sip from his cup.

“Did you go back to the quiet place?” I asked him in a low voice as he set down his cup and showed me a thoughtful look.

“Once in a while. I had to stop in seventh grade because it got—kind of depressing.”

“You were missing me.”

“Totally. You know I made new friends after a while but I missed that—that—I wanna say ‘feminine principle’. Just being there in the bushes behind the hockey rink away from the world was something I needed to feel comfortable about myself and it was something I missed.” He showed me a solemn little smile before taking another bite of muffin. And then I remembered the message on my tape recorder.

“Oh! You’re not gonna believe this,” I started.

“What’s up?” he asked with his mouth full.

“Last night after the show, I checked my tape recorder—I’ve kept a spoken word diary since high school just because I, too, was alone with no one to talk to and I needed to vent somehow—“

“Mm-hmm...”

“—so anyway I checked the tape after the show, you know for a new entry—and at some point or another, some guy left this—very interesting message on there.”

“Interesting?” he echoed, his mouth full of muffin. “How so?”

“Filthy. Absolutely filthy and naughty.”

“Like... sexual?” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“Very. It weirded me out at first but I gave it another listen and I found it kinda flattering to be honest.”

“Like some dude walked in and he didn’t wanna bug you so he told you how he feels about you, though.”

“I guess so. You know I’m not such a mess after all.”

That coaxed a chuckle out of him. He took another bite of muffin before glancing down at his wristwatch.

“Oh shit, I gotta go! I think Danny already left, though—I haven’t seen him.”

“I’ll take you,” I offered him.

“Oh, thank you!”

We stood to our feet and hurried down the corridor to his room, and then my room to fetch the keys. He kept his arm around me as we rushed out to the cold and the rental car; he left his hair disheveled when I shut the passenger side door next to him.

“So where we headed?” I asked him, tugging the seat belt over my chest.

“Uh... just a few blocks away over in the Bronx. I’ll show it to you—“

I started up the car and we headed on over to the recording studio in question. He showed me the way, past some bits of traffic, and into the heart of the Bronx.

“I hope you can find that guy, though,” he declared at the last stoplight beforehand.

“I hope so, too,” I admitted. “I mean, this guy—Joe, I’m not even kidding when I say this—this guy said the filthiest things I’ve ever heard in my life. Like... I almost don’t know how to react to it.”

He cleared his throat before he turned his head to me.

“What did his voice sound like?” he asked me. “Could you describe it?”

“It was like—throaty and husky. There were some points where he lowered it to a whisper and—it was kind of hot, to be honest. You know, sexy.”

The light turned green and we rolled forward towards the low brick building three doors down from the crosswalk. I pulled up to the curb, and he unbuckled his seat belt right before I pulled the parking brake. He cleared his throat again.

“Was it something like—“ He cleared his throat a third time and leaned into my face, his eyes hooded and his expression in a state of euphoria.

“—Hannah... I want you,” he breathed out in that exact same whispery voice as on the tape, “to go down on me with your tongue all along the side of my dick.” He let a soft airy moan out from the back of his throat and ran his tongue along the rim of his mouth, and the result was my toes curling right into the inside of my socks. I gaped at him right as his expression changed into a devilish grin.

“That... was you?” I sputtered.

“Shhh!” he hissed, bringing a finger to his lips even though the windows were rolled up.

“That was you?” I demanded in a hushed voice.

“That was all me.”

“Joey—“ I was rendered speechless.

“No! No! Please don’t tell anyone.” He sighed through his parted lips. “Okay. When I was across the street, you know—I saw all those people walking around and I wanted to check it out. So I took a quick walk over to the gallery and I saw you in there talking to some people—like I recognized you almost immediately. I knew I couldn’t get in so I went around back and when the coast was clear, I ducked in and saw the tape recorder on the table in there. I assumed it was yours because I didn’t think some girl would just leave her purse lying around like that unless she was protected. I just... went for it and filled up the rest of the tape and got out of there before anyone saw me. I really hope it didn’t perturb you too much—I only did it to be kinda—you know, sassy. That being our thing and everything.”

I closed my lips a bit when he shrugged. I didn’t know what to say right then.

“Anyways, I gotta go. I’ll ask Danny for a ride back so don’t sweat it.” He ducked out of the car and into the cold morning.

“Yeah, yeah—“

Once he closed the door, I lingered there for a moment before rolling forward to the next stoplight in hopes of turning around and heading back to the hotel.

I gave the recording another listen. I sat there on my bed with my mouth agape.

“Wow,” I breathed out when I reached the end. It made sense. He and I had known each other for years and the adolescence was the last time we saw each other. He was alone, and he missed me. But at the same time, this was an interesting, rather jarring side to him. I had always known him as that little Indian boy with no one to talk to; I thought I had known him but this was something else.

I kept the whole thing tucked in the back of my mind for the entirety of the second day of my art show. I watched my parents speak to some people on the other side of the room. What would they think?

It was the same shtick that night as the one before, and this time I really went back to my room with some big fat checks in my pocket. I strode into the lobby once again to find him walking towards the ice machine. He nodded at me and I decided to run over to him.

“What’s up?” he greeted me.

“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked him in a hushed voice.

“Yeah, of course. In my room or in yours?”

“Mine.”

“Okay—“

I led him down the corridor to my little room, right next door to where my parents were staying for one more night. He shut the door behind him and set the ice bucket on the table next to the TV, and fixed the lapels of his shirt.

“This is about that message, isn’t it,” he guessed, rubbing his hands together.

“Yeah.”

“Look... like I said, I only did that to just play with you. I didn’t mean to like... creep you out or anything.”

“No, no... you didn’t,” I promised him. “But I brought you in here because—I wanted to tell you that I didn’t realize you were so... sexual.”

“Well...” he began reluctantly, “let’s just say I missed you, especially right around that time when—things happen.” He spoke with that same husky, breathy voice like on the tape. He parted his lips and unfastened the top button on his shirt to show off more of his chest. I wanted to touch him.

I lunged for him with my arms wide open.

“Oh—Oh, Joey—“ I breathed out before locking my lips with his. So soft. The only boy who could feel so soft and so like home to me.

He put his hands on my back before he tugged me towards the bed. I could feel him taking off my blouse and then unhooking my bra. I tossed the bra to the side and unfastened my jeans, but I decided to keep them on for a moment more. I unbuttoned his shirt to feel his chest and his stomach. His skin felt smooth and warm like melted butter underneath my lips. I undid his jeans and kissed him all the way down his happy trail, and that stripe of warm, utterly gorgeous skin. I could feel myself growing moist with every caress of his skin. So soft, and also... sexy.

“Okay, this is hot,” his voice broke as I inched closer to his genitals. I peeled back his jeans to better reach for his length. So big and full; makes sense with those thick thighs and those gorgeous hips; I could see he was erecting. I knew he wanted it, just like he said.

I put my lips around it first before running my tongue along the side. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his eyes snapped shut and his lips pouted. He was surrendering to the feeling. I curled my tongue around the shaft like I was licking a popsicle. I put my lips around it again when I tasted something salty. He came right in my mouth. He let out a gentle but broken moan when I swallowed it down.

I let go because I could feel him tapping on my arms. I crawled over him when he reached down my jeans and into my panties. His fingers wriggled right into me.

“Wet as the streets outside,” he groaned out. I never realized how good that felt, with his fingers twitching and rubbing against that little spot. I stared right into his face as I could feel myself rising higher and higher. It was like a runner’s high, feeling my heart pound faster and my lungs scarcely fill with air but all I had with me was him, was Joey.

“Oh fuck, I’m coming—!” I sputtered into his face.

“That’s it!” he grunted, and he let go of me. I lay down on his chest which brought out a groan from him. We both panted from the intensity, but then he started laughing.

“Wha—?” I could hardly breathe.

“That’s my girl,” he said in a broken voice. I lifted myself off of him so he could take off his shirt and his jeans. I could taste him all on the inside of my mouth, but I could care less. I crossed a new threshold with my best friend, and I felt closer to him. Once he returned out of the bathroom, he invited me into the bed. He lay down on his side first and, once I switched off the lamp, I nestled in before him. I lay my head against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me.

“Mmm, oh, Joey—that was wonderful,” I whispered to him.

“That was everything I could’ve ever asked for from you, Hannah, baby doll.” His fingers stroked up my back and into my hair.

“But let’s keep this a secret, though, okay?” he suggested. I took a glimpse up at his lovely dark face staring back at me.

“Yeah, of course,” I promised him. “This here is our safe spot.”

“It’s our safe spot,” he echoed, showing me that little smile again through the darkness. “It’s a quiet place.”

I put my arms around his slim waist only to find he was still soft, still holding that sweet softness I had been longing for these past eleven years. I had been wanting to feel him again, in the deepest way possible, and in what better setting than in a quiet place.

#joey belladonna #anthrax #80s #fanfic #fanfiction #heavy metal fanfiction #smut and angst #lemontober2019 #lemon #oneshot #scott ian #dan spitz #frank bello #charlie benante #long post #text #SHOW THIS BOI SOME LOVE OR I WILL THROW GOOD & PLENTIES AT YOU #so hot omg

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woodenwedges · 7 years ago

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1 through 100. Let's go! Answer em aaaalll!

Omg Kate you’re absolute mad!!! Thanks tho’ I love answering these things ❤️😁Hoo boy here we go!1. What is you middle name?Don’t have one! Neither does my brother.2. How old are you?203. When is your birthday?The 15th of may 🌸4. What is your zodiac sign?Taurus ♉️🐃5. What is your favorite color?Baby pink! 6. What’s your lucky number?Dunno about lucky number but my favorite number is 77. Do you have any pets?Yep! Two dogs.One sweet, blonde girl named Emsi (based on the danish word Emsig meaning officious)And a neurotic chihuahua named Henry. We got them both cause their owners no longer could take care of them and I love them to the moon and back ❤️8. Where are you from?Hirtshals in Denmark! I love my town to death9. How tall are you?Uuuh around like 1,65 m10. What shoe size are you?3911. How many pairs of shoes do you own?Too many.... we get a lot of free stuff so I have a lot. Probably around 10 pairs?12. What was your last dream about?The only thing I remember from my last dream was that I got a pimple on my forehead lol13. What talents do you have?I’m good at art, dancing and just performing in general and I’m getting pretty good with makeup!14. Are you psychic in any way?Nope15. Favorite song?Right now it’s brain damage and eclipse from The Dark Side of The Moonby Pink Floyd. They remind me of my mom ❤️16. Favorite movie?Don’t actually have one! But the last film I think I saw was carol and I absolutely loved it.17. Who would be your ideal partner?Just someone who’s intelligent and kind I guess! And has a similar sense of humor18. Do you want children?I do, but I’m probably never gonna birth any cause I have an illness I don’t want to risk transferring and also might be going on T soon!!19. Do you want a church wedding?I don’t really care20. Are you religious?Nah. I’m a spiritual atheist21. Have you ever been to the hospital?Only as a visitor. I’ve gone to the emergency room but I’ve never been admitted.22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?Nope23. Have you ever met any celebrities?My cousins a model who’s dating one of the Danish x-factor judges so yea.24. Baths or showers?BATHS25. What color socks are you wearing?White. I prefer just plain whites rn, but there’s was a time in my life where I always wore fun, colorful socks and never matching them26. Have you ever been famous?Lol no but a stranger did come up to me last week and told me she’s a huge fan of my work ❤️ a lot of the locals like my watercolor portraits27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?Honestly yea I do fantasize a lot about it 28. What type of music do you like?Music is a huge part of my life! My main Spotify playlist is 161 hours now and it’s all extremely diverse!The only music I don’t particularly like is blues and trap cause i find it boring. Right now I’m really into old grungy rock, punk, experimental stuff, rap and disco 💃🏼 29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?Sure have! I did it countless times this summer at the beach. There’s nothing more freeing than swimming naked in the ocean 💙30. How many pillows do you sleep with?Just one, but it’s a really good one. Oh and sometimes and extra one just to cuddle 31. What position do you usually sleep in?Fetus position is my fav but I’m trying not to do that cause it’s bad for your back32. How big is your house?Pretty big. Two stories plus a garage where my friends and I hang out. And also a two bedroom annex33. What do you typically have for breakfast?Toast or oatmeal with nuts and berries34. Have you ever fired a gun?No35. Have you ever tried archery?I tried it a couple of weeks ago and it was really fun! 36. Favorite clean word?I like words like clean and crystal and chemical 37. Favorite swear word?Fuck.38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?Don’t remember. Pretty long. But I’ve started to be very careful with sleep cause my mental health REALLY depends on it39. Do you have any scars?Lots. Anything from self-harm to getting burned by a marshmallow lmao40. Have you ever had a secret ?Bitch my whole personality used to be a secret. So yea a lot41. Are you a good liar?Yup. I’m very creative and anxious so if I feel like I’ve done something I shouldn’t I immediately have a good lie ready. Also I’ve had some problems with compulsive lying whoops42. Are you a good judge of character?Nooo not really cause I always feel bad for disliking ppl so I force myself to keep an open mind. But I’ve learned to just follow my instincts a bit more43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?I’m pretty good at like southern American accents and also an American accent In Danish is so fun and cute. 44. Do you have a strong accent?It’s pretty strong. I used to fake a British accent out of embarrassment but then I started feeling pretentious so I let it go45. What is your favorite accent?I love a Colombian accent and French ofc. Also Indian and Chinese. Oh and a lot of African ones too, especially the ppl from Congo! But I love accents in general. They’re literally my go to ASMR trigger46. What is your personality type?INFP47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?My winter jacket... my mom wanted to buy me one that was new and when we finally found one that didn’t give me dysphoria I was so excited I forgot to look at the price tag... and she just bought it for me anyway.48. Can you curl your tongue?Yea and I can stick it between my tooth gap49. Are you an innie or an outie?Outie all the way50. Left or right handed?Right51. Are you scared of spiders?No, I used to have pretty severe arachnophobia but i worked through it and now I actually really love them! Also I don’t care how scared you are of them, don’t you dare kill them in front of me! That makes me so uncomfortable. Just let me know there’s a spider and I’ll get it safely outside for you 52. Favorite food?Love sushi with crab meat or fried shrimp!53. Favorite foreign food?Well probably sushi? Lol. Or anything Italian!54. Are you a clean or messy person?Super messy but I’m trying my best!55. Most used phrased?“Bid I det sure æble”. Basically “bite the bullet” in English 56. Most used word?Probably bitch. I use it in an affectionate manner towards friends lmao57. How long does it take for you to get ready?Very, very long58. Do you have much of an ego?Yea I think so59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?Suck60. Do you talk to yourself?Nope. 61. Do you sing to yourself?Yes!62. Are you a good singer?I’m decent. Think I could get good if I got a vocal coach63. Biggest Fear?Getting ridiculed, being misunderstood and being unwanted 64. Are you a gossip?I love gossip...65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?I don’t really know sry!66. Do you like long or short hair?Love all hair. I love running my fingers through long hair. I prefer short hair for me tho67. Can you name all 50 states of America?LOL NO68. Favorite school subject?I really liked art and foreign language classes69. Extrovert or Introvert?HUGE introvert!70. Have you ever been scuba diving?No but I’d love to try it!71. What makes you nervous?Public embarrassment is a big one. But racism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny will also make me very, very nervous.72. Are you scared of the dark?Not at all73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?Depends on the mistakes? Never on like grammar and stuff like that.74. Are you ticklish?Very. I can tickle myself. But then again I am schizophrenic lol75. Have you ever started a rumor?Once in high school my friends and I started a rumor that I was “a hermaphrodite” and we kept it going for years. At first it was just to fuck with people but then I started getting like a kick from it. For some reason I loved the idea of people thinking I was intersex. Aaaand that was the start of me getting gender identity issues lol76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?I used to teach dancing lessons for kids at a local church lol does that count?77. Have you ever drank underage?Only a couple of beers. But the drinking age is here is 15 so that’s not a huge problem 78. Have you ever done drugs?a couple of times. Done ecstasy and Valium once which was really fun. And I’ve tried speed a couple of times but it has no effect on me. I also love weed if you consider that a drug 79. Who was your first real crush?Had a huge crush on a guy at my boarding school. And also a girl at the school... they became a couple and I remember wanting to die asdgsa80. How many piercings do you have?None! Had a septum once, but I never had my ears pierced as a child or anything 81. Can you roll your Rs?“Yea82. How fast can you type?Pretty fast!83. How fast can you run?I’m not a great runner but I’m getting better84. What color is your hair?Blonde85. What color is your eyes?Green86. What are you allergic to?Nothing. Tho I do get allergic reactions to extreme swifts in temperature 87. Do you keep a journal?Yup!88. What do your parents do?Both retired now but my dad used to be a fisherman and my mom ran a daycare and later worked with elderly people who suffered from dementia. 89. Do you like your age?Yea?90. What makes you angry?It takes a lot to get me angry but unnecessary hate and harassment usually gets me to tick91. Do you like your own name?I really like it actually! 92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?I have but I don’t remember them... think I repressed those daydreams when I decided never to bear children :(93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?Idc94. What are you strengths?Intellectuality, kindness, curiosity, creativity and bravery. Also I get a lot of praise for being so open and aware of my mental illnesses and for fighting so fiercely to get healthy. 95. What are your weaknesses?Bad self criticism, naïvety, laziness and having trouble asking for help and taking initiative 96. How did you get your name?My brother decided it.97. Were your ancestors royalty?Pff highly doubt it98. Do you have any scars?Already answered this99. Color of your bedspread?That really popular, white IKEA one with flowers100. Color of your room?White, although I cover them up with posters, drawings and sometimes literal trash when i get psychotic cause white walls make me hallucinate like crazyThis was a fucking blast!!! Thanks Kate 😚❤️

