FLESH AND THE DEVIL by Kola Boof Page 34

  Inspiration and leadership. Sula was intimidated, because that seemed like a mighty tall order. Inspiration and leadership.

  “Speaking of which”, said Red Annie, losing yet another book to Love Bug’s hand fulla spades. “Your show is about to come on the internet. It’s Monday night again.”

  Monday night was Sula’s night to hear Jamaal Goree’s popular Afrocentric “internet-exclusive” radio broadcast. By going online and accessing www.LIBradio.com, thousands of conscious, serious black folk listened each week to the hip hop world’s underground version of Dr. Cornel West--Jamaal Goree. Every issue and topic under the sun was covered on Goree’s program, but the overwhelming theme was one of race-pride, togetherness and responsibility for both self and community. Goree was young, handsome and sexy-cool, but he possessed none of hip hop culture’s destructive or materialistic ideologies. His show preached a spiritual and cultural healthiness, and through listening to his show, Sula had often fantasized that she could do something of substance in her community beyond just raising Trent Jr. to be a strong, self-loving black man.

  “You could do it girl. ‘The Sula Women’.”

  “That shit would be the bomb!”

  “Remember what Jamaal Goree was saying on his show about the need for black females in America to get some politics other than black men and light skinned babies?”

  “We feel...so unloved and inferior”, Sula said by accident.

  “Whoot. There it is!” smirked Love Bug.

  ••

  RooAmber Childress, Dinari Jones and Soraya Jones arrived two weeks later at the Rec Room of the YMCA to hear Sula give her very first speech as leader and founder of the new neighborhood organization for inner city single mothers, “The Sula Women”.

  There were exactly 107 single black mothers there, many of them with baby carriages or babies on their hips; the bigger children running around and humming with kid talk and verbosity. Red Annie served people punch at one table while Love Bug dished up chicken wings, hot wings, potato salad, spaghetti and corn bread at another table. Still another table featured two black girls serving slices of sock-it-to-me cake, pound cake, coconut cake, sweet potato pie and peach cobbler. Soraya say, “Uhn. Guess they serious ain’t dey?”

  “I guess so, mama.”

  Mary J. Blige’s voice flooded from the speakers like earth root and honey as she sang, “If You Look At My Life...You See What I See...la,la,la...”

  Instead of bags of hair weave extensions, Sula had girls handing out t-shirts that said on the front: Ghetto Girls Rule! On the back of the t-shirts was a distinguished list of black women who had started out in the ghetto or some slavery poverty version of the ghetto or some tough backwoods country life. Legendary Ghetto Girls like: Harriett Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Oprah Winfrey, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sister Souljah, Venus and Serena, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Winnie Mandela. Sula even had a few notable “white” ghetto legends listed: Joan Crawford, Barbra Streisand and Jennifer Lopez.

  Dinari, as usual, had footed the bill for everything, but wasn’t about to let it be known. Soraya looked back over her shoulder at him. “Dinari, you pay for all this?”

  “Mama, enjoy yourself and don’t worry who paid for what”, he said with an exasperated smirk.

  “Uhn-huh. I knew you paid for it”, said Soraya. “Well least Sula doing something that’s needed in the community. She always was my Malcolm X child. Uhmph. These chicken wings is dry.”

  Suddenly, there was a wave of applause as a shapely, radiant Sula Jones stepped up on top of a big wooden box in the middle of the room. Sporting her Ghetto Girls Rule t-shirt and a funky head full of twists, she got right down to basics by saying, “My Sistas!...I officially welcome you to the first meeting of the Sula Women. An inner city collective of girl power, female unity and women’s determination. We’re here to not only talk about how to make this a better community for our babies, but we’re here to bring inspiration and leadership to one another. Sisterly fellowship and moral support. We’re here to heal one another. And since all but a few of us are black...we’re here to reclaim our identity as black women. Not our shared identity with black men, mind you...but our own unique separate identity as black women. Our separate history as black women from Africa. Our own revolution if you will...that ain’t built around him, but is all about us for a change.”

