{"id":145534,"date":"2020-06-10T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=145534"},"modified":"2020-06-10T12:51:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T16:51:28","slug":"americana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/06\/10\/americana\/","title":{"rendered":"Americana"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Still from Mickey Mouse: The Haunted House<\/em> (1929)<\/p><\/div>\n

Mom played Hooked on Classics<\/em>, three albums of disco-beat-backed classical music, for me and my brother Frank when we were young. The albums were ancestors to the modern-day mash-up,\u00a0 one song morphing into the next. Hooked on Classics 3: Journey through the Classics<\/em>\u2019s track nine, \u201cJourney through America,\u201d was my favorite, especially when I\u2019d spin it on my Fisher Price turntable at night. Jaunty. The track was composed of twelve songs conflated into one instrumental tune.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Saints Go Marching In Jimmy Crack Corn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Johnny Comes Marching Home Again Deep in the Heart of Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The needle skipped despite the dust-free vinyl, and the whole record player, playing at max volume, wobbled on my nightstand. The nearby music box\u2019s blonde ballerina spun herself, and everything, to reckless abandon.<\/p>\n

My favorite part of \u201cJourney through America\u201d was \u201cShortnin\u2019 Bread Star-Spangled Banner.\u201d On cloud-stilled mornings when the distance between the bed and shag carpet seemed as wide as the Chesapeake Bay, Mom broke the silence by calling, \u201cThree lil\u2019 children lyin\u2019 in bed.\u201d And we\u2019d get up.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I still hum the song, alone and under my breath, while brushing my teeth or making coffee. I don\u2019t have children. But I do think I carried my nephew, Frankie, before he was born, in my body. At least the idea of him. Anticipation in my stomach. A foot cramp where my toes spread out like they got to be free. Somedays he sat on the slope of my nose. His ultrasound profile looked a little like mine.<\/p>\n

Mandy, my sister-in-law, gave birth on November 11, 2016. Frank Prescott Dawson V (yes, Prescott, and yes, the fifth), whom we call Baby Frankie to avoid confusing him with his father, Frank, and his grandfather Frank, and his deceased great- and great-great-grandfathers, Frank and Frank.<\/p>\n

Legacy.<\/p>\n

About ninety minutes after Baby Frankie\u2019s early arrival, I bounded down the jet bridge onto the next flight to Baltimore. On the plane, to pass the time, I scrolled through photos of our new baby. We had an album\u2019s worth of hours after the caesarean. Everyone wanted to capture it all. When I arrived and saw Baby Frankie in the crib for the first time, I took a pic of Mandy in her bed, druggy. Or maybe just that happy. I prefer that version.<\/p>\n

My nephew\u2019s newborn body looked comfy in its Blackness. His skin, still ruddy from birth but quickly browning, absorbed all the hospital room\u2019s florescent light. He clenched both his fists, his eyes wide open, arms in the air like a celebration of his excellence. He looked like Usain Bolt. He looked like T-Pain just told him to put his hands up and stay there.<\/p>\n

Everything seemed possible. He could be a doctor like his dad.<\/p>\n

He could be anything.<\/p>\n

He could be arrested for doing nothing on a West Baltimore street, like Freddie Gray before his death by police.<\/p>\n

These are the realities of today\u2019s Black boys. The extremes. Acknowledging the spectrum isn\u2019t morbid, but elegiac\u2014a lamentation not for the deceased but for those separated from the meaning of their bodies almost from birth. Feared as early as five, as if their small frames cage a rage no one can temper.<\/p>\n

Black lives matter and so do the characterizations of those lives that lead to their demise.<\/p>\n

Right before my brother and Mandy took Baby Frankie home for the first time, I took a picture of the newborn identification form, the representation of his entrance into the world.<\/p>\n