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marymosley · 5 years ago

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CNN Analysts Unleash Personal Attacks On RNC Speakers In Twitter Storm

We have previously discussed the case of former Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann who was repeatedly and falsely called a racist in an encounter with a Native American activist in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Various media organizations have apologized or settled cases with Sandmann for their unfair coverage, including CNN. However, when Sandmann spoke at the Republic National Convention, CNN’s political analyst Joe Lockhart again attacked him personally after he criticized how the media got the story wrong. CNN’s Jeff Yang also attacked the teenager and even suggested that his speech proved that he was not innocent. Fellow CNN analyst Asha Rangappa attacked former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley as yielding to a racist America for not using what Rangappa suggested was her real name as opposed to “Nikki.” It turns out that Nikki is her lawful middle name and the Hill’s Saagar Enjeti noted it is “a Punjabi name.�� That however is an appeal to reason not rage which seems to have little place in our national discourse or media coverage.

The personal attacks on speakers were beyond the pale, but hardly unprecedented. What happened to Sandmann was a disgrace for the media and he had every right to speak publicly about his treatment by the media.

Sandmann is a pro-life kid who wanted to demonstrate against abortion. He sought to play a meaningful role in his political system, which is what we all have encouraged. Indeed, CNN has aired many such calls for young people to have their voices heard. He was in Washington as part of the annual “March for Life.” This is one of those voices. Sandmann spoke about his horrific experience in being labeled the aggressor in the confrontation when all he did was stand there as an activist pounded a drum in his face. Sandmann said this morning in an interview that he only learned at 3 am in the morning on the bus home that he was being labeled a racist who attacked or harassed this activist.

In addition to Lockhart, CNN opinion writer Jeff Yang said that the speech confirmed to him that he was guilty all along.

“Hey @N1ckSandmann, I watched your speech tonight at the #RNCConvention2020 with an open mind, thinking I might hear something that would convince me of your position that you were an innocent victim of a cruel media. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to hear otherwise.”

So Yang now believes Sandmann was the aggressor or the one who was at fault? Yang even criticized Sandmann for not extending a “branch of peace” to Nathan Phillip, the Native American elder in the confrontation. Sandmann did nothing wrong in front of Lincoln Memorial. He just stood there as Phillip pounded a drum in his face. Yet, Yang now believes that the media was not wrong or Sandmann innocent.

Yang previously personally attacked Pete Buttigieg for calling for a “vision shaped by the American Heartland rather than the ineffective Washington Politics.” Yang again viewed Buttigieg’s political statement as a license for personal insults: “Okay, gloves off: This is the bullshittiest quote of many bullshitty quotes from this man, whose vision was shaped by Harvard, Oxford, McKinsey & Company and a keenly honed sense of ambition. Dude, your dad was a lit professor and you went to a private prep school. Quit fronting.” Nothing on the content of Buttigieg’s point. Just a personal attack from the CNN commentator.

The Sandmann controversy arose because of the very bias that Yang reaffirmed this week. For many, the mere fact that he was wearing a MAGA hat was enough to declare him a racist. An example that we previously discussed is the interview of “Above the Law” writer Joe Patrice with Elie Mystal. In the interview, Mystal, the Executive Editor of “Above the Law”, attacked this 16 year old boy as a racist. Patrice agreed with Mystal’s objections to Sandmann wearing his “racist [MAGA] hat.” They also objected to Sandmann doing interviews trying to defend himself with Mystal deriding how this “17-year-old kid makes the George Zimmerman defense for why he was allowed to deny access to a person of color.” It was entirely false that Sandmann was denying “access to a person of color.” Yet, the interview is an example of the criticism (which continued with Lockhart) of Sandmann speaking publicly about his treatment. Mystal and Patrice compared this high school student to a man who was accused of murdering an unarmed African American kid and continued to slam him even after the true facts were disclosed.

After his remarks at the RNC (which is not an easy thing for most teenagers to do), Lockhart declared on Twitter “I’m watching tonight because it’s important. But i [sic] don’t have to watch this snot nose entitled kid from Kentucky.”

Why is this teenager “entitled”? Because he is discussing his role in a national controversy or his abuse by the media, including CNN? CNN settled with Sandmann. When did that become “entitled”? The message from these media personalities seems to be that Sandman is expected to simply stay silent and such interviews make him either a George Zimmerman wannabe or a textbook case of entitlement. Of course, media figures like Lockhart can continue to slam Sandmann, but he is . . . well . . . entitled to do so.

Nikki Haley gave one of the most polished speeches at the RNC. There is clearly much in the speech that many do not accept about racism in America. However, Haley lashed out that it is

“now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country. This is personal for me. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small Southern town. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a Brown girl in a Black and White world. We faced discrimination and hardship. But my parents never gave in to grievance and hate. My mom built a successful business. My dad taught 30 years at a historically black college. And the people of South Carolina chose me as their first minority and first female governor. America is a story that’s a work in progress. Now is the time to build on that progress, and make America even freer, fairer, and better for everyone.”

That speech led to an immediate personal attack from Rangappa that Haley bowed to racism by dropping her real name: “Right. Is that why you went from going by Nimrata to ‘Nikki’?” Rangappa asked.

The problem is that Haley birth name is Nimrata Nikki Randhawa. She is not the first politician to use her middle name like Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who goes by Boris. Then there is Willard Mitt Romney. Was Romney denying his roots by going with Mitt? Yet when a minority member uses her middle name, it is somehow evidence that she is a racist tool.

What is telling is that, rather than address the underlying argument on systemic racism in our society, analysts like Rangappa prefer to attack Haley personally and suggest that she is some type of shill for racism. Why? Rangappa teaches at Yale and in academia such ad hominem attacks are viewed as the very antithesis of reasoned debate. Likewise, in journalism, such attacks were once viewed as anathema, particularly when they are based on false assumptions.

There is much in these conventions to debate. In truth, I have never liked political conventions and view them all as virtually contentless. Nevertheless, there have been parts of the RNC that I have criticized, including the appearance last night of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a departure from past traditions of keeping such cabinet members out of political convention roles. Once again, such important lines of separation were obliterated by the Trump Administration. I also found reformed former felon John Ponder’s remarks to be powerful, but I agree with critics that the incorporation of a pardon signing into the events at a political convention to be wrong. I have also previously criticized the use of the White House for the political convention, including for the First Lady’s speech (which I also thought was a good speech).

Those are issue worthy of debate and people of good faith can disagree on the merits. That is a lot more productive than attacking an 18-year-old kid because he had the audacity to criticize the media and support President Trump. There is, of course, a troubling entitlement evident in these stories. It is the entitlement enjoyed by media figures who feel total license to personally attack anyone who challenges their narrative or supports Trump. It is not just permitted but popular. This is why Merriam-Webster defines “entitlement” as the “belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges.”

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CNN Analysts Unleash Personal Attacks On RNC Speakers In Twitter Storm published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

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bamby0304 · 8 years ago

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The Hart: Chapter One

Summary: When Lizzie was just a few months old, she lost her father. Fifteen years later she lost her mother, and then her sister. Now in her early twenties Lizzie spends her days and nights hunting things and saving people. When the Winchesters meet the bright eyed and bubbly blonde they don’t realise what they’re in for… and neither does she…

Part Eight: Psychic?

Masterlist

Warnings: Violence and death

Bamby

EPOV

Sam is a psychic... Sam, is a psychic... How am I supposed to process this? How does this even happen? My head hurt. It had been hurting for a few hours, ever since Dean and I had walked into our hotel room and found Sam on the ground.

He hadn't even hesitated before telling us he'd had a vision.

I freaked out. Dean made sure Sam was okay. Sam told us what his vision was about. I kept freaking out. Sam tried to explain it to me. Dean got protective and warned me not to say a word or he'd kill me. I snapped back at him, while still freaking out.

Eventually we all calmed down and piled into the car though. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to tag along, but I'd gotten slightly attached to the guys, and I knew that I could trust them. Despite this new turn of events.

"Continue on OR-224 west." Sam's phone's GPS spoke.

"There are only two town in the U.S. named Rivergrove." Sam told Dean.

"How come you're so sure it's the one in Oregon?" Dean asked.

"There was a picture of Crater Lake."

"Okay, what else?"

Sam shrugged, explaining the vision for the millionth time. "I saw a dark room, some people and a guy tied to a chair."

"And I ventilated him?" Dean didn't sound too sure about that part, as if it wasn't like him. Which it wasn't. Dean didn't go about killing people randomly.

"Yeah. You thought there was something inside him."

"A demon? Was he possessed?"

"I don't know."

"Well, all your real visions are always tied to the Yellow-Eyed Demon somehow. Was there any black smoke? Did we try to exorcise him?"

"No, nothing. You just plugged him. That's it."

"I'm sure I had a good reason."

"I sure hope so."

"What does that mean?" Dean asked his brother. "I mean, I'm not gonna waste an innocent man. I wouldn't." he insisted.

"I never said you would."

"Fine." Dean nodded.

"Fine. Look, we don't know what it is, but whatever it is, that guy in the chair is part of it. Let's find him, see what's what."

"Fine." Dean repeated.

"Fine." Sam sighed before he turned around to look at me. "You okay, back there?"

I nodded frantically. "Peachy."

Usually I sat behind Sam or in the middle, but for the first time, I was behind Dean. As much as I trusted Sam, I was still a little unsure. My job was to kill things like him. That's what were instincts were telling me to do. But my heart was telling me not to. He was a friend after all.

"You're not scared, are you?" Dean sounded both unsure and amused.

We both knew that if I became a problem, he wouldn't hesitate to stop me. Dean and Sam would always come first when it came to each other. No one got in between the brothers.

I completely understood that. I knew what it was like to have a close bond with a sibling. I knew what it was like to have someone that close to you. Someone who was by your side for every second while growing up.

But Dean and I were friends as well, and the thought of losing him or Sam, because of something like this... I'd lost enough already.

DPOV

Sam nudged me as I parked the car. "He was there." he pointed out my window to an African American man sitting outside a bait shop.

"Okay." I nodded, getting out of the car before moving to open Liz's door. As she stepped out, I leaned closer to her. "Sam is not a monster. He's not like the things we hunt. He doesn't want this. So you being scared… well you don't have to be."

She looked over my shoulder at Sam as he got out of the car, before her eyes flicked back to mine. "Are you sure?"

"He's my brother. I know him better than I know myself."

Nodding slowly, she stepped away from the car so I could close the door. "I trust you, Dean. If you say he's good, then he's good. But the moment I think otherwise-"

I cut her off. "I won't let you hurt him."

"And I can't hurt him." she sighed. "I've been thinking about it in the car. You and Sam... you're my friends. Even if I wanted to. I could never hurt you guys." she shrugged. "So I'd just leave."

I never thought hearing those words would affect me the way they did. Liz had been with Sam and I for a little over a month now. We'd bonded and become good friends.