  “I know that the vast majority of us in this room are single mothers and so many of us...grew up without fathers or without any positive black men in our lives. The men in our neighborhoods dreamt of being gangsta-pimp-rappers or NBA superstars or playa players or CEO’s of fortune five hundred companies married to any shallow materialistic female on this earth but a black one. So many times they told us to our faces, or to our mother’s faces, that we were black and therefore not worthy...that our hair and skin was ugly and that we didn’t know how to talk or act in public. Basically...that we just ain’t good enough for noth’n but having babies and being left behind. But I’m here to say that as long as we have wombs--we have the power to change all that. We may not have loving fathers or decent men in our lives who care about us...but we have the power to give birth to some. And I’m here to remind you that this is the key. We have to give birth...to the people that we need.”

  “It’s too late for us, my sisters, to undo what generations of self hate, ignorance and self destruction created in the past. That past now spoils the present and the immediate future, and it’s too late for us to save the community for our own enjoyment. But it’s not too late...for us to plant a seed for black children of future generations. It’s not too late for us to plant the seed for a world in which black people respect and cherish the humanity and the lives of other black people, and in doing so, respect their own image and worth as a people. It’s not too late for us...to give birth to the people that we need!”

  “I truly believe that unless black women stop using their wombs to meet the world’s demand for disposable, selfish, self-loathing black people...then we’re never going to see our people fully respected on this earth as human beings. It’s up to us in a lot of ways, my sistas. We have the wombs, and the womb is about as powerful as you can get on earth. We have the power to give birth to the people that we need!”

  “The black community is a t.v. community. So many of us were raised by the television and we allow our children to be raised by the t.v. It’s time for us to stop that. It’s time for us to stop thinking it’s cool to not know a damned thing about our history or how our society works. It’s time for us, as black women, to educate ourselves and to stop being committed to everything that’s outside ourselves and to begin to decorate within. It’s time for us to reclaim our real face, our real hair and our real dream--not the American dream--but the dream of our equality. Not the black penis dream--but the dream of our voices when we raise them in song. Not the church people’s dream--but the dream of our hands when we draw with crayons and turn the pages in books. We need to dream ourselves a dream! Not Martin Luther King’s dream. But a better one! We need to look at our black children and realize that we are black women and that they are the only dream we’ve ever had. We need to give birth...to the people that we need. People who will love us and protect us and will honor us and would rather die than abandon us. We need to give birth to those people. And it takes courage, my sistas. Real revolutionary style courage. Because we need to give birth...to a new black woman. We need to free ourselves from white men, white women, black men and this self-destructive cancer called hip hop culture and these fucking churches that feed us all this wait-until-heaven bullshit and don’t know a goddamned thing about what we really need. Because what we really need is to break the cycle and stop being the mule of the world...and start setting this motherfucker on fire! We need to give birth to our darker, sexier, more natural and happier selves. Our authentic selves. The self that loves US! And if it’s good men that we want...and strong, clean, safe communities for our children to grow up in...and lo
ving fathers to protect us and raise us...then we need to give birth...to the people that we need. There is no other way. Nobody in this world gives a fuck about black women...but black women. And I dont’ have to tell you that unless you’re either a goddamned fool or you’re so olive complexioned and stringy-headed that you’re just pass’n for black! It’s on our heads, sistas, where it’s always been...to make a drastic change...for future generations. Our people can’t survive like this! We’re not real anymore. Some of our ancestors in Africa sold our bodies into slavery, even more of them fought against slavery...but the fact is...we are the ones now selling our very souls in this country.”

  Nobody clapped.

  Or said a word.

  But as RooAmber watched her sister’s passion radiate like the sun, a chill went through her body. She felt as if she were seeing Sula for the very first time--and she felt the most embarrassing pride.

