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Journal Essay: The Route of One African - American Encounter
NB:
The following text is constructed
as a journal of my trip to Peru with the Hemispheric Institute and how
it triggered ideas about race and culture that I recalled and experienced.
It is divided into entry sections that utilize poetic and prosaic language.
I refer to other notions that came to mind during my experiences, hence
the footnotes. As I realize that the context for some of these ideas may
be unfamiliar to others, I've included accessible web articles for further
information.
The pictures attached were
taken by me, or under my instruction, unless indicated.
To view images click
here
Preface: Itinerary
The hyphen, visually, is an arrow. One of those "greater than/less
than" symbols from elementary school math, the best way to remember
what it means is to infer that it alludes to movement that it refers to
something going somewhere. My hyphenation, African - American, has jettisoned
between two continents, North America and Africa. The path is demarcated
by connect-the-dots: Brooklyn, D.C., Atlanta, Savannah, Johannesburg,
Accra, Dakar, Casablanca. That these journeys are voluntary is ironic
considering the circumstances that gave me that name. Every trip is "on
purpose", in the passenger seat instead of the cargo hold.
But sometimes that purpose
is just as abstract as these things we play with, words. The places represent
ideas, the "frontmen" of a long-playing show. Words are arrows,
getting at the heart of the matter. But the space between the abstract
and the real, the beating heart, the breathing, is where to live, where
the air is. The gap between the bow, arrow and target is yet another space
to live.
Living in these dash dot dash
Morse code places, in geography, and our abstraction of it, is real. And
so, there is Africa, there is America and there is the Americas."
America with qualifications: not (real) America, "Latin America"
(not to mention a space that doesn't even get the adjectified designation,
"The Caribbean.") The separation between the two monikers is
that gap between the hyphens and the names, the noun punctuated by noun.
The theoretical is in the place names; the concrete is the route.
First, Go Back
The first time I had been in South America, I may as well have been in
Harlem. "The City," Sao Paolo, as gray and big as midtown Manhattan
with almost as many Dunkin' Doughnuts, Burger Kings (foods you do business
with). Attending PUC (pronounced "Pooky") there, sitting in
a room very much like 636, was uneventful but for what surrounded it:
favelas and folks looking like me - or at least the me then, with the
pre-dread natural, conspicuously "mulata," according to them,
the southerners of Brazil. The one-drop rule1 meets spectral light analysis,
the prism of DNA. If one saw who passed for "white" there, it
makes sense. (I mean, someone has to be, right?) Then a flashback to collard
greens and James Brown like the light that boots up on a modem: automatically
prompting memory. I was amused by the query. Watch me. 2
Just like New York City, the
further uptown you go, the Blacker it gets. I thought Rio was colored
until I got to Bahia. And there, who cares? It's as Chocolate City as
DC. If I didn't open my mouth, with that hair and face… well, they
paid me no mind on the bus, I can say. 4
So, I knew there were some
'"afros" in the house' down South, either in America or the
Americas. But on this trip, I was trippin'. First and foremost on the
"Indians."
The Idea of Ancestry 5
I did not got to Peru looking for my Grandmother, who had been buried
two months shy of a dozen years ago. But there she was, in Lima, Paucatambo
and Cusco. And if I'm considered "mulata" where Black people
are in the minority, then what was she? The same color brown as the man
who sold me flowers for my hat. Her hair braided the same way as the woman
who sold me the hat. Her body the shape of the woman selling candy in
Paucatambo (see photo #1). But my Grandma was from Waycross, Georgia,
as distant from Peru and New York as it sounds, and due to genetic roulette,
looking like only one side of her family. The side that favors me - and
her husband - was a clear to her as a southern belle. In rural Georgia,
back in the day, cute or not, pigeon-toed or no, wavy hair in "Indian
braids" or Afro-cornrow, you were with us or you were kin to the
Klan.6 Grandma moved north before the crucifixes could flare, and wasn't
here that long before crossing paths with my dapper Grandpa (photo #2),
resulting in my mother, then me.
