Ta-Nehisi Coates's Blog, page 19

Kim Novak's Bid to Be Twice as Good

Here's a fairly great piece from Amanda Hess on how we judge actresses in their youth, and how we expect them to disappear when they age:

...81-year-old Vertigo star Kim Novak—who was roundly mocked for turning up onstage, two decades after her last movie, exhibiting extensive plastic surgery—might as well be dead. As comedian Rob Delaney cruelly joked: “Will they have time to edit Kim Novak into the In Memoriam section?” Even Matthew McConaughey’s mother, who last night aspired only to the role of proud parent, was eviscerated for rocking a keyhole-neck gown that gave the world a peek at her cleavage, which apparently only young women are allowed to possess. Twitter commentators deemed the view “leathery,” “ancient,” “inappropriate,” and “terrifying.”

So how ought an actress age? Throughout the evening, 67-year-old Sally Field (who appeared as a presenter) and 64-year-old Meryl Streep (nominated for August: Osage County) were compared favorably to Minnelli and Novak for daring to age “gracefully” and “naturally.” But we don’t know what Streep and Field do to maintain their looks—all we know is that they have successfully navigated Hollywood’s dual requirement to look amazing post-60 while never signaling that they’ve worked at it. That means avoiding obvious plastic surgery, but it can also mean spending your life investing in the habits, trainers, diets, creams, and treatments that add up to a “natural” look in old age. (Dodging illness and disability—Novak survived breast cancer in 2010—surely doesn’t hurt.)

I've spent the past couple of years thinking about the "twice as good" notion in the black community, and the bindings that we put on young black boys so that their country will not kill them. Of course "twice as good" ultimately means half as many arrive, and those who do receive half as much. Let us dispense with self-congratulation and great men. The question is not, "What did Jackie Robinson achieve in spite of racism?" It is, "How much more would he achieved without it?" An ethic of "twice as good" divorced from any complaint, divorced from history is "Go for self" and can have no effect whatsoever upon a justice system, upon voter ID laws, upon asset forfeiture, upon Wells Fargo. The masses of the plundered will never be respectable to those who plunder them. The essence of plunder is disrespect. They can never respect you. They hate you, sir.

And I think these ideas only incidentally relate to we call "black" and who we do not. Black people are older than white supremacy. And plunder is broad.  The female body, always marked as a field for plunder, illustrates the point.  The double standard that demands that black boys play classical music and comport themselves like Barack Obama, is comparable to the double standard that asks one thing of Jack Nicholson and another of Meryl Streep. Kim Novak also got The Talk...

When Novak entered the industry in the 1950s, studio executives made her cap her teeth, bleach her hair, shrink her body with a strict diet and exercise regime, and perpetually paint her face with the help of a personal makeup artist. I wonder where she got the idea that she mattered for her looks?

Novak's failure to absorb to absorb and fully implement this awesome wisdom makes her a target for humiliation and ultimately, maybe not death, but banishment from the public stage. 

We should probably stop bragging about Jackie Robinson, and remember that he died young. We should probably cite Ginger Rogers mostly as damning evidence. We comfort ourselves with individuals who get over, ignoring the broad masses who—necessarily—cannot. I think we should pause before noting that Sally Field is "aging well." Most of her fellow human females will not. That is because the very notion of "aging well" is riven with all our notions of who owns their body and who does not. 

Of course Baldwin knew:

The people, however, who believe that this democratic anguish has some consoling value are always pointing out that So-and-So, white, and So-and-So, black, rose from the slums into the big time. The existence -- the public existence -- of, say, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. proves to them that America is still the land of opportunity and that inequalities vanish before the determined will. It proves nothing of the sort. The determined will is rare -- at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare -- and the inequalities suffered by the many are in no way justified by the rise of a few.

A few have always risen -- in every country, every era, and in the teeth of regimes which can by no stretch of the imagination be thought of as free. Not all these people, it is worth remembering, left the world better than they found it. The determined will is rare, but it is not invariably benevolent. Furthermore, the American equation of success with the big time reveals an awful disrespect for human life and human achievement.