There was a friendship between her and Sam that I didn't quite understand. They shared something I couldn't share with either of them. But at the same time, she and I had a bond that she would never have with Sam.

She was the kind of person who could get along with everyone. She was fun, smart, kind, witty, sarcastic, funny, tough, and bold. She was one of the strongest people I knew emotionally and mentally. She was always ready to do whatever was necessary, no matter what the risks were. She could always put a smile on your face, but she could also be serious when she had to.

The idea of losing someone like her. I didn't think I could let that happen. Sam wasn't a danger. He never would be. She would see that. Then, she'd never have a reason to leave.

"Everything okay?" Sam asked from behind me.

"Yeah." I gave a short nod. "Let's do this."

We walked across the road and headed over to the man. He didn't look up as we stopped a few feet in front of him. He just kept fiddling with a fishing rod.

"Morning." I called to him.

He looked up then. "Morning. Can I help you?"

"Yeah. Ah, Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, Gilligan Stillwater. U.S. Marshals." I nodded to Sam and Liz as I pulled out my fake badge, which they then did as well.

This got the man's attention. "What's this about?"

"We're looking for someone." I answered.

"A young man, early twenties. He'd have a thin scar right below his hairline." Sam described to the man.

"What'd he do?"

"Well, nothing. We're actually looking for someone else. But we think this young man can help us." Sam explained.

Liz nodded. "He's not in trouble, sir." she smiled.

"Well, not yet." I added. But the look the guy gave me made me think I'd said the wrong thing. My eyes landed on his arm, noticing a familiar tattoo sitting on his forearm. I used it to get him back on our side. "I think maybe you know who he is, master Sergeant." his face softened a little, so I shrugged and went on. "My dad was in the Corps. A corporal."

"What company?"

"Echo two-one."

"So can you help us?" Sam asked.

The guy thought it over for a moment before answering. "Duane Tanner's got a scar like that. But I know him. Good kid, keeps his nose clean."

"Oh, I'm sure he does." I nodded. "Do you know where he lives?"

"With his family, up Aspen Way."

"Thank you." Liz smiled again before she turned to Sam and me. "Well, let's go then."

The three of us left the man to get back to work before crossing the road again, looking around for any signs of anything unusual. But honestly, the place just looked like any other small town.

"Hey." Sam called.

Liz and I turned to see him gesturing to a wooden post with a word carved into it.

"'Croatoan'?" I asked.

"Yeah." Sam nodded, but I didn't get it. "Roanoke? Lost colony? Ring a bell? Dean, did you pay any attention in history class?"

"Yeah." I answered, though even I could hear how unsure I sounded. "The shot heard around the world, how bills become laws."

He shook his head at me. "That's not school. That's School House Rock!"

"Roanoke was one of the first English colonies to settle in America during the late 1500s. But when other settlers came to join them, having just come off more recent ships, they found everyone was gone. The only thing left was the word croatoan carved into a single tree."

I turned to Liz, shocked. "How do you know these things?"

"I've picked up a book or two in my life, Dean."

"Anyway." Sam got back to it. "There were theories. Indian raid. Disease. But nobody knows what really happened. They were all just gone. I mean, wiped out overnight."

I laughed lightly. "You don't really think that's what's going on here? I mean..." but his face told me everything I needed to know. He did believe it.

"Whatever I saw in my head, it sure wasn't good." he looked to the carved word again. "But what do you think could do that?"

"Well, I mean, like I said, all your weirdo visions and always tied to the Yellow-Eyed Demon somehow, so..."

"We should get help. Bobby, Ellen, maybe."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." I pulled out my phone, about to dial a number. But I couldn't. "I don't have a signal."

Sam and Liz pulled out their phones. But as they looked to the screens, it was clear they didn't either. This was not normal.

I spotted a public phone a few steps away from Sam. Walking past him, I headed over to it, giving it a try. But there was no point.

"Line's dead." I slammed the phone back into place. "I'll tell you one thing. If I was gonna massacre a town, that'd be my first step." I noted, suddenly not liking this place at all.

EPOV

Sam, Dean and I stepped up to the front door the Sergeant directed us to. Opening the screen door, Dean nodded to his brother who then knocked on the wooden one. A moment later, it opened, revealing a young man.

"Yeah?" he asked expectantly.

"Hi." I smiled, showing him my badge. "We're looking for a Duane Tanner. He wouldn't happen to live here, would he?"

The guy nodded. "He's my brother."

"Can we talk to him?" Dean asked.

"He's not here right now."

"You know where he is?"

"Yeah." the guy looked to each of us as he answered. "He went on a fishing trip up by Roslyn Lake."

Sam spoke up then. "Your parents home?"

"Yeah, they're inside."

"Jake, who is it?" a man called from inside the house before appearing in the door way as well.

"Hi. U.S. Marshals, sir. We're looking for your son, Duane." Dean explained

"Why? He's not in trouble, is he?"

"Of course not, sir. We just need to ask him a few routine questions, that's all." I turned my smile to him. "Do you know when he'll be back from his trip?"

"I'm not too sure."

"Well, maybe your wife knows." Sam suggested.

There was something fishy going on here. It hadn't taken me long to figure that out. The way they both stood in the door way, smiling like they were from the Brady Bunch or something. No one is ever that happy. Especially when three strangers are on their porch asking questions about a family member.

Mr Tanner shrugged. "You know, I don't know. She's not here right now."

"Well, your son said she was." Dean noted.

The son looked up then. "Did I?"

"She's getting groceries." Mr Tanner chuckled lightly. "So when Duane gets back, is there a number where he can get a hold of you?"

"Oh, no, we'll just check in with you later." Dean nodded.

"But thank you for all your help." I smiled at them. "You two have a lovely day."

"And you as well." Mr Tanner smiled back at me before he and his son headed back into the house.

Sam, Dean and I turned to leave, walking down the porch steps. We waited until the door was closed before we spoke up.

"Anyone else getting creepy vibes from them?" I asked.

"Yeah." Dean agreed. "Little too Stepford."

Sam nodded. "Bigtime."

"Well, then. Looks like we're not leaving just yet." I turned form the brothers and headed for the side of the house, knowing they'd be right behind me.

We ducked under windows, peeking through to see if we could see anything going on inside. It wasn't until we were at the back of the house, by a window to the kitchen, when we stopped.

Tied and gagged to a chair was a woman I could only assume was Mrs. Tanner. Standing by was Mr Tanner as he cut into his son's arm with a kitchen knife. That was the moment we pulled out our guns.

Dean moved back, stepping to the door before he kicked it down. The three of us hurried in, guns raised.

Mr Tanner ran at us, knife in hand, yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Put it down!" Sam warned.

Dean didn't hesitate before he pulled the trigger, and kept going until Mr Tanner was on the ground. The son ran past and out the window before Sam or I had a chance to get him.

Sam ran after him, moving to stand by the window and aim his gun at the kid. Yet he didn't shoot. I couldn't see, so I didn't know if he'd had a chance or not. But then again, maybe he did. Maybe he just didn't take the shot.

I was starting to think Sam really wasn't a danger.

DPOV

Sam helped Mrs. Tanner out of the car, while Liz and I headed for the trunk where we'd stashed Mr Tanner's body. The son was gone, but I had a feeling he wouldn't be gone for long. Whatever was going on, was only getting started.

"Wait." Liz move to stand in my way of the trunk. "Show me your hands."

"What? We don't have time for this, Liz."

"Just do it, Winchester." she snapped, grabbing my hands before taking a look at them. As she continued to talk I found my focus divided between her voice, and her gentle hands against my rough ones. "I'm working on a theory. Mr Tanner cut the son, who didn't fight back. There might be something in their blood, and the last thing we need is for it to get in your system."

I looked down at her confused and amazed. "Who are you?"

A small smile played on her lips as she reached up to check my neck as well. "Just a girl, Dean. I'm just a girl."

But she wasn't just a girl. She was more than that, and it left me curious.

"Okay, you're clean." she nodded, taking a step back as she gestured to the body. "Carry on."

Not needing to be told twice, I reached into the trunk and pulled the wrapped body over my shoulders as Liz kept watch. Once it was secure and I was sure it wouldn't fall, we headed into the building where Sam and Mr Tanner disappeared to. The doctor's.

Liz held the door open for me. Once I stepped inside she walked ahead and into the waiting room. "Hello?" she called.

A middle aged, blonde woman came around the corner, her eyes landing on me right away. "Is that-"

"Mr Tanner?" I shifted the weight of the body, causing a hand to fall out from underneath the blanket. "Yeah."

"Was he attacked too?"

"Uh..." my eyes flicked to Liz as I decided to tell the truth. "No, actually, he did the attacking and then he got himself shot."

"Shot?" the woman's eyes went wide.

"Yeah." Liz nodded.

"And who are you two?"

"U.S. Marshals." Liz pulled out her badge. "Do you have somewhere my partner can put the body?"

"Yes. Uh, bring him back here." the woman nodded. "I'm Dr Lee, by the way." she introduced herself as she led us further into the building.

"Dean and Elizabeth." I didn't have time for fake names and the usual bullshit. Right now, there were more pressing issues we had to deal with.

EPOV

Sam, Dean and I stood by the door as we watched Dr Lee work on patching up Mrs. Tanner. We didn't say anything as we all listened to Mrs. Tanner tell us what happened. Dean, Sam and I knew better than to speak.

We didn't even know what was going on. It's not like we could actually offer much help at this point.

"Wait, you said Jake helped him?" Dr Lee asked Mrs. Tanner. "Your son Jake?"

Mrs. Tanner nodded. "They beat me. Tied me up." she cried.

"I don't believe it." the doctor's assistant spoke from the corner.

"Pam." Dr Lee shook her head at her, then turned back to Mrs. Tanner. "Beverly, you've any idea why they would act this way? Any history of chemical dependency?"

"No, of course not. I don't know why. One minute, they were my husband and my son... And then the next, they had the devil in them."

Dean turned to Sam and me. "We gotta talk." he told us before walking out of the room.

Sam and I were right behind him, moving to the waiting room while the others stayed where they were.

"Those guys were whacked out of their gourds." Dean noted as he came to a stop and turned to us again.

"What so you think? Multiple demons, mass possession?" Sam suggested.

Dean shrugged. "If it is a possession, there could be more. God knows how many. It could be like a frigging Shriner convention." he nodded at me. "You seen anything like this?"

"No." I shook my head. "I mean, the closest I've come to seeing something like this, is when dealing with demons. But there was no smoke when Mr Tanner died. No signs of possession other than the craziness."

"Well, that's one way to take out a town." Dean noted. "Take it from the inside. Something must have turned them into monsters." he looked to Sam. "You know, if you'd taken out the other one, there'd be one less to worry about."

I stepped back then. This was not something I was getting into.

"I'm sorry, all right?" Sam told him. "I hesitated, Dean. It was a kid."

"No, it was an it. Not the best time for a bleeding heart, Sam."

The sound of heels on the ground had us all turn to see Dr Lee walk into the room and towards us.

I stepped up to her, speaking before one of the guys could. "How is she?"

"Terrible." she answered honestly. "What the hell happened?"

There was no other answer I could give her other than the truth. "We're not sure."

"Yeah, well, you just killed my next-door neighbour."

"We didn't have a choice." Dean insisted, standing closer to me, a defensive and protective tone in his voice.

"Maybe so, but we need the county sheriff. I need the coroner."

"Phones are down." Sam noted.

She sighed. "I know, I tried. Tell me you got a police radio in the car."

"We do. But it crapped out just like everything else." Sam was right, we'd tried it on the way here.

The doctor looked to the ground, shaking her head. "I don't understand what is happening."

"How far is it to the next town?" Dean asked her.

"It about forty miles down to Sidewinder."

"All right. I'm gonna go there and see if I can find some help. My partners will stick around, keep you guys safe."

But instead of agreeing, I turned to Dean. "I'm going with you."

He looked from me, to the doctor and then back to me. "Can I talk to you in private for a minute?" he asked. But before I could answer, he grabbed my arm and walked us away from the others so we could talk without being heard. "This better not be about Sam."

"No. It's about you." I pulled my arm from him as we stopped. "We don't know what's out there. I'm not letting you go off alone. Everyone needs back up right now."

He searched my eyes, frowning as if he wasn't sure if he should listen to me or not. But we both knew I would end up doing what I wanted anyway. There was no point in fighting it.

"Fine, okay." sighing, he gave a short nod. "Sam, we'll be back." he called before we headed for the exit and walked out into the street.

I could feel a thickness in the air the moment we were out in the open. Whatever was changing, had already begun.

DPOV

I stopped the car behind an abandoned car on the side of the road. From where we were parked, we could see blood on the back window of the car in front of us.

"Stay in the car."

"Hell no." Liz pulled out her gun from the back of her pants.

Shaking my head, not bothering to argue, I stepped out of the car and headed for the trunk while she slid over and got out through my door as well, watching out surroundings. I grabbed a shotgun and closed the trunk before moving to stand with her again.

The two of us moved carefully and cautiously.

A baby seat sat in the back, soaked in blood. The front seats were covered in blood as well. The front window had been shot at. Both the driver's and passenger's window had been smashed in. But there were no people.

My eyes fell to the ground where a bloody knife lay.

"Dean..." Liz looked into the car at the baby seat. "You don't think..."

I stepped closer to her, pressing my hand to her back as I turned us to the Impala. "You stay close to me, okay? No matter what."

All she did was nod as we got back into the car and drove off.

SPOV

I was with the doctor as she checked out a sample of Mr Tanner's blood under a microscope. Her assistant was keeping an eye on Mrs. Tanner, trying to keep the woman calm as we waited for Dean and Lizzie to get back.

"Huh..."

I turned to Dr Lee. "What?"

"His lymphocyte percentage is pretty high. His body was fighting off a viral infection."

"Really?" What kind of virus?"

"Can't say for sure."

"Do you think an infection could've made him act like that?"

"None that I've ever heard of. I mean, some can cause dementia, but not that kind of violence. And besides, I've never heard of one that did this to the blood."

That didn't sound promising... "Did what?"

"There's this weird residue. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was sulphur."

Yeah, that is definitely not good.

EPOV

Dean rounded the corner, coming up to a bridge. But he had to stop. Blocking the road were several vehicles, and armed men. None of them moved. They didn't do anything actually. They just stood there, watching us.

At the front of the group was Jake Tanner, grinning at us smugly.

