3 Things From the Holidays of 2006

December 19th, 2006

This is for sunlight; We climbed up into the empty car before the railroad workers could see us. The sun came streaming in choking on the dust and the train car lurched lurched lurched into motion. I fell down onto the greying wooden floor. My knee was bloody and I signed the walls as the Rose of Sharon and hoped that some day there would never again be floods or babies. Our rumbling train car hurtled hurtled hurtled through countrysides and dingy cities, and the dust never left us. But this isn’t about the dust or the dingy cities or the work or the hope that will never come.

December 20th, 2006

I dyed my hair a deep deep darkest shade of weird and new and strange but pleasing. The boy at the bar hasn’t noticed; but then again I have not been to the bar in awhile. I think he’s an amateur historian- he collects stories about the invasions and the wars and the migrations and then some insects. We’d run in the tall grass, bare ankles getting whipped and cut by sharp little slivers and blades until the grasshoppers had no where else to run and we caught them (first, gently, in the hem of my skirt and then) in a glass jar with little holes cut out of the top for breathing.

December 25th, 2006

You, I have never met. You sat on a futon and played a guitar (and sometimes a harmonica) while we all sat in that tiny dank attic space in silence and watched. And then there was you. You didn’t sit as close as I would have liked, and you told me that the boy with the guitar was telling us something. And I thought that that something was perhaps important, just because it was being said through a song and not through a conversation. I sat there on a sagging sad couch and closed my eyes, listening hard to you (not you) playing your guitar, trying to remember how the lightbulbs on my great-grandmother’s Christmas tree looked and wondering why the string of lights hanging from the rafters of that tiny dank attic space looked so foreign and not Christmas-like at all.

1976

Themes from Carrie that you just don’t see that often these days- especially all rolled into one film:

1. Teachers hitting children

2. Smoking indoors

3. Domestic abuse

4. Drinking and driving

5. Animal cruelty

6. Racism

7. Unapologetic use of ball cap with a prom dress

the Mythology of Atlas

Having read the Autobiography of Malcolm X several times, I was interested to come across a copy of Growing Up X, written by Ilyasah Shabazz, one of the six daughters of Malcolm X.

In it, she writes about her life growing up without her father- and coming to understand who her father was outside of the experience of him simply being her father. What was interesting to me was her mentioning of her nephew, Malcolm Shabazz, who was responsible for setting the fire that killed his own grandmother and the wife of Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz.

Malcolm is twenty-five years old now, the same age as I am; We were born exactly one month apart, as a matter of fact. He’s the only male heir to the Malcolm X legacy. He was in juvenile detention for the aforementioned fire; he’s been in prison for a robbery charge. In some ways, his present life echoes the life that his grandfather had before turning to the Nation of Islam. In interviews, he mentions this fact, along with the idea that at that time, Malcolm X had no idea who he was going to become, whereas the junior Malcolm has a plan for the future. I don’t know what that plan is, but I also can’t imagine trying to formulate a plan while having the weight of such a legacy on your shoulders.

I believe that Malcolm X was a great man. I may not agree with some of the things he believed in, especially early on in his career, but I believe that any man who has the capacity to learn and evolve throughout his career of guiding people towards a unified goal is indeed a great man. Near the end, when Malcolm X made his Hajj and opened himself up to what Islam really teaches, he was on the path to becoming a man for all people to rally behind.

At this time, I believe the world could use another Malcolm X. There are so many issues that could use a strong presence to bring them to the forefront of consciousness- a declining educational system, gang activity amongst schoolchildren, economic issues amongst almost every demographic, and so many more. What we need now are leaders, and not just the kind that we elect. We need more homegrown leaders, people who are willing to risk everything and step out on their own accord, for no other reason than the things that they say are things that need to be said.

I can’t imagine being twenty-five years old, and feeling the pressure of such a legacy bearing down on me- but I also can’t imagine having the gift of such a legacy on my shoulders, and doing nothing about it. One of the pathways of his potential has been set up for him already- a path set up over forty years ago- should he choose to take it. I hope he does.