The Community

by N. Jamiyla Chisholm

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.

“In the Community, appearances, money, how pretty your hair was, or how well you danced didn’t matter. There was no other place where I could have been around so many intelligent and beautiful Black women as I was in the Community.

Racism was such a powerful concept, we thought, that people who lacked power often hesitated to see themselves as victims. Instead, they think if they hadn’t been there, this wouldn’t have happened. If they hadn’t made eye contact, they might not have been noticed. If they hadn’t been Black or Muslim or a woman or gay, they would be safe.

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.

James Baldwin wrote about sentimentality’s disingenuousness in the 1949 essay “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” aptly comparing sentimentality to dishonesty.