  But...when the group got together for the second meeting a week later, there weren’t 107 Sula women in attendance. Only 8.

  And Sula said, wearily, “We eight...might still...save our people.”

  ••

  The third and final major event in RooAmber’s life before she went to Blue Egg Island, was the wedding of her brother Dinari.

  Soraya Jones shocked everybody by showing up to see her only son get married to the man he loved.

  Red Annie’s blue eyes had bulged and she had nudged Sula and RooAmber, her head nodding vigorously towards the doorway of the little movie theature that Dinari had rented for the event. “You guys’s Mom is here!”, the white girl whispered passionately.

  Dinari almost tripped over his feet when he saw his mother coming down the aisle in a simple blue dress, one of her church hats, and as always, carrying a huge black “pockee-book” on the right arm. Everybody in the whole place had on silver space suits and the stage was made up like a landing on the planet Mars. Silver moons and sepia glowing Saturns hung from the ceiling, so that made her intensely nervous at first, because she had never seen no outer space wedding before. She ignored Dinari’s sweet stare, because she didn’t want to make a big scene or have him think that her presence was some white flag of defeat. She went on down the row that had her daughters in it and kissed Sula and RooAmber. She held little Trent Jr. for a minute and gave little Jason an affectionate kiss on the cheek. And by the time all that was done, Dinari had made it there with his groom, Elliott Sumboo. “Mama?...” Soraya spun around like she was a villainous from a daytime soap opera. Her eyes flashing with danger. “I’m so glad you came to my wedding. I want you to meet Elliott.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Jones”, said the tall, handsome chocolate young man with a British accent. “I’m Elliott Sumboo.”

  Soraya looked at the hand he held out, him expecting her to shake it, and she nodded curtly--but didn’t shake his hand.

  Keith Boykin, America’s most important gay rights activist at the time, as well as bestselling author and journalist/webmaster of the groundbreaking website www.keithboykin.com yelled out to everyone, “OK folks, lets get this wedding on the road. I have a speech to give in Annapolis tonight and don’t forget I’m debuting my new play, Mama Done Burnt Da Damned Cornbread, tomorrow in New York. I love you Dinari, but I gotta get mov’n, man.”

  Dinari kissed his mother on the cheek and left with Elliott to take their places on the Mars landing.

  Soraya perused the packed theatre of people and thought she saw--well, she wasn’t too sure, but she could have sworn she saw novelist E. Lynn Harris sitting with the singer Meshell Ndegeocello. And next to them were people she didn’t know, but who sure did look important--rap pioneer Tori Fixx, publisher and internet columnist Ronn Taylor, bestselling author Christopher David, Chicago’s rising book diva Gaylon Alcaraz and soul singer Donnie Mcleary.

  “My friends”, said Keith Boykin as the couple came together. “We’re gathered here today to join our loved ones in a spiritual bond of marriage. We’re here to bless them as partners in destiny.”

  RooAmber and Sula cried watching their brother get married, because he looked so handsome and so solemn. Happy, too.

  “Do you take this man? To love, honor...cherish and protect...for as long as...”

  Soraya kept a clenched jaw and balled her fist, her arm holding up her heavy “pockee-book”. She couldn’t wait for the shit to be over, but she didn’t want her baby to be able to say she didn’t come to his wedding, and therefore, didn’t really love him like she loved the girls.

  Keith Boykin spooned a dollup of honey on Dinari’s tongue, the sweetness of life, and then followed it with a teaspoon of burning cayenne pepper. Dinari’s eyes watered. Then Keith fed Elliott the honey followed by the pepper. He asked them, as their mouths burned and their tongues twisted to savor the sweet honey, “Are you aware of the perils of this bond and totally committed to both the good times and the bad times?”

  The men nodded that they were.

  “Well then speak as our ancestors did”, said Keith Boykin, which had been Dinari and Elliott’s request--to recite West African marriage vows.

