Ring Shout

by P. Djèlí Clark

The Shout come from slavery times. Though hear Uncle Will tell it, maybe it older than that. Slaves would Shout when they get some rest on Sundays. Or go off to the woods in secret. They’d come together and carry on like this: the Leader, the Stick Man, and the Basers, singing, clapping, and stamping, while the Shouters move to the song. In the Shout, you got to move the way the spirit tell you and can’t stop until it let you go. And don’t call it no dance! Not unless you want Uncle Will to set you down and learn you proper. See, the Shout ain’t really the song, it’s the movement. He say the Shouts like this one got the most power: about surviving slavery times, praying for freedom, and calling on God to end that wickedness.

“White folk earn something from that hate. Might not be wages. But knowing we on the bottom and they set above us—just as good, maybe better.”

“Reason and law don’t mean much when white folk want their way.”

Now they really talking crazy. “How can there be more than one tomorrow?” Auntie Margaret sighs. “Girl, every choice we make is a new tomorrow. Whole worlds waiting to be born.”

“You see, the hate they give is senseless. They already got power. Yet they hate those over who they got control, who don’t really pose a threat to them. Their fears aren’t real—just insecurities and inadequacies. Deep down they know that. Makes their hate like … watered-down whiskey. Now your people!”

“Y’all got a good reason to hate. All the wrongs been done to you and yours? A people who been whipped and beaten, hunted and hounded, suffered so grievously at their hands. You have every reason to despise them. To loathe them for centuries of depravations. That hate would be so pure, so sure and righteous—so strong!”

“Told you we’ve been watching you. We knew those interlopers were going to crown a champion to wield their little magic against us, as they done before. But what if we could guide that choice? Instead of fighting their champion, we could help mold her. Let her see what it’s like to hurt. Let that wound fester. So that she keeps that little seed of hate deep inside. Then we feed it. Water it with our dogs. Let her hunt them, kill them, and enjoy it. And you do enjoy it, don’t you? Why, that hate will keep growing until it’s good and strong, waiting to be harvested, waiting for you to just tap into it.”

Props to Lupe Fiasco’s DROGAS Wave, which served as inspiration as I tried to work this thing out. If this story had a soundtrack, that’d be it. Appreciation also to Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, which still challenges me: “I, too, am the afterlife of slavery.”