Forgive me if I have distracted, in any way, from Amanda Hess's piece. You start thinking and you're not sure what will come out. 

       

'I Am Still Called by the God I Serve to Walk This Out'

Last Thursday, I took my son to meet Lucia McBath, because he is 13, about the age when a black boy begins to directly understand what his country thinks of him. His parents cannot save him. His parents cannot save both his person and his humanity. At 13, I learned that whole streets were prohibited to me, that ways of speaking, walking, and laughing made me a target. That is because within the relative peace of America, great violence—institutional, interpersonal, existential—marks the black experience. The progeny of the plundered were all around me in West Baltimore—were, in fact, me. No one was amused. If I were to carve out some peace myself, I could not be amused either. I think I lost some of myself out there, some of the softness that was rightfully mine, to a set of behavioral codes for addressing the block. I think these talks that we have with our sons—how to address the police, how not to be intimidating to white people, how to live among the singularly plundered—kill certain parts of them that are as wonderful as anything.

Jordan Davis was also given a series of talks, which McBath believes ultimately got him killed. We were sitting in the bar area of the Millennium Hotel in Times Square. She had a water. I had a coffee. My son sat back and watched. She talked about Jordan's first days in public school after several years of home school. She talked about how he went from shy caterpillar amazed at the size and scope of his new school to social butterfly down with kids in every crowd. He had strong opinions. She thought he would be a politician or an activist. It was in the blood. Her father, Lucien Holman, was head of the Illinois NAACP and served on the executive board. Lucia McBath herself is now the spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

"We always encouraged him to be strong. To speak out," McBath told me. "We tried to teach him to speak what you feel and think diplomatically."

She took a moment here. Her voice quavered but held. She said, "Even in that case with Jordan and the car, I think that he was not as diplomatic as he could be. That does not let Michael Dunn off the hook," McBath told me. "But I say to myself as a mother, 'I didn’t teach you and train you to do that. Adults are adults and you are still a child.'"

Agency is religion in black America. Benjamin Banneker made it. Harriet Tubman made it. Madame C.J. Walker made it. Charles Drew made it. Malcolm X made it. Barack Obama made it. You must make it too, and there is always a way. The religion of autoliberation is certainly not rebutted by the kind of graphs and stats that keep me up at night and that can easily lead to suicidal thoughts. Yours is the only self you will ever have. One must discover how to live in it or perish. 

She continued, "In my mind I keep saying, 'Had he not spoke back, spoke up, would he still be here?' I don't know. But I do know that Jordan was Jordan to the end. I think Jordan was defending his friends. 'We’re not bothering you. We don’t know you. You don’t know us. Why can’t we play our music as loud as we want?'"

I told her that I was stunned by her grace after the verdict. I told her the verdict greatly angered me. I told her that the idea that someone on that jury thought it plausible there was a gun in the car baffled me. I told her it was appalling to consider the upshot of the verdict—had Michael Dunn simply stopped shooting and only fired the shots that killed Jordan Davis, he might be free today.

She said, "It baffles our mind too. Don’t think that we aren’t angry. Don’t think that I am not angry. Forgiving Michael Dunn doesn't negate what I’m feeling and my anger. And I am allowed to feel that way. But more than that I have a responsibility to God to walk the path He's laid. In spite of my anger, and my fear that we won’t get the verdict that we want, I am still called by the God I serve to walk this out."

I asked if she'd considered that Dunn might never be convicted of Davis's murder. "It's a strong possibility," she said. "The minute we looked at the jury instructions, we thought, 'That right there is what will keep Jordan from getting a guilty verdict.' I was crushed but not surprised."

A thought came to me that had been swirling for days: Dunn might win on appeal. I considered the possibility of him walking free. I considered the spectacle of George Zimmerman walking free. I considered the great mass of black youth that is regularly interrupted without any real reckoning, without any consideration of the machinery of black pariahdom. I asked McBath how she felt about her country.