What a sensation she was: not
unheard of, but certainly a standout in Black Brooklyn, a.k.a. Bed Stuy.
And I thought of her for that reason too, in the mountains of Peru. My
hair, like hers, so long and unusual, it even stopped the two most unfazed
of groupings, beauticians and children. How many times was she/I asked:
"is it real? Is it yours? (Is it magic?) DNA double helix-head, in
Spanish people are asking: "What's a dred?"
Stir it Up 7
I'm hoping it's just my hairstyle that's unique. Before we leave Lima
there's a party at Susana Baca's 8 , a fire and a buffet, a feast. Her
presence complicating the indio/blanco divisions we've been spoon-fed.
('Tiene Tumbao.')9 I would have danced with her longer if I known she'd
be the only Afro-Peruviana I'd meet - in the flesh (pictures #3,4,5).
El Monte 10
Everybody knows mountains have secrets. This is the opposite of the ones
we're familiar with: quilombos, maroon societies, hideaways along the
Underground Railroad.11 In Paucatambo, lie the ghosts of things past.
During the procession, of La Virgen de Carmen, there is a group, Quapaq
Negro, which carries the giant resplendent statue. They represent Africans
during slavery times who had to carry it as part of the manual labor.
The job became so prestigious, that after slavery ended they continued
to carry her. Now we have are the vestiges of their likeness, with chains,
opening the ceremonies and lifting the Virgin, performing as dancers in
formation in the cabildo. Because of the honor, the bourgeoisie are the
only ones who get to wear blackface. I wonder if the prestige has anything
to do with the absence of Black people in the town. Just goes to show
what Maya Deren12 knew all along: one person's surrealism is another person's
"old school." (See picture #6)
One thing the mask didn't cover
was hair. And so, while the face wasn't news, with locks I became the
tourist that was the tourist attraction: little kids behind me sneaking
a tug, women asking if its real in that universally informed way we have
of assessing coiffures. It was our close proximity, in the mountains,
pushed together to make room for the masked performers, drawn together
by wares offered and taken, that created the intimacy of a beauty shop,
or a home where hair is braided: one sitting on the chair, the other at
the knee.
Private
It is this. A "touching" moment. I come to meet the rest of
this hemisphere and meet my Grandmother's people. I visit as the ambassador
of the world's first strand of hair. A curlicue wrapped around and indiocita's
hand like a tilde, like the tail of the Qetchuan "Qs" before
Columbus' misspellings. To play with words, you must be in the game and
so I made better friends with whom I shared treasures. He had my grandma's
kind of hair (see pictures 8A & 8B). How close can you get (picture
8C)?
Clearing Air
The best air is in the mountains, which is why you must go there for stones.
The Incas knew this. The porous nature is the best of things: what you
can feel as well as the invisible. The belly, which a mountain is, reveals
things in a rumble. In Cusco the stones that breathe this air are shaped
like a Puma. The cat waits with tight paws and clenched feet. The composition
of the wall is flush because of its shaved fur, now the hair of the mountain
is grass. I stay close to our tour guide, Ana because of the affection
with which she touches the walls. She says the culture is pristine, but
people have a way of getting together with things like time, space and
race being minor details, especially if it looks like a good idea (see
picture 2).
Sometimes what's a good idea
for some, is a bad idea for others. Like when the mortarless buildings
began to crumble. A mountain is nothing compared to a man with a gun and
bad intentions. I asked Ana if she felt angry describing how the Spaniards
ruined the mountains, the Puma, the people. She was cool. I'm thinking
how did the invaders have time to ruin their lives and ours too?
In Machu Picchu the air was
too thin for the thin-skinned. And it became clear to me in that crisp
air how folks get put under mountains: one dropped rock at a time. I felt
stuck in those isolated mountainous places watching people eat the dead.
When the Sun and ancestry got to hot, today's lucky few run to their standbys:
"Didn't you do sacrifice?" Yikes! No iced cappuccino lattes?"
"Chop, chop, speed it up and get my bags, man!" The lack of
civility is the tip of the frozen heart. The notion of superiority imbedded
in a nation creates the notion of the ancients being born to serve. The
sarcasm of the privileged class is the residue of the smoking gun.