11.11.2016. Eight pounds, five ounces. Twenty inches. Two footprints.<\/p>\n

For the first year of his life, I had a recurring dream where I would visit him and find him in his nursery, his feet still covered in ink. He tracks it everywhere\u2014the hardwood floors, the bathroom tile, the couch. And he never wears shoes, not even outside. I follow his footprints on the buckling sidewalks, the ink dark enough to show up on the brick\u2019s deep red. Footprints in every direction. I can only follow for so long. I\u2019ve lost him. I wake up and think about dactyloscopy, the way we use fingerprints and footprints to identify the individuality of someone\u2019s skin. I\u2019ll search for him. I\u2019ll find him.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Columbus, Ohio, police officers didn\u2019t have to look for thirteen-year-old Tyre King. He wasn\u2019t missing. Officer Bryan Mason shot and killed him on sight because he was Black while carrying a BB gun. A toy. I recently watched a video of then-mayor Andrew Ginther giving a press conference. Ginther did all of the things a politician should do when attempting to offer solace to his constituents: \u201cWe ought to be shocked and angry as a community. In the safest big city in America, we have a thirteen-year-old dead in our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, then, this: \u201cWe as a community need come to grips with the fact, with such easy access to guns, whether they\u2019re firearms or replicas, there\u2019s something wrong in this country and it\u2019s bringing its epidemic to our city streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the mayor, Mason\u2019s murder of King was not the problem. America\u2019s preoccupation with guns was the problem. With his toy gun, King exemplified said problem. He was asking for it, really. But King was only a child with a toy, perhaps asking other children to play with him but not asking for trouble. What Mason saw was that King was Black, and that was trouble enough. He interpreted King as a possibility of violence even though the chance of that harm was so thin, akin to kids on a playground hoping to swing high enough to fly.<\/p>\n

The white manipulation of images of Blackness is alive and well, as instinctive as taking a breath. We\u2019re way past the idea of racism as learned behavior. Behavior has no hindsight. It\u2019s not a thought; it\u2019s an action. And the action propels our country forward toward a future that\u2019s no better than the past. Sure, Black Americans no longer are confined to the plantation. For now. But we are confined to the systemic racism that sent ships to West Africa in the first place.<\/p>\n

Given this, white reactions to Black males, even children, are not surprising. I think back to \u201cJourney through the Classics,\u201d the short moment of \u201cJimmy cracked corn and I don\u2019t care, ole massa\u2019s gone away.\u201d The slave\u2019s haughty mouth. His I-don\u2019t-give-a-damn-about-anyone-but-me presence.<\/p>\n

Not only is racism a state of mind, it\u2019s a performance of that state of mind.<\/p>\n

Consider blackface: the staged performance of racism under a proscenium arch. Or just at a party.<\/p>\n

In 2019, someone uncovers videos of Covington Catholic students\u2014the school attended by the boys who harassed a Native American man in DC in January\u2014at a 2011 basketball game, cheering in blackface.<\/p>\n

Someone uncovers videos of Poly Prep High School students in Brooklyn. Blackface.<\/p>\n

A University of Oklahoma student posted a video of herself uttering racial slurs in blackface.<\/p>\n

Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, admitted that he once, at a party, wore blackface.<\/p>\n

Mark Herring, attorney general of Virginia, admitted to attending a shindig where he, too, lived it up in blackface.<\/p>\n

I once came across a video of prominent twenties and thirties white entertainer, Al Jolson, singing \u201cMy Mammy\u201d in The Jazz Singer<\/em>. He places his hands over his heart, holding the short A each time he moved mammy<\/em> from his diaphragm up to his throat and out his mouth, growing more and more emotive with each \u201cOh oh oh, mammy, my little mammy. I\u2019d walk a million miles for one of your smiles.\u201d <\/em>He tries to be funny as he struts across the stage, swinging his arms, clasping his white-gloved hands, his head wobbling from left to right. He moves like an awkward cartoon while singing lyrics that tell the story of a Black man coming home to his mother. In his melodramatic vibrato, the words of the song become clownish as well. The Black man\u2019s need for comfort from his mother is silly. The performance erases Black masculinity to nothing but a joke.<\/p>\n

Blackface moved the white audience to giggles while moving Black people closer to buffoon.<\/p>\n

Blackface is so embedded in our culture, we forget, or ignore, the fact that something as seemingly wholesome as Mickey Mouse is steeped in racist imagery. In a 1929 film The Haunted House<\/em>, Mickey stands in the dark and all you can see is his eyes, his gaping mouth, and his white-gloved hands. He shouts out \u201cmammy!\u201d three times, referencing Jolson\u2019s performance. In another early cartoon, \u201cMickey\u2019s Mellerdrammer,\u201d Mickey, in blackface, stands on a stool and stares into a dressing room mirror. He stands in profile. It looks as if he has one huge eye. With a big grin, he looks like he can\u2019t get enough of looking at himself.<\/p>\n

I found a photograph of Jolson, again in blackface, his eyes open wide. Bulbous eyes. Exaggerated lips. At first I focused on the dark areas of his face, as I usually do when looking at the makeup. But, looking at Jolson\u2019s mug feigning wonderment, the lighter parts proved more interesting. The sclera\u2019s whiteness, the pale lips. White took the foreground. Black slipped to backdrop. I imagined the actor preparing for his role in a small room offstage, repeating \u201cI\u2019m a Black man\u201d some twenty times in the mirror, trying to conjure his subject.<\/p>\n