She paused, then gave an answer that perfectly summed up the spirit of African-American patriotism. "I still love my country. It's the only country we have. This is the best that I've got," she said. "And I still believe that there are people here who believe in justness and fairness. And I still believe there are people here who don’t make judgments about people based on the color of skin. I am a product of that. But I am disheartened that as far as we've come it doesn't matter that we have a black president. It doesn't matter how educated we’ve become. It doesn’t matter because there still is an issue of race in this country. No, we have not really arrived. If something like this can happen, we have not arrived. And I ask myself, 'At what point are we going to get there?' And I have no answer. And I want to be able to answer."

She wanted you to know that Jordan Davis was an individual black person. That he was an upper-middle-class kid. That his ancestry was diverse. That he had blacks in his family. Mexicans in his family. Panamanians in his family. That his great-grandfather was white. That some of his ancestors had passed. 

She wanted you to know that Jordan Davis was not from the "Gunshine State." That he was from Atlanta—Douglasville, Georgia, to be exact—where black people have things, and there is great pride in this. She wanted the world to know that Jordan Davis had things. That he lived in a three-story home in a cul-de-sac. That most of the children there had two parents. That original owners still lived in the development. That she was only the third owner. That Jordan Davis had access to all the other activities that every other kid in the neighborhood did, that he had not been deprived by divorce.

And she wanted you to know that Jordan Davis had a father. That this was why he was living in Jacksonville, where he was killed. That she was battling a second round of breast cancer and Davis's father said to her, "Let me raise him, you get well." She wanted you to know that she never ever kept Davis from his father. That she never put Jordan in the middle of the divorce, because she had already been there herself as a child—placed as a go-between between her mother and father. She said that this had wreaked havoc on her as a young woman. That it had even wreaked havoc on her own marriage. That she had carried that pain into relationships, into marriage, and did not want to do the same. She wanted you to know that Davis's father, Ron, is a good man.

She wanted you to know that what happened to Jordan in Jacksonville might not have happened in Atlanta, where black people enjoy some level of prestige and influence. That Jordan believed the level of consciousness in Jacksonville was not what it was in Atlanta, and that this ultimately played into why Jordan spoke up. That this ultimately played into why he was killed. I thought of Emmett Till, who was slaughtered for not comprehending the rules. For failing to distinguish Chicago, Illinois, from Money, Mississippi. For believing that there was one America, and it was his country.

She stood. It was time to go. I am not objective. I gave her a hug. I told her I wanted the world to see her, and to see Jordan. She said she thinks I want the world to see "him." She was nodding to my son. She added, "And him representing all of us." He was sitting there just as I have taught him—listening, not talking. 

Now she addressed him, "You exist," she told him. "You matter. You have value. You have every right to wear your hoodie, to play your music as loud as you want. You have every right to be you. And no one should deter you from being you. You have to be you. And you can never be afraid of being you."

She gave my son a hug and then went upstairs to pack.

       

The Lost Battalion

Promised an open thread last week. Here it is. 

       

A Reprieve From the Blue Period

1.) Kelela. Good God, I am killing this joint. (Peace be upon the great Jenny Deluxe for the recc.) I was thinking about "Drunk In Love" which—like all humans—I just adore. ("I would kill that horse if I could meet Beyoncé.") But I sort of hate Jay Z's verse because, like most rappers, his idea of talking about sex is basically to describe a track and field event. Very few rappers can go here:

Just promise,
That you'll turn me out
Almost time to go,
Just one more round before you send me out.

That is because the pimp is the archetypical figure in hip-hop today, and the pimp must always be in control. The pimp can not be reduced to pleading and begging that actual humans, very often, find themselves reduced to when confronted by sexual desire.

2.) The God William Shakespeare. The first thing I try to establish in my essay class is that great writers have a high "stuff to words" ratio in their sentences. In other words, in any great sentence, there's always much more going on then you'd think based on the word count. And no one does it better:

Doubtful it stood, As two spent swimmers that do cling together

And choke their art.

That is from Macbeth, and it's a beautiful, tactile, concrete image that does everything it's supposed to. What initially got me about Shakespeare's tragedies is the extent to which they reminded of MCing: 

I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.