I shook my head. "This is not good..."

A loud bang made me jump as a man hit the roof of the Impala before he leaned down by Dean's door, looking in though the open window at us.

Dean chuckled lightly. "Hey."

"Sorry, road's closed." the man told us, voice flat and emotionless.

"Yeah, I can see that." Dean nodded. "What's up?"

"Quarantine."

"Quarantine?" Dean asked. "What is it?"

The man shrugged. "Don't know. Something going around out there."

"Uh-huh. Who told you that?"

"County sheriff."

"Is he here?"

"No. He called." there was a smugness about the man. As if he knew we knew the truth, but none of us were willing to bite first. "Say, why don't you get out of the car and we'll talk a little?" he asked.

Just then, another man appeared by my window.

I tensed and moved a little closer to Dean, who chuckled at the man by his window. "Oh, you're a couple of handsome devils, but I don't swing that way, and she's taken." he wrapped his arm around my shoulders then. "Sorry." he shrugged.

The man by Dean smiled. "I'd sure appreciate it if you got out of the car, just for a quick minute."

"Yeah, I bet you would." Dean's arm moved from behind me as he shifted in his seat a little.

Suddenly he reached for the gear stick and put the car in reverse. But as the Impala moved, the two men reached in and grabbed us. I was smaller and weaker than the man holding me, so before long, he almost had me out of the window.

Dean spun the car around, which caused both guys to lose their grip and let us go. I grabbed onto whatever I could and pulled myself back before the force could take me out of the car with the men. As they dropped to the ground the people at the bridge started shooting at us, but we were gone before any bullets did any damage.

"You okay?" Dean asked, looking from the road to me and then back, a panic in his voice.

"Yeah... I guess." I nodded, out of breath. I was shaking, slightly in shock. "I hope."

"Hey. Hey, Liz." he wrapped an arm around me, causing me to turn and look up at him. "We're gonna be okay. You hear me? We're gonna get out of this." he assured me as he continued to drive.

Nodding, I slid closer to him, still shaking as I wondered if he really believed what he was saying, or if he was just trying to make me feel better...

SPOV

"I don't understand." Mrs. Tanner shook her head. "Are you saying my husband and Jake had a disease?"

"That's what we're trying to find out." Dr Lee nodded. "Now, during the attack, do you remember, did you have any direct contact with their blood?"

"Oh, my God. You don't think I've got this virus, do you?"

Dr Lee sighed. "Beverly, I don't know what to think. But with your permission, we'll take a blood sample."

Mrs. Tanner thought it over for a moment, before nodding. She reached over and rested a hand on the doctor's as if she were agreeing.

Before anyone realized what was happening, Mrs. Tanner grabbed a hold of Dr Lee's wrist and yelled out as she backed handed her with her free hand. She then turned to me as I run for her. With a strong push, she practically threw me across the room and into a cabinet.

She grabbed a scalpel next, and started to run towards me, yelling once more.

I acted quickly, picking up a bottle of some kind of gas or something, which I then hit her across the head with. She fell to the ground, knocked out.

DPOV

I kept looking from the road, to Liz. I was worried. About her and Sammy. About the town. About myself. About everything. I'd never seen anything like this before, and it was freaking me out. How could a whole town go violently insane like this?

Liz tensed next to me. "Dean, look out!"

I turned back to the road. Standing in front of the car, rifle raised at us, was the Sergeant from earlier.

Hitting the brakes, I stopped right before I would have hit him.

"Hands where I can see them!" he ordered.

"Son of a-" This cannot be happening.

"Get out of the car!"

In the corner of my eye I could see Liz's grip on her gun tightening. "Dean..."

"Stay in the car." I told her and this time it wasn't negotiable. Doing as the Sergeant said, I started to get out of the car, my hands raised. "All right, easy there, big guy."

"Her too." he nodded to Liz.

While he was looking at her, I quickly pulled out my own gun and aimed it at him. "Put it down! Down!" I yelled.

"Lower it now!" he warned. "Are you two like them?"

"No, you?"

"No."

"You could be lying."

"So could you."

"Shut up!" Liz snapped, causing both me and the Sergeant to turn to her. "All you two are doing is drawing those bastards here. So shut up, and get in the car or get the hell out of here."

"She's right." I nodded- though kept my gun raised. "We could do this all day. Let's just take it easy before we kill each other."

He didn't move at first, but eventually he relaxed a little. "What's going on with everybody?"

"We don't know." I answered honestly.

The Sergeant shook his head. "My neighbour, Mr Rogers-"

"You got a neighbour named Mr Rogers?"

"Not anymore." he shook his head again. "He came at me with a hatchet. I put him down. He's not the only one. It's happening to everyone."

"I'm heading to doc's place. There's still some people left."

"No way. I'm getting out."

"There is no way out. They got the bridge covered. Now come on."

"I don't believe you."

"Fine, stay here." I shrugged as I started to get back in the car. "Be my guest."

The moment I closed the door, he lowered his rifle and pulled out a handgun as he started for the passenger side door.

"Liz, move closer to me." I told her as I pulled her closer. "You watch him. Keep your gun aimed at him. The moment he does something you don't like, you shoot him and you don't stop until he's dead. You got it?" I murmured in her ear as she leaned against me, turning slightly so she could do as I said.

"Got it." she nodded.

The Sergeant got in the car then, facing us as much as he could, his gun pointing in our direction. Liz stayed where she was, keeping her eyes on him just like I'd told her to.

"Well, this ought to be a relaxing drive." I muttered before driving off.

Bamby

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dianepoststhings-blog · 5 years ago

Text

The interview

What’s your name?

My name is Franck Walker.

Where were you born?

I was born in New York City, New York so and I was born in the village of Harlem, which is in upper Manhattan. Harlem is the Indian name for Manhattan but we call it New York City.

What is your date of birth?

I was born March the 15th 1949. I’m 70 years old.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in New York city exclusively. I grew up in apartment.

What were your parents’ job?

My mother was a housewife and she worked with the PTA (The Parents Teachers Association) so she was part of the educational system. She didn't work full time because she had 8 children.

My father worked at The Metropolitan Opera House and he was the first black scenery director at the Metropolitan Opera House. This is before Lincoln Center, this was the original Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Do you have siblings?

I have, I had I should say five brothers and two sisters. I lost 4 of my brothers and 1 of my sisters so it’s just now all the 3 of us: my older brother Clarence, and younger sister Allegra.

What was your dream job when you were little?

There were so many. When I was a kid, I was going to be a singer, and I sang for the Metropolitan Opera Boys Choir, but my voice changed. Because my father worked at the Metropolitan, he encouraged us to play instruments, so I played the cello for 8 years. My parents said I had to play an instrument, everybody had to play an instrument in my house.

Did your parents force you to play an instrument?

They didn’t force us, they suggested strongly because they didn't want us playing in the street. You had to have activities after school. It was either that or to church, and I went to church every day until I was 15.

Why did you stop?

Because I could, I was old enough to say I'm not going anymore. I went to religious instruction every day every.

What is your religion?

I'm African Methodist Episcopal. It's the Church of England.

What was your dream job dream?

From the time I was 12 years old, my mother used to do my sister hair for church on Sundays. So she will wash their hair Friday night, and then she would do the brushing and all on Saturdays. She used to burn them every other Saturday because it was every 2 weeks. She would be talking on talking and running her mouth, so she would burn them, so they will start to cry on Saturday before she started. One time I said to my mother: “Why don't you pay attention to what you're doing”, and she said to me: “Who you’re talking to?”. And I said: “I'm talking to you because you’re burning them in they’re crying”. She looked at me, and we were allowed to talk, so she said: “You think you can do a better job”. I said:” I can't do any worst”, so she said: “Go ahead”, so I did their hair. I did their hair so well and I didn't burn them, then she said: “OK from now on, and I'm going to pay and if you do it anybody else’s hair they must pay”. That's how I started doing hair so I was going to be a designer I always could do hair but I was going to be a designer. When I took my entrance exam for art design, they said it wasn’t my work, so they made me sketch in front of them, so I did and I passed. Then, I decided to go with design and illustration, but I was always drawing pictures of hair.

In my 10th grade I was going to school, and after I was working in a salon so I started working there at 16 years old. So I have been doing hair and makeup for 54 years.

Give me 3 qualities you have and rate them.

I have the ability to put myself in your place somebodyelses place so whatever you're going through I can imagine it's happening to me. I have that empathy for people and that's one of the characteristics about myself that I like most.

I'm funny I think it's one of my better qualities I have a great sense of humor.

I am a dreamer. Usually, my daydreams become realities, it’s not just daydreaming for nothing I think.

What is your worst habit?

My habit is eating anything. I'm a diabetic and I'm not supposed to have sweets and I love to eat them. My diabetes is really under control. When you have diabetes it doesn't mean that you can't have sweets it means you have to know your limits.

I’m a procrastinator, I put things off, I hate to admit it but I am. I'll do it tomorrow.

What is your happiest memory?

I was about 17 years old and my mom was always making sacrifices for the kids. So sometimes she was wearing the same thing over again. When I got my job, every week I would put away money, and I bought an outfit for my younger siblings from the from the shoes to the beret. For my mother, I bought everything from the shoes to the gloves. My mother was concerned about what she was going to get the kids for Easter, so when I came home that day, I had all these boxes. She said: “you've been shopping, what did you buy yourself?”. I said that it wasn’t for me but for the kids and she kissed me and she said: “You’re a good son you’re always so thoughtful”. She opened up each thing and she was happy. When she opened up the box for her, she just burst into tears.

What is your worst memory?

It’s the death of my mom. She had a colon cancer and they had given her 6 months to live. She was 45 years old. We were just devastated. I was 16 at the time, and the idea that my mother, my best friend was not going to be there anymore… Then she went into remission, and she lived for 10 years. She was living in Bermuda, and she fell and it activated her cancer for whatever reason. She came back in August and went in the hospital in September and she never came out. She died that January the 2nd 1975. To watch her from this woman full of life just diminish. She couldn't talk. I remember it was the end of the year and she said to me: “I don't want you to come tomorrow you’re here every day, go out and enjoy yourself.”. I did and I'm getting ready that morning on the 2nd to go to the hospital, and I got a phone call that my mom had passed. I was so pissed that they told me on the phone and it wasn't the hospital it was a friend of mine who want to see my mom. He should never have told me that my mother died on the phone let me come to the hospital and then let me let somebody in my family tell me. How I was going to deal with this knowing that I would have to do her body because we had agreement from when I was a young boy “When I die I wanted my hair, my nails and my make-up done, I want them to see my shoes”. I knew the moment she died I was gonna happen and I did. I was 25 years old.

Is your dad still alive?

My father died my father died in April 1974. They were divorced. I lived with my mother until I was around 18 and then I moved out. In America you are encouraged to be on your own, to be independent because you will have to take care of yourself for the rest of your life, so you might as well start early. I had a job when I was 13 years old, I used to be a paperboy.

What were your relationship with your father?

He was a very smart man and he could be extremely kind, but he was not a man that should have had 8 children. He was a mommas boy, he always had his mother to do things for him. When he was very young his father left home. I'm sure that this has some type of effect on him. I think he meant to be a good father, but he wasn't responsible. He was still living his life like he was single. My mother was from a very wealthy family, and my mother had five older brothers. When she got pregnant, she got married. My uncle told her to not marry him because he was never going to be a man. My relationship with him was volatile because he could be abusive, instead of being mad at himself he would take it out on my mom, he never took this responsibility for what went wrong and I think what compounded the stuation was that my mother's family had money. When he couldn’t afford something, my mother would get the money from her family. I think he may have the less.

He had an accident on his job and he injured himself. He never recovered from it, so he started to drink. He died at 58 years old. I asked her: “Mom did you ever love daddy?”, and she said: “I liked him”.

What is your greatest achievement?

Being 70 years old. I don't know a lot of people my contemporaries that are 70 years old, mostly people my age is dead. I'm in France, I've been in France for 28 years. I guess that's an achievement. I was 42 years old when I came here.

Why did you leave America?

I had a cousin here, and we were going to open a salon here. In America, I had a lot of celebrity clientele, and sometimes when you’re doing celebrity people, they talk too much about their personal life, and then, they get mad at you because they told you. They want you to sign a piece of paper saying that you won't repeat what they said, and it got to be too much for me. When I came to France, I could do hair and not talk, I didn't speak a word of French. I was known for taking good care clients, and they would just say: “Do me”.

What is my future achievement?

I want to write a book about my life and my experience in France because I love France, I really do. I love the French people.

Do you have any regrets in your life?

Yes, I have many regrets. But nothing big. I would have liked to be a parent. I had 2 children and they both died, one at birth and the other one she lived by a week or two. I worked out in my head and wasn’t for me.

What do you like the most in life?

I like to be alone, I’m a loner. I was like this when I was 7. In a house full of kids, I would play be myself. I can amuse myself. I do like me.

Are you currently satisfied of your life?

Yes, I am right now. But this is kind of new to me what I’m going through right now, because I'm in the middle of changing my whole life here. I'm containt, but I’m not happy happy but I'm going to be. There’s a lot of things coming, next year, I'm going to be with my family. There are coming to Paris. I'm very very happy everything in my apartment will be finished.

Do you want to get married?

I’ve been married since 1978 with my wife. We just never got a divorce, we had a daughter and she died, so there was no reason for us to stay together. I mean we loved each other but not that much, not for lifetime. I told her that if she ever wants to get married again, I will sign the paper, but she never did. I’ve never seen her in 30 years.

0 notes

mixedfeelingsproject · 8 years ago

Text

Arslan

Where are you from? United States of America

How would you describe your race/ethnicity? Native Turkmenadian (Kalinago/Arawack, Turkmen, Scottish, Irish, African)

Do you identify with one particular aspect of your ethnicity more than another? Have you ever felt pressure to choose between parts of your identity? Yes, and somewhat. I mainly identify with Turkish, which is pressured when I am unable to speak Turkish myself. Black Americans have wanted me to identify with black, but that would deny me my heritage. My friend's girlfriend once told me over the phone "I need culture".... Turks have been around for over a millennia, whether they were Mongols/Huns, Mughals, Seljuk, or Ottoman. I have history. Lots of it. I recently got to identifying more with my Grenadian side, eating their foods, but Turkish is predominantly how I identify, even if people don't see it haha. Latino Americans, similarly, have walked up to me speaking Spanish, and being disappointed when I couldn't. As I have found out, people think I look Brazilian or Dominican. However, that is their perception, so I don't feel pressure because I can't compare it at all.