Blackface is an attempt at ownership. If you own something, you control it. You can manipulate it. Teach it your language, your behaviors.<\/p>\n

I wonder if the Black entertainers of the early twentieth century hoped to reclaim ownership of Blackness. Popular Black trouper, Bill Robinson, danced side-by-side with his shadow on a New York City stage. He propped a cane confidently over his shoulder. Toothy white grin. Permanent smile. Eyes so wide, the openness must have hurt.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not wearing blackface but he\u2019s playing the same role as Jolson. In one image, he stands in a shiny colonial military uniform with huge epaulets reminiscent of revolution rendered, here, to a joke. A most nonsoldier soldier. Too celebratory. Even his expression looks like Jolson\u2019s. Robinson maneuvers through dance moves, perfectly in step with the minstrel performance of Blackness.<\/p>\n

Fans called him Bill \u201cBojangles\u201d Robinson. I know the song, \u201cMr. Bojangles,\u201d well. I\u2019ve heard the 1968 tune written and recorded by country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker. I\u2019ve heard the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band\u2019s version, too. And a remake by Whitney Houston.<\/p>\n

Verse one: \u201cI knew a man, Bojangles, and he\u2019d dance for you, in worn out shoes, a ragged shirt and baggy pants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chorus: \u201cMr. Bojangles. Mr. Bojangles. Mr. Bojangles. Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as he dances, he\u2019s the action of the song, not the protagonist of his own story. The story belongs to the white speaker, the white man whom Mr. Bojangles consoles in the New Orleans jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Bojangles. Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

No \u201cplease.\u201d No \u201cthank you.\u201d Just the imperative: dance.<\/p>\n

There are two possibilities for the white prescription of Black masculinity. In the stage lights, it\u2019s Black man as clown, \u201cdance for me, boy\u201d\u00a0mockery. I\u2019d like to think that white people realize that, right now, in this particular cultural moment, there\u2019s nothing funny about being a Black man. But they\u2019re not that thoughtful. I\u2019ve seen the videos and pictures on social media of white kids doing what, apparently, is called the George Floyd challenge: one person on the ground, another kneeling on the pinned pretend victim\u2019s neck. There\u2019s no blackface. The humor now lies not in the minstrel\u2019s construction of a clown, but in the Black man\u2019s downfall and destruction.<\/p>\n

The other white prescription of Black masculinity, with the streetlights on or off, is Black man as menace. That was the Minneapolis police\u2019s assessment of Floyd, based on his skin color\u2014no good and up to no good.<\/p>\n

There is no such thing as safe. Nowhere.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I knew this and still I was surprised back when George Zimmerman, a \u201cneighborhood watchman\u201d wannabe cop, shot Trayvon Martin in 2012. And the surprise didn\u2019t make any sense to me. I\u2019d lived in Florida for two years and felt racism more than I ever had in the past. I was accustomed to confederate flags covering the rear windows of trucks, or the blue confederate X boasting its stars from a brim of a baseball cap. I got used to white men saying things like, \u201cLet me in those brown legs.\u201d I learned to ignore the saleswomen following me through the Macy\u2019s at the Westshore Mall, all across the second floor, as if I might somehow stuff a pair of Nine West sandals into my wristlet and stomp down the escalator, haul ass through the children\u2019s department, straight out the door without getting caught. But I felt Zimmerman\u2019s murder of Martin under my skin.<\/p>\n

In his statement to the police, Zimmerman said he saw the \u201csuspect\u201d emerge from the darkness, and then flee to a darkened area of the sidewalk. The media\u2019s characterization of Martin was no different from Zimmerman\u2019s statement to the police. Outlets chose to show only certain images of Martin, images lifted from his Twitter account\u2014photos of him with a gold tooth or with his chin cocked high as he looked down at the camera. When the Daily Caller <\/em>chronicled the case, they ran the photo of Martin with the gold teeth and defended the choice to the Tampa Bay Times<\/em>, claiming they simply provided photos of Martin that he, himself, chose to share to the public. They said Martin\u2019s young face, framed by the now-famous hoodie, was not an accurate image of how he looked near the time of his death. The media\u2019s characterization of Martin was a crime in and of itself. They selected only images that fit into their stereotype of what a Black \u201cthug\u201d looked like. They tried to make Martin, not Zimmerman, look guilty.<\/p>\n

Like Zimmerman, Officer Darren Wilson slaughtered Michael Brown Jr. because he was a menace, or so Wilson claimed. According to him, Brown tried to flee rather than deal with the consequences of his alleged crime (read: Blackness). Wilson waxed poetic during his grand jury testimony when speaking about Michael Brown\u2019s eyes: \u201cAnd the face he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn\u2019t even there, I wasn\u2019t even anything in his way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, okay. So it was Wilson whose life didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever heard someone dehumanize another person by saying that person dehumanized him first.<\/p>\n

