The Community

by N. Jamiyla Chisholm

Old habits are said to die hard, and the same is apparently true for traumas.

These traumas are irritatingly unhealed because they are cyclical, because this is not the first time that race has intersected with the systemic breakdown of families and the abuse of children.

Her upbringing had imprinted her with an unwavering belief that family was everything and anti-Blackness was everywhere, which meant that family had to stay together no matter what happened. These are the puzzle pieces that got my mother to agree to the Community, the belief that she would be able to make something whole.

The tone deafness of Ummi’s statement struck me hard. It was one thing for me to have felt like a sacrifice for a belief, a desire, a vision, and another to hear the person who sacrificed me admit it. I felt a wave of confirmation roll over me that my brother had dodged a religious bullet, as I had long thought. New to my understanding, the dodge was intentional. My heart began to beat a little faster and my stomach twisted. While Ummi took me into the Community with intention and purpose, she summoned the same energy into making sure Sulaiman was never there.

I didn’t know how I could recover, but Kalila’s courage of being able to come, then go, regardless of what someone else wanted, got me to start thinking differently.”

While Sulaiman and I were different in many ways, neither of us were able to keep our father’s love.

I sacrificed my freedom, joined the Community, to keep our family together. Your father gave up his freedom for something that had nothing to do with liberation.”

I wondered if a Dwight York or a Jim Jones would have existed and amassed a following had the citizens of this country felt like citizens who could expect justice and respect. Cultural vulnerability, when up against powerful arms of society that control all resources and ultimately livelihoods, have led many to seek their own forms of liberty in the people and places who appear to share their vision even when they don’t.