My America

I love My America. Not like "I'll do anything for the stars and stripes,and you better love it or leave it" type of love.

Nah.

I love America in the "Baby I know you can be better, and Imma help you get there" type of way.

But here's my issue.

I was forced to be an American. Many of us were. And still, it seems everywhere I turn, someone doesn't think I belong here.

"Where are you from?" "Brooklyn" "I know, but your parents?" "America" "Where?" "New Jersey and Ohio" "Okay and before that?" "Kentucky" "Okay Seriously...." "Well.. we all got on this huge cruise ship called the SS Middle Passage...."

Usually by that joke, either the person is laughing hysterically or confused. Usually confused. I'm not really too funny.

As a Black American, I’m still learning to cover myself in the colors of red, white, and blue. This country is the only place that I know. I don’t have the luxury of returning to Jamaica, Japan, or France to experience a tethering to my roots. I say that, not in the spirit of “Go Back to where you came from”. This post is far from that. I’m just here tryna tell y’all that as much as I want to go “Home” for Winter Break or Summer Vacation, I feel simultaneously stuck and liberated in the fact that America is home for me.

 Brooklyn is home. Ohio is home. Kentucky is home. But it has become increasingly more difficult for me to identify as an American. When I wrap myself in the American flag, I am not covered. I feel exposed. Cold. Naked. Scared. Alone. I just want to feel the way my West Indian friends feel running down Eastern Parkway on Labor Day.  I long to feel proud of the fabric that I fly on my lawn…

But on my lawn, there are folks mowing for less than fair pay, there are children sick and hospitalized because asthma grips their little lungs before they sing their first “My Country Tis of Thee”, there are  brothers who never made it home because their wallet was mistaken for a gun by the police, and there are sisters who tried to tell someone about the abuse but were told that they never should have worn those leggings to THAT party…

I suppose more than anything, in the spirit of Memorial Day, I am trying to find the words. The diplomatic ones. The meaningful ones. The concise ones. The heartfelt ones. But seeing the flag fly above me triggers something… Because I know those colors were not made for me. Because while shorty was “allegedly” sewing back in the late 18^th century to make the first flag, I was elsewhere. (I prolly woulda been pickin’ the cotton for that flag Just saying.).

If you didn’t notice, I have zero chill. Some call it antagonizing. I say it’s truth telling. *kanye shrug*

In any case, I suppose this is why the influx of new faces into Brooklyn hurts. Because I feel History repeating Herself again. She loves to sing the chorus. Right now she's stuck singing "Colonialism and Appropriation". Top 40, mang. 

I was in the window of Brooklyn Industries (a place where you can proclaim your pride for Brooklyn for the small  fee of $40 for a flimsy tee) and saw two dialog bubbles. One asked “Is Gentrification a good thing or a bad thing?” to which the second dialog bubble responds “I think it’s a good thing for people to be exposed to different people, it brings new resources.”

Blank Stare.

But this is an argument. It is the American argument. Somehow we think it is appropriate to combat rough oppression with soft oppression. That the erasure of family and community history is somehow a fair price to pay for "development". That the popping new  apartments on Myrtle and Nostrand, above the Duane Reade, are a good idea, when the folks who work downstairs would never be able to live there. 

I respond in this way:

HECKNAWLLLL.

Here’s what it is. I told y’all I was protective of my space. I’m protective of the Brooklyn I know, because it is the closest thing that I personally have to a homeland. Bedford Avenue is my Mother, from one end to the other.

(Sidebar, all y’all better not read this as a denial of the fact that I do claim my African Ancestry. I know who I am. But to be an African in America? An American African? An American in Africa and an African in America… There’s no place of tethering. This is why I embrace the Diasporic Framework. It makes us ONE and MANY at once. Shout outs to all the Black Student Unions, though ;-) )

I don’t want more cafés on Tompkins (unless they belong to the People), I don’t want more bars

(unless they belong to the People), and I certainly don’t want any hipster bookstore-clothing store-petwear-kidwear combination joints either.

               
I want to feel like this place is mine. But, in the American context, nothing is yours until you buy it. Capitalism is a mugg.

And in this way, I am angered. Frustrated. Annoyed. Peeved. Because the stuff I thought I owned got snatched and sold to the highest bidder.

Somewhere though, is a strand of patriotic and unwarranted hope. Somehow, I read “I too, Sing America” and feel like this place can be a land of wonder. And this is what it is to be a Black American. For survival, you must find the silver lining in a cloud, otherwise you’ll go crazy from being angry all the time. But at the same time, we must question the acid rain that falls from said cloud, otherwise you and all your precious things will erode in the Storm. This Storm doesn’t care where it falls. (New Orleans and Red Hook are only the beginnings)

               
 But back to this Flag.

                

This is what I rep. Resistant. “Antagonizing”. Pot-Stirring. Love.