On MLK Day in 2019, Mark Allen Bartlett, another white man policing Black people, approached a group of Black kids participating in \u201cBikes Up, Guns Down,\u201d an annual event where youth take to the streets on their bikes to promote peace. Videos show Bartlett yelling, \u201cGet in front of my car, you fucking piece of shit. Niggers suck,\u201d just as he exits his car, gun in hand.<\/p>\n

Bartlett\u2019s quick moves never jostle the blue-mirrored sunglasses tucked in his T-shirt\u2019s collar. It looks as if he\u2019s just taking a little sunset jog, like he always takes a little jog with a gun, like nigger <\/em>sits on the tip of his tongue like thirst.<\/p>\n

I try to pause the video at that moment where the word is there before he says it.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In June 2018, when Baby Frankie was nineteen-months-old, I took another last-minute flight to Baltimore. Instead of getting a cab straight to Harbor Hospital, I headed west to Johns Hopkins, where Maryland\u2019s patients go when things are far past dire. The baby had been ill for a couple of days. Frank texted Mom, Dad, and I that he wouldn\u2019t stop crying. His temperature hiked higher and higher. I was sitting on a friend\u2019s stoop in Florida, drinking a Bud Light, when Mom called me. Frank was driving his car while Mandy rode with the baby, in medical transport, from Harbor Hospital to Hopkins.<\/p>\n

When I arrived, I pushed my way past the nurse\u2019s station in the pediatric ICU, not waiting for anybody\u2019s permission. I found Baby Frankie, again in a hospital crib. Tubes entering and exiting. A machine amplified his pulse. It sounded like a warning. Bio-stickers peeked out of the white onesie darkened by his drool. He was so tethered, Mandy couldn\u2019t hold him.<\/p>\n

His tiny liver had attacked his tiny fat, his body abusing it for energy as his pancreas failed him. His other organs could follow suit. He was killing himself. Ketones. Type 1 diabetes.<\/p>\n

I swear I heard his bones groaning. His radius buckling under the pressure. At the end of his listless arm, nurses had taped his palm to a padded board holding his hand and IV still. The steady catheter. But under his brown skin, everything was broken.<\/p>\n

Three days later, he and I sat in a different hospital room, on the floor. He pushed his favorite toy, a police car, across the carpet. I made the siren\u2019s weeooh weeooh, a go-to to make him giggle. He appeared fragile but he would be fine. His illness, if managed, wouldn\u2019t take him down. He takes his finger sticks like a champ. Never flinches. His upper arm bears his insulin pump\u2014his badge of courage.<\/p>\n

Loving someone means you live in fear of what may take them. Every day, I worry about him dying. Sugar shock. Two shots to the head. When there\u2019s already so much loss, intrusive thoughts pervade.<\/p>\n

And loss, written into us, looks something like the afterimages of assault\u2014your body tenses, recoiling into itself for survival. You live with the horror of what happened and the fear that it will happen again. You bear the burden of all the external force.<\/p>\n

Frank and Mandy took a selfie with Baby Frankie when he came home from Johns Hopkins. I rarely look at the image. He\u2019s almost smiling, his little teeth holding tight to his pacifier. I think of his tongue and the roof of his mouth, the plastic taste of the nipple in between. His eyes look tired. Heavy, dark bags settled in his skin\u2019s light brown. Mandy and Frank stand on either side of him, also trying to smile. Three balloons extend from the wrought-iron handrail leading up to their row house\u2019s door. Sunshine. The reflection of an oak in the window.<\/p>\n

Frank sent another picture yesterday: Baby Frankie playing in the dirt, lying in and above ground, raking his fingers through the soil, looking surprised that it doesn\u2019t stick.<\/p>\n

When I look at the picture, I think back to Mom singing, on a cloudy morning, \u201cThree lil\u2019 children lyin\u2019 in bed.\u201d Frank and I, with the conviction of a choir, called out, \u201cTwo were sick and the other \u2018most dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just days ago, I realized those two sick kids were surviving.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Erica<\/span> Dawson is the author of three books of poetry, <\/em>When Rap Spoke Straight to God,<\/em> The Small Blades Hurt, and\u00a0<\/em>Big-Eyed Afraid.\u00a0Her poems have appeared in\u00a0<\/em>Best American Poetry,<\/em>\u00a0Harvard Review,<\/em> The Believer,<\/em> Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals and anthologies. Her prose has appeared in <\/em>The Rumpus. She lives in Tampa, Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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