I had to remove myself from
the sucio de asociacion. All I could think of was "this was way too
'southern' for me.
Sol(o)
Machu Picchu is there because the Spanish didn't find it. And therefore,
couldn't build a cathedral on top of the buildings and roll the stones
down hill. Up in the overwhelming air, the delicate breath plays on the
grass. It is on the sunny side and the moon's side too. The sun is playing
with me as the oxygen drops away. I lay down and accept its rays.
Alone, for a time, cradled
by the mountain, Machu Picchu, the place of the women, the temple of the
moon nearby , A mother's embrace feels somehow right, even if you're not
born to her. Is one ever alone is a sacred place? If the Gods have, indeed
left, (and who's to say they have?) the dead are still here. they're snuggling
under rocks, waiting for some to leave, maybe wonder who this not-quite-stranger
is. Being there with Ana, one of their children, (see picture #10) I felt
embraced by this hemisphere, attached to the relatives of my Grandmother's
dead.
Web Bibliography
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html
(Re: "one drop rule")
http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20011128.htm
(Re: racial divisions in Brazil)
http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics2/carnival/4.htm
(Re: the Ku Klux Klan)
http://www.sonydiscos.com/discos/discosportal.nsf/webnews/5D70F88BE7D9A49885256BAE005029DC
(Re: Celia Cruz' "La Negra Tiene Tumbao")
http://www.worldmusicportal.com/Artists/Cuban/celiacruz.htm
(Additional biographical information on Celia Cruz)
http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/feature/baca.html
(Re: Susana Baca)
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/freedom/page9.htm(re:
the Underground Railroad, quilombos and Maroon Societies)
http://www.algonet.se/~mjsull/
(Re: Maya Deren)
1. This refers to a code applied
during slavery times, and after in the United States regarding racial
codes. You were considered Black if you had "one drop" of Black
blood, even if the African ancestor is one out 32 of the person's lineage.
A non-sequitor, improvisational phrase often used by James Brown.
"Chocolate City" is a euphemism for Washington, DC, developed
in the 1970s and referred to in the band Parliament/Funkadelic's song
of the same title. The title refers to the city's overwhelming Black population
in the US Capitol.
And why should they? The racial demarcations seemed to be less stringent
in areas where blacks were the majority. For more comments on Brazil's
racial hierarchy and policies see article in web bibliography.
Borrowed from the title of the same name by the poet Etheridge Knight.
From the book, "The Essential Etheridge Knight" by Etheridge
Knight, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986
Refers to the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group that emerged in
the southern United States after slavery.
reference to a Bob Marley song by that title
The famous Afro-Peruvian singer. She had a party and concert at her home
near Lima for participants of the Hemispheric Institute on July 13 2002.
Ref. to Afro-Cuban singer Celia Cruz' current hit, "La Negra Tiene
Tumbao."
Borrowed from the title of a book f the same by Lydia Cabrera about African
religious retention in Cuba. Ediciones Universal;; Reprint edition August
8, 1995
*
Reference to slave resistance in the Americas. Underground railroad is
the term used for the secret paths and 'safe houses' the enslaved used
to escape the part of the US south where formal slavery was in effect
9below the Mason/Dixon line). The other references are to those of societies
of escaped slaves in other countries in the Caribbean and Brazil.
Experimental filmmaker. She did an important film on African religions
in Haiti: Divine Horseman: Living Gods of Haiti
Referring to the southern US where segregation and racist attitudes, still
exist in obvious ways. This comment is, of course, not limited to the
southern US, but that is where slavery and segregation were most overtly
displayed. My point here was not that I was segregated but that elitist
attitudes contribute to the same problematic environment which enables
racist presumptions whether it be of African-Americans or of Indigenous
"Americans" past and present.
Ana Zamalloa, our tour guide, told us that recent research indicates that
Machu Picchu was primarily a women's settlement. The majority of the graves
contained women's remains as well as some men and children. It is considered
to be one of the refuges or vacation homes for the King. The women were
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