Shout out to our own mod Kathleen for getting me back into the Bard. I'm juggling between Julius Caesar and Macbeth right now. I read both in high school. Have fonder memories of Macbeth, but loving Caesar now, too.

3.) Bob Marley. Don't know what it is right now. But I'm really feeling "So Much Things To Say." I don't think you escape how you are reared and, given my rearing, when Bob says "I'll never forget, no way, they sold Marcus Garvey for rice" or "Don't forget who you are and where you stand in your struggle," it will always have meaning for me. It will always be the voice of God in whom I can never trust.

4.) Smoking Loon: White Wine Blend. Take this for whatever it's worth. My palette is wholly undeveloped. And I generally prefer reds. But this has become an indispensable tool in keeping me sane during these times.

5.) X-Men en Français. Nuff said, mon fils.

6.) Portlandia. Favorite thing on TV.

7.) Avoiding House of Cards. Evil is neither intelligence nor self-justifying. And despite my foray into darkness, I'm not a cynic. If the cynic is right, there's no point to anything. Even storytelling. 

8.) The God James Baldwin who is so essential right now, and—by any justice—should be alive and with us, telling us the meaning of this fair and foul era. Except he already did that:

The people, however, who believe that this democratic anguish has some consoling value are always pointing out that So-and-So, white, and So-and-So, black, rose from the slums into the big time. The existence -- the public existence -- of, say, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. proves to them that America is still the land of opportunity and that inequalities vanish before the determined will. It proves nothing of the sort. The determined will is rare -- at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare -- and the inequalities suffered by the many are in no way justified by the rise of a few.

A few have always risen -- in every country, every era, and in the teeth of regimes which can by no stretch of the imagination be thought of as free. Not all these people, it is worth remembering, left the world better than they found it. The determined will is rare, but it is not invariably benevolent. Furthermore, the American equation of success with the big time reveals an awful disrespect for human life and human achievement. This equation has placed our cities among the most dangerous in the world and has placed our youth among the most empty and most bewildered. The situation of our youth is not mysterious. Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. They must, they have no other models. That is exactly what our children are doing. They are imitating our immortality, our disrespect for the pain of others.

No writer is more essential to me right now. Perhaps no writer is more essential to me, period.

Bon weekend à tous.

       

A Reprieve From The Blue Period

 

1.) Kelela. Good God, I am killing this joint. (Peace be upon the great Jenny Deluxe for the recc.) I was thinking about "Drunk In Love" which--like all humans--I just adore. ("I would kill that horse if I could meet Beyoncé.") But I sort of hate Jay-Z's verse because, like most rappers, his idea of talking about sex is basically to describe a track and field event. Very few rappers can go here:

Just promise,
That you'll turn me out
Almost time to go,
Just one more round before you send me out.

That is because the pimp is the archetypical figure in hip-hop today, and the pimp must always be in control. The pimp can not be reduced to pleading and begging that actual humans, very often, find themselves reduced to when confronted by sexual desire.

2.) The God William Shakespeare. The first thing I try to establish in my essay class is that great writers have a high "stuff to words" ratio in their sentences. In other words, in any great sentence, there's always much more going on then you'd think based on the word count. And no one does it better:

Doubtful it stood, As two spent swimmers that do cling together

And choke their art.

That is from Macbeth, and it's a beautiful, tactile, concrete image that does everything it's supposed. What initially got me about Shakespeare's tragedies is the extent to which they reminded of MCing: 

I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.

Shout out to our own mod Kathleen for getting me back into the Bard. I'm juggling between Julius Caesar and Macbeth right now. I read both in high school. Have fonder memories of Macbeth, but loving Caesar now, too.

3.) Bob Marley. Don't know what it is right now. But I'm really feeling "So Much Things To Say." I don't think you escape how you are reared and, given my rearing, when Bob says "I'll never forget, no way, they sold Marcus Garvey for rice" or "Don't forget who you are and where you stand in your struggle," it will always have meaning for me. It will always be the voice of God in whom I can never trust.

4.) Smoking Loon: White Wine Blend. Take this for whatever it's worth. My palette is wholly undeveloped. And I generally prefer reds. But this has become an indispensable tool in keeping me sane during these times.

