My friends, what a joy this month has been. This first iteration of "Black History, Uncensored" has served its purpose. But rest assured, there's more in store.
We set out to defy conservative bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Doing this meant not only reading the authors they discourage reading, but exploring these authors’ works with more depth and empathy than right-wing book-banners have been willing to offer.
Each of these authors has laid out a more worthy vision of what the United States ought to be than anyone in today's Republican Party.
And in today’s political climate, looking at these authors holistically is an act of revolution. Many Republicans would much rather we, as readers, cherrypick the authors’ most provocative lines and infer the worst things imaginable about them. And I think the past month of coverage has shown why.
Far from the anti-American hell-raisers conservatives make them out to be, each of these authors has laid out a more worthy vision of what the United States ought to be than anyone in today's Republican Party. The authors all speak and write of antiracism not as an end goal, per se, but as a step toward a more fulfilling life for the victims and perpetrators of racism. And fervent attempts to hide their work suggests this revelation is dangerous to a conservative movement obsessed with white, racist grievance.
But they won’t win. I was affirmed of this a few weeks back when an adolescent cousin of mine recommended I watch a poem his class had screened, written and performed by the author Jason Reynolds.
That is, the award-winning author Jason Reynolds, whose works have been targeted with right-wing book bans. (One of them, “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” is co-written by Ibram X. Kendi, who was also featured in this Black history series.)
The poem, titled “For Every One,” is an ode to dreamers. And one particular passage, about overcoming fear and self-doubt, has stuck with me since I first read it a few weeks ago.
In the context of a modern-day American classroom, where many students are being encouraged to reject Black authors, the passage sounds like a warning of the dangers in losing curiosity, and a call for people never to lose their desire to do better.
Reynolds wrote in his 2018 poem:
What I do know is how it feels.
How it feels
When that spirit thing
Won’t stop
Raking the metal mug
Across your rib cage,
Clanging
Like a machine gun fired at a church bell,
Vibrating everything
Irreverent inside.
Sounds like a prison
revolt
that only you
can hear
and feel.
And nasty things
are being said
about the prison guard--
that scared
controlling
oppressive part
of you
AND EVERYONE ELSE.
If you are
anything like me,
you hope
it never stops.
You hope the
bubbling never
dies down
and the yearning to
break out and
break through
never simmers.
YOU HOPE
the voice that
delivers the
loudest whispers
of what you envision never silences.
That it never cowers behind fear
and expectations that other people
strap to your life
like a backpack full of bricks
(or books written by experts).
Because if it did
if it disappeared,
if the voices vanished
and you were no longer
overtaken by the
taunts of your own
potential,
no longer blinded
by your perfect vision
of your purpose,
no longer engorged
with passion,
what would happen?
Well, I guess nothing.
And to me, there is nothing scarier than nothing.
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