Did your parents encounter any difficulties from being in an interracial relationship? Yes. When my they were dating, my father worked at UPS. His boss once told him he was "in the wrong kind of interracial relationship". When he introduced my mother to his mother, they got into a screaming match for a solid 20 minutes before letting my mother in. Polite, but probably seething. When I did visit Turkey when Babaanne (paternal grandmother) was still alive, I never knew more than half the family. When she died, I met cousins who were about my age. It was amazing, and sad to hear and think about.

How has your mixed background impacted your sense of identity and belonging? Very much so. I don't belong anywhere, yet I belong everywhere. I can make friends easily, but since we don't have a cultural connection, there is always a barrier. Recently, one of my close friends is Peruvian, and maybe because I look Latino, to some, we hit it off. But no, I do feel as though I don't quite belong, especially because I am upper-middle class, going to a middle to lower class college. I can feel the cultural gap. Black Americans, Latino Americans, and South Asians all call me "my n****", and I don't respond. Not my culture(s). I get along every well with Indians, Pakistani, and other MENA people more than black Americans or Latino Americans. So, it's easy to see where I belong, because my identity is stronger there. But would they let me marry their daughters? No.

Have you been asked questions like "What are you?" or "Where are you from?" by strangers? If so, how do you typically respond? Very, very seldom actually. I get this question from black Americans and Latino Americans most. However, when dealing with Eastern Europeans, or anyone from the MENA region, they are pleasantly surprised by my name. These MENA people accept me more so than non-MENA people (except Eastern Europeans). I usually get snooty, like "well, what do you think? You'll never get it right". Maybe when they ask, I'll give them my middle name, much to the shock of my friends, who think I am lying. It's quite funny, and hides my identify. Or at least one of them.

Have you experienced people making comments about you based on your appearance? Kind of? They mostly love my hair. They think it's a perm. Also, black people, followed by Latino people, are the most attracted to me. But no girlfriend, so...

Have you ever been mistaken for another ethnicity? All the time. Black, Latino, Indian! My mother and sister get Indian the most, but now me too!

Have you ever felt the need to change your behavior due to how you believe others will perceive you? In what way? No, because I am too much of a personality by myself to try to fake being anybody else. I really can't fake being anyone who I am not, even when I give a "false name".

What positive benefits have you experienced by being mixed? I am more comfortable around white people, because I realize that not every white person is European. After all, people from the MENA region are recognized as white by the U.S. census (may change in 2020). When I run into these people, we are on good terms, especially once they see my name. Being mixed has also allowed me to see the world. Thus, I believe I have a better understanding of the world and see how race is not everything, it really is an American thing. The world is broad, giving me a bigger perspective than most. For example, interracial couples are common in Paris, France; London, England; Lisbon, Portugal, and of course Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's just America it is still taboo. Living under my father's white privilege has allowed me to see the better side of the world. For example, we have a sailboat, something most minorities don't even think about, and I get to go on adventures, sailing through the Florida Keys, the Hudson River, and New York Harbor. Again, my world is broader, and I am thankful for that.

Have you changed the way you identify yourself over the years? Yes. When I was young, I was black, at least I thought I was because my mother taught me that. However, my father saw me as Turk (according to Turkish citizenship requirements, that's true). Neither did my friends. Mixed was not a word or identity that existed then. Sometimes, on the infamous race/ethnicity fill-in-the-box, I would fill in black, Asian, and native American. After all, Turkey is in Asia, not Europe (unlike what tour guides say).

Are you proud to be mixed? Yes

Do you have any other stories you would like to share from your own experiences? One time, the family was at a restaurant and the waiter asked if my dad and mom were married. Literally, the only time the validity of the family was questioned. Being mixed has given me privilege into the white mind. When I was at college, the first one, an acquaintance said "Hey, since you're not really black, can I say racist things about black people?" I said yes to learn more. A friend of his would say "I hate rap, except for Eminem, 'cus he's white". Recently, people have said I look Indian. Maybe it's the beard? I forgot the first time I got that was my second year of college. I have gotten it a lot in the last 2 months. In Portugal, a man in the first 4 hours of my arrival, asked me a question. I had no idea what he was saying. Again the next day with a woman. I have never felt so normal outside the U.S.

#mixed #turkish #turkmenadian #scottish #irish #african #identity

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sundayeveningthoughts · 6 years ago

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A Chance

Sunday Evening Thoughts

May 26, 2019

A Chance

Dear Paul and Rachel,

When Jesus saw the crowd, he went up to the mountain… Matthew 5:1

Once again we end Sunday Evening Thoughts for the academic year 2018-19. And once again, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing Thoughts on Sunday evenings. Because of my dimness in writing, quite often you Thinkers — usually a different person each time — will respond with corrections to spelling, grammar, and syntax; and for that I am grateful.

This year, perhaps more than ever, you have inspired me. You inspired me when you excitedly wrote to tell me of a new book (This is an Uprising by Mark and Paul Engler)

about how nonviolent protests actually work better than violent ones, and in your own way you explained how you saw this as the gospel — the message of Jesus. You inspired me when you challenged me to be more precise in my explanations: “Roman imperialism does not equal South African apartheid” (Born a Crime by Trevor Noah),

and by using poor comparisons, I cheapen the severity of racism. You inspired me in the day-to-day living of your life and witnessing first hand in poor countries immense poverty caused by, what else, war and violence; but that you take a Thinking approach, like Tolstoy explained to Mahatma Gandhi in A Letter to a Hindu by Leo Tolstoy

that only through psychological chains could 10,000 British enslave a hundred million Indians. And you inspired me when you brought me a book, An Anthology of the Experiences of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Victims,

from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and how it inspired you to commit to nonviolence — though I think you were already there.

Your inspiration makes me hopeful.

Your inspiration also makes me want to act in some small way. If we are talking about God, in the form of Jesus, mainly what we know comes from the Gospels. And Jesus always took some action. Ultimately this is what caused his arrest and execution, his insistence of justice for all: justice for black folks, white folks, and brown folks; justice for the rich and poor; and justice for Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims. Universal justice. The justice taught by Jesus is found in Matthew 5.

So from a combination of all of the inspiration I’ve received from you this year, I am sponsoring a tent “up on the mountains” at Floydfest Music Festival that I call A Peace Initiative, in Floyd County, VA. The main purpose of A Peace Initiative is to bring some awareness to the absurdity of even possessing nuclear weapons, let alone to consider using them — clearly antithetical to the command from Jesus in Matthew 5 to “love your enemies.”

If you notice I am calling it “A” Peace Initiative not “The” Peace Initiative. I do not have the answer to solving the problem. I only have “a” small way of initiating people to think about nuclear weapons in a more humane, dare I say “Christian,” light.

On August 6, 1945 when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a little two-year-old girl named Sadako Sasaki lived one mile from the epicenter. Ten years later, Sasaki developed leukemia from the radiation she received from the atomic blast, a common effect in many Japanese children from the area. Placed in a room in a Red Cross Hospital, Sadako Sasaki met another young girl dying from radiation who folded paper cranes. Inspired by her roommate, Sasaki’s father told her the ancient Japanese tradition of the crane symbolizing strength, courage, and faithfulness. Her new friend told her that if she folded 1,000 cranes, she would be healed from leukemia. Tradition says she folded 644 cranes before she died at the age of 12. Today, the origami crane symbolizes not only strength, but also the devastation of nuclear war. A large origami crane is prominently displayed at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.

At my booth, I am asking for a $2 donation to make two cranes: one for a 1,000 origami tree and one for the person to take home for their Christmas tree. (Note: No one will be refused if they don’t have two-bucks.) All donations will go to the Sadako Sasaki Soup Kitchen here in Norfolk and part of the Norfolk Catholic Worker.

So, if you want to hear some great music for a couple of days, Floydfest runs from July 24-28, please come to Floydfest, and while there please stop by and make an origami crane. And if you are even more inspired, please come and volunteer for a few hours and work the booth helping folks fold origami cranes.

In any case, have a great summer!

Love,

Dad

P.S. In thinking about what song to end this S.E.T., I first thought of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” but it seemed a little cliché. At last year’s Floydfest I bumped into a great new band with historical pedigree, Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real. Yep, he’s Willie’s son. They are also the band who wrote and played in this year’s movie “A Star is Born.” Generally he writes his own music, but he finished his set at Floydfest last year with Tom Petty’s “American Girl.” Since Floydfest is about great music and a few days of relaxation (and this is Memorial Day Weekend), I think this is more appropriate. Besides, Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real are playing again at Floydfest!

… have a great summer!

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katiebruce · 6 years ago

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year of the wildflower

I can’t believe it’s fucking February and I have yet to sit down and reflect on the end of yet another year. 2018.

Two Thousand and Eighteen.

What a glorious, glorious year you were for me. (It was the ten-year anniversary of 2008 after all, so I probably should have seen that one coming. Hindsight is a fickle beast I’ve yet to learn to tame.)

I started the year off with a lot of newness—preparing to move out of my apartment of seven years, for example.

Though I knew it was time for a new beginning, the months leading up to this move were hard for me. I felt like I was separating myself from some former version of myself; a hermit crab shedding her proverbial shell.

The moment we found Hoegarden, however, I knew it was the right choice.

Only four blocks up the street (a six-minute walk; I timed it) from my old place, it felt like the comfort of home laced with the thrill of a new start.

And so, I packed.

I purged.

And the week before I moved, I flew to India. (I am nothing if not wildly ridiculous at a seemingly predictable rate: life change? Leave the fucking country!)

I have been talking about going to India obsessively since the eleventh grade (I had learned about Holi and became obsessed with Eastern culture quickly after.)

Though I paraded around with arrogance, I was quite intimidated to plan this trip. It was something I don’t think I realized was happening until we had landed, disembarked, and had been rushed into the chaotic Delhi streets at midnight before it really hit me—that I was here, and I couldn’t be afraid.

So, I wasn’t.

I had only one bad experience that night, and I handled it—I learned to say no. As an American, millennial, feminist, I thought this was something I was already good at.

Turns out, I was not.

But I got better. And by the end of my trip, I felt so completely safe, so enamored by the sights, the smells (rich dirt moist with the smell of sweat, the sultry scent of saffron, sweetened candy from the streets…curry!) that I was sad my time was over so soon.

This trip prepared me for Morocco—the adult I had to be, the sticky situations I had to diffuse, middle eastern culture. I wandered those golden, enchanted markets thirsty for authenticity, and I always seemed to find it, for better or for worse.

There was lots of yelling. Lots of jetlag. And lots of running for flights.

But between these two trips, these two monumental events in my life, I walked away and felt growth. I felt proud of where I’d gone and what I’d seen. And that, though I was accompanied by friends (and oh, the friends we made!) I had accomplished this feat mostly alone, planning and ultimately orchestrating both trips by my lonesome, endlessly researching cultural customs, Indian cuisines and transport, Ramadan rules (because we were in Morocco during the holiday) and I had fucking succeeded.

I flew again to London (London, London, London, alwaysLondon) and Scotland and finished up my year by going to Australia.

Five continents in one year.

I spent an entire day running around Jaipur, my phone almost being stolen by a monkey, and I tried to get an Uber in a place where elephants are considered vehicles and you can order a tuk-tuk via the app.

I bathed, fed, and walked a rescued elephant—Chin Chin—and felt her two-ton belly swollen with babies (twins!) as she made me laugh by playing with my hair and squirting water on my head when I wasn’t playing with her.

I was welcomed into the home of strangers and fed a home cooked meal; the best I had in all of India.

I made friends with the soda-shop boys near our palace of an Airbnb and left them with all of my change upon leaving the country. (This would leave me completely screwed at the airport where the vendors did not accept credit cards, but alas—who am I if not starving and stressed about non-reving out of another country?)

I woke up at four in the morning and rode all the way to Agra to bask in the wonderful Taj Mahal. I dipped my toes in it’s gorgeous lakes and dreamt of a love so big someone would construct a monument to celebrate it someday that would put this silly marble slab of stone to shame.

I returned to Spain and wandered the streets of Barcelona and Madrid like a pro; how quickly three years had passed, how recently it seemed upon returning.

We flew down to Morocco and booked a famous riad with a driver and were escorted through the airport like queens (gluttons, really.) We wandered the many rooms of our new home excitedly, pretending to be princesses and bursting into wine-induced fits of laughter when the first Ramadan calls came over the loudspeaker and bellowing down into our open-aired fortress.

We wandered the gardens of Yves Saint Laurent and I impressed Lauren and Beebs with my correct pronunciation of the designer’s name (thanks, Cardi.)

We took a horse drawn carriage through Marrakech and were swindled by henna artists in the streets (it was still worth it.)

We boarded a ten-passenger caravan and took a trek that took us through the northern African mountains, the many small villages and ruins, learned about the art of rug making and sipped on delicious mint tea.

And then I was proposed to. His name was Watik. Once again, I said no. Albeit a more forceful one.

We drove directly into a sand storm and learned how to adorn our heads with a “passport to the desert” to protect us from the harsh conditions.

And then we rode camels through the fucking Sahara Desert.

We camped in giant rooms and dined under the stars (the most delicious of the tangines we had, though it’s honestly hard to pick) and listened to our guides play African drums under the moonlight.

And then we went adventuring into the night.

I remember climbing to the top of a dune, digging my toes deeper into the sand and being amazed at how bright the moonlight shone over the dessert sands.

(We watched the sunrise in the morning, and I was equally in awe of nature’s subtle beauty.)

We wandered the ancient city of Fes with our newly married friends and took in the smells of sweet mint leaf and the curing of animal hyde in the tanneries.

I took a few weeks off traveling and fucking prepared for what would be my mother’s first trip abroad: The UK.

I got to see the excitement fill her eyes upon seeing the London skyline, see some adolescent excitement light up in her upon taking her to her first protest (baby Trump riot—yes, it was as amazing as it looked on television) and watched her fall in love with old, ancient English streets, the ones I’ve loved for so many years, watch her accept my longing, my desire to make this my home, as she fell completely head over heels in love with it, too.

I drank violet gin and watched bagpipers play in the street and climbed to the highest part of Edinburgh just so I could turn around and look down at it in awe.