5.) X-Men en Français. Nuff said, mon fils.

6.) Portlandia. Favorite thing on TV.

7.) Avoiding House of Cards. Evil is neither intelligence nor self-justifying. And despite my foray into darkness, I'm not a cynic. If the cynic is right, there's no point to anything. Even story-telling. 

8.) The God James Baldwin who is so essential right now, and--by any justice--should be alive and with us, telling us the meaning of this fair and foul era. Except he already did that:

The people, however, who believe that this democratic anguish has some consoling value are always pointing out that So-and-So, white, and So-and-So, black, rose from the slums into the big time. The existence -- the public existence -- of, say, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. proves to them that America is still the land of opportunity and that inequalities vanish before the determined will. It proves nothing of the sort. The determined will is rare -- at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare -- and the inequalities suffered by the many are in no way justified by the rise of a few.

A few have always risen -- in every country, every era, and in the teeth of regimes which can by no stretch of the imagination be thought of as free. Not all these people, it is worth remembering, left the world better than they found it. The determined will is rare, but it is not invariably benevolent. Furthermore, the American equation of success with the big time reveals an awful disrespect for human life and human achievement. This equation has placed our cities among the most dangerous in the world and has placed our youth among the most empty and most bewildered. The situation of our youth is not mysterious. Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. They must, they have no other models. That is exactly what our children our doing. They are imitating our immortality, our disrespect for the pain of others.

No writer is more essential to me right now. Perhaps no writer is more essential to me, period.

Bon weekend à tous.

       

The Life of Jordan Davis

Here is a short piece from yesterday's Morning Edition with a conversation between Steve Inskeep, Gene Demby, Jamelle Bouie, and myself. Embedded below is a much longer conversation covering Stand Your Ground, the logic of twice as good, and a little misquoting of King Lear. I wish Jamelle's ruminations on the work of Tony Judt had made it in. But this is still very good. It was also very therapeutic. This blog has been dressed in all black for some months now. I'm starting to get used to it.

       

The Life Of Jordan Davis: In Conversation With NPR

Here is a short piece from yesterday's morning edition between Steve Inskeep, Gene Demby, Jamelle Bouie and myself. Embedded below is a much longer conversation covering Stand Your Ground, the logic of twice as good, and a little misquoting of King Lear. I wish Jamelle's ruminations over the work of Tony Judt had made it in. But this is still very good. It was also very therapeutic. This blog has been dressed in all black for some months now. I'm starting to get used to it.

       

The Logic of the Michael Dunn Jury

I have generally written about the mistrial on the murder charge in the Michael Dunn case assuming that some number of jurors truly believed Dunn acted in self-defense. Another theory we've seen in comments here, and across the web, holds that no juror believed Dunn acted in self-defense, but that the jury merely split on whether to go with first-degree murder or a lesser charge. 

David Kopel helpfully summarizes the view (my emphasis):

Because the jury convicted Dunn of three counts of attempted murder, it is certain that the jury determined that Dunn was not acting in lawful self-defense. Stand Your Ground is a rule about one detail of when self-defense is lawful. Accordingly, the assertion that Stand Your Ground may have been a reason why the jury hung on the first degree murder charge is totally implausible.

The three convictions for second-degree murder show that the jury had determined there was no self-defense; ergo, jury confusion about self-defense was not the reason why the jury deadlocked on first-degree murder.

I do not think there was a conviction for second-degree murder, and I suspect Kopel meant three counts of attempted second-degree murder. Either way, the view that the jury believed Dunn was "not acting in lawful self-defense" is not consistent with the recollection of one of the jurors who sat down to talk to Nightline:

Nightline: You all first took your first poll of guilt or innocence on the murder of Jordan Davis, what was the vote?

Juror No. 4: 10-2.

Nightline: Ten people thinking he was guilty.

Juror No. 4: Yes, sir.

Nightline: And two people saying what?

Juror No. 4: Self-Defense.

The juror later says, "We took a poll. There were two of us undecided. Two for was justified and the rest not justified."