  “I carry you into this world”, said Dinari to Elliott. “I carry you out.”

  “I carry you into this world”, Elliott answered. “I carry you out.”

  And then they kissed...long, hard and passionately. Soraya muttering under her breath, “Lawd ‘a mercy Jesus!”, as she turned her head away, unable to watch the kissing.

  The whole theater applauded the kiss and this was followed by talk radio icon and internet columnist Alicia Banks (Eloquent Fury) jumping up from a seat in the front row with a live microphone to sing the classic Culture Club hit, “I’ll Tumble For Ya”. Alicia jammed and delivered the song with such an infectious hopefulness that everyone in the theater just had to dance, clap and join in singing, “I’ll Tumble For Ya!...I’ll Tumble For Ya!”

  Hand in hand, Dinari and Elliott put on their space helmets and walked down the aisle as everyone pelted them with rice and good wishes.

  Sula laughed at her mother. “See mama, that wasn’t so bad.”

  ••

  RooAmber’s wedding was next.

  They all knew it, and that very night, RooAmber and Sula went over to their mother’s house after the wedding reception that Ronn Taylor had thrown for Dinari and Elliott was over. Red Annie came along, too, and even though it was well past midnight, Soraya kicked off her heels and said, “I’m going to fix us some cheese eggs, some bacon, some grits, some toast with strawberry preserves and a big pot of freshly brewed Jamaican coffee. How’s that sound for a late night snack?”

  “That sounds good, mama.”

  Sula and Red Annie put down their boys in the guest bed under the portrait of Malcolm X that hung on the wall of Soraya’s sewing room.

  “It’s ready!” RooAmber called and they all started eating breakfast at one o’clock in the morning.

  “Let’s watch ‘Color Purple’ again”, Red Annie said, but the other women had seen it two million times. Sula said, “How ‘bout ‘Cleopatra Jones’?.”

  Soraya opened her hutch and started pulling out videos. “Funny Girl” starring Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif. “What’s Up Doc?” starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. “The Way We Were” starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. All classics, all perfect.

  “Mama, let’s see Mahogany with Diana Ross!”

  “I loaned that one to Cleola, she still ain’t brought it back.”

  When Soraya turned on the television, to slip one of the movies in, she was stopped in her tracks...by the surge of black and white images on the t.v. screen. Black people in the 1960’s, marching against segregation and being water hosed by racist Southern Police Officers. Then the snippet of Martin Luther King unleashing the thundering, “...I Have A Dream!” Soraya remembered those days, because she had grown up right smack in the middle of them. “White’s Only” drinking fountains--”Blacks Only” restrooms. Restaurants with “No Coloreds Served” hanging on the door. Black
people dying outside white hospital emergency rooms because they hadn’t been able to make it to the hospital for negroes in time. They showed Malcolm X, thin and ominous as an Egyptian cobra, his promise ringing like manhood, “By any means necessary!”

  It stunned and embittered Soraya to be confronted with all this footage again. Her own youthful activism dried up in her mind like an old Kotex. She heard herself, her young voice, singing with the crowd as they marched down Center Street...”We shall overcome! We shall overcome! Someday.”

  Overcome what?, she wondered now.

  What exactly was it that they were supposed to have overcome? It couldn’t have been racism, because if anything, integration had only shattered the prism of racism into a thousand slivers of its actual parent--white supremacy. Blacks had not achieved change, but had embraced exchange. The nation was still the same. The blackest blacks, those having the most African blood, continued to be the least valued and were systematically disallowed/phased out from the social graces--whereas the blood of the whitest, no matter what race or mixture of races, enjoyed the spoils of white supremacy and were rewarded for supporting and protecting it. By social exclusion, oppression and the genetic death of the real blacks--the so called “new American tribe” only reinforced and reiterated the marching victory of the Europeans. The only thing that had been overcome since the civil rights movement, Soraya felt--was the color and integrity of the blacks.