I watched Paul Simon say farewell, with another 500,000 fans in the royal gardens and wept with emotion when he opened his set with “America.”

I came back and saw Paramore with my strawberry, I saw St. Vincent in all her glory, Twin Peaks and First Aid Kit and even flew to Denver to see Ryan Adams play Red Rocks.

I stressed, a lot.

And yet somehow always made it through.

I celebrated my Dad’s sixtieth birthday and got to finally show him around Chicago, my home, and watch as he pieced together a new aspect of me he never seemed to understand before.

I flew to Denver to meet up with my best friend for a road trip to Salt Lake to see Panic. We cuddled and laughed and jammed and danced under the stars in beautiful Big Sky.

And then there was Australia. Rainy, jungle-esque Australia.

Noodle night in the muddy park and Aussie pizza (twice, because it really was that spectacular.)

Twin Peaks at an abandoned skate-house and teenagers blacking out around us.

Ferry rides hopped up on Nyquil. Books read in cafes.

Beautiful, beautiful Melbourne.

Lauren laughing at me because of fear of all the various vicious birds we encountered. My allergies through the roof, throat closing in the royal gardens.

Not one single fucking kangaroo.

There was San Francisco and fleet week and the Mystic Valley Band at a winery in Sonoma. (The most beautiful sunset I’d ever seen—and that wine!)

I left the country so many times this year with no more than pennies to my name, no place to stay when I landed, nothing but an inspiration and the courage to make myself show up for a flight.

I took myself to the Opera and felt bougie for sipping on black coffee the entire time and sitting alone.

I relaxed.

I found myself hiding away in my new home, no school to attend (because again, I fucking GRADUATED COLLEGE) and no trips to take and I felt… peace.

An old friend came to town and I met up with him for drinks and now Taylor is my boyfriend.

Me; a boyfriend.

Me; in love.

I held his hand at Chriskindel market and consoled him after an eventful first Thanksgiving together. I rubbed my hands through his luscious hair and kissed his forehead where the small patch of gray grows in with the eager fervor of old age. (My old man.)

I let him love me, all of me, and sat back in amazement as I lowered my walls, my protection, and let this one man weasel his way through the booby traps I had planted long before.

(He detonated them all.)

I watched, silently—though often times conflicted—as the light in his eyes grew familiar, listened as his sweet, humble snoring cooed me to sleep.

I fell in love.

And through all of the fantastic adventures 2018 took me, through every corner of the world, I did not know that what I had been looking for all along was him. My love, my prince, my sweet, sincere, annoying, handsome, smart, idiot, adorable boyfriend Taylor.

And now I feel so whole.

2018 was a big year for me—in every way imaginable. I even started grad school (I’m a masochist, I must be). But it was the last year I would be in my twenties.

In February, I turned twenty-nine and began preparing myself for the start of a new decade. I felt unaccomplished and somehow proud of what I’d done—scared yet eager to grow older.

Weeks before my birthday, I marched proudly with thousands of others through the streets of my home, my city, protesting our asshat of a president and the suppression of women’s rights. I remember walking through the streets, sign in hand, feeling like a fully actualized version of myself; I was finally the person I had always wanted to be.

It just took me longer than I had expected to get there.

My twenties were a tumultuous time (something eerily familiar about the terrible two’s, no?)

Where I lost myself and tried on new versions of myself for extended periods of time.

I dropped out of college and worked three jobs.

I moved cross-country with my best friend to live in a big city like I had always wanted to.

I became a flight attendant.

I went back to college and graduated. Then I got into fucking grad school.

I fell in love with four boys: the first, my first. The truest, the purest; a complete and total heartbreak. The second, from afar—that spark, that magnetism—now a friend engaged himself, and I couldn’t be happier for him and his wife-to-be. The third, my German—a wrong fit I tried so desperately to squish into all of my open, healing wounds. And the fourth, my love—my Taylor. My partner.

I slept with some awful people (two; M & T).

And kissed plenty more.

I lost friends I thought I’d never lose and met friends I thought I’d never have.

I discovered what it is to be broke.

Brutally, honestly, broke.

And yet I traveled.

I visited fifteen countries in those ten years and did it all on my own terms. I saw Stonehenge, the Sahara, the Taj Ma-Fucking-Hal, went to Oktoberfest, played Sega in Japan and even saw Alex Turner a whopping four times in one decade. (What a facetious little man.)

I cried in bathroom stalls and did coke in bathroom stalls and danced so much I felt invincible and once upon a time even owned the streets of Ybor.

I did acid on tinder dates and even dated a girl, my only girl, my Kelli.

I watched as my sister got engaged and our little family grew by one.

I lost my Cody, my baby, and felt his spirit in a haunted hotel in South Dakota (hi, baby.)

I wandered many foreign streets and stumbled my way through foreign languages and ordered foreign food I couldn’t pronounce the name of and didn’t like the taste of.

I went to so many concerts I’ll probably be deaf, and probably soon.

I was so surrounded by love and so alone at times I silently cried myself to sleep in a new city.

I cut off my hair, got six tattoos and went to so many different music festivals.

I was wild; I was timid. I was fierce; I was afraid. I was whole; I felt alone.

(Walt Whitman isn’t the only one who can contain multitudes.)

#personal

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brittanypowe · 6 years ago

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Pre - Project Writing

My name is Brittany Ja’nea Powe and I was born in Southfield Michigan. Both my parents are African Americans but I have strong Native American blood on both my mom’s side and dad’s side. I grew up in the Detroit area most of my life. I’m a hard worker in school and in life and I always try to put my best foot forward. I’m pretty short height wise so that’s one thing many people notice meeting me for the first time. I also have very small hands, which was something that many women have noticed about me which I thought was interesting. Most people who meet me don’t always think I’m black since I’m lighter in skin tone. I blame this on the Indian in my family. Some people have thought that I’m from India or Indian in that sense as well. I am a non denomination Christian as well, and I like art and illustration.

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newssplashy · 7 years ago

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Opinion: Are genetic testing sites the new social networks?

Three years ago Dyan deNapoli, a 57-year-old author and TED speaker who specializes in penguins, was given a 23andMe genetic testing kit for her birthday.

About two months later she received a pie chart breaking down where her ancestors lived (99.4 percent of them were from Europe).

What she was most giddy about, however, was a 41-page list of all the people who had done the test and were genetically related to her: 1,200 in all. (Customers can choose whether their information is shared with others.)

“I had the names of everyone from my immediate family members to my first cousins, second cousins, third. Once I got past fourth cousins, it went to my fifth cousins, and beyond,” said deNapoli, who lives in Georgetown, Massachusetts. “It started me down this genealogical rabbit hole.”

Using the website’s internal messaging system supplemented with Facebook, she connected with three second cousins, who were in neighboring towns. She met each one for breakfast in a local diner, where they spent hours drinking coffee and poring over family trees and photos, marveling at various resemblances.

“Jorge is an older cousin, a very young 90,” deNapoli said. “Everybody agreed he looks just like my dad.”

Last June she visited a third cousin and other relatives in a mountainous village in the Campania region of Italy, her paternal grandmother’s place of origin, walking the narrow streets, eating four-course meals and learning stories of her ancestors, including a long-ago Hatfield-McCoy-level feud. “That’s why I really didn’t know this side of my family,” deNapoli said in wonderment.

‘Are You Sure You Are My Sister?’

At-home genetic testing services have gained significant traction in the past few years. 23andMe, which costs $99, has more than 5 million customers, according to the company; AncestryDNA (currently $69), more than 10 million.

The companies use their large databases to match willing participants with others who share their DNA. In many cases, long-lost relatives are reuniting, becoming best friends, travel partners, genealogical resources or confidantes.

The result is a more layered version of what happened when Facebook first emerged and out-of-touch friends and family members found one another. Children of long-ago casual sperm donors are finding their fathers. Adoptees are bonding to biological family members they’ve been searching for their entire lives.

Sherri Tredway, 55, is a marketing and development director for a social service agency based in Washington, Indiana. She was adopted as a baby, and in January she drove 2 1/2 hours to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to meet her biological half sister, Patty Roberts-Freeman, 60, with whom she connected through AncestryDNA.

Roberts-Freeman needed an outfit for a wedding, so they arranged to meet at a shopping mall to find one together. They started in the food court, where they bought sodas and talked for more than an hour about their mother, their current lives, their upbringings.

They then went to a Belk department store, where they tried on outfits. “I was looking at some dressy dresses and showed her a few, and she said, ‘No, no dresses for me!'” Tredway recalled. “I remember saying, ‘OK, are you sure you are my sister?’ which we both laughed about. She found a silky floral shell and a beautiful sweater in rose, pink and cream to wear with some slacks. It was very classy.'”

The half sisters have since seen each other several times, meeting in restaurants between their homes. They also see other relatives including two more half siblings, Sissy Bonham, 51, and Michael Clavette, 54, as well as their biological mother’s sister, Nancy Kalman Bell.

“Not a day goes by when I don’t talk to Aunt Nan,” Tredway said. “I call her to talk, when I’m upset, anything. She’s my family now.”

Josh Broadwater, 44, a deputy police sheriff in California, was abandoned when he was 1 day old in a gas station bathroom in California. When he was in his 30s, he implored the agency that placed him with adoptive parents to give him whatever information they had about his biological ones but ran into constant dead ends.

In July 2015 he sent a kit to AncestryDNA and found a cousin who shared DNA with him. That led to him discovering his biological father: a man who had had a one-night stand in the front seat of a ’69 pickup truck and never knew he existed. They connected over the phone, and soon Broadwater was driving 500 miles to go elk hunting on his father’s farm in Kingston, Utah.

“He kind of sat there quiet for 10 to 15 seconds,” said Broadwater about their first conversation. “And then in his cute little country voice he said, ‘Well, if Gloria is your mom, and this thing says I’m your dad, there is a damn good chance I am your dad.’ He is just the coolest person.”

The two got along so well that they now talk on the phone once a week about the weather, what is going on with the children, about the hunting season. “I never thought finding my biological dad, he would be the one calling me,” Broadwater said.

He also talks to a half brother who is eight months older than him. “I just got a text message from him that I’m going to be an uncle in October,” Broadwater said. “I don’t know how much I will be involved. This whole new family is new to me.”

The Genetic Global Village

Others who have their DNA tested are forming relationships not with specific people, but with their family’s places of origin.

One example is Leah Madison, 32, an education outreach coordinator for the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. She was planning trips to Peru and Korea when she learned a year and a half ago from 23andMe that her family came from Greece, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula.

Over the winter she and her father went to the Iberian Peninsula for two weeks. She felt an ineluctable connection to the people as she ate their bread masterpieces, toured buildings by Antoni Gaudí and danced to flamenco music.

“I had a piece of paper that tells me I’m from Spain,” Madison said. “But then I went there and I noticed all these people have curly hair, and maybe that is where mine comes from?” Now she feels compelled to visit the other places as well.

But other testers have found their results more alienating.

In February 2016, Christine Carter, a marketing strategist, was on a business trip to London when she decided to open her 23andMe dossier. She was in her hotel room, rushing to dinner. “I thought it would be a quick reveal,” she said. “I was going to learn that I was Native American and black, and maybe learn a little bit more about the stories I heard as a child.”

Carter was shocked when the results showed she was 31.5 percent white or European. She struggled through dinner, keeping this revelation mostly to herself, until she got back to her home in Baltimore and contended with her feelings.

She wrote a Huffington Post blog post, “I Celebrated Black History Month ... By Finding Out I Was White” that went viral. It attracted thousands of comments, from white supremacists who berated her, to people who had a similar experience and shared her sentiments.

“It took me less than 30 minutes to write the post, it was like journaling, something to get it off my chest,” said Carter, 32. “So to have that reaction was insane.”

Perhaps the most frustrating reality is when users don’t have any known connections at all. This can happen to people in certain ethnic groups, including Latinos and Asians, that thus far have fewer people using the services and a smaller database.

“Diversity in genetic research is a global problem,” said Joanna Mountain, the senior director of research at 23andMe, adding that the company is offering free testing in some countries to begin to rectify that. “The results for Hispanics and Asians aren’t there yet, but they are coming,” said Jenn Utley, a family historian at Ancestry (the parent company of AncestryDNA). “The database keeps growing.”

Finding Your Tribe

Even for those privy to rich data, using a genetic-testing service as a social network poses challenges. DeNapoli has written to 25 people related to her and has heard back from only nine. “I guess a lot of people aren’t doing the tests to connect with family,” she said.

Tredway said she had a difficult experience after reaching out to her biological mother, getting an out-of-the-blue phone call from North Carolina while she was getting a haircut: “She said, ‘There is no way you could be my daughter,’ even though I knew I was.”

And then there is David Hughes, 38, the owner of an executive search firm, Sandbox Partners, who was ecstatic when he got his results back from 23andMe. “My breakdown is basically 60 percent Balkan, which is Mediterranean or Greek, 25 percent Native American Indian, 11 percent Middle Eastern and 4 percent Eastern African,” he said. “I’m like the heritage of warriors or something.”

But as much as Hughes wants to explore the different regions he comes from and meet the family members whom he got that DNA from, he hasn’t matched with anyone through the genetic testing service.

“My biological dad is 50 percent Native American Indian, so I eventually hope to find which tribe I am from,” he said. “But I have nothing yet.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/opinion-are-genetic-testing-sites-new_16.html

#News

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enodi · 7 years ago

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Jodi Dubin, Ph.D.

Michael Rain: Who are you and where are you from?

Jody Dublin: I’m Jody Dublin. I was born in Bermuda, but my parents are Jamaican and Grenadan. My mom is Jamaican and my dad is Grenadian. I came to the United States in 1990 when I was almost 5. So I'm technically what they call a 1.5 generation, which means you came to your new country before you turned nine years old. So I always feel like a foreigner. All the time. Like I always feel like an immigrant no matter what culture I’m in, basically.

MJR: Really?

JD: Yes. Because my parents are not from the same place I was born. And I am not from the place that I live now. And my parents are not from this place either. And I am not from the places that they are from, so I just always feel like I don't know whats going on.

MJR: Somewhere on the outside like the Mariah Carey song.

(laughter)

JD: Yes. Exactly.

MJR: Oh wow, okay. So well how is that? Well first, what does.. What does that mean “always an outsider or not from this place? What does that mean to you?