I don't mean to beat on Kopel, who wrote his piece before any of the jurors spoke out. (His main argument is that Stand Your Ground had nothing to do with the case, and that it's standard self-defense.) But I do think it's important that we be clear on the facts where we can be. As it stands, the facts hold that three jurors believed that the killing of Jordan Davis was just, and nine did not. My contention is that that belief is inseparable from our racist heritage, which dictates African-American life is of lesser value.

Put modestly, from the mid-17th century until the mid-20th century, the policy of our ancestral colonies and the policy of this country proceeded from this assumption. Perhaps the most amazing feature of our current era is the belief that 300 years of such policy gives no tell on our daily lives. The second most amazing feature is the belief that juries are somehow beyond reproach and capable of cleaning up our shit. 

That is unfortunate. This is not about the jury; this is about our Constitution. This is not about Michael Dunn, individually. This is not about George Zimmerman, individually. This is about me and you and everyone American we know. This is about whether we will live in candor or live in flattery. This is about whether we will continue the dishonorable tradition of leaving uncomfortable business to be inherited by our children:

... and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death

A very wise man wrote me the other day and said he would have been happier if Dunn had been convicted of first-degree murder, gotten 15 years, and then was released to try to pick up the pieces of his life. And I think that really gets to the point. This is not about the ruination of white people—individual or collective. This is about coping with a heritage of regarding black people as subhuman. 

       

The Logic Of The Michael Dunn Jury

 

I have generally written about the mistrial on the murder charge in the Michael Dunn case, assuming that some number of jurors truly believed Dunn acted in self-defense. Another theory we've seen in comments here, and across the web, holds that no juror believed Dunn acted in self-defense, but that the jury merely split on whether to go with first degree murder or a lesser charge. 

David Koppel helpfully summarizes the view:

Because the jury convicted Dunn of three counts of attempted murder, it is certain that the jury determined that Dunn was not acting in lawful self-defense. Stand Your Ground is a rule about one detail of when self-defense is lawful. Accordingly, the assertion that Stand Your Ground may have been a reason why the jury hung on the first degree murder charge is totally implausible.

The three convictions for second-degree murder show that the jury had determined there was no self-defense; ergo, jury confusion about self-defense was not the reason why the jury deadlocked on first-degree murder.

I do not think there was a conviction for second degree murder, and I suspect Koppel meant three counts of attempted murder. Either way, the view that the jury believed Dunn was "not acting in lawful self-defense"  is not consistent with the recollection of one of the jurors who sat down to talk to Nightline:

Nightline: You all first took your first poll of guilt or innocence on the murder of Jordan Davis, what was the vote?

Juror No. 4: 10-2.

Nightline: Ten people thinking he was guilty.

Juror No. 4: Yes, sir.

Nightline: And two people saying what?

Juror No. 4: Self-Defense.

The juror later says, "We took a poll. There were two of us undecided. Two for was justified and the rest not justified."

I don't mean to beat on Koppel who wrote his piece before any of the jurors spoke out. (His main argument is that Stand Your Ground had nothing to do with the case, and that it's standard self-defense.) But I do think it's important that we be clear on the facts where we can be. As it stands, the facts hold that nine jurors believed three jurors believed the killing of Jordan Davis was just, and nine did not. My contention is that that belief is inseparable from our racist heritage which dictates African-American life is of lesser value.

Put modestly, from the mid 17th century until the mid-20th century, the policy of our ancestral colonies, and the policy of this country, proceeded from this assumption. Perhaps the most amazing feature of our current era is the belief that 300 years of such policy gives no tell on our daily lives. The second most amazing feature is the belief that juries are somehow beyond reproach and capable of cleaning up our shit. 

That is unfortunate. This is not about the jury, this is about our constitution. This is not about Michael Dunn, individually. This is not about George Zimmerman, individually. This is about me and you and everyone American we know. This is about whether we will live in candor or live in flattery. This is about whether we will continue the dishonorable tradition of leaving uncomfortable business to be inherited by our children:

...and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death

A very wise man wrote me the other day and said he would have been happier if Dunn had been convicted of first degree murder, gotten 15 years, and then was released to try to pick up the pieces of his life. And I think that really gets to the point. This is not about the ruination of white people--individual or collective. This is about regarding coping with a heritage of regarding black people as subhuman. 