JD: They're just traditions that I don't understand from all sides. So for example, my mom recently passed away and she was Jamaican. I’m an only child also. I'm an only child and only my mom and I came over to this country. So when I was growing up it was basically just my mom and I and like no one else in this country. So if I wanted to see family--like sometimes they would come over or I would go over there, but at a certain point, you know, you get older, you want to do things in the summer, whatever. So I kind of stopped going over. I'd only been to Grenada twice. I've been to Jamaica a few times, but the last time I went was in 1995.

MJR: Wow.

JD: Yes. So, I definitely feel very disconnected from the culture. And when we were making the funeral preparations it was really clear that I didn't understand either culture when it came to this specific ceremony. These specific processes and you know, the ins and outs and the rules and stuff like that. I didn't understand that either side because I'd never gone through it. And also like even I'd never attended a funeral in Jamaica and attended a few and here in the United States, but my family was, you know, kinda criticizing me because I didn't know what I was doing basically.

MJR: Right

JD: So it comes up in, in sort of things like that. And it's kind of like a tease to live here in a way. Because like in the United States, because I'm surrounded by Americans and they're living their American life, but I have to still kind of abide by my West Indian cultures and traditions and things like that.

MJR: And how do they differ? In ways that frustrate you, because that’s a broad question.

JD: Yeah. So for example, when it comes to dealing with my parents. I'm in my thirties, whatever. So for mostly everybody, once you leave home it's like done and you don't have any responsibility to your family or anything like that. But ever since I left home I always had a responsibility to my family too. To my mom who was disabled. So I always felt like I had to provide financially. So when I went to college I got scholarships and all that stuff and when I would get extra money I would send it to her. So, um, you know..

MJR: I identify with that, yeah definitely.

JD: So I would be broke, you know, but she, I would give her money or you know, whatever. So that was providing financially has always been part of my relationship with my mom. At least my dad is a different story, but I'm paying my mom's bills or like whatever. And I didn't see my American friends like doing that thing in the same way. I'm also, there was an expectation of me to take care of my mom. Being a woman, you know, being the daughter, that was definitely something that was expected of me even though when I--It just wasn't feasible. It just wasn't feasible for me to do it. And I tried. I moved down to Florida to help her. That was, you know, where she was. But I just couldn't make a life like that

MJR: Especially as an only child that’s definitely a large demand.

JD: Yeah. It’s a lot of pressure. But I'm the only, only child and my family. So like everyone else has at least, you know, one of my aunts has three sons, the other one is five daughters. Like everybody has multiple kids. So nobody understood the kind of pressures that are placed on you when you only have--when there's just you and there's nobody else.

MJR: Right.

JD: So it was, it's when I think about my family, like my extended family, like it's definitely very. I definitely feel very isolated and a lot of different ways. So there's... I feel connected to my West Indian heritage. But I also don't at the same time, like I feel like I grew up with my Jamaican mom and so like I understand certain things, but there's so much of the culture that, that I just don't get.

MJR: And that, and you realized that at the funeral?

JD: I realized it throughout my life, definitely. Like even moving here to Brooklyn and meeting other West Indians and being like, “oh, y'all do things a little bit differently than I do.”

MJR: Yeah.

JD: And like what does that mean? And you know, I understand Patwah. I don't speak it very well, but I understand. But just different cultural things like that. I definitely saw the difference between like how I grew up and how they've grown up. And people in Jamaica or Grenada have grown up.

MJR: Interesting. So did you go to school with a lot of kids who were also immigrants or was it mostly American born folks that you were growing up with or hanging around?

JD: So, my neighborhood changed a lot as I grew up. When I first got there in 1990, I would say there were a lot of white people there. It was mostly white people. And then like a small Hispanic community or Caribbean Community, I'll say. A lot of Puerto Ricans and then some people from the West Indies. But mostly like white and then like 12 percent black people. Not a lot of black people. I went to a Lutheran School for elementary school and that was very white. I was the only person basically for like the whole time. Middle school was Catholic school. There were a few more black people there. But, yeah, I would say that was in the graduating class. There were like a few Asian people, a few Latinix folks and then two, me and another girl named Jody.

MJR: Oh! (laughter)

JD: Oh, well, well Jody is like Jamaicanist name for like 1980, like the 1980’s. It's Super Jamaican.

MJR: Oh word?

JD: Yes. So anyway that was middle school and then high school was again back to about 12 percent black and then about 50 percent Latinix and then maybe like 25 percent white and then the rest Asian.

MJR: Oh Wow.

JD: So I didn't, I guess I did grow up around a good amount of… it felt like a lot of Caribbean people because of my mom and like when we came over, like her friends had come over and stuff like that. So it felt like a lot, but it really wasn't like what I look at my statistics for my high school, it was like, there were not a lot of us there. So, um, and when I say black, I mean like Afro-Caribbean, there weren’t a lot of African Americans where I grew up. It wasn't until I came here really that I started meeting more African-Americans.

MJR: Here in New York?

JD: No, no, no, just kidding. When I went to college, that's when I met more African-Americans and then like grad school and stuff and New York even more. Yeah.

MJR: So. All right. So, did you identify as a black growing up? Like was that an identity you thought of? Embraced felt defined by?

JD: Yeah, because like there was no escaping it. Like I was the only black person and, but I didn't think of myself as, or I didn't align myself with African Americans. Like I always still saw myself as separate. And I'm still like undoing a lot of the anti-African American sentiment that my family and my friends and stuff--well, my family friends when I was growing up indoctrinated me with. That's another podcast for another time.

MJR: Oh, we're not gonna talk about that?

JD: Anti-African American sentiment?

MJR: Well, I feel like it has to do with how you think of what black is, right? You're like, it's mixed in there somehow.

JD: There's black in this country. Yeah. But black in the world. No.

MJR: Okay.

JD: I would say that my mom or my family always kind of for like there's us and there's them and like they're lazy. You know, they're always in trouble, you know, stuff like that. And we're not like that. We are different. And it wasn't until I was older that I started to really understand how harmful that was. And then honestly, no one cared. Like maybe other black people cared like what my ethnicity was, but like white people didn't. No one cared if I was walking down the street, no one would be like, “oh wait, don't harass her. Like she's Jamaican-Grenadian-Bermudian. She's one of the good ones.” No one cares, no one cares. So I'm a black girl and I like, that's how I identify. And I always have, I've always just been black.

MJR: So then, I mean, I know this is a difficult question, but like how would you define what being black is? Like, what does that mean? When you said that “I'm a black girl.”

JD: Like I would say like having that connection to Africa, whether it's through the Transatlantic slave trade or not. Um, yeah, that's, that's what I think it was black. It wasn't like, yeah, because wherever I've gone in the world that I've seen other black people, I'm like, “these are my people.” So Colombia, Brazil, you know, wherever I've gone and seen black people I’m like that's us, that's me. I never felt like that’s them over there. They're speaking another language. I'm like, no, that's us.

MJR: Yeah. I dig it. I feel the same way? So then how do you like... So what's your relationship with black Americans now? How does that work when it comes to issues that are uniquely being black in America versus black or maybe issues of immigration that they don't quite... I don't want to use the word understand, but they see differently than you do because you're an immigrant and they're not, but you are both black in America. How does that juggle for you?

JD: Well, I definitely see myself as allied in the struggle, like I'm black and again, one of the things that if you’re looking at research, which I do because I study immigrants. Um, a lot of times with one point five generation people, especially black immigrants, they are more likely to see themselves as like African American than say someone who came over when they were older, 15 or 16 or 20 or 40 or whatever. Um, because like I said, it doesn't matter if I'm walking down the street and a cop stops me, there's not going to ask me what my... they're not going to ask for my 23andme like no one cares.

MJR: Yeah (laughter)

JD: And I see also, although the different ethnicities face different struggles like we are all... anti-blackness is global.

MJR: Yes.

JD: And so like, I don't feel like I, I'm definitely aligned with African Americans. It took me learning more about African American history and understanding the systems of oppression that African Americans have dealt with that um, that Caribbean people and African people and you know, South American and whatever, that we haven't had to deal with.

To really understand why a lot of African Americans are the position that they're in terms of, um, discrepancies in wealth and stuff like that. It was always like, “well, look around, all of us Jamaicans are so successful, the West Indians are so successful, Africans are so successful” and we don't ever stop and think like... like what are the things that happened for us to get successful? Like we don't think about the fact that to even get a visa to come to this country, we have to do, you know, uh, be adventurous and enterprising and have money and social capital and stuff like that.

So we're already skimming from the top. And then like, you know, etc. Etc. Etc. So it took me like the learning more about my own privilege to understand like, okay, that's my privilege. And again, like no one cares what I am or whatever. We're all black. Um, so I just see myself as black. I see myself as allied with the black situation. I wouldn't call myself African American because my ethnicity is different. Um, but I don't. And even that I feel like a little tension about.

MJR: That term?

JD: Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like I don't want to other myself, but it's different. It's just different. And so like whatever. I wouldn't get offended if someone was like, oh, she's African American, but that's not my heritage.

MJR: Right. Yeah. I mean I don't... the term African American is complex because like, I'm literally African American, right? And not, but not in the way that the term was created for. So I normally say black American, black Americans are Americans, but they're black.

JD: Yeah.

JR: But, um, people avoid that term black even globally, what do you call us? Black or negroes or from the African diaspora or whatever. It’s so… It's all over the place. I don't know.

JD: I love black. I like it because it’s like a catchall.

MJR: Yeah, me too.

JD: It’s you know, whether you're from the continent or even if you're from the continent, everybody from the continent is black.

MJR: That’s right. That is right.

JD: So it tells you, if I tell you I'm black, you know what to look for.

MJR: Right (laughter) the best. Uh, so far the best definition or guide that, I've been given was if the person needs lotion, right? If you need lotion and don’t get ashy (laughter). I’m like “Is that true?”

JD: I'm like, I've seen a lot of these colonizers out here need lotion. So I would say that that is not a good one. I went to Brazil to do like a little studying about their affirmative action quota systems and there's one organization that works with black Brazilian youth to get them ready to go to college because they have to take this entrance exam thing. So there's this whole thing in Brazil where it's like, “oh, everybody's mixed. Everything is great. There's no racism, whatever.”

MJR: Melting pot stuff?

JD: Yeah. Racial democracy, like whatever. So one of the people in this program was like, “um, you want to know how you can know if someone is black, asked the police” and that really stuck with me because they know. They always know.

MJR: That is... I've never thought about it that way.

JD: Someone else also said in Brazil “ask the janitor,” and I thought that that was also very poignant, very poignant commentary on racism, and class and stuff like that. So that's his black. (laughter)

MJR: Alright, well let's backtrack a bit because I should have asked you this question earlier. What do you do? Like what is your work? How do you define it? And you do not have to define yourself by actually bothers me when people do this, define themselves by their title and where they work. Like that tells me something but like, what is your work? What do you?

JD: I would say my work is helping people get through college. And maybe even broader like, cause I'm working with or have worked with a student in the past who I honestly think he shouldn't be in college. Like he has... College is holding him back. He is an independent thinker. He's done like all these projects and like he in his industry. He's done so much that going to school is like taking away his time from doing his projects that he wants to do, that Is going to help him move forward and his industry. And um, so I would say like helping people find their purpose, helping people you know, do what they need to do. That's both the job that I get paid for, but also I find a lot of times people come and talk to me about this privately or whatever.

MJR: Oh, interesting. And did have you that? Well, so I'm gonna make a lot of assumptions here because immigrants in America, black or otherwise had, if you grow up here, your parents are obsessed with education. It is your life. The expectations of you going to college or grad school, whatever. It's like, not even a question. It's like, you know what I mean? It's like you're eating today, you're going to school. There's no question.

JD: That’s it. That’s really it.

MJR: So who did that for you? Or was that your experience?

JD: Yeah. Yeah. I always knew I was going to college because I'm an immigrant. (laughter)

MJR: That’s right. (laughter)

JD: Um, but again, even that is very classist to say, but I, I come from a certain immigrant family that, that was the message that was passed down to me. I've been wanting to go to college since I was like 10 years old. I was obsessed with college. I grew up…

MJR: Pardon A Different World?

JD: Not really. The immigrant thing is complicated because I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of TV. So a lot of these references that people make and stuff like I miss them. But I've watched it back and I wish that I would've seen it and I wish that I would've known that like an HBCU was a good option for me. Always wanted to go to college. I always loved school. I grew up in Florida, which is a big football place.

MJR: Yeah, definitely.

JD: So even before I understood about like college, I understood football. Even if my parents weren't directly talking to me about college, I was getting the messages from the culture. But my parents were talking to me about college and doing well and stuff like that. So that was always, I knew going to be my ticket out of my small town, especially because I want to leave as soon as I could.

MJR: And did they influence what you should study or major in like did you fall into the Gina Yashere four like four things, you can be.

JD: What’s that?

MJR: A doctor, lawyer, engineer or disgrace to the family? Were those your options?

JD: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I’m a disgrace. (laughter). But I would say for Jamaican women you have two options, nurse or a teacher.

MJR: Yeah. That’s true.

JD: So it's a little bit different for Jamaican woman, but actually Jamaican men because a lot of the Jamaican men I know now are like in nursing school. My parents indirectly influenced my major. My major was Latin American and Caribbean studies. I was really, really, really interested in Latin America and the Caribbean. I did really well in Spanish in high school. That was my best subject and my favorite subject and I wanted to study it more, but I also wanted to learn more about my heritage and the African diaspora. I'm obsessed with the African diaspora and Africa now that I've actually been to Ghana.

MJR: You don't have to go anywhere else.

JD: I really don't. I do want to go to Senegal, but I feel like that's it. Once I go to those two I'll be, I'll be fine. I'm just kidding.

MJR: That’s the origin of jollof.

JD: Senegal jollof is just… (make a delicious sound)

MJR: They're the originator.

JD: It's really good.

MJR: All the rest of us we’re like remixes. They had the original.

JD: Don’t say that too loud. Nigerians are gonna come for you.

(laughter)

JD: So I guess like in a way. And my parents didn't tell me that much about their countries. I knew a little bit. But my dad, I didn't grow up with my dad around. He lived in Bermuda and I’ve only been to Grenada a couple of times. So I know I knew barely anything about Grenada. Jamaica, I knew a little bit more because at least I haven't been there more frequently and I lived with my mom, but I didn't know a lot about Marcus Garvey like I knew the name but I didn't know what he was famous for. I knew he was a national hero. I didn't know anything about like how like impactful, like how he impacted Ghana, like when I found that out, that changed my whole life. I wanted to learn more about that because I felt like I didn't learn enough at home or in school about my heritage or about the African diaspora.