       

Black Boy Interrupted

I got up at 5 a.m. today in hopes of making the gym before my train to D.C. I handled business and with some time to spare, walked over to my favorite bakery for a touch of that summer love, now lost to my life upon these shores. The waitress addressed me in a familiar accent. I asked, Vous êtes française? She smiled and said, Oui, Monsieur, and memory of the changes washed over me like a wave. 

I ordered in French. I was flustered because I did not know how to order a latte. Was it feminine or masculine? Is latte even French? Isn't it just café au lait? I know more than I can say, though very often, I say much more than I actually know. I am brutal with the language. I am a 6-foot-4, 230-pound baby, bumbling through the museum. My Je vous en prie might shatter an ancient vase, scar the work of old masters. Meanwhile, the French just dance. They speak delicately, as though they barely have a tongue. I can hear everything that is wrong with my diction, but I don't yet have the muscle memory to fix it. It's an old feeling. When I was 19, all I wanted was to write like black people sang, and I could see everything wrong but could do nothing to fix it. Ten years later I had muscle memory. And then in 10 more I had the faith to put a piece down, come back, hammer at it again, and repeat because I believed in the inevitability of work.

I'll be 39 in September, and it has taken all 39 of those years to learn how to learn. I never considered myself particularly smart. I've always learned things at a fairly slow clip. But I was insanely curious, and I've learned to not panic at my slowness, at the creaking gears in my head. I've learned to live in the curiosity, to just sit there and wait. I told the waitress I'd like "une latte." I don't even know why. Probably because I am brutal with the language, and have not yet learned to dance. But I have learned to sit and wait. I have learned so much, just in the past five years. That is to say I have gone through all kinds of changes, and I think this is a luxury.

The face of Trayvon Martin is always with me, trapped in the amber of youth. What is bracing about these regular deaths is how easily I can slot myself into the same circumstance. Follow me in a Jeep, then follow me on foot and we might come to blows. Demand that I turn down my music, at 17, and you might well not like my response. And I do not think this is a fact of black magic, of pathologies, of my culture. I think it is product of 17. I ride the trains in New York and I see boys of all colors who are very loud, because they finally can be, and no one can stop them. I see them and smile, and remember my own days back in Baltimore, my first freedoms, talking shit and being out in the world.

I finished my café au lait—I believe that's what it was. I was now late, because I am still a little young, and punctuality is not yet among the changes. I hailed a cab. The cab barreled down Broadway, past the Applejack Diner, and I thought of my twenties. I used to pass this restaurant with Kenyatta. Samori was barely one. We were broke and in trouble. I remembered getting off the train for couples counseling. I remember thinking I couldn't even buy my girl breakfast. My Dad used to visit us and leave cash. I remember thinking he was insane. We were ridiculous. How privileged are we to now see the changes? 

I made my train, and it is from here that I now send this kite to you. I am sitting here watching the frozen hills run by, and I am thinking of all the changes that so many black boys never see, for the death tax which their country has long levied upon them:

That we shall die, we know. 'Tis but the time, 
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.

But some are given more days than others, and I think of dying at 17, in my loudness, in my vanity, which is to say in my human youth, and I tremble. I was barely anything. I understood barely anything. When Michael Dunn killed Jordan Davis, he obliterated a time-stream, devastated an open range of changes. And somewhere on that American jury, someone thought this was justice, someone believed in the voodoo of shotguns and teleportation. Michael Dunn killed a boy, and too robbed a man of his chance to be.

And this will happen again, must happen again, because our policy is color-blind, but our heritage isn't. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind denies its rightful inheritance. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind is a drug addict claiming he can walk away after just one more hit. Law and legacy are at war. Legacy is winning. Legacy will always win. And our legacy is to die in this land where time is unequal, and deeded days are unequal, and blessed is the black man who lives to learn other ways, who lives to see other worlds, who lives to bear witness before the changes.