MJR: Oh, that's interesting. Now that you say that… I don't know. I'm, I'm late to the game formally studying the diaspora, right? And like I was on this walking tour, was that last year? Last year in East Harlem. I just thought, okay, I don't know anything about East Harlem other than the scary intersection of Lexington and 125th. Where the Caribbean Cultural Center is.

JD: That is right. Oh yeah!

MJR: They've, they're the ones who hosted the walking tour. That tour blew my mind because before that had never considered how influential black immigrants have been in like the Black American story, especially with civil rights.

JD: They keep it quiet.

MJR: Yeah. Which is like totally not really acknowledged or thought of

JD: not at all.

MJR: Like huge things.

JD: Almost all of the big... Not Martin Luther King and stuff, but like a lot of the other influential black men and women had a tie to the Caribbean and we just never. We erase all of that.

MJR: Yeah. Like Shirley Chisholm.

JD: Shirley Chisholm was Guyanese. Audre Lorde was Grenadian.

MJR: Oh, I didn't know that!

JD: Yes! Yes! There's so many people that we, we just erase. This is why I get angry. Because we totally erase how the Caribbean like radiates out. Like we are only thinking about like Reggae music. But beyond that, we don't think about how Caribbean islands are influencing other parts of the world. Like we don't talk about if America’s not involved we're not interested. If white America is not involved, we're not interested. We're not talking Stokely Carmichael and how he was Trinidadian and you know, all of these Civil Rights heroes, like a lot of them had connections to the Caribbean and we're learning about stuff freakIng Marcus Garvey and stuff like we've just never talk about it.

MJR: One, you’re one hundred percent right. And it continues, because Colin Powell...

JD: He’s Jamaican, yeah.

MJR: Eric Holder, too.

JD: He’s from Barbados

MJR: It's funny because now that I think about it, It would make sense, in a messed up way, but it makes sense that the fIrst “Black” American president would not be Black American.

JD: Yeah...

MJR: In that sense when you understand that history, but even King. On Ghana's first independence ceremony--this is 1958--And this is before the “I Have a Dream Speech.”He invited him and Corretta to Ghana for that ceremony. And this is a ceremony with the Queen of England. Richard Nixon was there because he was vice president at the time. He was acknowledging King’s power and the connection between both struggles. Even at that ceremony, King told Nixon, to his face, that the independence and freedom that we're celebrating, this is what we're fighting for it in our country. This is what needs to happen. So that connection throughout has always been.

JD: But we never taught that. We don’t talk about it.

MJR: We don't think about it or talk about it collectively as a diaspora. We're thinking about it in America or in the Caribbean. It's crazy.

JD: Yeah. We've always been working together. We've just always been working together in the struggle for independence, stuff like that. We've been working together, but that stuff just conveniently gets omitted from history books. We don't talk about it in conversation, so it just gets forgotten. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to be a Latin American and Caribbean studies major because I wanted to be a professor so I could tell people about this stuff. Like I thought it was so important that we knew about, you know, the legacy of everything, slavery, especially because I wasn't learning it.

MJR: I definitely didn’t learn it. I learn more from things that I'm reading now. Even what you were talking about in terms of systemic oppression here in the United States. Like every day I'm learning something I didn't know about that.

JD: Because every day there's something new. Like literally every day there's some new study that's like, “oh, this is also why everything is terrible.”

MJR: Yeah. I learned a few months ago that The Great Migration, that I that I was always told was for jobs. People were leavIng the South of the jobs. I'm like, no, they will try not to get lynched. It was a massive escape from crazy Southern white people that the federal government left alone to terrorize. People were just escaping not getting lynched.

JD: Yeah. And yet it still happens today. So it’s a very fun thing to think about.

MJR: But then, you know, racism is over and you know, we’re a welcoming country, all of that. (laughter) So how do you, how do you feel about other first-generation immigrants who are not of the diaspora? Like do you have a lot of relationships or do you identify with other first-generation immigrants who could be Indian or Chinese or Japanese or…

JD: Yeah, I mean I guess the closest relationship I feel is with like Latinx immigrants because I grew up around a large Latinx population and I feel like they have a similar history to like the Caribbean with colonization and all that really fun stuff that happened. And I would say that I do feel a connection with Asian immigrants as well because I think we have a lot of the same pressures, but I would say immigrants of color definitely like Asian, Latinx, you know, Black, I don't feel like I have as much of a connection with the white immigrants. I just don't, I guess interact with them as much or I should say like European immigrants and like Canadian immigrants.

MJR: People don't even consider Canadian immigrants, immigrants.

JD: But they are. it's a different country. I make them foreign because they make Mexicans foreign.

MJR: Who makes Mexicans foreign?

JD: We do, I guess Americans do. So Canadians are foreign, too.

MJR: It should be.

JD: It’s a different country. They do things differently up there. It's a nice country but it's not this country. It's a different country.

MJR: Interesting. Interesting. Going back, since we went back for your, what you do. We can go back to identity. How do you self-identify in a bio? Do you say “I am Caribbean American? Is there like a term you use? I've just settled on Ghanaian American. It's like as simple as I can make it. But even that's a little complicated.

JD: Everything is fraught. Everything is complicated. I guess it depends on if who I'm giving this bio to. I like saying that I am West Indian American because that's a little bit more specific, especially because my parents are from two different parts of the West Indies. But I want to give them equal, whatever.

MJR: Equal cred.

JD: Yeah. Even though one person played a bigger role than the other, but we won't get into that. So I would say like West Indian American or Afro Caribbean I use... I don't really identify myself that much. Black.

MJR: Yeah. I always go with Black. Black is the most basic one. I’m Black.

JD: Because honestly, like I said it matters and it doesn't matter. Like I'm definitely black and you will see that. And the other part is important and it's not important.

MJR: Okay. Alright. The last one, this is the, well it could be a fun one to end on. What does all of this have to do with you in food, right? In my TED Talk, I start my talk with a story about fufu. My mom sending me to school with fufu and the reactions of my friends to which I demanded that my mom never like send me to school with fufu again. And then I asked for specific... I asked for all the foods that my friends were eating, like sandwiches and all these other things, and now I’m looking back American food. I was just like not trying to get teased and you didn't want to have this stinky food even though I love fufu. So does that play a role or has food done other things for you? Any inspiration?

JD: Well that triggered a memory. I had basically the same situation where my mom sent me to school with like rice and peas and like chicken, like super Jamaican shit.

MJR: Yeah!

JD: Smells amazing.

MJR: Yes it does.

(laughter)

JD: I don't even think anybody teased me really for my food. Like everybody's just trying to eat their own food. Maybe they asked me about it, but I was so different. I had an accent. I came kind of in the middle of the school year. I was in the wrong grade. It was just like I'm the only black person. There were so many things that made me so “otherized” that I was like, “don't give me this anymore.” Like give me Lunchables.

MJR: Yup

(laughter)

JD: Just the grossest...

MJR: Bologna sandwiches. Stuff that you probably would never eat now.

JD: I would never eat any of that garbage. No peanut butter and jelly. Like oh I hate peanut butter and jelly. Like ugh

MJR: I don’t like peanut butter and grape jelly. I like peanut butter and preserves, like strawberry.

JD: I pass. I pass on all of that.

MJR: But bologna never again. And American cheese, which I think is plastic. I think it's yellow plastic that’s soft.

JD: Ugh, pass on all of that.

MJR: So in that respect then what's your relationship with Black American food? Because like I grew up with this, for Caribbean people it might be different, but like I, I didn't understand that macaroni and cheese was a real dish with Black American people. My mom would make us some--off the lunch thing, she started making us American food and she would make macaroni and cheese from the box and that's what I knew it as. And then my Aunt, my mother's brother, my Uncle Rocky, he's married to a Black American woman, my Auntie Althea and we sometimes went to her family's house for Thanksgiving and the macaroni and cheese was amazing to the point, where I looked forward to going to them for Thanksgiving just for their macaroni and cheese. I didn't, I was too young to understand that that one was baked and it was a dish or whatever. I just didn't grow up with that relationship with the collard greens and the yams and all that other stuff. Amazing food that, I've learned about, I don’t know maybe a little bit in high school and then after, but I don't know. How did you come to experience Black American food and what's like the overlaps? Because I only eat mac and cheese from West Indians in New York. That's the only place I get my mac and cheese from. Other people be on some of the other stuff. Especially Brooklyn hipsters. (Laughter)

JD: Sadly I am lactose intolerant now, so there's like only a very sad vegan macaroni and cheese that I can eat. But macaroni and cheese is definitely something that I grew up with. My mom made really good macaroni and cheese RIP to the homie, but I didn't even know that was an African American food. I have no idea because she was making it when we were in Bermuda and I feel like there weren't even African Americans like we didn't know any African American people there. So I don't know how she got this recipe. I don't know. I have no idea how this happened. Maybe it's a Jamaican food too. I have no idea. And obviously, she's not around for me to ask her. And then I would say I never really had soul food or like African American food until when I was in high school volunteered at this hospital and there was an African American nurse there and she one time made red velvet cake and that was the first time I had that. And I was like, “oh my God, what is this?” She was like southern and stuff, I don't know where she was from, but she was southern. And then when I got to college I started going to this African American church that was actually like super instrumental in the civil rights movement and like just like a staple in Tallahassee. And they had, a restaurant, they would have a restaurant that they would have on, I don't know, Wednesday nights or something and they would make soul food and it was like, oh my god, so good. Oooh, it was like, chicken and then like collard greens and cornbread and yams. Oh, so good. Hmmm. So when I think about soul food and like that was kind of what I had there. And then now I'm actually, my partner is African American but he's Muslim so they still do a lot of African American stuff, but without the pork part to me is the most important part. But that's okay. Um, so it's still like collard greens and yams and you know, chicken and like very heavy food. Very heavy, very delicious food.

MJR: That’s definitely one of the identifiers of being Black--seasoned heavy food.

JD: Seasoned food, yes.

MJR: I’m not saying that we have the market on it, but it is definitely something that...

JD: I would say Jamaican food isn't that heavy. It doesn't feel as heavy. I guess maybe with like the rice and peas does have coconut milk in it, which is heavy, but not as much better. Like, I don't know, this feels very rich.

MJR: Oh that’s true. The butter lard thing is a Southern Black American thing.

JD: Yeah. And they do more like fried chicken and stuff like that. Whereas we would do more like of a like a curried chicken, stewed chicken, stuff like that. So I think that makes it a little bit heavier. But I love it. I love southern food. I love soul food, black American food. I'm sad that it came to me so late.

MJR: Me too. And black American food, like this, might be blasphemous to other Americans, it’s the only American food that’s good. I'm sorry. Bologna sandwiches. I don't know where that came from. I associate that with America if that's the best we got.

JD: It is a lot of different Americas though. I think of salad. I think that's American.

MJR: That's a good one.

JD: I like salad and there are other things that I think are. We don't think of like, I think one of the issues that we had, especially with like white or like black culture is like we don't identify certain things as white culture and american culture. So I think there are other things that are good. Apple pie is delicious.

MJR: It is. But that's like, think of that as a European thing, But it's a good.

JD: Apple pie is delicious.

MJR: Well do you want to leave the other ENODI folks, because you know, I'm creating this space for us. I mean how you started, how you started it is exactly how I feel like I feel divorced from so many things. I feel divorced from American blackness even though I grew up here, so there's a lot of It that, of course, identify with, but then I don't have the lineage and history and all that other stuff. And then I do identify with being an African raised in America, but like I'll even, like a lot of my Ghanian friends who have traveled back and forth to Ghana a lot. That was not my experience. My parents made a decision to not speak, Twi to me and my sister. That was a choice of there’s. Almost every day I get an older person that will spot me out of a crowd and know I’m Ghanaian.

JD: You look Ghanian.

MJR: They will know I’m Ashanti. And they'll start speaking, Twi to me and then I don't. I can't speak it. And then they give me this look like, oh, do you think you're better not to speak it? And I'm like, no, I don't, but my parents... It's like, it's, it's, it's a mess.

JD: I think it's definitely complicated and you're right. Once you start to... I think there's like different stages of like when you don't know your family's language and it's like, you know, anger. Then like you had to learn more about your family. And especially the way that things are in this country, like where it's just like assimilate, assimilate, assimilate, you know, keep your head down assimilate. Don't confuse your kids. You know, our language is broken. Especially, well I would say I don't, I can't speak for, Twi, but um, I can speak from Patwah, which is a language. It's like, well, this is broken English, this is, you know, whatever. This is just like, you know, whatever. This isn't proper. We shouldn't be speaking this anyway. Um, there's a lot of baggage on that. Um, and I guess I accepted it. I understand why it wasn't. I understand it, but I, you know, I don't speak that much. And I understand why the choice was made to kind of stick to English.

MJR: Yeah.

JD: Yeah. I will never fully understand it because my mom is gone now, but, I understand the kind of meta reasons why. Yeah.

MJR: Yeah. So do you, do you feel, so personally I feel most comfortable with these ENODI folks? Do you? To me, I feel like you get it. I don't have to explain to you how I'm black, but that's different than what you might understand and that I, that my parents were immigrants and I'm first-generation, for ENODI folks it’s all understood and we can just like talk. But to everybody else I got to give a history lesson or something.

JD: I don't really do that. I really just. Sometimes there will be a reference and I'll be like, oh actually I should let you know I didn't come to this country until 1990 whatever, but I'm from the South. I dunno, there are certain things that I was, I don't know. I still going to feel outside And inside. Like even with other West Indian American kids, like even with other Black kids, even with other immigrant kids, like there's Always, you know, things that I’m inside of and things that I might like. It feels like in this room where I can kind of see outside. I can hear, but I'm not out there. Like I can understand what's going on but I'm not. They're like, I'll never, I'll never fully be over there. Like I feel like if I have a kid they will be African American. Like that kid will be African-American, definitely. But like me, I will never. I'll never quite transitioned over.

MJR: Very interesting. Thank you so much for your time, Jody.

#ENODI #jamacian #bermuda #grenada #africa #caribbean

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